Aleksandr Karelin - Greatest Wrestler of All Time

[SMillard]

Sorry, I'm not of the opinion that the number of Olympic medals automatically qualifies someone as being the best in the world. They are the best of those who showed up at the Olympics that many times. Reed retired after winning his gold.

"Reed weighed only 135 lbs., but at the Paris Olympics he won a bet when he pinned Harry Steel, the American heavyweight gold medalist, five times within 15 minutes."

How many people could go up 8(?) weight classes and pull something like that off? Reed won championships in 4 weight classes at the Pacific Northwest Olympic trials and retired, apparently, having never lost a single match to anyone. Ever.

I don't know, could Karelin have hung with Olympic gold medalists 40% bigger and stronger than him? I don't think he could have.

Ummmm, who would you recommend that is an Olympic gold medalist that is 40% bigger and stronger than him?

He did take on guys that were bigger and stronger than him but not to the degree you are proposing. This kind of goes back to the argument some people make "he wouldn't have been as good if he wasn't so big and strong" could also make the same statement "so and so wouldn't have won if he was so fast"

 

[Darkslide632]

Ummmm, who would you recommend that is an Olympic gold medalist that is 40% bigger and stronger than him?

He did take on guys that were bigger and stronger than him but not to the degree you are proposing. This kind of goes back to the argument some people make "he wouldn't have been as good if he wasn't so big and strong" could also make the same statement "so and so wouldn't have won if he was so fast"

I never proposed anyone, because there wasn't anyone to propose, obviously. It was what we like to call a "hypothetical question".

It doesn't go back to any kind of argument like the kind you are proposing. I never said Karelin was only good because he was big and strong. I simply said that Reed had success against gold medal Olympians who were much larger than himself and suggested that Karelin wasn't a good enough wrestler to do the same if the situation had ever come about.

 

[potemkin723]

Great Gama

 

[NikLuk]

Sorry, I'm not of the opinion that the number of Olympic medals automatically qualifies someone as being the best in the world. They are the best of those who showed up at the Olympics that many times. Reed retired after winning his gold.

"Reed weighed only 135 lbs., but at the Paris Olympics he won a bet when he pinned Harry Steel, the American heavyweight gold medalist, five times within 15 minutes."

How many people could go up 8(?) weight classes and pull something like that off? Reed won championships in 4 weight classes at the Pacific Northwest Olympic trials and retired, apparently, having never lost a single match to anyone. Ever.

I don't know, could Karelin have hung with Olympic gold medalists 40% bigger and stronger than him? I don't think he could have.

Agreed that Reed's career is like no others and will most likely never be beaten per se. But then again he competed in a much less competitive era whereas Karelin competed during pretty much a golden era of wrestling.
So it is really hard to compare their feats within the sport. But going undefeated in so many weight classes and facing that many of the best ever at that time is nothing less than magical.

 

[dsdoubled]

I've never had the sense that Greco is quite as competitive as freestyle though. Particularly in the HW division. As with most combat sports, because there are statistically fewer competitors in the very highest and lowest weight divisions, they are statistically easier to win in.

This is all to say that I think there's a very good argument that the top freestyle guys ever are probably the best in terms of their talent.

Also, generally speaking it's nonsense to say that NCAA D1 champs have nothing on international wrestling. Even though it's a different system of wrestling than freestyle, the top NCAA guys often cross over and compete at the highest levels. Rulon Gardner, of course, being a GR example taking gold over Karelin, but more recent examples being Cejudo taking gold at the 2008 olympics, where the US took 1 gold and 2 bronzes. The US is far from being the best wrestling nation, but many NCAA guys succeed in switching styles and competing at the international freestyle. We take home a lot of international medals ... I think 6th on the total world championship list. It's not like they are some clowns who just get tooled by international competitors, particularly when you consider they are switching to a rather different and very technical new ruleset.

I agree with your point but your examples are not good ones. In the sense that Cejudo never wrestled NCAA wrestling while Rulon was an NCAA All American.

But there's no doubt that the best guys in NCAA wrestling possess the ability to be competitive on the world stage. Terry Brands has said that NCAAs is the toughest overall tournament when all factors are considered.

 

[dsdoubled]

Greco on the world stage is arguably more competitive than freestyle.

I feel like even domestically (in the US) its not so simple as to be able to say greco features wrestlers of a lesser caliber. Greg Gibson won medals in both. Sam Hazewinkle, Teyon Ware, Cole Conrad, and others wrestled both FS and GR but were better in FS. I think generally a good wrestler is a good wrestler but some guys just seem to have an affinity for GR.

 

[Cole train]

You guys understand you are answering to messages that date 7 YEARS?

 

[Greco_Wiz]

Success at the highest levels of greco is 100x easier than freestyle. I’d equate one world championship in freestyle to 3-4 in greco.

There are guys who have literally never trained greco in their life and within a year medal at Worlds/Olympics. You would never see that in freestyle or NCAA.

 

[mattemate]

You guys understand you are answering to messages that date 7 YEARS?

Necro bitch

 

[mattemate]

Prime Karelin (with the training he had at that point) vs. ngannou now.

Who ya got?

 

[ArtemV]

Buvaisar Saitiev is pretty cool too

 

[dsdoubled]

There are guys who have literally never trained greco in their life and within a year medal at Worlds/Olympics. You would never see that in freestyle or NCAA.

I can't think of a single example of this. Who are you referring to?