Why Doesn't Wrestling Have an Openweight?

[A.S. Deep]

Looking at Olympic Wrestling, Greco-Roman caps at 130kg and Freestyle caps at 125kg. But why? HW boxing doesn't have a weight limit, for example. Would getting rid of the weight limit affect the top divisions of wrestling that much?

Genuinely asking and sorry if this is a dumb question.

 

[dsdoubled]

Im pretty sure NCAA wrestling was unlimited until 1987. But I think they want to encourage athletes to maintain a certain type of body composition. Chris Taylor was a 2x NCAA champ and Olympic medalist and he was like 400 pounds or something crazy and he lost to much smaller guys. I think the results were and would be pretty much the same if they did away with weight limits again. I mean, how much stronger can a man really be than a 270ish pound Artur Taymazov regardless of how much he weighs? Might as well have your athletes be jacked and not great big fat guys.

 

[yetanother]

It would be unfair if an super heavy land whale could compete and you weren't allowed to take enough steroids to move him around.

 

[Dirty Holt]

It created super boring matches of two huge guys who just push. Its not a good look for the sport.

 

[Foppa21]

It created super boring matches of two huge guys who just push. Its not a good look for the sport.

Adding to this, without knowing a heck of a lot about actual wrestling technique beyond the basics, the options are limited compared to BJJ. In BJJ, rather than fight through a takedown, a guard pull to look for a sweep is still a optios

 

[Dogstarman]

You would get matches like this.



No one wants that.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

Adding to this, without knowing a heck of a lot about actual wrestling technique beyond the basics, the options are limited compared to BJJ. In BJJ, rather than fight through a takedown, a guard pull to look for a sweep is still a optios

It is, but at the heaviest classes, the guy on top normally wins.