At the end of the World Cup of freestyle wrestling in Los Angeles Sunday, it was Iran and the United States facing one another in the finals. After seven matches, Iran led 4-3 and the USA had to win the final match to take first place.
It didn’t. Iran took the title 5-3, capturing its fourth straight World Cup title before 4,234 fans—mostly Iranians—Sunday night at the LA Forum.
There was a to-do in the Iranian media, as they reported that USA Wrestling, the sponsor of the World Cup, had forbidden fans from bringing the old lion & sun flag into the arena.
Gary Abbott, spokesman for USA Wrestling, told the Iran Times the international Olympic movement has long had a general ban on political protests at sports events. “The point is to keep politics out of sports,” Abbott said.
He also said that when the old Iranian flag is seen, “the Iranian team takes offense.”
He said wrestling is firm about opposing political protests given that it often has Russians, Ukrainians, Cubans, Iranians and Americans in the same room.
Abbott recalled that at a 1998 wrestling event in New York’s Madison Square Garden, security personnel removed some Iranian fans who were chanting, waving the old flag and disrupting the match.
Abbott said he did not hear of anyone trying to enter this year’s World Cup with the lion & sun flag.
Iran won the final match as Olympic and World medalist Komeil Ghasemi rallied for a 3-1 win over Zach Rey at heavyweight.
The US hasn’t won a World Cup freestyle title since 2003. In fact, it hasn’t even reached the finals since then until this year. The US has won 13 World Cup titles overall. Iran won its sixth World Cup title Sunday.
Rey led 1-0 after one period before Ghasemi battled back. Ghasemi tied it 1-1 and then countered a shot attempt late in the match and spun behind Rey for a takedown to seal the win. Rey needed to score when it was 1-1 because Ghasemi had scored last.
Two-time World medalist Tervel Dlagnev was unable to go up against Iran in the final as he was injured earlier in the meet.
US Olympic gold medalist and two-time World champion Jordan Burroughs used his speed and power to dominate Iran’s Morteza Rezaei Ghaleh by a 10-0 technical fall at 74 kg/163 lbs.
Burroughs is now 102-2 in his career and a combined 19-0 in four World Cup appearances.
“There aren’t a lot of times you beat an Iranian 10-0, so it was a great win,” Burroughs said. “I wanted to put on a show for all the fans that came out here. This weekend I really wanted to be stingy on defense. I still have a lot to work on, but it was a good match and a good day.”
In other USA-Iran matchups, the 2014 Junior World champion, Hassan Yazdani, scored a first-period takedown before holding off 2014 World Team member Nick Marable 3-1 at 70 kg/154 lbs. Marable nearly got behind for a takedown late in the match before Yazdani spun away from danger.
Iran’s Meisam Mostafa Joukar gave up the first takedown before storming back to earn a 12-2 technical fall over Clayton Foster at 86 kg/189 lbs.
Iran’s Behnam Ehsanpoor rallied for a 9-7 win over Olympic bronze medalist Coleman Scott at 61 kg/134 lbs. Scott threw Ehsanpoor to his back and nearly pinned him early in the match. Scott led 7-2 after the first period before the Iranian staged a furious second-period rally.
The World Cup is held annually among the top eight countries as ranked in the previous year’s World Championships. Here are the team rankings at the end of this year’s World Cup:
1-Iran
2-USA
3-Azerbaijan
4-Russia
5-Belarus
6-Mongolia
7-Cuba
8-Turkey
And here are the results of the Iran-USA final.
57 kg/125 lbs. – Hassan Rahimi (Iran) dec. Tony Ramos (USA), 5-5
61 kg/134 lbs. – Behnam Ehsanpoor (Iran) dec. Coleman Scott (USA), 9-7
65 kg/143 lbs. – Brent Metcalf (USA) dec. Masmoud Esmailpour (Iran), 3-1
70 kg/154 lbs. – Hassan Yazdani (Iran) dec. Nick Marable (USA), 3-1
74 kg/163 lbs. – Jordan Burroughs (USA) won by tech. fall over Morteza Rezaei Ghaleh (Iran), 10-0
86 kg/189 lbs. – Meisam Mostafa Joukar (Iran) won by tech. fall over Clayton Foster (USA), 12-2
97 kg/213 lbs. – Jake Varner (USA) dec. Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian (Iran), 3-3
125 kg/275 lbs. – Komeil Ghasemi (Iran) dec. Zach Rey (USA), 3-1
