Sanasar Oganesyan v. Howard Harris, 1981 World Cup

We'll probably never see a match like that in our lifetime, especially in the upper weights.

Great match!
Sanasar stayed up all night the night before playing cards with Segrei Kornilaev and Ilia Mate. Both of them lost in this meet. Sanasar the only one who won.

By any chance do you have any other videos of Sanasar?

Harris is the one who ran out of gas. Going into the second period, he needed to score in bunches, but even with the Russian fading, he just didn't have it in him after that wild first period. Then again, who would? That's what you call some high risk, high reward wrestling.

Guru, anything on Rick Sandars?

These guys almost got off as many shots as the Angle/ Kerr snoozefest ...um I mean match that was posted a while back. This was an exciting match. I was impressed with Harris when I saw the finals video of him bodylocking and tripping Baumgartner to his back in the NCAA finals. I heard he was only like 210 during his senior year and pinned his way through the tourney.

One thing about the Russians is that they would almost never be in top form when they came over here early in the year for duals or the World Cup. They trained to peak for certain tournaments - Tbilisi, Euros, Worlds, and Olympics. World Cup was usually not something they peaked for. So you would have some instances of Americans beating Soviets in a dual in, say, March or a win at the World Cup, and then lose to them at the World Championships. The only wrestler I can remember always being in top shape was Sergei Beloglazov.

They needed a bigger mat!

Wow that was a great match. I dunno if I've ever seen so many scoring attempts in one high-level match before. Imagine scoring 17 pts and still getting warned for stalling! I'm not sure how the Russian seemed out of shape, he was in on a shot and scoring every 5 seconds or so.

any chance you could get the harris baumgartner final up here?

good match! twas the time when people were not afraid to try out throws. I was wonderng if you could put up saitiev vs. paslar from 2005 worlds if u have it. Thanks

crazy! what a way for it to end though! both of them were just going at it. its crazy how bad of shape the russian was in though for being an olympic champ.

Just a wild match between the 1980 Olympic Champion and the man who pinned Bruce Baumgartner in the 1980 NCAA finals.

Both these guys really force the action. I believe the score was like 17-10 or something like that before the fall. Not bad for two guys weighing 200 lbs.

It was just a great time for wrestling, both as a wrestler and a spectator. I truly miss it.

Enjoy.