Terry Brands v. Arif Abdullaev, 1995 World Championships : Speakers & Interviews

the rules now are better than the old rules. the better technical wrestler wins instead of the better conditioned. and that is how it should be. maybe americans should actually take john smiths advice and start working on technique. maybe america then will have better international showings. technique is the most important thing nowadays. every other country has caught on. maybe america should too.

5:53 was a back hop. pretty nice.

That's a Eiermann Elite move. Gotta be. Slick way to attack that stalemate position from the sprawl. But alas, dude was more worried about his socks than winning.

Guru, I think I agree with you in general... but I think l Shahin's matches vs Garzon, Stadnik and Farniev are just as exciting as the old-school bouts.

I agree that Guru has the good stuff. Can we please return to the one-period, five-minute match now? Ball grabs. They are what they sound like.

Ank forget about this one match. Go watch the matches I just listed. And you need to come up with more examples than Henry Cejudo.

5:53... dude gets straight sick nasty

Every single one of Henry Cejudo's matches at the Olympics was more exciting and more dramatic than that match. Do you not think that's true? Terry Brands controlled that entire match. It had nothing to do with coming back from a deficit. Cejudo on the other hand had every one of his matches come down to 2 minutes. If he lost any of those 2nd periods he would have been out. This match had no scoring until around the 3:00 mark.

In terms of sustained action, some of those matches you've posted stop so many times it's ridiculous. Passivity, out of bounds 50 times which gives the guy a chance to pull up his socks and fix his singlet. There was very little flow in some of those matches.

Ank gimme a break. The proof is in the pudding -- pudding being the 30odd matches I've posted on this thing that prove the matches with the older rules were better.

Brands v. Cross, Brands v. Fisher, Jones v. Rosselli, Smith v. Enkhe, Jones v. Topaktas, Sofiyadi v. Gadjikhanov, Tedeev v. Umakhanov, for example, would not have been the same matches under the current rules. In fact some of those could have gone the other way.

You just don't see guys building significant leads and then have guys come back on them because they gas.

Someone like Sissaouri would have beaten Brands with these new rules simply because he was the more technical wrestler and didn't really have to worry about conditioning being a deciding factor. The reason he got pushed around is because the match was longer and Brands was in way better shape. The outcome of their match in Atlanta wouldn't even have been a remote possibility under the current rules.

Having someone win a ball grab and then lose a period/match because they didn't engage in the clinch properly is not my idea of drama.

And the only reason I've been warming up to the current rules is because I have no choice.

Well I just really feel that if the current rules do anything, it's create drama. Like at the Olympic team trials when the third match of the best of three series came down to not only the last match, but the last period. Two minutes to determine whether or not your dream comes true. Now that's drama.

You've said yourself you're warming up to the rules which from where you once seemed to stand is dramatic in itself. I think every match Cejudo wrestled in the Olympics was more exciting than that match. What made that match exciting was Brands not the rules. Or perhaps Brand's coach, wink wink.

Brands was injured.

I hear alot of talk about the rules and what needs to change. What I would like to see change is that you have to have control to score. I think that would pick up the action. I think wrestlers are afraid to shoot unless it is a perfect shot because they are afraid they will get exposed even if they can get the takedown. Or at least award more points for a takedown.

kind of off subject, but I looked up that Brands won the '99 World Team Trials, but Guerro competed. What was the deal there?

Ank you're crazy. There's no real comebacks these days. It happens, but far less than when we had longer periods. To say "there is no way" implies you really don't know what you're talking about.

Did Brands yell at the guy, "lets go" at 4:12?

Guru,

Do you have the olympic match that Terry lost in 2000? I wanted to see that one, and have only been able to find his Bronze medal match

That dude won a world championship 8 years later???

Great match by Terry, he broke him.

Anyone else remember Evan Macdonald 10-pointing Abdullev a few years back?

terry brands hard worker nothing less

Love the relentless way the Brands wrestle, that high leg kick over at the end was pretty sweet though.

All I remember about Brands in 95 was that he was given the gold medal trailing 3-0 in the final with 45 seconds left. The Canadian was cautioned out for fleeing the mat. BOGUS BOGUS BOGUS. Kurt Angle also got some very 'pro-usa" calls in Atlanta.

brands is such a hard ass and there is never any quit in him. a great match guru you've got the stuff. always enjoyable. can't wait till next thursday.

A few thoughts"

Those who claim that American wrestlers "always" get screwed by the officials need to watch this match. I don't think any of the calls were blatantly wrong, but this one could easily have been scored 4-2 for Abdullev.
Another good match Abdullev match is his world finals vs Quintana, he picks Quintana up from a tripod position and suplexes him.
In terms of rules, I agree that the new rules don't allow for the same sort of drama that the old ones do, but they don't allow for the mind-numbingly awful 9 minute 1-1 matches that the old rules permitted. The only thing I really hate about the new rules is the way the clinch is scored- the clinch can actually cause great scrambles but not if you blow the whistle every time someone's butt touches the mat.

New rules could be cool IF.....

1. Rounds were three minutes.
2. Matches were best out of 5, not 3
3. NO F***ING BALL GRABS or last point scored wins in a tie. ALL Ties are broken by first points scored, no matter what! If it takes 10 minutes to win one round, so be it. We'll have all the drama we can handle.
This was a great match! Bottom line I think: conditioning should count and the battles on the mat shouldn't be over so damn quickly. Let's have some epic wars where the two wrestlers leave the mat and feel like, as Terry Brands once said, "like they got hit by a truck."
That's my 2 cents.

what round was this match?
great job once again. thursdays rock.

There is no way the old rules create more drama than the new rules, sustained action or not.

yea man. they score it like a damn tennis match now

I agree, man. 100 percent...today's rules ae a joke..great match nonetheless

DUDE! I'm in the background of this one. (The guy sitting with all the hot chicks.)

Worlds haven't been anywhere near Atlanta since then.

Wow what a great match. Terrific hand fighting by both wrestlers.

Not sure that was takedown at the :50 mark. Brands was simply amazing at pushing the pace, especially late in the match. Adbullaev was already gassed by the 2:00 mark. I don't how Brands didn't give up exposure at the 3:20 mark, but I don't have the angle from this film. It was a great attempt by Abdullaev and excellent athleticism displayed by Brands.
Great counter by Abdullaev at the 5:53 mark.

Anyway, this is why I don't particularly care for the new rules. As Robert pointed out last week, today's wrestling is missing the drama that comes with sustained action. If this match occurred today, Abdullaev may have had a different outcome. Brands wouldn't have been able to impose his style nearly enough and we could have seen some clinches, possibly going in Adbullaev's favor.

Enjoy.