2017 World Greco Scoring Figures

Scoring at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships in Greco was incredibly low on Monday and Tuesday in Paris. Here's a look at the scoring breakdown for every match wrestled by the eight champions.

Aug 24, 2017 by Willie Saylor

The wrestling world looked on as the 2017 UWW championships in Greco took place Monday and Tuesday in Paris and, collectively, took umbrage with the lack of action and scoring.

At its best, Greco is a highly entertaining, high-amplitude sport. But with the ever-changing rule changes, unexpected (and unwanted) consequences have been the norm.

After the Olympic Games in Rio -- where Greco became a game of holding position long enough for a referee to, rather arbitrarily, assign one of the competitors the top position in par terre -- United World Wrestling did away with forced par terre. In an internal UWW document acquired by FloWrestling, UWW President Nenad Lalovic is noted as "agreeing that Greco Roman wrestling does not look like wrestling."

Although we can all agree that we'd like Greco to be a better version of itself, it is encouraging that Lalovic and the UWW powers recognize the flaws in Greco's current iteration. Under Lalovic, the UWW has proven to make changes to the product and presentation of the sport.

So, Mr. Lalovic, here is some data for you that proves that making changes are necessary and that the state of Greco right now is one of almost unimaginable inactivity.

I've watched and analyzed every match wrestled by the eight champions from Paris. Below you'll find a breakdown of each of them. But first some overall data:

• 3 of the 8 Greco finals saw ZERO offensive points scored by either wrestler
• 4 of the 8 Greco finals did not feature a takedown
• 6 of the 8 Greco champs scored 2 or fewer offensive points in the finals
• The average score in the finals was 3.5 to 1.1
• 3 of the 8 Greco champs scored 7 or fewer offensive points IN THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT
• The average number of offensive points per match scored by the 8 champs was 2.875
• 21 of the 40 matches wrestled by a champion did not feature a takedown -- that's 52.5%
• In 13 of 40 matches, the champion did not score a single offensive point -- that's 32.5%
• In the 40 matches wrestled by the champions, just 3 of them had a turn from par terre

59KG: Kenichiro Fumita, Japan

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R32	Petravicius	3	2	0	Y
R16	Khachatryan	8	0	0	Y
Quarterfinal	Maranyan	0	0	2	N
Semifinal	Zholchubekov	0	2	1	N
Final	Ainagulov	0	2	1	N
Totals		11	6	4	2

Notes: Pretty incredible to think you can not score a single point in your last three bouts and win a World title.

66KG: Hansu Ryu, Korea

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R32	Mammadov	0	0	2	1	N
R16	Freuler	4	2	1	0	Y
Quarterfinal	Aslanyan	0	1	2	0	N
Semifinal	Surkov	0	0	2	1	N
Final	Bernatek	0	0	2	1	N
Totals		4	3	9	3	1

Notes: Ryu scored an offensive point in just one of his five matches.

71KG: Frank Staebler, Germany

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R32	De Leon	6	0	1	0	Y
R16	Chuynaev	0	0	2	1	N
Quarterfinal	Liakh	6	0	1	1	Y
Semifinal	Geraei	6	2	0	1	Y
Final	Zhadrayev	8	2	0	1	Y
Totals		26	4	4	4	4

Notes: Staebler was a pleasure to watch, using an arm drag on almost everyone. His R2 matchup vs. fellow world champ Rasul Chunayev was the only match in which he wasn't an offensive machine.

75KG: Victor Nemes, Serbia

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R32	Abdvali	4	0	2	1	Y
R16	Yerezhepov	0	0	3	1	N
Quarterfinal	Chalyan	1	1	1	0	N
Semifinal	Kilov	0	0	3	0	N
Final	Chkhirin	2	1	3	0	Y
Totals		7	2	12	2	2

Notes: Nemes lived on passivity points. In his final four matches, he received 10 passive points while only scoring three offensive points.

80KG: Maksim Manukyan, Armenia

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Scored a TD
R32	Ghaderian	10	1	0	Y
R16	Kessidis	8	4	0	Y
Quarterfinal	Eisele	1	0	2	N
Semifinal	Datunishvili	6	0	1	Y
Final	Kuliyev	4	0	1	Y
Totals		29	5	4	4

Notes: The interesting takeaway here is that Manukyan was the highest-scoring wrestler in the entire tournament one year after going 0-1 in Rio.

85KG: Metehan Basar, Turkey

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R64	Hamzatov	1	0	1	0	N
R32	Bieshebekov	3	0	0	1	Y
R16	Bayryakov	0	0	2	1	N
Quarterfinal	Kobliashvili	2	0	2	1	Y
Semifinal	Chekvatadze	4	1	0	1	Y
Final	Kudla	0	0	2	1	N
Totals		10	1	7	5	3

Notes: Basar won two matches in which an offensive point was not scored by either wrestler, including in the finals.

98KG: Artur Aleksanyan, Armenia

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Offensive PTS Surrendered	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R32	Salehizadeh	0	0	3	1	N
R16	Hancock	9	0	0	1	Y
Quarterfinal	Nadarishvili	5	2	1	0	Y
Semifinal	Assakolov	8	0	0	0	Y
Final	Evloev	1	0	2	1	N
Totals		23	2	6	3	3

Notes: Aleksanyan won a world/Olympic title for the fourth straight year. And in most matches, he's offensive. But something doesn't sit well with me when Aleksanyan, perhaps the best P4P Greco wrestler on earth, wins in round one without scoring an offensive point.

130KG: Riza Kayaalp, Turkey

Round	Opponent	Offensive PTS Earned	Passivity PTS Awarded	Passivity PTS Surrendered	Scored a TD
R16	Abdullaev	1	1	0	N
Quarterfinal	Hryshchanka	2	1	1	N
Semifinal	Hinds	1	1	1	N
Final	Nabi	1	1	1	N
Totals		5	4	3	0

Notes: There are pros and cons here. Kayaalp is amazing at his positioning and tactics. He's been one of the most steady, consistent wrestlers for a decade. (He hasn't finished outside a medal in any tournament since 2009.) But he won a world title this week without scoring a single takedown.