It was an incredibly entertaining first day of wrestling at the Russian Nationals in Odintsovo, Russia. While we were deprived of the brilliant fist fights of Russian Nationals of the past, we were rewarded with high-level matches, stunning upsets, and breakout performances. It’s time to break down the top five things that happened on Day one of the Russian national tournament.

Bottle Service

In a close 3-1 match between #13 Nikita Suchkov (Krasnoyarsk Krai) and SKFO runner-up Darzam Dzhaparov (Dagestan), Dzhaparov got in on a double late in the second period on Suchkov and was looking to come out the back door with it, when the referee blew the action dead for seemingly no reason. Bottles of all shapes and sizes rained down on the mat as the Dagestani contingency burst into rage at such a marvelous display of referee incompetence. This unfiltered rage went on for a solid 20 minutes before they were able to start the match up again, and it would be Suchkov who iced the win with a big 4 point double to win 7-2 to move onto the semis where he would lose 6-0 to returning national champion #4 Khetik Tsabolov and Dzhaparov would be eliminated from competition.

57 KG Still A Game Of Musical Chairs

After Uguev’s disappointing performance at the world championships with a first-round loss to #13 Sandeep Tomar (IND) coupled with a lopsided 7-4 defeat in the Alans tournament finals in November to #5 Azamat Tuskaev (North Ossetia-Alania), people were questioning if Uguev could hold down the spot for 2018. Uguev would get revenge over Tuskaev in the Yarygin finals, but many still saw the 2015 Russian national bronze medalist as a serious contender to take Uguev’s top spot. Along with #6 Ibragim Ilyasov (Dagestan) it seemed Uguev would have his hands full at 57 KG. 

Neither Tuskaev or Ilyasov would make the semis as Tuskaev dropped a 3-1 match to two-time Russian Nationals bronze medalist #19 Aryan Tyutrin (Sakha Republic) and Ilyasov would lose 6-3 in the quarters to returning junior world runner-up Ismail Gadzhiev (Dagestan). Both Tuskaev and Ilyasov would be eliminated from competition when Tyutrin and Gadzhiev lost their semifinal matches to #18 Donduk-ool Khuresh-ool (Tuva Republic) and #4 Zaur Uguev (Dagestan). 

Here’s the thing about Tuskaev and Ilyasov, they’re both incredibly limited in certain ways and these limitations don’t mean they’re bad wrestlers no they’re both quite good, it’s what it sounds like, it limits their consistency and ability to notch high-level wins and not drop head-scratching losses due to compromising stylistic matchups. Tuskaev’s limitation is purely pacing, as the guy has no middle ground of being able to push a consistent pace in a match and finds himself either completely immobile or completely dominant in matches and this inability to adapt have led to so many of Tuskaev’s losses. For Ilyasov, his is much more of a technical issue, because Ilyasov relies almost entirely on two things and that is throwing his underhook by to a bodylock and throwing from there or ahead in the whole go behind that he’ll run down and finish. And here’s the thing about that, when you’re down in a match and a guy’s clearing your ties and keeping good position and you can’t get him in a front head, you’re going to need some leg attack based offense if you want to win those close matches and Ilyasov simply doesn’t have that.

Kurugliev Finally Medals Though Naifonov Looms

To understand why it’s so key that Kurugliev made the finals at 86 KG, one needs to look back to his history at Russian Nationals, where in 2014 he lost to #1(97) Abulrashid Sadulaev (Dagestan) and #2(92) Anzor Urishev (Kabardino-Balkar Republic), then in 2015 when he lost to #5 Vladislav Valiev ( North Ossetia-Alania) and last year where was the reigning Yarygin, Yasar Dogu, and Dan Kolov champion Kurugliev would lose his first round match to #11 Arsenali Musalaliev (Dagestan) 1-1 and would be eliminated when Musalaliev would lose in the semis to eventual champ #5 Vladislav Valiev (North Ossetia-Alania). On his path to the finals, Kurugliev would match up with returning national champ #5 Vladislav Valiev (North Ossetia-Alania) and after an early double leg Kurugliev would hang on for the 2-0 win.  European and Dan Kolov champ #3 Artur Naifonov (North Ossetia-Alania) would look every part of the favorite at the weight as he teched his way into the semifinals where he would take a 4-0 win over 2016 Ali Aliyev runner-up Zelimkhan Minkailov (Chechnya) to make the finals. The match between Kurugliev and Naifonov will be a rematch of this year’s Yarygin quarterfinals which were won 3-2 by Naifonov and I am confident that Naifonov can repeat and improve upon this result to win the Russian National title at 86 KG.

Sadulaev vs Baitsaev Part Two

The possibility of a  rematch of last year’s national finals between #1 Abdulrashid Sadulaev (Dagestan) and #4 Vladislav Baitsaev (North Ossetia-Alania) was one of the most buzzed about things going into Russian Nationals, and both guys would do their part to make sure it happened. Sadulaev beat 2014 Junior world champ Georgi Gogaev, Ali Aliyev champ Zainulla Kurbanov (Dagestan), and returning fifth-place finisher Batraz Gazzaev (North Ossetia-Alania), while Baitsaev disposed of returning bronze medalist #7 Rasul Magomedov (Dagestan) by tech fall and took out Igor Ovsyannikov (Krasnoyarsk Krai) in the semis to book his spot in the finals. Here’s the thing about this match, Sadulaev’s overall skillset is well rounded and better than Baitsaev’s there’s no denying that, but what it hasn’t particularly looked as of late is dominating. Sadulaev has routinely gotten stuck underneath his vaunted knee pull single today and his match-ending gut wrench was nowhere to be seen. While Sadulaev is able to control these matches, he looks nothing like the world destroying (winning) figure of old that dominated 86 KG. Sadulaev is still exceptionally good and I expect him to beat Baitsaev by the closest of margins, but with how he’s looked technically so far plus being so criminally undersized for the weight(95.75 Kilos at weigh-ins) I favor Kyle Snyder to repeat his title-winning performance from Paris if the two are to meet again.

Upsets Of Day 1

The brackets that were most affected by upsets 74 KG and 65 KG. Now part of these upsets is more based from a rankings perspective, because the guy’s who earned the upsets I’ve longed viewed as some of the more talented guys at Russia at their weight and they prevent stylistic challenges for higher ranked opponents that make them primed for impressive performances. 

74 KG is the weight that was most affected by upsets and the guy’s most responsible for the majority of these upsets were #12 Nikita Suchkov (Krasnoyarsk Krai), #13 Timur Bizhoev (Kabardino-Balkar Republic), and Evgeni Lapshov (Republic of Tatarstan). Suchkov upset returning 70 KG national runner-up #8 Magomed Dibirgadzhiev (Dagestan) 5-4  in the round of 32, Bizhoev upset #7 Akhmed Usmanov (Dagestan) in the round of 16, and Lapshov upset returning 70 KG national champ #16 Magomedkhabib Kadiamagmedov (Dagestan) in the round of 32, and then President Cup of Buryatia champ #15 Arsalan Budazhapov (Republic of Buryatia) in the round of 16.

Suchkov’s win over Dibirgadzhiev makes sense with his developmental curve and the fact that Suchkov holds really good position in matches and is so solid when it comes to finishing his ankle picks, knee pull singles, and double while also being a very adept scrambler and for Dibirgadzhiev who’s got great knee block throws off a bodylock and a very nice low single he can bring up to a double and finish, Suchkov’s positioning plus situational awareness in scrambles made it to where Dibirgadzhiev couldn’t get to the offense he wanted.  Bizhoev upset Usmanov because Usmanov offense relies so much upon being able to move guy’s from a 2-1, to chest wrap them, and to blast through them on a double and none of those things are available when you wrestle Timur Bizhoev as he’s going to hand fight you circle out and pressure like nobody’s business and that of style that Usmanov offers plays into Bizhoev’s game. Lapshov’s reasoning for his wins is much easier, the guy’s very strong for the weight, good positioning and very nice double and when you combine these things for a guy that’s big for the weight against Magomedkhabib Kadiamagomedov who’s never had the cleanest setups for his double and is prone to become bodylock heavy during matches it just is obvious Lapshov is the guy to take in that match, and with Budazhapov that’s a Budazhapov inactivity issue more than anything and this tends to happen with Budazhapov when he’s not setting up his gorgeous righty sweep single and can’t dominate the handfight or get his timing done. 

Onto 65 KG, that finally saw #4 Naachin Kuular (Tuva Republic) finally notching a win over #11 Viktor Rassadin (Yakutsk) 6-2 in a first round match. This doesn’t seem like much of an upset on paper or the webpage where the rankings are published that you should definitely read but it matters because Kuular was 0-2 against Rassadin with both losses being lopsided (12-3 at the Yarygin, and 11-0 at the Semenov). The next upset that involved Kuular was where he was on the receiving end of it, when he lost 3-0 to returning bronze medalist and 2013 60 KG world champ Bekhan Goygereev (Chechnya). When you understand how Kuular wrestles, the result against Goygereev isn’t all that surprising. First, let’s go over the rules of how to wrestle Goygereev: 1. You have to pressure him the whole match, 2. Goygereev is impossible to throw and is just too good from hip to hip positions to even try so don’t waste your time 3. If you try to get finish a leg attack on Goygereev while still keeping a tie there are two things that are either going to happen he’s going to throw you or you’re not going to finish so you need to have clean setups and finishes or you’re just going to waste energy. Having covered the three fundamental rules of how to beat Goygereev, you can see how while Kuular is very good, he doesn’t follow rule 1, and a lot of his style is dependent on being successful from rule 2 which doesn’t work against Goygereev, and Kuular would widen the gap on so many matches if he was a more active and clean handfighter and that also cost him against Goygereev.