2026 Wrestling World Championship Rankings

74 kg - Yoshinosuke Aoyagi

Yones Emami won the 2026 Asian Games by defeating Yoshinosuke Aoyagi, Nurkozha Kaipanov, Sagar Jaglan, and Razambek Jamalov. Despite those wins, Emami will not be Iran's rep at Worlds because he lost two matches to Amir Yazdani during Iran's World Team Trials. Though Yazdani is Iran's rep, he doesn't get credit for Emami's wins and holds at the #4 spot due to his loss this year to Yoshinosuke Aoyagi and last year at Worlds to Kanan Heybatov. 

Aoyagi takes over the top spot in spite of his loss to Emami. Aoyagi has an incredible hitlist this year that includes notable wins over Kota Takahashi (two), James Green, Amir Yazdani, Orozbek Toktomambetov (two), and Viktor Rassadin. His only losses have come against David Carr and now Yones Emami. It's not a perfect resume, but it's stronger than anyone else in the field at 74 kg. 

Razambek Jamalov drops 4 spots after losing to both Yones Emami and Sagar Jaglan at the Asian Games. Jamalov has a pretty thin resume since winning the Olympics, and there's a case for him to drop even farther in the rankings. However, Jamalov's career resume keeps him at the #5 spot for now. It's also worth noting that the wrestlers ranked 6-10 also have taken some "not great" losses in the past year, so that helps keep Jamalov at #5.

Despite the win over Jamalov, Jaglan fails to enter the rankings because of recent losses to Nurkozha Kaipanov and Murad Kuramagomedov. 

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