2023 International Wrestling Rankings - Men's Freestyle

125 - Taha Akgul

The rankings after the top 4 at heavyweight are a mess! Because Russia hasn't been able to wrestle many international opponents, their top 10-15 heavyweights have been trading wins and losses over the past year. This makes it very hard to determine where they relate to other countries' 285kg wrestlers.

Because of that, a bit of "reshuffling" was needed and thanks to Reineris Salas we have a place to start. Salas won the Korkin where he took out top heavyweights Eric Dzhioev, Ostap Pasenok, and Dzianis Khramiankou. Also at the Korkin, Dzhioev beat Khinchagov who has a past win over Goloev. So that created a clear order between Salas, Dzhioev, Khinchagov, and Goloev.

However, Salas also wrestled at the world championships where he lost to Amar Dhesi. Because Gwiazdowski has past wins over Dhesi, I chose to also place Gwiazdowski above Salas. Zillmer, Baran, and Yergali have all had better international years than Gwiazdowski so that group falls in line at 7-9.

It's not clear however I believe it's the right move and keeps the 125kg rankings from being flooded with only Russian heavyweights. 

Questions or comments? Contact our ranker, Jon Kozak, on Twitter @KozakJon or through email at Jonathan.Kozak@flosports.tv.