2020 Domestic Rankings - Men's Freestyle

Pound For Pound

The top five here are incredibly fun to debate because all of them have a legitimate argument argument to be #1. A lot of it comes down to is how far do back to count results, international vs domestic success, and  how heavy one weighs big wins vs losses. 

Had it not been for his Final X loss to Isaiah Martinez, Jordan Burroughs is probably #1 with his long list of medals, domestic dominance, incredibly nice International wins and so few losses. However, with that domestic loss, J'den Cox jumps to #1. While he's only wrestled 20 matches, J'den is undefeated since the 2018 Yasar Dogu, which includes two World Championships. At the 2018 World Championships J'den beat World and Olympic medalist Dato Marsagishvili, who had previously beaten him twice in his career. J'den is also the reason David Taylor moved up and Kyle Dake moved back down from 86 kg. And yes, I am aware that Kyle Snyder is still #1 at 97, but that's because J'den has only had three matches at 97 so far. He did beat three-time World medalist Salas Perez in one of those matches, however, and pound-for-pound rankings are more arbitrary in nature. 

Kyle Dake has only lost to Akhmed Gadzhimagomedov since moving up to 79 kg, which he later avenged 13-0 at the World Championships, but when his record is 1-7 against Jordan Burroughs, you can't justify putting him above JB.

David Taylor is sort of in the same boat as Kyle Dake. DT has been absolutely dominant up since losing to J'den at the 2017 World Team Trials, including two wins over three-time World and Olympic Champion Hassan Yazdani. However, although they haven't wrestled since 2016, Taylor is 0-3 against Dake, including twice at 86 kg.

This leaves Kyle Snyder as the odd man out. He has been dominant domestically and has the best win of the all five over world P4P #1 Abdulrashid Sadulaev at the 2017 World Championships. However, the fact that Sadulaev pinned Kyle more recently, his recent loss to Mohammad Mohammadian, and his losses to unranked Rasul Magomedov and Aslanbek Alborov is what holds him back.

Moving on Nick Gwiazdowski sits at #6. Gwiz is a two-time World medalist and only losses to top-15 guys in the world. Isaiah Martinez comes in at #6 ahead of several World medalists because of his win over Jordan Burroughs.