By Chiranjit Ojha
July 7 (Reuters) – Kyle Snyder and Abdulrashid Sadulaev will face off for the first time in five years at a Real American Freestyle event in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Saturday, reviving a rivalry widely seen as the greatest in modern wrestling.
With three Olympic and 10 World Championship gold medals between them, they have clashed four times in all, and always for a World Championship title or an Olympic gold medal.
Sadulaev has won their last three matches, after Snyder snapped the Russian’s 75-match winning streak at their first face-off in 2017.
“I consider him to be my greatest rival… he’s the greatest wrestler of my generation and potentially going to be the greatest wrestler of all time,” American Snyder told Reuters in a video call.
Sadulaev, who hails from Dagestan and is nicknamed “the Russian Tank,” said Snyder is one of his toughest opponents.
“This rivalry, it’s made me a better athlete,” the 29-year-old said.
‘RUSSIAN TANK’ VERSUS AMERICAN ‘CARDIO MACHINE’
At the 2016 Olympics, Sadulaev won gold at 86kg, while Snyder was the 97kg champion. A year later, Sadulaev moved up in weight and succumbed to Snyder’s relentless pressure at the World Championships final.
“The pace was so high. The last 40 seconds I don’t know how I stood there, I was so tired. My body wasn’t listening to me,” Sadulaev recalled.
The loss forced Sadulaev to fix issues with his preparations, and at the following year’s World Championships final he pinned Snyder to get his revenge.
The two soon became friends off the mat, and Snyder visited Sadulaev in Dagestan.
“We even gave him land in Dagestan… any time he wants, he can come and build a house,” Sadulaev said.
SETTLING THE SCORE
Snyder may have lost in his subsequent clashes with Sadulaev at the finals of the Tokyo Olympics and the World Championships in 2021, but the 30-year-old American believes he has a shot when they compete for the RAF light heavyweight title.
“I think anybody that thinks that they’re going to outskill or out-technique Abdulrashid Sadulaev is wrong. You’ve got to make it about the heart, about the spirit, about wrestling by faith, wrestling without any fear,” he said.
For Sadulaev, who was deemed ineligible for the Paris Olympics qualifiers in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but was later cleared to compete in that year’s World Championships as an Individual Neutral Athlete, facing Snyder is part of his preparations leading up to the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“Kyle is a cardio machine. Going up against him is a big challenge,” he said.
For Snyder, it is an opportunity to settle the score with his greatest rival.
“Growing up, when we’d play basketball or football… it was always whoever won last. If you win the last one, you’re the champ,” he said.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Comments