United World Wrestling just changed the number of senior-level weight classifications from six at the Olympics and eight at the World Championships, to six at the Olympics (still) and 10 at the World Championships. Ten weights will be contested at the Budapest World Championships this October for the first time since the 1996 Olympic cycle.

So now is as good a time as any to take a look back at the history of weight classes at international wrestling championships. Great idea, here we go!

There were no world championships of any importance until 1951. There was wrestling at the 1904, 1908, and 1920 Olympics, but they had different weights classes for each of those Games. We will ignore those Olympics.

Wrestling was at four consecutive Olympic Games from 1924 to 1936, all with uniform weight classes. Those seven weights are broken down in the chart below by pounds, kilos, change between weights in kg, and percent change between weights. Additionally included is the average of the total and percent change in weights, excluding the jump to heavyweight.

The seven weight classes are sensibly divided so that each jump is around eight to 10 percent. Also, back in the day when travel was exceedingly costly, it would make sense to limit the total weights at world championships. Good job FILA (or whatever it was called at the time) between 1924-1936!

After World War II, World Championships started popping up in between Olympic Games with increasing regularity. At the 1948 Olympics, the weight classes changed from their pre-war divisions but then stayed the same from 1948-1961. Those weights are in the chart below.

In this iteration, an eighth weight class was added to the lower bound, scrunching the next few weights up slightly, though the average percent change remained about the same. There will always be quibbling around the margins but overall another quality set of weight classes.

The next set was instituted from 1962-1968, encompassing seven total Worlds and Olympics. The weights were adjusted to include a 'light-heavyweight' 97kg division. There remained eight weight classes but they gaps were widened, with an average percent change now between 10-12 percent. That chart is below.

The consensus at the time appeared to be that the jump from 87 to 130 kilos was too much. But by keeping things to just eight weights, tweeners becoming an issue. Those 11 percent and 12 percent jumps equaled 18 to 20 pounds in some cases. Competitors were having trouble finding their ideal weight class. Thus (we are assuming), the powers that be decided to add two more weight classes to the mix in 1969. Nice.

For nearly three decades FILA maintained 10 weights classes, from 1969 to 1996. A 48kg was added to the lower bound and another weight was added to the middle to reduce the percent change between weights. The upper bound was also extended slightly from 97/130kg to 100/130kg. That chart of storied and venerable weights below.

This set up was rather generous to the upper and lower weights, where there is a smaller population of wrestlers (and people in general), but it adheres to the slogan: "any BODY can wrestle".  Additionally, while the weight jumps are severe, there is an attempt to keep them uniform throughout the progression. So these weights receive a solid grade. A-/B+

Then, after 1996, with the Olympics rapidly growing in size with new nations and sports added every cycle, wrestling was asked to cut its participant total, and did so by shrinking from ten to eight weight classes (for both men's freestyle and Greco-Roman, although we will focus on men's freestyle going forward as at a point in the near future they diverge). FILA stayed at these eight weights for the next five years. The 1997-2001 chart is below.

The 1997-2001 weights were not ideal, mainly because the percent change in weights is not uniform. But they are trying to cover a lot of ground (54kg to 97/130kg) and it could be worse. Luckily (but not really), the IOC would be back to force changes for the next Olympic cycle.

In 2002 the weight classes were reduced from 8 to 7, again at the behest of the IOC.

Although — sidebar — there was more to it than a simple decree from the IOC. Between 2004 and 2008, FILA and the IOC would go back and forth negotiating the introduction of women's wrestling and the number of weights that would be contested at the Olympics in each style: women's freestyle, men's freestyle, and Greco-Roman. FILA would eventually settle for just six across the three style. Thanks to Patt Pollard for the tip. 

In any event, in 2002, the lower and upper bounds contracted, to 55kg on the lower end and to 96/120kg on the upper end, but the gaps between weights still grew, now averaging 12%, the highest in the history of the sport. That chart is below.

The 2002-2013 weights were bad in more ways than one. Seven weights are not enough to avoid tweener casualties. You can shrink the gaps, but then you're leaving the lightest and heaviest wrestlers without a proper weight class. In this instance, FILA chose to leave the gaps large, but they didn't bother to make them uniform, so some tweeners, in particular, the upper weights got it worse than the lighter weights. C- weight divisions, in danger of failing.

Another big shakeup came in 2013, as FILA was dumped from the Olympics and only found readmittance in the reconstituted firm now known as UWW. Reenter to the Games also came at the expense of another weight class, bringing us down to six divisions for the quadrennial. But, in a twist, two non-Olympic weights would be contested at World Championships, along with the Olympic six.

Those two weight charts are below.

The extra non-Olympic weights helped alleviate some of the pain of being reduced to just six brackets at the Olympics, but it added the stress of competitors having to make a choice during Olympic years of having to move up or down if they wanted to earn a gold medal. But at least the lower weights the option. The upper weights remained strewn with tweener corpses.

Six weight classes will be bad no matter how you slice them, but these are unnecessarily terrible. There is little rhyme or reason to the percent changes. You could scarcely do worse if you tried. This is a failure. 

2018 brought yet more changes. Thanks to pushing and prodding from the national federations, two more non-Olympic weights would be added. Mercifully, the upperweight tweeners got relief. The new, current weights are below.

The jumps are still very uneven, but at least UWW slotted the two new weights in the right gaps. The average percent change is an erratic but acceptable 7% as we get ready for a World Championship in Budapest with 10 weight classes, the most since 1995 in Atlanta.

Then, what conclusions can we reach from all this? For one, eight weights is the absolute minimum you need for world-class competition to avoid tweener hell, in my humble opinion. Also, it's clear that 10 weights was quite manageable in the past, even with less money in the sport and certain weights in shallower pools of talent.

Which points to evidence, as if it was needed, that we have nothing to fear with UWW's decision to go from 8 to 10 weights in non-Olympic years, and quite a lot to gain.