Hancock Pins Greco Legend Aleksanyan, Wins Poland Open Gold!

Hancock Pins Greco Legend Aleksanyan, Wins Poland Open Gold!

Tracy Hancock beat reigning four-time World and Olympic champion Artur Aleksanyan on his way to winning the Poland Open.

Sep 8, 2018 by Andrew Spey
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Tracy G'Angelo Hancock just put the world on notice, notching one of the most impressive upsets by an American in recent wrestling history. 



After victories over Nikoloz Kakhelashvili of Italy and Maksim Safarian of Russia, Hancock would draw Artur Aleksanyan of Armenia in the semifinals. Aleksanyan won the last four World and Olympic Greco-Roman championships at 98kg and is one of the pound-for-pound best wrestlers in the world in any style. 

Hancock showed no fear, going after Aleksanyan right off the whistle, ensnaring the six-time world and Olympic medalist in a sag-headlock and decking the Armenian giant in under a minute. 

But Hancock wasn't done yet. He came back the next day and beat Nikolay Bayryakov of Bulgaria in the finals, 7-0, to win the Poland Open 97kg Greco-Roman gold. 



A tremendous overall performance by Hancock, who showed that America is bringing some serious Greco-Roman firepower to Budapest.