What, When, Who, & How Are Points Being Scored At 97kg: Part 1, What Is Scoring?

My goal in this series of articles is to run through the 2019 World Championships in its entirety and see who, what, how, and when points are scored at the highest level of the sport. I’m going to start with the most meaningful rounds of the tournament: the quarters, semis, repechage, and medal rounds. This will give me the ability to look at how trends present themselves in different weight classes. Once I get a good collection of data from each weight class I’ll go back and add in the round of 16, round of 32, and the qualification round. The questions that I hope to answer in this series are as follows:

• What - What tech and what position is scoring the most?
• Who - What athletes from what countries are using which tech to score?
• When - What technique works in what rounds?
• How - Which setups, and which ties are being used to get to the scoring tech and which finishes are used the most?

This is a weight that I’ve been excited to dive into for a while, not only does it boast the best P4P wrestler in the world, Abdulrashid Sadulaev, but there are a couple of question that I’d like to get more context around (if not answers to). One of the biggest questions on my mind when I look at the 2019 world championships is ‘Has Kyle Snyder taken a step backwards or was this an outlier of a lull in performance’. But that’s a separate article. 

Total Points Scored - 91

There were 91 points scored in the meaningful rounds of the tournament that includes neutral offense, neutral defense, par terre, step-outs, shot clock points, and cautions. 

Neutral Offense - 50 Points

As usual, the bulk of offensive points are scored from single legs, but one other thing that struck me as interesting was how many points were scored from short offense. 

Single-Leg Numbers

26 points were scored on single legs.

• 18 points were scored on single legs with the head on the inside
• 8 points were scored on single legs with the head on the outside

Neutral Defense - 6 points

One thing that stands out in a big way is that when the upper weights attack they score. Aside from 4 points scored on defensive go behinds the only other defensive points that were scored in the meaningful rounds of the 2019 world championships were on a scramble at the end of Kyle Snyder’s bronze medal match with perennial medal contender from Georgia, Odikadze. Check that out here 

What Else Scored?

Go Behinds

Like I said earlier, we’re seeing a fairly big uptick in the number of points scored from short offense. Because go behinds can be hit both offensively and defensively it might be best to break them down according to how many came from offense and how many came from their opponent’s attacks. 

• All Go Behinds - 20 Points 
• Snap Down, Go Behinds - 16 Points
• Defensive Go Behinds - 4 Points

Par Terre - 8

Turning big guys is tough and the numbers seem to corroborate that point, which makes just how many gut wrenches Sadulaev has hit over the years even more impressive. 

• 6 points were scored on gut wrenches
• 2 points were scored on a transitional arm bar by Sadulaev in the semifinals against Yergali (KAZ)

One-Pointers - 24

This is one category that you def saw more points scored than at 74 and a similar amount of points as at 57kg (17 points and 25 points respectively)

• Cautions - 2 Points - One point for a head butt, and one for grabbing fingers.
• Shot Clock Points - 10 Points - These points were spread pretty evenly throughout the field. 
• Step Outs - 12 Points - Yergali (KAZ) seems to hold the center of the mat best at this weight scoring 4 of the 12 total points.