Amouzad, Esmaeili among UWW’s top-ranked wrestlers in 2025
Iran’s Rahman Amouzad and Saeid Esmaeili led their respective weight classes as the United World Wrestling announced its top-ranked wrestlers for 2025 across all 30 men’s and women’s categories.
Ranking points were calculated based on wrestlers’ results at the 2025 World Championships, continental championships, and the four Ranking Series events.
Amouzad topped the freestyle 65kg division, while Esmaeili ranked No. 1 in the Greco-Roman 67kg.
Amouzad, 23, enjoyed a glorious two-month period by collecting back-to-back gold medals at the World Championships and the Islamic Solidarity Games.
Avenging his final loss at the Paris Olympics against Kotaro Kiyooka, Amouzad secured a superiority victory over the Japanese wrestler in the first period of the 65kg showdown in Zagreb in September to claim his second world title in three editions.
Picking up where he left off, the Ruthless Rahman then cruised to the final at November’s Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh without conceding a single point, before demolishing Tajikistan’s Abdulmazhid Kudiev (12-2) to claim his second major gold of the international season.
Reigning Olympic champion Esmaeili, meanwhile, began the international season with a gold-winning campaign at March’s Asian Championships in Amman, and then marked his World Championships debut in style by edging Azerbaijan’s Hasrat Jafarov 1-0 in the final.
The pair met again for gold in Riyadh two months later, where the 22-year-old Iranian came within two seconds of suffering only the second defeat of his senior international career – and his first since June 2024 – before producing a trademark four-pointer to defeat Jafarov 8-3 in a thrilling showpiece.
Both Amouzad and Esmaeili are on the 10-man shortlist – alongside fellow Iranians Amirhossein Zare’, Mohammad-Hadi Saravi, and Gholamreza Farrokhi – for the UWW Most Dominant Wrestler of the Year.
Meanwhile, the United States featured three reigning world champions in Zahid Valencia (86kg), Trent Hidlay (92kg), and Kyle Snyder (97kg) as the top-ranked wrestlers in the freestyle division. Bahrain also had top-ranked wrestlers, with Khidir Saipudinov and Shamil Sharipov finishing atop the 79kg and 125kg rankings, respectively.
North Korean world champion Chongsong Han (57kg), Russian sensation Zavur Uguev, who won the world 61kg title as a neutral participant, Japan’s Yoshinosuke Aoyag (70kg), and Slovakia’s Tajmuraz Salkazanov (79kg) complete the freestyle list.
In Greco-Roman, Uzbekistan emerged as the most successful country with three top-ranked wrestlers: world champion Aytjan Khalmakhanov (63kg) at the weight, Alisher Ganiev (60kg), and Abdullo Aliev (72kg).
Georgia and Hungary had two wrestlers each at the top. World champion Vakhtang Lolua earned himself the top rank at 55kg, while his Georgian compatriot Gela Bolkvadze topped the 82kg. Hungary’s Alex Szoke and Darius Vitek placed atop the 97kg and 130kg divisions, respectively.
Türkiye’s Ahmed Yilmaz (72kg) and Serbian world gold medalist Aleksandr Komarov (87kg) are also in the 10-man Greco-Roman list.