The Stubbornness of Improvisation: A Look at the Establishment of the World Club Wrestling Championship

Elham Heydari* The World Club Championship is a tournament recently approved by the United World Wrestling and registered as a global tournament in the federation's calendar. The first edition of this competition was held and concluded in November and December 2014 in the cities of Juybar (men's freestyle wrestling) and Abadan (men's Greco-Roman wrestling). The idea for establishing this tournament originated from the think tank of the Iranian Wrestling Federation, which is headed by Rasoul Khadem, an Olympic and world champion. Undoubtedly, the proposal to establish the World Club Championship, which is the first of its kind, is a creative and bold idea that the Iranian Wrestling Federation has successfully implemented; a pure idea that, if supported with planning, theoretical knowledge, and necessary facilities, could soon change its name from the World Club Championship to the World Championship League and benefit from the advantages of a professional global league. After the holding of these competitions, numerous criticisms were raised regarding the World Club Championship, one of which was the presence of weak teams and the lack of interest from reputable teams worldwide. Such criticism, considering that the World Club Championship was experiencing its first edition, seems baseless and malicious. Rasoul Khadem believes that one of the reasons for the absence of prominent world teams is to prevent the name of Iran from being highlighted and argues: "The hidden areas that exist in international interactions can benefit Iran and place Iranian wrestling at the center of global attention. We must strengthen these areas. The World Wrestling League is an example of one of these areas... This action by Iran can have a significant impact on preserving wrestling in the Olympics. Moreover, many of our competitors may not want Iran to have a greater influence in global wrestling." In support of Mr. Khadem's thoughts, it must be said that yes, Iranian wrestling has no shortage of mafia-like competitors, your idea of a world league is unique, your intentions are good, and your goals are grand. However, your perspective has a flaw that has never been critiqued. When an organization proposes the establishment of a competition and uses the word "world" in its proposed title, does it not know or pay attention to the fact that world clubs mean both women's and men's clubs? What weight does the word world carry in the phrase "World Wrestling Club Championship"? Does the World Wrestling Club Championship "world" mean the men's wrestling club championship? Where is the share of women wrestlers in the world from the World Club Championship? The flaw in the perspective of the Iranian Wrestling Federation and, in general, Iranian sports relates to its gender perspective, a perspective that is considered a significant negative score by international sports organizations. Regardless of the prohibition of women's wrestling in Iran and the inability of the Wrestling Federation to hold women's wrestling competitions in Iran, could the Iranian Wrestling Federation not have proposed the establishment of a Women's Wrestling Club Championship to the United World Wrestling and requested them to choose at least another country to host these competitions? This was an initiative that the Iranian Wrestling Federation could have started and through which it could have shown more and better support and influence in preserving wrestling in the Olympics, but it simply and as always overlooked its importance. The neglect of the proposed idea of a World Club Championship for women by the Iranian Federation is more a matter of improvisation than intention and planning. The eternal absence of women's wrestling in the country and the trivialization of it abroad have become a given for the Iranian wrestling community. The existence and persistence of such improvisation in the perspectives of the authorities and, naturally, the public cultural outlook has led to the construction of a self-made cage in which Iranian wrestling in particular and Iranian women's sports in general have been trapped. Now, add the burden of competing with the sports mafias of the world to this self-made cage. It is clear that the Iranian Wrestling Federation has specific goals for establishing the World Club Championship, which can only be outlined within the framework of the advancement of wrestling in Iran and the world. One of the motivations and indeed the reasons that led the Iranian Wrestling Federation to present the proposal for the World Club Championship to the United World Wrestling may relate to the federation's deprivation of hosting world championship competitions, a deprivation imposed on Iranian wrestling 12 years ago and still ongoing. One of the conditions of the United World Wrestling for granting the right to host world championship competitions to member countries is that the host country must provide facilities for both men's and women's wrestling. Since Iran is one of the few member countries of the United World Wrestling that does not officially recognize a discipline called women's wrestling within the country, it is naturally unable to accept hosting women's wrestling competitions, which has caused significant losses to men's wrestling in Iran since 2002. However, hosting the World Cup, continental competitions, and other international tournaments, which are of lesser importance than world championship competitions, is not subject to this rule, and Iran has sometimes managed to host these competitions. Now, the idea of establishing the World Club Championship by the Iranian Wrestling Federation could earn more hosting privileges for Iranian wrestling in the future, but it seems that the Iranian Wrestling Federation's sole goal in proposing the creation of this tournament is not merely to gain more hosting privileges. Rasoul Khadem, in one of his interviews during the first edition of the World Club Championship in Juybar, stated: "The World Wrestling League has provided new capacities for world wrestling. Countries that do not have a technical standing in the world and even their national teams do not have the power to participate in world competitions are present in these competitions, which indicates the absence of this capacity in world wrestling." This statement is an undeniable reality that is currently happening. Holding such competitions will provide an opportunity for countries that previously did not have the means or quota to participate in international tournaments to experience better international arenas. The presence of countries such as Bangladesh, Syria, and Afghanistan in the first edition of the freestyle wrestling club championship in Juybar, contrary to what some critics called "a decline in the quality of the competitions," will help expand and strengthen the sport of wrestling globally. The exclusion of countries that are technically far from the poles of world wrestling is a flawed thought that not only does not help improve the level of world wrestling but also distances the United World Wrestling and the global wrestling family from their common goal of remaining in the Olympic Games. One of the reasons that brought wrestling to the brink of exclusion from the Olympics was its inability to attract audiences and consequently failing to meet the interests of the economic power holders of the world, a thought rooted in the influence of modern rationality in professional sports, which deserves much critique that is beyond the scope of this writing. Wrestlers from all over the world, regardless of their technical level, are potential assets of world wrestling, and the Iranian Wrestling Federation, by creating the World Club Championship and not limiting it to the participation of powerful wrestling countries, consciously or unconsciously, attracts more audiences and thus provides a great service to the United World Wrestling, a service whose results we will see in 2020 when the International Olympic Committee reviews the record of wrestling, an action that could play a special role in the permanent preservation of wrestling in the Olympics. The Iranian Wrestling Federation is certainly aware that just as allowing the participation of unknown wrestling countries can transform the capacity of world wrestling and help maintain wrestling in the Olympics, the exclusion and neglect of women wrestlers worldwide can also score a negative mark for world wrestling. Isn't it true that in 2020, the International Olympic Committee will pay special attention to women's wrestling in its review of world wrestling? The Iranian Wrestling Federation could and should have been the initiator of the World Club Championship for "men and women"; the Iranian Wrestling Federation represents a sport that has, in itself, and still (albeit with difficulty) stood against the immorality of modern rationality. In an era when sports businesses and the financial interests of companies have led professional sports astray, wrestling has managed to maintain its distance from the "spirit of capitalism" to some extent, to the extent that it has been accused of underperforming in meeting the interests of economic power holders in world sports, the result of which was the threat of exclusion from the Olympics. Whether wrestling continues this resistance or surrenders requires a separate discussion, but what this writing emphasizes is that Iranian wrestling, as one of the claims to superiority of the "moral spirit" and "heroic ethics," becomes an unconscious source of a kind of immorality by neglecting the importance of women's wrestling in the world and, likewise, standing against the establishment of wrestling for Iranian women, which, although it does not share common ground with the immorality arising from modern rationality in professional sports, is of the same nature as the immorality of suppressing the "other." I wish the think tank of the Wrestling Federation would set aside harmful, worn-out, and inherited perspectives from the past and become the initiator of reforms in the culture of wrestling in the country. As long as the authorities of Iranian wrestling do not recognize the necessity of critiquing and reforming their wrestling culture, they will not be able to play a special role in changing and reforming world wrestling, even if they are the initiators of useful and pure ideas like the World Club Championship. Nevertheless, we hope that Iran can be the pioneer of the World Wrestling League for both men and women.