Iran coach alleges bias after Amouzad loses on fleeing call
A caution and one in the 65kg quarterfinals turned a 2-1 lead into a 2-2 loss, and Iran's head coach took it to IWTV.
Rahman Amouzad was leading Arman Tevanyan 2-1 with four seconds to go in the 65kg World quarterfinals when the officials hit him for fleeing. The caution and one made it 2-2 and gave Tevanyan the match. FloWrestling noted Amouzad had just been warned for fleeing the hold before the restart.
The call went straight to the court of public opinion. Justin Basch posted the clip and said Amouzad was robbed, calling it one of the worst caution plus one calls he has seen in a while. Christian Pyles, who made a point of saying he does not root for Amouzad, said the ending was a brutal call and that Amouzad was plenty engaged. FloWrestling put the sequence up and asked for thoughts.
Iran's coach goes public
Iranian head coach Pejman Dorostkar spoke with IWTV after the match, and Pyles carried his remarks. Dorostkar said his wrestlers are being subjected to injustice and that nobody is there to stand up for them. He went further and tied it to Greco, saying the results Iran's Greco-Roman team achieved were difficult for these people to accept.
"It's obvious they're officiating our matches with resentment, almost as if they're just waiting for an excuse to penalize us," Dorostkar told IWTV, per Pyles.
He also pointed at Tevanyan directly, telling anyone watching to go look at how many times the Armenian struck Amouzad in the face with his head. Dorostkar said he is disappointed in the world of wrestling and that the officials are acting out of stubbornness.
What it means
Amouzad is out of the 65kg quarterfinals on criteria, and the result stands. Nobody in the sources has reported a protest, a review or any response from United World Wrestling to Dorostkar's accusations. The only thing on the record is the call, the clip and the coach's words.
Our take, the fleeing warning before the restart is the detail that makes this one hard to argue cleanly. The officials had already flagged the behavior once, which is exactly the setup that makes the second call look pre-loaded to everyone watching and defensible to the crew that made it. That is why a two point quarterfinal is now the loudest thing at the tournament.
Watch for whether UWW says anything at all about the sequence, and watch Tevanyan's path from here, since the man who beat Amouzad on criteria now carries the bracket.
They're robbing our wrestlers right in front of us, and we have nobody here to stand up for us.
That may be one of the worst caution +1 calls I've seen in a while.
Straight up not how a match should end. Amouzad was plenty engaged.
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