84 kg- world championship predictons

[arm-spin]

One of the most wide open weights in recent years. The field features 4 former world/Olympic champions, all of which have looked very vulnerable (or, in Sanderson's case, retired) at times. Who takes home the title this year and why?

[JudoWrestler]

Is Iran sending Gourdazi for sure... I wanted them to send Amini.

[arm-spin]

I don't know... I was basing this on the tournament thread that said Goudrazi is the man now, based on his head-to-head victory.

[JensenS]

With the way this weight is currently sets up internationally, with a lot of really, really good guys but with no over arching dominating force I'm going Cael all day.

Sokhiev would be my favorite for silver, but that will obviously depend on how brackets set up.

[akzent]

Another favorite for a medal is Dato Marsagishvili (GEO).

[bwh27]

There are enough accomplished wrestlers here that Cael can't be considered much of a favorite, but if I had to pick someone he hasn't shown the inconsistency of these other guys yet, so I'm going with him by default. I'm sure we can all agree that Ganev is the least likely to win the title, despite winning last year.

[JudoWrestler]

I don't know how Sanderson can be the heavy favourite when he skipped Poland to wrestle in Romania... to me this is an indicator of a lack of confidence.

[ODH]

I voted for Cael.
Its a homer pick, but it is not a ridiculous one.
Americans are so used to seeing Cael being so much better than his competition it is hard for us to see him losing.

[bwh27]

I don't know how Sanderson can be the heavy favourite when he skipped Poland to wrestle in Romania... to me this is an indicator of a lack of confidence.

This is silly. First of all, no one claimed he was the "heavy favourite" (sorry, couldn't resist as a stupid American) and you're inferring quite a bit without any basis to claim it was a lack of confidence. Penn State explained the choice for Cael and Varner's tournament as a scheduling issue, despite his training for the World team he still has a number of responsibilities as head coach of PSU. It's also a convenient thing for you to say in hindsight, as it was not nearly as clear when they made this decision that Poland would be so much tougher than Romania. From what I recall, people expected some of the 84kg studs to show up at the Romanian tournament but they didn't. Even if you have an actual reason to believe that they ducked Poland to wrestle in the easier Romanian tournament (which you don't) then that's far more likely to be a strategic choice than a confidence issue. If Cael weren't confident then he wouldn't have entered World Team Trials after a seven year layoff. He didn't return to win against easy competition, he returned to win another world title. This is the same attitude that all the top 84kg wrestlers have, yet you did not apply the same scrutiny to other elite 84kg wrestlers who did not attend Poland. To me, Cael certainly has a less than 50% chance of winning Worlds since it's such a deep weight class, but you're a bit overly dismissive of his chances given how wide open and relatively weaker this weight division is.