I have been reading the slamming going on between a few of you and I want to weigh in on the Topic.
I recently sent 10 wrestlers to the JRobinson wrestling camp in California and I attended a few sessions to see how things were going. The camp had Nate Moore (I think thats who he was) as a clinician and he was showing moves that demonstrated his abundant knowledge of technique. When asked to demonstrate in a live situation-he simple said he was not feeling like wrestling at the moment, he hurt his knee. Now i am not saying Nate Moore is a bad wrestler-I have heard that he is pretty good (so please don't bash me and defend him). I did however make the comment that you would not see those moves work in the NCAA tournament or US Open Nationals.
BUT
70% of the moves he showed would not work in a "Real" wrestling match. 80% of the moves he showed would only work if you wrestled a high school JV wrestler. Hell-he even showed an illegal move at one point.

Knowing moves that would not work but once in a lifetime does not make the Russians better technicians than the Americans. What separates them is mat time and understanding how to drill moves (drilling the same move all day, in different positions, different speeds, seeing different counters, etc.) I have personally trained at the US Olympic Training center and have also trained with a Russian team in St. Petersburg Russia. I spent as much time running, lifting weights, riding bikes, and playing various games as I did wrestling-at the OTC. In St. Petersburg, I wrestled, wrestled, wrestled ate, wrestled, wrestled and wrestled. Weight training was dummy throws and partner squats, presses, and other various "on the mat" lifts. THe running part was basically how fast you could get to practice from the apartment we were living in (it was really cold). We had the occasional sprints in practice, but it always contained throwing someone or something at the end of the sprint. When it came to games, the coach said you play games with your family and that the fun part of wrestling was when your hand got raised.
I love the coaches at the OTC (Momir in particular) and I understand the idea of over training, but i learned more in the month in Russia than I did in a year at the OTC when it came to WRESTLING.
Technique does not win the matches for Russia, it is their mat experience and mat time that they have invested and that continues to give other countries problems, including the US.

The fact that they are not training in Bejing is a good thing-IMO. They avoid the air pollution, they avoid the Iranians from trying to video tape their practices (they are know for such trickery-haha) and they are still staying in the same time zone.
My friend who is their has told me that you can barely breath outside, he walks around with a mask just like everyone else.
I have given my two cents now-maybe too LONG-sorry

Technique does not win the matches for Russia, it is their mat experience and mat time that they have invested and that continues to give other countries problems, including the US.

True and that is why I didn't win Champ Kind. I was not on the mat enough.

However, unless you know many moves you can never decide which ones you are truly good at. Also, at different stages of you wrestling career you might get good at one move or another.

Knowing more moves plus mat time. You can be very good at only 3 or 4 moves but you can't be good at them unless you know them.

And for Greco Zag,

A wrestler that shows moves doesn't have to be perfect with them in competition against top opponents. Each wrestler has a preference for different moves. You show young wrestlers many moves so that they can pick which ones they like. If you show them only 5 moves they have only those 5 moves to pick from. In that case there is a high chance they never learn moves that they might be good at in the future.

A few things...

First of all, I'm not sure what Big's athletic accomplishments have to do with this argument. Second, in most of the videos of top russian athletes I've seen it's not so much a wide arsenal of moves as basic moves done to perfection. Ketoev does an underhook shuck to a single leg and a gut wrench, Murtza does a low ankle shot and a chest lock throw, etc. That and the ability to win every scramble.

What Big says about showing kids a lot of moves makes sense though, I was taught a lot of moves by my coaches and told to train the few that felt natural.