WORLD CUP from page 28
those cheers. It gets me going,” said Green. Another reporter asked Green about being back at 70 kg, and
he gave some additional detail about his preparation. “I hit the weight room hard. I am eating right, actually. The Olympic Trials are done. The season might be done for some people and they might not train. Now I want to eat right, put the weight back on right. It feels good, really good. The day after the Olympic Trials it’s the next year, the World Championships, and that is what we have to get better for. I am going to keep wrestling and keep getting better,” said Green. The next morning, the United States battled defending cham-
pion Iran to determine which team would win the pool and advance to the finals. This match was going out nationally on NBCSN, and around the world on Flowrestling and the UWW website. There was electricity in the air, with a loud pro-Iranian crowd trying to drown out the cheers of the American faithful. Team USA dropped the first two matches, but Olympian Frank Molinaro came back with a come-from-behind win over 2015 World bronze medalist Sayed Mohammadi, 4-3 at 65 kg. Green was down after the first period, but was in control in the second for a 5-2 win over 2016 Asian champion Moustafa Hosseinkhani. “Just keep going forward,” Green said following the win. “I
know he’s just trying to keep position, so as long as I kept pres- suring him, doing work. I got him on the shot clock. That made him open up more and I was able to score.” Molinaro and Green are both Jersey natives, and their back-
to-back wins changed the tone of the entire dual meet. “With this team style of matches, we feed off each other. The
crowd started going (for Iran). I know Frank didn’t like it and I didn’t like it. He won a good one, and it fired me up even more,” said Green. The USA and Iran finished an exciting dual meet tied at 4-4,
but Iran advanced by scoring more classification points, 17-15. That put the USA in the third-place match against a strong team from Georgia, which had lost in its pool to the Russian squad. Green faced another talented wrestler in World No. 6 David Tlashadze, but once again, Green dispatched him with a 10-0 technical fall. Green finished with a perfect 4-0 record, including three technical falls, and outscored his opponents 35-2. “I want to go out there and get on the mat and off the mat as
fast as possible. This one, I definitely wanted to end the tourna- ment on a good note and get takedowns, you know, 10-0, get turns. It was awesome,” said Green. The USA and Georgia ended up tied at 4-4, and the tie-break-
er went to the Georgians with more classification points, 17-16, giving the host Americans fourth place. Iran beat Russia, 5-3, to win its fifth straight Freestyle World Cup title. Green was one of three Americans who went undefeated over
the two days, along with Olympians Frank Molinaro at 65 kg and 2015 World champion Kyle Snyder at 97 kg. Green talked about the opportunity he received at World Cup,
and the road ahead toward another World Championships. “Pico was supposed to be here. Unfortunately he got hurt. I
was going to the training camp because I was getting ready to go to Poland. It was a good opportunity to wrestle here, see the things I can do well and things I should work on. It is going to help me improve when I get back into the practice room.” “70 kg is not an Olympic weight, but it’s a World Championships weight, and I want to let everybody know that I am here to get first place this time. I don’t want bronze. I want to win all of my matches, in dominant fashion if I can. That is what I am looking to do going forward to my other competitions,” he added.
29 USA Wrestler
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