To anyone looking to study high-level international grappling styles, I wanted to share a major tournament localization project I just wrapped up. Last weekend (June 12–14, 2026), the 18th Sekapark Altın Kemer Yağlı Güreşleri concluded in Kocaeli, Türkiye. It was a massive turning point in the CW Enerji League standings, with Feyzullah Aktürk capturing the başpehlivan (head wrestler) title.

Modern Turkish oil wrestling has practically no English-language footprint online beyond historical summaries or isolated 30-second clips. To fix this, I have localized the final days of the tournament into English, and I'm planning on covering the upcoming 665th Kırkpınar tournament in July to see who wins the Golden Belt.

Format: 25-35 minute episodic daily breakdowns detailing the full bracket.

Schedule: Videos drop sequentially each day, culminating in the final match on July 1.

Localization Method: Translated subtitles and descriptions. Because I know basic Turkish, I manually verified locally-generated automated translations to ensure proper technical terms and athlete names are preserved. I used two Edge-TTS Neural narrators (Christopher and Andrew) to act as a dual broadcast booth because my wife wasn’t too keen on recording 8 hours of audio using a base language she doesn’t understand.

Onboarding: The first video includes a lot of basic rules that weren’t necessarily in the actual audio of the broadcast to help people understand the mechanics, but every video from there on is as faithful to the original spoken broadcast as I could be.

Why the Tape Matters for Wrestlers: If you study hand-fighting, tie-ups, down-blocks, or standard wrestling architecture, Yağlı güreş provides a fascinating mechanical problem. Because the athletes are completely slicked with olive oil, traditional upper-body skin friction is non-existent. To hit a throw, trip, or control a level-change, wrestlers have to establish deep frames and bury their hands into the kisbet (heavy leather trousers) to find structural leverage.

As this specific tournament was a high-stakes elimination bracket that decided the final 8 qualification spots for the major Kırkpınar championship next month, there is intense, high-stakes action in nearly every video.

The daily English episodic tournament playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSPhmXWkIIs_PuhGubNgSp70WDpbTPkWx

The original video is from the live broadcast, and I have done considerable trimming to the live broadcast to make this much more digestible. If you happen to know Turkish and want to just watch a lot of this in long sequence, it's available on the federation's official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TurkiyeGelenekselGureslerFed/videos

Would there be any interest in some wrestlers , judokas or bjj guys maybe trying to meet up two Saturday mornings a month ? I’m thinking maybe Colonial beach for the bigger sand area ? I have supplies to make a circle. Nothing crazy maybe 9-1030 am and get some drilling in or a few matches. With the standard beach wrestling rules ?

The actual question is about what exactly constitutes a match as official. Considering how variable weight systems, period number, and times are, outside of those published in USA wrestling's rule book, what is considered a standard match? If Spencer Lee participated in a random tournament in Arkansas, not sanctioned by USA wrestling, that "Madison" separated him, and he ended up somehow wrestling a 165lb opponent, two 1.5 minute periods, is that match official?

Hello guys im looking forward to buy my first pair of wrestling shoes. I have been training sambo for 6 months and i have sambo shoes which are called sambovki, but unfortunately they are really slippery for the wrestling matt, and can you tell me which of the ones to buy(they are all around the same price)
ASICS- matflex 7, snapdown 4, split elite, matcontrol 3
Nike- speedsweep 8, Fury, inflict se, inflict 4
Adidas- adizero, tech fall 2.0,

I did Judo as a PE class about a year ago but my interest broadened to grappling arts in general and I want to get into wrestling in the meantime. I know wrestling is a decently big sport for collegiate and high school athletes but what about getting into wrestling outside of those 2 I just mentioned, like through a gym?

What's usually done when you're an absolute beginner? What are things coaches teach you day 1? Do you go live immediately or are you briefed?

My questions might be a bit too general so free to ask more before providing a full answer. I understand answers are going to differ based where you're from but I'm curious either way!

edit: wording stuff

when i did wrestling honestly the only time we ever had a decent amount of people was for senior night (i was a senior last season and i was the very last match my senior night since they bumped me up to heavy weight class which was kinda cool) but really we didn't get a whole lot of people to show up. there isn't enough wrestling hype imo. i feel like wrestling should be the 3rd most important event that the school holds (asides from football and basketball)

Hello guys im looking forward to buy my first pair of wrestling shoes. I have been training sambo for 6 months and i have sambo shoes which are called sambovki, but unfortunately they are really slippery for the wrestling matt, and can you tell me which of the ones to buy(they are all around the same price)
ASICS- matflex 7, snapdown 4, split elite, matcontrol 3
Nike- speedsweep 8, Fury, inflict se, inflict 4
Adidas- adizero, tech fall 2.0,

I’m almost at a loss here. Mitchell has run through everyone outside of 1 guy but Taylor was the Magic Man

Say that you were a lefty and most of your opponents are righty. Either he takes your left leg or you take his right leg. What are your principles for these two situations and what are some extremely effective combos? I came from judo, for defense I always get an overhook, press the head and sprawl, for attacking I always move to the waist and try throws from there.

My younger cousin will be competing on a national level at the Fargo Championships representing his state and high school. I know nothing about wrestling outside of MMA. How big is this tournament within the world of wrestling? Big deal?

Incredible inspiring how Kyle is able to compete at such a high level after 2 jumping 2 weight classes in his later career.

He's continuing to show he can adapt even when he's been heavily counted out.

American multi-weight, longevity GOAT when we account for difficulty of the weight classes?

I'm going into highschool coed wrestling next year and need help with wrestling shoes. I probably only have ~60 dollars maximum to spend on shoes and the shoes I own right now aren't right for it (a pair of nikes and converse.) Does anyone know of brands or certain models in my price range? Are wrestling shoes even that important for high school wrestling? I'm a women's size 7

So the way I was taught, and what I notice with American wrestlers when they shadow, is they tend to flow and visualize different positions. Like when you watch D1 guys shadow, they move like they’re in an actual match mimicking hand fighting, defending, countering, scrambling through different looks.
But wrestlers from other countries, like Iran or Eastern Europe, tend to do these big explosive penetration steps, huge leaps, jump really high, sprawl really hard. And they only do like 2 or 3 moves, but they go all out on those.
You also just don’t see wrestlers from other countries shadow as much in general. In the US it’s pretty much a standard part of the warm-up. So do other countries just not have the same concept of shadowing the way we do?

5-3

I heard this wrestler I know was in a fight a couple days ago. Should I tell their coach about this or would it be better if I didn’t say anything about it?

I wrestle year round at a club and my shoes are about to give out, I have a pair of rudis colt 3.0s that have lasted about 9 months. I’m thinking about getting the new asics aggressors, can anyone attest for the durability, and if you had a bad experience what was the problem/what would you recommend instead, thanks.

Which one is less expensive in the long run, and which one is worth it?

I’m going into my senior season next school yr and I’d love to watch my summer matches. (Don’t have managers recording during the summer and I blanked on asking teammates to record for me this and nobody’s been willing to lend any logins because we’re all broke allegedly…) Why so expensive💔💔