It happened in Baku, Azerbaijan on September 19th, 2007. It was held in Anatoly Petrosyan's birth place, a city that he had not been back to since he was chased out 16 years ago. This is the city where he and his family were almost killed. How fitting for him to be able to go back, after all these years and be a part of the USA team winning the World Championships in Greco-Roman Wrestling for the first time in our illustrious history. Anatoly, our Olympic Training Center Resident Coach for the past 13 ½ years, calls it "fate."

Our delegation of 22 people arrived in Baku eleven days before we started the competition. Our team, consisting of our seven world team members, training partners, coaches, medical staff and a team leader, were all happy to finally touch down. Many hours of grueling travel in crowded aircraft is the norm for this veteran Greco-Roman squad. This is just part of the life of a wrestler and wrestling team trying to be the best in the world.

Baku, Azerbaijan, although a very nice place overall, was very hot, humid and congested. The city is swarming with people and very jam-packed with traffic. An oil rich nation that sits on the Caspian Sea, Baku is in the midst of rebuilding their infrastructure. Everywhere you look, no matter where you were in the city, you could see numerous buildings being re-constructed.

This group of guys making up our world team was a remarkable assemblage of dedicated wrestlers. They are world championship veterans except for one rookie. It was a team of leaders who all believed in our mission. The mission of course…"to win the world team title". 

Months earlier, when we lost our world champion, Joe Warren, this team did not waiver in its quest to be the best on the planet. They pulled together as a unit and stayed focused on the task at hand. 

Then in Baku we experienced many uncomfortable hardships. This team of champions never took their eye off of their preparation. With late buses & transportation problems, missing luggage for most the entire trip, muddy water flowing from our hotel faucets, to no water flowing at all, there were many obstacles that could have upset our guys and threw us into a negative spiral. But not this team! They stayed strong and focused!

The first day of competition had our three lightest weights competing. Lindsey Durlacher (55kg) started us off with a couple of big wins against some very tough opponents. Then he lost to the Iranian wrestler who was defending world champion. Now Lindsey was faced with coming through the repechage were he beat Denmark and Romania to get into the bronze medal match. He lost to the Serbian wrestler to end up with 5th place.

Joe Betterman (60kg), who was the rookie on our team, wrestled very aggressively and fiercely against a tough Norwegian but lost. The Norwegian wrestler did not make the finals which put Joe out of the tournament.

Harry Lester (66kg) wrestled like a true warrior crushing Finland, Turkey, Cuba and Romania before losing to the Azerbaijani in the semis. The Azerbaijan wrestler having the home crowd advantage seemed to win all of the close calls. Harry then finished very strong by smashing the Hungarian wrestler to win his second bronze medal of his career. The guy is one of the most competitive, talented and tough wrestlers I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Ivan Ivanov, who is our USOEC head coach, deserves great credit for the wonderful success this young champion has had.

After day one our U.S squad was in second place behind Korea. 

Then in day two we had our next three weight classes compete. The day started with TC Dantzler (76kg) upsetting the defending world champion from the Ukraine in the first round. TC wrestled superbly! This veteran (TC) is one of the most talented reverse lifters in the entire world. He then wrestled France who was fairly new to the world scene but extremely strong. TC lost a very close bout and the French kid ended up winning the bronze medal. 

At 84 kilos, Brad Vering, who had yet to win a World or Olympic medal, put together a series of explosive and relentless displays of grappling. Brad destroyed tough guy after tough guy showing an unyielding and intense style of wrestling. He was definitely on a mission to obliterate any person in his path to the finals. He whipped five world class opponents including the Iranian and the Korean, both former world medalists. In the finals for the gold medal he met Aleksey Mishin from Russia. This multiple World and Olympic champion was the favorite. Brad wrestled a great match but lost a close bout to settle with the silver medal.

Justin Ruiz (96kg), who won a bronze medal for our country two years ago, won his first match before losing to the eventual world champion and Olympic silver medalist from the Republic of Georgia (Nozadze). He then lost to the Czech wrestler who ended up with the bronze.

After day two was complete, the U.S. Team had dropped to 4th place in the team race. Georgia was in first place, and then came Iran and Korea. Russia was close behind us. 

Now day three was here. The only matches left to contend were the 120 kilo matches. Dremiel Byers, who was a world champion for us in 2002, was set to wrestle. All of our hopes rested on the huge shoulders of this great heavyweight. Dremiel began the morning wrestling Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Dremiel, who is one of the most athletic and talented heavyweights in the world, had a somewhat close match with the Bulgarian but little trouble beating the other two countries. 

The team title race was starting to shape up in the final stretch of the tournament. The Georgia, Iran, and Korea 120 kilo wrestlers had all been knocked off. This meant they would not be able to score any more team points for their countries. However, Russia's Olympic and world champion, Khasan Baroev was now paired up with Dremiel. This was the semi final. If Dremiel beat Baroev, we (the team) win the World Championships, hands down!  

Unfortunately, Baroev on this day is too much for Dremiel and the Russians were still alive for the team title. The new scenario is - the team title is between Russia and the USA. We can do no worse than second place. 

For us to win first place, Dremiel now has to win the bronze medal against the French wrestler and Baroev has to lose to the Cuban in the finals. To note… in last years World Championships 120 kilo final, Baroev beat the Cuban, Mijail Lopez 6-0, 6-0.

So the stage was set! The team score going into the 120 kilo finals for gold, silver and bronze was Russia 30 points, USA 29 points and Georgia 28 points. If Dremiel wins bronze the U.S. picks up 2 team points. This of course would give us 31 points. If Russia beats Cuba to win gold, they can only pick up one point. This would give them 31 points as well. However, they would win the team title (tie breaker criteria) because of their gold medal victory.

Dremiel Byers wrestles first against the French kid. He loses the first period but storms back strong to win the second and third period of the bout, thus capturing his second world medal of his career. He wins the bronze!

The last match of the Greco Tournament was Russia and Cuba. Pacing back and forth on the arena floor were all of the U.S. coaches and staff. Lopez, the Cuban, is very strong. But Baroev beat him soundly last year in the same final. No one knew what was going to happen. It was very intense to say the least. Could the U.S. Team actually do the unthinkable and win the World Championships? Our dream would be determined, yes or no, in just 4- 6 short minutes.

Good news… Lopez looks determined to win, and does just that in the first period. Then in the second period no one scores on their feet. So it goes to the clinch. Lopez wins the toss and has the advantage. The Cuban can not score on the Russian. So now it all comes down to whether or not the Russian can turn the Cuban. Thirty seconds to go…20, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1…the buzzer sounds!! Baroev cannot turn Lopez and the USA Greco squad, for the first time in history, wins the World Championships!!

U.S. coaches, athletes and staff were all hugging and jumping for joy right down on mat side. Many people in the arena did not understand why we were so happy for the Cubans. A guy asked me "why are the Americans so happy for the Cuban." I said to him "We won! This means we won the World Title!" Of course I refused to believe it until they actually directed me to the top step of the podium. Even standing in line with both Russia's head coach and Georgia's head coach to march out to the awards stand I refused to believe it. I thought maybe we took second. I looked at the Russian and saw that he was not smiling, but still I refused to believe until it was official.

What a great day for our wrestlers who had to actually DO IT; for our coaches who have shed blood, sweat and tears over many years, and for the rest of the Greco family who have all kept the faith throughout all the trials and tribulations.

We can finally say "We are World Champions!"

As always, expect to win!