Buvaisar Saitiev, who many contemplate the best freestyle wrestler of all-time, has died on the age of 49.
His dying was first reported to Russian information company TASS by way of Mikhail Mamiashvili, the top of the Russian Wrestling Federation, on Sunday. In response to the preliminary report, Saitiev handed away in Moscow.
There are not any additional particulars right now about the reason for dying.
Acknowledged as some of the achieved wrestlers within the historical past of the game, Saitiev racked up quite a few championships throughout his legendary profession together with three Olympic gold medals whereas additionally serving as a six-time World Champion in freestyle wrestling.
A local of Dagestan, Saitiev left his house to coach in Siberia earlier than finally debuting on the world stage the place he was a right away power of nature. He captured his first Olympic gold medal in the course of the 1996 video games in Atlanta with a dominant run by way of the sector that included a victory over American wrestling legend Kenny Monday.
Whereas Saitiev didn’t face defeat usually throughout his profession, he really suffered an upset loss to American Brandon Slay in the course of the 2000 Olympic video games that eradicated him from the competitors. Slay went onto seize gold in his absence after his loss within the closing match was overturned as a consequence of his opponent testing optimistic for steroids.
Saitiev returned with a vengeance for the 2004 Olympics the place he outscored his competitors by a complete of 32-5 and blanked his closing two opponents with mixed rating of 15-0.
His closing Olympics got here in 2008 when Saitiev as soon as once more dominated the sector with one other beautiful show in the course of the event.
Throughout a 13-year span whereas competing within the Olympics and the World Championships of wrestling a complete of 11 instances, Saitiev solely suffered two losses whereas capturing 9 complete gold medals.
Following information of Saitiev’s passing, retired UFC light-weight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and present 155-pound champion Islam Makhachev each posted tributes to him on Instagram.
“You impressed hundreds of thousands of kids all over the world and we’ll miss you,” Nurmagomedov wrote (by way of Google translate). “I specific my honest condolences to [your] household and family members.”
“A legend is gone,” Makhachev wrote. “Condolences to all relations and mates, we’ll miss you.”
