The Glucosamine Chronicles: Greco Roman Wrestling in Singapore before 2022's Southeast Asian Games

Timothy Loh Yu wrestles Greco-Roman in the 130 kg category and is as unmovable as Gunung Belumut. I volunteered to be his practice partner with sincere intentions, but as a former folkstyle wrestler, I knew next to nothing about the rules.

November 2022, the first time I tried Greco-Roman wrestling

Two days after wrestling Loh--who was using, at best, 40% effort--the insides of my feet still hurt. It's not just strange places on my body protesting the workout--my face, chest, back, and elbows are equally unhappy. Though freestyle and folkstyle are similar, Greco-Roman differs so much, it could be considered a separate sport. Other than an attempted duck-under, I quickly realized I had no techniques to counter Loh. I'd lock my arms around his back, but lacking an exit strategy or capable offense, as soon as I broke my grip, I'd end up under him. In 30 minutes of wrestling, I came close to scoring once and purely by chance: after slithering out of Loh's grip, I took him down with me, at which point he got right back up. Though a wrestling fan for over 20 years and a four-year folkstyle wrestler, I needed to personally try Greco-Roman to understand why it appears slower--and therefore less popular--than its counterparts. (Short version: risk aversion while standing is wise when likelier points are available in the par terre position.) 

Regardless of wrestling format, scoring and strategy have always been contentious in higher weight classes. Make a mistake in freestyle or folkstyle as a lightweight, and you might lose two points, but the same mistake in Greco-Roman at any weight will cost five points. Even worse, as weights increase, scoring becomes harder, so many coaches promote "tactical stalling." Sadly for spectators, stalling is almost impossible to call in Greco-Roman, so once someone scores, he's apt to defend rather than risk his lead. (I say "he" because female wrestlers currently participate in folkstyle and freestyle, but not Greco-Roman.) The logical decision to turn defensive after scoring makes Greco-Roman appear slow to everyone but the participants on the mat. Despite optics favoring freestyle's more frenetic movements, Greco-Roman is the more exhausting style to defend. If my opinion seems counter-intuitive to casual observers of freestyle and Greco-Roman, therein lies Greco's Achilles' heel: counter-intuitive truths require personal experience to believe, and very few people know a Greco-Roman wrestler. As far as I'm concerned, the more steady pace of Greco-Roman is a fundamental part of the sport, one that isn't going away no matter how many rules are tweaked. That doesn't mean the sport isn't exciting--it means like chess, participation and familiarity with the rules are necessary to appreciate the game. 

Since few people will ever wrestle someone of Loh's caliber, Greco-Roman wrestlers will continue to get little respect. All heavyweight wrestlers and their families can tell you stories of audience members exiting the gym before the final match, assuming another low scoring and thus forgettable event. Some competitions moved heavyweight bouts from the end to the middle of tournaments to drum up interest, but schedule management isn't the right answer. You want Greco to get its due? Set up a mat on Orchard Road, put Loh on it, and dare anyone to score using Greco rules. Charge two dollars per minute, and give the money to Bedok's council so it can renovate its dilapidated wrestling gym. A public challenge might seem too ostentatious for Singapore's elites, but that's because they don't realize Greco-Roman wrestlers' sturdiness and prudence are more representative of Singapore's spirit than swimming or badminton. 

Local historians know LKY wasn't initially a fan of trans-national sports, but he came around eventually. Maybe one day we will, too, and be astonished at our forebears' ignorance of Greco-Roman wrestlers while trekking Bukit Loh in Singapore. For now, all we can do is wish Mr. Loh well as he seeks his first gold medal next month at the SE Asia Wrestling Championships. If you see us there and want to tell us apart, I'll be the one singing Majulah Singapura Wrestling, and he'll be the one wearing a medal. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (Thanksgiving Day 2022) 

ISSN 2770-002X 

Dedicated to Hamid Sourian, who inspired many Iranians and Iranian expats decades before Hassan Yazdanicharati became a household name. 

"Sports and politics are closely inter-related. The very basis of our survival is politics, and sports is one of the ways in which you inculcate that physical discipline and stamina which alone can give you high performance... It is not your technological skill alone that puts your men in space. It is the quality of your people, a question of whether you have got the men with the calibre to rise to the occasion, to new challenges -- weightlessness in space, whizzing round the world without losing your nerve and manipulating scientific instruments. All these are great challenges to the human race, to the human spirit." -- LKY, February 5, 1966 

"With a population of just over two million, let us not waste time going especially out of our way to produce gold medallists, whether for Olympic, Asian or Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games. There are no national benefits from gold medallists for smaller countries. For the superpowers, with large populations, superiority in sports is national propaganda to persuade other people of the superiority of their competing political systems. But it is foolish and wasteful for the smaller countries to do this." -- LKY, 1973, indicating a preference for community sports over Olympic sports, including with respect to funding priorities  

Update: Loh had very tough opening matches and did not medal at 2022's SE Asian Championships. Both his opponents earned medals.