Stutzman and Team USA compete with wrestling’s best

Every year, the United World Wrestling International Cup competition draws top wrestlers from around the world to Khasavjurt, Dagestan, a region renowned for producing many of the sport’s most accomplished athletes.

UB wrestling coach John Stutzman, coaching Team USA in the tournament together with Eric Guerrero, Oklahoma State University’s assistant wrestling coach, brought the U.S. athletes in among the top finalists.

“This competition is international, Olympic-level,” says Stutzman. “We placed a finalist, a second, a third and a fifth in one of the toughest wrestling tournaments in the world.

“We had a team of seven of the nation’s top wrestlers. The guys all graduated from different colleges and universities throughout the U.S. — including a three-time NCAA champion.”

This year’s UWW International Cup ran from Oct. 14-16.

“This tournament, basically, is a competition honoring the greats of the sport: over 200 years of wrestling,” Stutzman says.

It was Stutzman’s first trip to Dagestan, a Russian republic adjacent to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus region.

But it was not his first time travelling across the globe to coach wrestling.

“I have never been to this tournament before,” he says. “I’ve been close to it, coaching in another tournament in Chechnya, which is about 20 minutes away from Khasavyurt. Wrestling is their professional league. All the best people wrestle in these events.

“I’ve been to Yakutia for a wrestling tournament. It’s another republic inside of Russia — about nine miles from the Arctic Circle, I think. In Siberia.

“I have also coached competitions in Armenia, Romania and Poland — twice. Wrestling is one of the most popular sports in the world. And it has taken me around the world.”

Stutzman points to wrestling’s history, going back millennia.

“There are historical and archaeological traces of wrestling in ancient Egypt and probably even earlier than that. It was the first sport of the ancient Olympic Games.”

Stutzman explains that Russia’s Caucasus region has been known for producing top wrestlers for 200 years.

“It’s largely in their culture: They value judo, wrestling, mixed martial arts. It is how they view those types of sports, the individual sports versus the team sports.

“The club where we trained in Khasavjurt is one of the top wrestling clubs in the world. Some of the greatest wrestlers in the history of our sport have trained in that area. I’m talking about Central Asia, Dagestan — all those former Soviet republics.”

Stutzman says the UWW holds wrestling tournaments and competitions every year all over the world.

Most of the trips he has taken have been uneventful, he adds. “On this one, though, they lost my luggage.

“Flights were delayed, which caused missed connections. When we landed in Moscow, the team took a bus to get to the next airport, which was two hours away. I stayed behind, but my luggage didn’t arrive.

“I had a hundred dollar bill and my phone didn’t work. So I found a cab, showed the driver a picture of the other airport and two hours later he gets me there.

“I meet up with the team at the other airport and we fly out at midnight. We get to Makhachkala, in Dagestan, about two in the morning. Then it’s another 90-minute drive to Khasavyurt where the tournament is.

“So we left the U.S. Sunday, Oct. 9th, and got there Tuesday morning. But we still had the rest of the week to get acclimated, train and get to know our hosts and the other wrestlers and coaches. It was a great week.”

Stutzman has been affiliated with USA Wrestling since 2004, and started travelling and coaching international tours in 2009. He has had opportunities to coach at world championships, junior world championships and Olympic team qualifiers.

“It all got started with my brother-in-law in college. He wrestled for me while I was coaching at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. We trained him up and he qualified for the Olympic trials. It just started building on that.”

Stutzman calls coaching in international competitions a great opportunity to continue to learn and be around some of the best wrestlers and coaches in the world.

Are there benefits to UB?

“I think so. I hope so. I think it’s going to benefit recruiting,” he says. “I hope it brings some positive publicity to the wrestling community here — the local community and, hopefully, the UB community.

“Last year, we had a guy, Nathan Rose, one of our student-athletes here, who wrestled in the Pan American Games and World Championships.”

The trip to this tournament, Stutzman says, allowed him to spend time training and learning from some of the best wrestlers in the world. “It is a chance to bring back renewed knowledge of how competitive they are, how much the sport means to them.

“There are also little things,” he says.

“Techniques, style, how they warm up. The athletes’ attitudes toward coaches. These are all things you just notice because we do things so much differently here.

“We are more structured in our delivery,” he notes. “They are also structured, but not in the same way. It’s a different style, so you can learn from that and bring knowledge back from the tournaments.”

A 1998 UB graduate, Stutzman was 95-27 in a three-year career for the Bulls, leaving as the university’s all-time leader in career wins. In 1996-97 he posted a won-lost record of 35-4, his best, and the fourth best single-season winning percentage in the history of UB’s wrestling program.

Following eight seasons developing Bloomsburg into a national power, Stutzman was named the 15th coach in the 82-year history of UB wrestling prior to the 2013-14 season.

In 2015-16, he led the Bulls to a 10-9 record in dual meets — the most wins for UB wrestlers since the 2003-04 season and one more victory than the previous three seasons combined. The Bulls also had three wrestlers qualify for the NCAAs, the most since the 2011 season.

Stutzman plans to continue participating in international wrestling competitions. In addition to bringing back knowledge to UB’s program, he believes “anything you do that’s positive is good for our sport and good for UB, I think.”

Stutzman notes that before he left for Dagestan, there were some raised eyebrows.

“People think those countries, those places, are hostile — especially to Americans,” he says. “And there are conflicts going on not too far from them, in Iraq and Syria, so initially, some of those type of thoughts come up in your mind.

“But I will tell you this: I think that’s false. I think, you know, like anyplace in the world, if you go to the right place, surround yourself with the right people, good things happen.

“If you put yourself in a bad situation, bad things happen. You have to know who your friends are, who you can trust.

“And that’s the beauty about wrestling.”