The height, weight, and build of an athlete give them several advantages. The advantages of weight in contact sports especially carry a high value. However, while basketball, football, and soccer don’t have any weight barriers, this isn’t true for combat sports like wrestling.

USA’s 6x World Champion Jordan Burroughs recently re-entered the 74kg weight class after a long time. While he triumphed over everyone in the Kunaev International event in Kazakhstan, did going down a weight class help him wrestle better? 

Does shifting to lower weight classes help in wrestling?

Weight classes exist to protect the domination of lightweight fighters by heavier ones. While this establishes that high weight would mean tougher opponents, it may also lead one to believe that lower weight would mean easier competition in wrestling. Jordan Burroughs regimented himself to get down to 74 kgs, a stark contrast after consistently competing at 79 kgs.

Jordan Burroughs has an Olympic gold medal and six world titles to his name and is the most successful American wrestler. While he has won all his medals in the 74kg category, his 2021 and 2022 world wrestling titles have come in the 79kg category. As the 2024 Olympics are approaching, however, he has fallen back to his former weight class.

This is surprising because Burroughs was actively pushing for the 79kg weight class. Moreover, he also won the 2023 Pan American Championship in Buenos Aires as a 79kg grappler. Although he has aced the 74kg freestyle wrestling for almost a decade, is this the right move for him? Because the 35-year-old failed to make it to the Olympics last time. 

Burroughs’ national counterpart, Kyle Dake, finally overcame him and claimed his first victory against Burroughs. He will be going against Dake once again if he wants to compete as a 74kg wrestler in the Olympics. But while he is a returning wrestler, Dake has been acing the wrestling category for three years now. 

Since Burroughs didn’t compete in the world championship, things may be difficult for him once again. While Dake has also moved down from 79kg to 74kg, Burroughs’ change is more recent, and thus, not very favorable. Let us look at another example of suddenly changing one’s wrestling weight class.

The rare upward movement shown by Jacarra Winchester

So far, the picture that we have is that abruptly moving down the weight class may not always be beneficial. Quite strangely, America’s Jacarra Winchester has done something unconventional and has moved up several weight classes. Winchester recently secured the silver medal in the 2023 World Wrestling Championship as a 55kg grappler. 

However, she has now made an abrupt jump to the 62kg category. Interestingly, though, she triumphed in the new weight class and won the 2023 senior national championships. Speaking about it, Winchester said, “I just felt like I didn’t want to wrestle the same people. Because I feel like for the past four years I’ve been wrestling the same people. So it’s good to know that you can wrestle different types of styles.”

She also added, “I normally just try to um go different weight classes. I want to know that I can wrestle anybody at any weight. And it doesn’t matter how big or how small it is, as long as you know how to wrestle.” This, in my opinion, is a better approach shown by the 31-year-old wrestling champ.

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Going down a weight class may or may not increase your chances of winning. But, going up a weight class to train or condition yourself can be great to improve oneself. Moreover, abruptly losing weight often involves pushing oneself to the extremes. This can result in injuries while training, or on the mat. While both Burroughs and Winchester won their recent contests, the upcoming Olympic trials will be the ultimate litmus test for them. 

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