Rahman Amouzad & The Iranian Underhook
Rahman Amouzad & The Iranian Underhook
I take an in depth look at the strengths and weaknesses of Iran's underhook process, through the unorthodox handfighting and relentless pressure of Rahman Amouzad.
Rahman Amouzad Khalili looks poised to take over the role of Iran’s biggest Freestyle Wrestling star over the next decade now that their ace, Hassan Yazdani Charati, is nearing his 30’s.
At only 22 years of age, Amouzad is already a world champion and recently won Olympic silver in Paris. He put up one of the most impressive showings of the Olympics en-route to the 65kg finals, dominating Zain Retherford, Islam Dudaev, and Ismail Musukaev without giving up a single point, before losing his final match in similarly dominant fashion against Japan’s Kotaro Kiyooka.
Like most Iranian standouts, Amouzad is an underhook specialist, using his heavy right underhook to apply pressure and pace. The way he uses the underhook is fairly orthodox for an Iranian wrestler, but unique flavor can be found in his unorthodox handfighting and the ways he gets to the underhook.
Underhook Basics
The main benefit of an underhook is that it provides leverage for the offensive wrestler to get underneath their opponent and drive them backwards. The underhooking shoulder locks into the armpit, holding the defender in place and blocking them from circling in that direction. It’s a great way for powerful wrestlers to leverage their physicality, but success with the underhook is no less dependent on technique and positioning than a low single.
The underhook’s value as a pushing tool is clear in Freestyle, where a point is awarded for wrestling the opponent off the mat. Step out points make underhooks one of the lowest risk scoring maneuvers in wrestling. Most attacks on the legs or upper body carry risk of ending up in a bad position if they fail, but underhooks require very little commitment compared to their reliability in scoring step outs. And these low risk scores have a compounding effect, forcing the opponent to take risks and open themselves up to counters as they accumulate.
In Amouzad’s matches, it’s not uncommon to see him rack up two or three points from low risk push outs before a single committed shot has been attempted on either side.
Amouzad will use the underhook to apply methodical pressure, herding his man toward the edge of the mat and cutting off their escape with his feet as they try to circle out. If he finds a moment during the upper body battle where they’re off balance, however, he’ll run them out of bounds more furiously, running his feet and driving them off the mat in short, choppy steps to generate power.
The underhook’s strength as a pushing and driving tool also makes it a naturally useful pulling weapon. When using the underhook to pressure a wrestler near the edge of the mat, they need to push back in hard to avoid being forced out. This push reaction can then be exploited, using their momentum against them to drop back and let them fall onto an upper body throw or leg attack.
If you watch an American underhook instructional, they typically demonstrate it with the attacker’s head on the same side as their underhooking hand and a sharp perpendicular angle. But when you watch elite international wrestlers who score primarily off underhooks, you rarely see that positioning from them. Instead, they favor a more offensive style of underhook with the head on the opposite side. Iranians in particular have become associated with the opposite side head positioning, with many of their standouts scoring most of their high percentage attacks from there.
Figure 1 shows the difference between the American same side head position and the Iranian opposite side head position.
The Iranian style has a number of advantages. It opens up attacks to the far leg, allowing the attacker to drive across their opponent’s body without being blocked by their own head, setting up knee taps or ankle picks. The more square alignment also makes it easier to pressure forward while moving laterally to cut off the defender’s escape routes, which makes it stronger for generating push reactions to exploit. I also find it easier to maintain than the American style, as the underhooking shoulder and opposite side head sort of lock the defender’s head and shoulder in place, where if the head is not on the far shoulder, limp-arming out becomes much easier.
Keeping the head on the same side as the underhooking hand provides a more secure defensive position, as the head blocks the opponent’s level change. With the head on the opposite side of the underhook, opponents can duck under the underhooking elbow if the spacing and pressure isn’t tight.
You’ll see Amouzad adjust his stance and pressure based on where his opponent’s posture is. If they’re upright, he can power through the underhook and drive freely underneath them. This is best done right after the initial entry, where the defender hasn’t yet settled into the position. But a savvy opponent will quickly look to get low and put weight on the underhook so they can pressure back and avoid being straightened up.
When wrestling on the underhook against a low stance, Amouzad eases up on driving with his underhooking arm and instead pressures more with his head. He’ll post his head on the opposite shoulder and use his head to drive forward. If he were putting all of that force behind his underhook and driving up with it, the defender could exploit his momentum and duck under the elbow as his underhook drives up. In the above clip you can see Tumur Ochir try to duck under the underhooking elbow, but since Amouzad is pressuring with his head rather than driving fully behind the underhook, he only falls forward very slightly and is able to recover his hips in time to stop the shot.
A final principle that you’ll see Iranian wrestlers employ again and again is the importance of forcing uneven upper body exchanges. The main goal is to secure a deep underhook while denying their opponent strong upper body ties to maximize leverage and offensive options. When Amouzad enters his underhook, his hand on the opposite side immediately looks to control the opponent’s elbow, with his own elbow and forearm blocking inside to prevent them from taking their own underhook. He’ll often even seize the far elbow before securing his underhook to make sure he’s the only one with an underhook as they come together.
But the battle for tilting exchanges in their favor doesn’t end if their opponent does achieve their own underhook. In over/under situations, the Iranians are great at improving their own underhook while neutralizing the opponent’s.
The positioning battle in over/under largely revolves around elbow and shoulder position - a high shoulder and outwards-facing elbow allows you put your whole body weight behind the underhook, while a low shoulder and an elbow facing the mat means you’re carrying the opponent’s weight mostly with the small muscles of your arm, shoulder, and lat. When Amouzad finds himself in over/under situations, he’s always working to deepen his own underhook while maneuvering his body weight over the opponent’s and peeling down with his elbow and forearm, forcing their underhook lower on their forearm where it’s weak, and tilting their elbow downwards.
Entries
Any reliable system must start with a sound handfighting process, as the hands are the first layer of defense. Dominating tie-ups requires first getting around the hands, and anyone wrestling an Iranian is going to be on the lookout for their underhook. So not only do they need reliable routes to the underhook, but they also need a variety of tactics that account for and deal with their opponent’s likely counters.
One of the simplest and most common entries to an underhook is to punch the arm inside an opponent’s collar tie. Amouzad has quite a few unorthodox entries, but he still makes extensive use of this basic one:
With his opponent on a left collar tie, Amouzad touches the elbow or shoulder to feint a move to the outside, then whips his shoulder inside their collar tie like he’s throwing a shovel hook or pitching sidearm. As he does that, he drives off his right leg and rotates his right hip inwards, allowing his shoulder to rotate enough to slip inside the elbow. He throws his head upwards to clear his opponent’s head and brings it to the opposite side, stepping in deep with his left leg to square up and establish control of both sides of their body.
Amouzad’s unique and unorthodox handfighting makes his underhook entries difficult to stop. He has a lanky figure and uses his unusual reach for his weight well to disguise his intentions. He approaches with his arms wide, palms turned up toward his opponent and arms waving up and down like a magician trying to distract his audience from the trick.
Often he’ll use rapid arm movement to confuse his opponent, similar to the concept of “milling” in boxing, in which the hands are rotated rapidly to disguise straight punches.