The Cliff Keen Wrestling Club’s Jimmy Kennedy will participate in his third — and certainly most elaborate — overseas tour this month, touching down in nine different countries with extended stays in Azerbaijan, Iran and Belarus. He will represent the United States at the prestigious Freestyle World Cup at 60kg/132 pounds, before meeting up with several other U.S. wrestlers for the Medved International. Jimmy will periodically share his progress, results, experiences and photos from the road.
TUESDAY, MARCH 5 | Back in the USA
So, I just got done shoveling the sidewalk in an attempt at making a long path with no exit. That way, I could watch my dog run up and down confusedly, searching for a way out. Not sure why that seems funny to me, but it does. Before I went on this trip, I never imagined that upon my return I would be facing one of the biggest blizzards of the winter. I had hoped to bypass the snow altogether. Either way, it feels good to be back.
My apologies for not writing much while overseas, but Wi-Fi was hard to come by, and I couldn’t ever get myself in the mood to blog anything. Looking back on it now, I am so fortunate to be able to travel to these places. I was a bit nervous going to Iran, but that feeling quickly changed upon arrival. The hotel we stayed at was extremely nice from the buffet of food offered at every meal to the spa area that featured both a wet/dry sauna, a cold/hot tub, pool, workout area and so much more. It definitely made making weight a little more enjoyable, although that’s pretty hard to do.
The Iranian people treated us like celebrities, chasing us from the arena to the bus every time we left. They were mostly interested in Jordan, but they never passed up a chance to just touch our shoulders or shake our hands. One guy, after my match, tried giving me a kiss on the cheek, which I politely declined. During the meet, it was crazy how loud they cheered. Some would bang on drums and others would blow horns all amongst orchestrated chants and cheers that could definitely weaken someone’s knees before a match. I originally thought they were all drunk, because during a four-hour break in which zero teams were competing, they screamed and cheered the entire time. We could hear their stomping from our locker room underground. I thought maybe they served beer or something there, but I was told Iran is a dry country. It was so much fun wrestling in front of that kind of crowd and atmosphere.
Afterwards on the podium, the Iranian president came by and shook all our hands. That was a cool experience for me since he probably doesn’t shake hands with too many Americans these days.
Belarus was by far the longest of the legs of the trip. In order to get on the internet you needed to buy Wi-Fi cards that would give you 60 minutes apiece. It wouldn’t have been that bad except that the first several days these cards were hard to come by. When we did find them, we would buy the house.
I wrestled great during the Medved tournament, giving up just one takedown and registering pins in both the quarters and semis. I dominated in the finals match, controlling just about every position and action, but unfortunately lost the first and third periods in clinch positions, 0-1, 7-0, 0-1. It was a bad way to lose, but I was very happy with how I wrestled throughout the tournament. I am learning a great deal with each tournament and trip, so I am very excited for the direction that this year is headed.
Thank you for the continued support and taking the time to read my blogs. I’ll do a better job with updates on my next trip.
Jimmy
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17 | A Busy Morning
Past few hours have been stressful and it’s only 8:30 in the morning. A lot has happened, but I’ll start from the beginning. Yesterday we went to an Azerbaijani spa. There we sat in the sauna then whenever we wanted, we could go back and get a massage afterwards. It was a little different than any masseuse I’d ever been to. Before you could get your massage, you’d lie on the table in the front room where we were scrubbed and rinsed from head to toe. They started with a rough almost sandpaper-like scrub and then finished with the soap scrub. I’m sure it’s all for hygienic purposes and probably considered an amenity around here, but it was a little strange since they were fully-grown men washing you down. Afterward you’d go to the next room where there were tables lined up for the massages. The massage felt great except when she tried cracking my toes. I, for one, am not a fan of that, and it felt like she was trying to break the poor little guys clean off. We finished with another sauna sit and returned back to the hotel.
Last night we went out to dinner at the Four Seasons compliments of our team leader Ken Honing. I think it was one of the most lavish dinners I’ve ever eaten. It was on the top floor, so naturally the view was incredible. Out of one of the windows I could see a skyscraper that had a huge rotating light show of someone waving the Azerbaijan flag. The building twisted upwards towards the sky, and the top 50 floors or so displayed the flag waving. As soon as we sat down they started bringing us endless orders of seafood, from calamari to crab to my not-so-favorite clams. Zach Sanders kept pushing the clams on me because he, unfortunately, experienced his first clam there. But I knew better as I’ve tried them before. We weren’t even given menus, just told to order whatever we wanted and they would accommodate us. Most everyone ordered some form of steak that melted to the knife. I tried to not eat a lot because of my weight, but then again how often are you given chances like this?
I started falling asleep on the ride back to our hotel since I’d been up some 14 hours or so. My brother and cousins were wrestling in the Illinois state tournament, so I was trying to keep up-to-date on that. That night I slept well except I’d wake up every two hours to check results. Finally, around 6 a.m., I saw Cam was up in a few matches so I decided to just stay up.
I made the bonehead move of watching the little stick figures on Trackwrestling during that match, never noticing there was actually a live stream. The match was tight and my heart was pounding the entire time. He was taken down in the last 20 seconds or so and the little stick figures showed him down 2-1 with five seconds left in the match. I immediately closed the browser when I received a message from my girlfriend that he won. Apparently he scored a reversal in the closing seconds to win. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life. From complete disappointment to utter jubilation — talk about a 180. Can’t trust them Trackwrestling stick figures I guess. I later tuned in for my cousin’s match on the live stream and was even a few minutes late to our morning walk watching him pull off another late comeback win, scoring a takedown to secure the victory with short time left. I’m so happy for those two and my younger cousin on placing for his second straight year. I’m still all jacked up right now. I wish I could have been there, but now it’s up to me to do some work out here. I swear I get more nervous for their matches than I do my own. I’m sure any other parent or sibling can attest for that. It’s been quite a morning so far and I hadn’t even had breakfast.
What a great way to start my day. Stay sweet.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15 | Settling Into Azerbaijan
Since the last blog I wrote was way back in Russia, I guess it’s fitting that I start again here in Azerbaijan. We’ve been here for a few days now, so I’m still adjusting to the time change. I’ve been waking up at 5:30 every morning, but it’s not so bad because I’m able to catch up on what’s going on back at home. I was shocked and extremely disappointed when I heard about the IOC’s decision to drop wrestling in 2020, but on the other hand, it’s been amazing to see how much support and action has come about as a result of this. Every time I’m on Twitter or Facebook, I see one post after another calling for wrestling to be brought back. It will definitely be interesting to see how the IOC responds to this intense storm of media. With as much attention and publicity that’s come about, I find it hard to believe anyone could stay firm on that decision.
Let me backtrack a bit now… Wednesday was a lighter day as most of the team arrived earlier that morning. A few guys, myself included, played some soccer just to warm the body up and get a sweat going. We went to the wrestling facility, which was the biggest wrestling room I’ve ever been in. I think they had some 14 mats down. It looked almost like a huge tent on the outside, but the inside was much nicer. They have their own side room with a few basketball hoops and soccer nets. There, before our soccer game, we watched the Azerbaijanis play. They were real good. Us? Not so much. Luckily we didn’t have to play them. We looked more like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off running around chasing a ball, especially when it went behind the goal. My team included Askren, Pami, Rey and our trainer Bruce, while the other team had Burroughs, Obe, Keddy, Hrovat and our chiropractor Fred. We started off down early but rallied back to win a nail biter 10-9 — or 10-8, I can’t remember. Either way, it was a fun way to get a light workout in and get some of that travel out of our system.
The next day was a match day. We wrestled two matches in the morning and another one at night. I wrestled their top guys at my weight in the morning session, and then I’m not sure who exactly I wrestled in the afternoon. I wrestled well but still felt a little sluggish from the time change and travelling. That and we were only given a 20-minute warm-up to stretch and try and get some shots in. I think I took three shots before they called my name to the mat. There were a ton of Azerbaijanis at this workout, but it seemed like only we Americans were actually wrestling in the matches. I think their coach wanted to just rotate guys in on us, because he got a little mad after we only did two in the morning even though most of their guys did less than us. The afternoon session was very similar except we just did one match and then went on our own afterwards.
It’s amazing how much building they are doing out here. Apparently their economy is on the rise, because they just built an oil pipeline here. Andy was saying that in 2006 their currency was worth like half of ours and now it’s worth more. It seems like one every block there’s another 15-story building going up. The weird thing is you never see anyone in these buildings. It’s a head-scratcher. The hotel is really nice. It looks like a hotel room back in America except for the water hose that’s next to the toilet. You can guess what that’s for. Anyway, it’s still early in the trip and we haven’t been able to really get out much, so I’ll keep you informed if we do.
Before I go, I just want to say good luck to my brother, Cameron, and cousins, Garrett and Grant, who are competing at the Illinois state tournament this weekend. Bring back some hardware boys.
Jimmy