Meatball Monday

Wrestling is a form of combat sport that involves what is called “grappling”, where we see take-downs, throws, pins and other forms of grappling holds, but let’s look at another style of wrestling for our weekly feature of Meatball Monday!!

Oil wrestling is commonly called grease wrestling and is the Turkish National Sport in that Country.

It is so called because all of the wrestlers that compete douse of cover themselves with olive oil.

It is often called “güreş” which is shared with other forms of wrestling practiced by Turkic-speakers across Europe and Central Asia.

This is in such areas as the Uzbek kurash, Tuvan khuresh and Tatar köräs.

The wrestlers are known as pehlivan and wear a type of hand-stitched lederhosen called a kisbet which is made of water buffalo hide, and most recently calfskin.

Unlike Olympic wrestling, oil wrestling matches may be won by achieving an effective hold of the kisbet.

Thus, the pehlivan aims to control his opponent by putting his arm through the latter’s kisbet.

To win by this move is called paça kazık. Originally, matches had no set duration and could go on for one or two days until one man was able to win.

If there is no winner, play continues for another 15 minutes—10 minutes for the pehlivan category, wherein scores are kept to determine the victor.

The annual Kırkpınar tournament dates back to 1362 in Turkish Thrace, and is the oldest continuously running, sanctioned sporting competition in the world.

Hard to believe – but it’s Sport!!