Perhaps nobody has more combined knowledge of Aaron Brooks and Hassan Yazdani than Penn State wrestling legend David Taylor.
Taylor worked with Brooks— who followed in “The Magic Man’s” footsteps as an all-time PSU great— while the latter was competing at PSU and the former was working on a decorated freestyle career as a part of Nittany Lion Wrestling Club.
Brooks ended up being Taylor’s last opponent.
In a stunning upset, Brooks beat Taylor in twice straight in a best-of-three series this April to become America’s Olympic representative at 86 KG. Less than a month later, Taylor retired from competition and, in college wrestling’s biggest story of the offseason became the head coach at Oklahoma State.
In doing so, Taylor put a bow on a freestyle career headlined by three world championships, four world medals and, of course, Olympic Gold at the 2020 Tokoyo Games.
The man Taylor beat to win that Gold Medal is the man he’s perhaps most closely associated with in the freestyle wrestling world: Iran’s Hassan Yazdani.
Taylor performed quite well against Yazdani, winning five of six matches.
That’s a huge accomplishment because Yazdani is right up there among the best in the world. The 29-year-old is a three-time world champ, seven-time world medalist and, yes, an Olympic Gold Medalist, winning at 74 KG in Rio eight years ago as a 21-year-old.
Brooks turned 24 last month and is thought by many– including Taylor– to be Yazdani’s biggest hurdle to a second Gold Medal.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.For Taylor, starting fast will be key for AB.
“I think for Aaron, he’s just going to have to be ready early,” Taylor told NSN in an exclusive interview earlier this month. “Yazdani… he wrestlers really hard. He wrestlers really hard the whole time, especially early, he comes in pretty hot.
Taylor also doesn’t see the fellow Penn State wrestling great winning a low-scoring match.
“So, I think, he has to be ready early, and he’s going to have to score multiple times, he said. “Aaron has those abilities for sure. Those two guys I think are the best two guys in the weight class.”
Taylor then pointed out that, because of how the bracket is set up, Brooks could meet Yazdani in either the first round or Gold Medal match.
In any case, he feels Brooks will be ready to go.
“Aaron will be very well prepared,” he said. “Obviously, the game plan to compete against Yazdani is very familiar to him. He was a part of that for a long time, and I know he’s excited to compete. It’s a great opportunity for him to go and win an Olympic Gold Medal. Obviously, he’s very hungry, and I’m looking forward to him going out and competing well.”
