Melvin Douglas

Melvin Douglas medal table
Wrestling
United States
World Championship
silver	1989 Martigny	medium
gold	1993 Toledo	Semi-difficult
bronze	1994 Istanbul	Semi-difficult
bronze	1995 Atlanta	Semi-difficult
Pan American Games
gold	1995 Mar del Plata	Semi-difficult
Goodwill Games
silver	1998	Semi-difficult

Melvin Douglas (born August 21, 1963 ) is a retired American wrestler .

Career

Douglas began like most American wrestler in high school with the rings . At the University of Oklahoma , which he then attended, he continued wrestling, focusing on the free style. In 1981 he became the American junior middleweight champion. As a college wrestler, he was NCAA (American college sports association) Division I all American middleweight champion (= American student champion) in 1985 and 1986. After graduating from university, he first joined the Gopher Wrestling Club and in 1993 the “Sunkist Kids”, one of the most renowned American wrestling clubs. He was USA champion in the senior division for the first time in 1988 in the light heavyweight division.

Melvin only started his international wrestling career in 1989 at the World Championships in Martigny / Switzerland . There he took an excellent 2nd place. In the final he was defeated by the Soviet athlete Elmadi Dschabrailow 3: 4 points.

In the next three years he did not qualify for participation in further international championships against his strong domestic American competitors Kevin Jackson , Royce Alger and Christopher Campbell . However, he was not discouraged and made it back to the World Cup team in 1993, now 30 years old. In Toronto he celebrated the greatest success of his wrestling career, he became world light heavyweight champion. Although he had narrowly lost the final fight against the Iranian Abbas Jadidi , he was disqualified because of a positive doping test and Douglas was declared world champion.

In 1994 he could not defend his world title, but at least won a bronze medal by defeating the Czech Josef Lohyna . He repeated this success at the 1995 World Cup in Atlanta .

At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, he did not get a medal rank. Even in the following years, he was active until 2000, he did not achieve a medal place. At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney , for which he was still able to qualify despite his 37 years of age, he lost his first fight against the new Russian star Sagid Murtazaliew with 1: 3 points and also lost his second fight against Wadym Tassoew from the Ukraine with 1: 5 points. 18th place was certainly disappointing for him.

After the Olympic Games in 2000, he ended his wrestling career.

The results of the championships and some of the other tournaments in which he participated are shown in the following sections.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, F = freestyle, Wed = middleweight, Hs = light heavyweight, up to 1996 up to 90 kg, from 1997 up to 97 kg body weight)

• 1989, 2nd place , World Championship in Martigny / Switzerland , F, Wed, behind Elmadi Dschabrailow , USSR and in front of Alcide Legrand , France , Necmi Gençalp , Turkey , Josef Lohyna , CSSR and Greg Edgelow, Canada ;
• 1990, 3rd place , World Cup tournament in Toledo / USA , F, Wed, behind Yuri Vorobiev, USSR and Gencalp and in front of Orlando Hernandez, Cuba and Chris Rinke, Canada ;
• 1993, 1st place , WM in Toledo / USA, F, Hs, ahead of Eldari Luka Kurtanidze , Georgia , Maharbeg Kadarzew , Russia and Arawat Sabejew , Germany ;
• 1994, 1st place , World Cup tournament in Edmonton , F, Hs, ahead of Vitali Gizojew, Russia, Rasoul Khadem , Iran and Ahmet Doğu , Turkey;
• 1994, 3rd place , World Cup in Istanbul , F, Hs, behind Khadem and Kadarzew and in front of Lohyna, Jambulat Tedejew , Ukraine and Bayan Monchiin Gantogtoch , Mongolia ;
• 1995, 1st place , Pan American Games in Mar del Plata , F, Hs, ahead of Evelino de Jesus Suarez, Venezuela and Miguel Molina Dominguez, Cuba;
• 1995, 3rd place , World Championships in Atlanta , F, Hs, behind Khadem and Kadarzew and in front of Gantogtoch, Tatsui Kawai, Japan and Lohyna;
• 1996, 7th place , OS in Atlanta, F, Hs, behind Khadem, Kadarzew, Kurtanidze, Lohyna, Tedejew and Victor Koddei, Nigeria ;
• 1997, 9th place , World Championships in Krasnoyarsk , F, Hs, winner: Kuramagomed Kuramagomedow , Russia ahead of Dogu and Kurtanidze;
• 1998, 2nd place , Goodwill Games, F, Hs, behind Kadarzew and in front of Soslan Frajew , Russia and Kurtanidze;
• 1998, 5th place , World Championships in Tehran , F, Hs, behind Abbas Jadidi , Iran, Marek Garmulewicz , Poland , Kuramagomedow and Wadym Tassoew , Ukraine and in front of Kurtanidze and Heiko Balz , Germany;
• 2000, 1st place , Olympic qualification tournament in Mexico City , F, Hs, ahead of Rolf Scherrer , Switzerland , Islam Bajramukow , Kazakhstan , Georgi Torchinawa, the Netherlands and Otto Aubeli , Hungary ;
• 2000, 18th place , OS in Sydney , F, Hs, winner: Sagid Murtazaliew , Russia ahead of Bajramukow and Kurtanidze

USA championships

Melvin Douglas in 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 US champion in the light heavyweight and 1997 and 1998 US champion in the heavyweight division .

swell

• International Wrestling Database of the University of Leipzig
• Website for National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
• Trade journal Der Ringer. No .: 08/89, 09/93, 09/94, 09/95, 07/08/96, 09/97, 10/98, 10/98 and 10/00

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Angle vs. Jadidi is the new “Bout of the Week” on USA Wrestling Members-Only website. (No longer available online.) TheMat.com - USA Wrestling, archived from the original on August 10, 2017 ; accessed on August 10, 2017 .