Obituary

World Grappling Committee President Bochkev passes away

Thursday, May 2, 2024 - 09:25 By United World Wrestling Press

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CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (May 2) -- United World Wrestling's World Grappling Committee's President Rizvan BOCHKEV passed away Wednesday. The sudden passing of the 59-year-old has left the UWW and its family in shock.

Bochkev, vice president of the Russian Wrestling Federation and a coach, was involved with UWW and Grappling for a long time.

Before 2013, Bochkev was an active member of Grappling and promoted it under FILA. He worked tirelessly to reintroduce it as a recognized wrestling style under UWW after it was dropped in late 2013. This gave the right recognition to a wrestling style growing in several countries.

Bochkev was elected as the President of the World Grappling Committee in 2016 and was instrumental in reintroducing the UWW World Grappling Championships. In 2022, Bochkev was re-elected as the President of the World Grappling Committee and remained an active promoter of the sport.

United World Wrestling expresses its deepest condolences to the Bochkev family.

#AmateurMMA

U15, U17 Pankration & U20 Amateur MMA World C'ships in Greece

Friday, July 25, 2025 - 05:45 By United World Wrestling Press

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CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (July 25) -- United World Wrestling will host the Pankration and Amateur MMA World Championships for U15, U17 and U20 age groups in Loutraki, Greece from November 5 to 9.

This is the first time that UWW will be hosting an Amateur MMA event. As announced earlier, the senior Amateur MMA World Championships will be held in Novi Sad, Serbia from October 17 to 19.

After restructuring the styles, UWW decided that Pankration will be conducted for U17 and lower age-groups and Amateur MMA will be for U20 age-group. 

Following the same rule set, the Pankration World Championships to be held in Loutraki will only be for the U15 and U17 wrestlers and the Amateur MMA World Championships will only be for the U20 wrestlers.

The event will be held after the U15, U17, U20 and Veteran Grappling World Championships which will be held from November 1 to 4 at the same venue.

The detailed schedule of the U15, U17 & U20 Pankration and Amateur MMA World Championships will be available here. For all events, click uww.org/events.