TAKHTI, THE IRANIAN PEOPLE’S CHAMPION

Takhti receiving a medal from the Iranian government with Mossadegh in attendance

The embodiment of Fotovat

by Ali Hosseyni

Gholamreza Takhti’s غلامرضا تختی name is all over Iran and in ever city and town there are wrestling clubs with Takhti’s smiling photograph hanging on the wall in a position of honour. There is even a “Takhti” wrestling club in each every town in Iran. Takhti was a supporter of the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and an enemy of the Pahlavi regime which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Mossadegh in 1953 with the help of Britain and the US.

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In 1968 on the 7th January 1968, the Shah sent Savak, the Shah’s secret service, to kill the legend. They said it was suicide. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi wept crocodile tears when he heard the news. It was not suicide. Mohammed Reza had ordered his death.

Takhti was the greatest wrestler in the world in the 1950’s and early 60s. He won a silver medal for Iran at the Olympics in Helsinki in 1952. He won a gold medal at 1956 in the Olympics in Melbourne and a Gold in Tokyo. He won silver at the Rome games and he won two World Championship golds in Tehran in 1959 and in Yokohama in 1961.

Takhti was born in Tehran in Share Ray, he was not too rich or too poor, he was a son of a simple Iranian family and he enjoyed bodybuilding in a ramshackle zurkhaneh, or “house of strength”. He became an oil worker when he was a young man and in 1950 he went into the army where he learned the skills, and techniques of freestyle wrestling.

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Takhti was the complete gentleman and an inspiring role model for the people, and especially the men, of Iran. In the ring, after he had won, he consoled his defeated opponents. He was kind hearted. In 1961 after an earthquake in Iran which affected the town of Boein Zahra, he expressed the nation’s solidarity with the earthquake victims by walking its streets, calling for Iranians to help. Soon all the sports men and women gathered to him, followed by the rest of Iranian society. Later in his life he donated his money to many Iranian charities.

The story goes that after Takhti lost the match to the Russian champion Alexander Medved (knowing Alexander had a bad knee he refused to attack it). He kissed Medved’s mum, congratulating her on her son’s victory, telling her that her son was a wonderful wrestler. She kissed Takhti back on the cheek.

That was the man who endeared himself to the Iranian people. A kind man and a gentleman – not an extremist, or a zealot, not the western caricature of an Iranian. He represented the Iranian masculine ideal of Fotovat, which combines the idea of unashamed manliness with gentleness and chivalry. He was the Jahan Pahlavan (or people’s hero) of the Iranians.

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Ali Hosseyni is a former Iranian amateur wrestler who is now permanently settled in the United Kingdom