I wrestled some guys from Iran at an event and they were total assholes, I never gave into the notion that they all hated Americans I always thought it was propaganda but I was sure proven wrong. Especially rude considering that they were here in the USA for an event, we were their hosts and acted like that....sure as heck didn't get the guest treatment in return. By the end of their trip we wanted nothing to do with them, at one point even our coach and some other authorities there got into it with their coach because it was blatant that they were trying to injure us and show us up, just in basic drills when we were going half speed because they weren't better than us and couldn't do it in a match. It was ridiculous and incredibly frustrating because we were given strict orders from the higher ups not to engage or retaliate otherwise they would be sending guys home for it. In the heat of it my coach pointed to me and said that my parents were originally Christians from Iraq and my uncles had slaughtered countless of Iranians in the war, which they did, it was something I brought up in jest before they came joking that "hey they might not like me", never thought in a million years it would be brought up! Definitely an interesting moment to be in, this was nearly 20 years ago amateur wrestling was really really political beyond even just that incident, I stopped doing it after freshmen year in college because of it but that's a whole other story.
Regardless, I'm not looking for political arguments or even saying anything bad about Iranian bodybuilders at all but I bring that up because I'm curious how the Iranians feel about Americans now.....again my experience was around 20 years ago. As in being here on our stages competing with us and being treated like gods for it. Are the athletes still pompous assholes or has that changed and how are they received generally?
If this is too political my apologies mods please just delete it, I've refrained from posting it for that reason but it's something in regards to bodybuilding and I'm just curious.....