Shirkal Freestyle Wrestling Open Championship
 | |
| Sport | freestyle wrestling |
|---|---|
| Organising body | Shirazam All Wrestling Federation |
| Competitors | Variables |
| Country |  Shirazam |
The Shirkal Freestyle Wrestling Open Championship (ཀརམནིཡེ གིསདནི ཀུཤྟི ཨཟཏ ཡེ ཤིརྐལ, Kahramaniye Gisadani Kushti Azat ye Shirkal) more commonly known as the Lion's Prize (ནིཤནི ཤིར, Nishani Shir) is an annual open free wrestling individual competition held in Shirkal, the capital of Shirazam. By its status it is open to all competitors belonging to an internationally recognized federation who can fit within one of its 30 categories, regardless of professional or amateur status and their international rankings or lack thereof. It is the most famous and prestigious Free-Wrestling Championship and has helped spread the style as an international standard.
Structure
Weighing
As a National-grade championship, as per the Shirazam All Wrestling Federation tournaments ranking, doctors and first-aid workers have to be present in the facilities throughout the days of competitions. At least one doctor has to be present during the Weighing of competitors. The Weighing itself is the responsability of the referees. During the weighing, a wrestler may ask to be placed in the weight class above his. Accepting or rejecting this demand is done at the discretion of the referees.
First Qualifiers
After the weighing, competitors are given a randomly drawn list of seven opponents. Only competitors with a positive victory ratio are allowed into the Second Qualifiers, unless the number of qualified wrestlers is already a multiple of eight, in which case the competition will move directly to the single-elimination phase.
Second Qualifiers
Also known as the Pool Phase, the qualified wrestlers are drawn into a number of pools that are to be as close in size as possible. All competitors in a pool will have to face each others once. The number of pool can change as long as it remain a multiple of eight. The winner of a pool is the wrestler with the highest win ratio within it. All pool winners move on to the next phase: the Single-elimination tournament.
Single-elimination tournament
The single-elimination tournament is the favored way to organize the Championship's last phase. If the number of competitors is inferior to eight, a Round-robin tournament is organised instead but its a situation that has happened only an handful of time, with the last recorded case being in 1940 during the War of Sin. The tournament would then be suspended for a decade due to the war. In all cases, a week is reserved for the tournament, with the semi-finales and finale on the last day. The record of competitors reaching this phase happened in 2016 with 512 wrestlers leading to the organisation of 1/64th finales. To limit exponentially growing operating costs, the NSKS has announced that starting 2017 no more than 64 competitors would be allowed in the third phase.
Prizes
The Championship's trophy, the Lion's Prize, is also called the "Top Million" in Shirazam as since 2008 the reward for a category winner was fixed at a million Dinar ($825,000 in 2024), the highest solo wrestling trophy earnings in the world. Second places receive 500,000 Dinars ($412,500), third places 250,000 ($206,250), fourth' 100,000 ($82,500) and the other competitors who qualified for the final single-elimination tournament 10,000 Dinars ($8,250). Prize pool for the entire Championship is thus generally between 56,400,000 and 70,800,000 Dinars depending on the number of competitors making it to the final phase of the competition. The average operating cost of the Lion's Prize is estimated to be around 55 million Dinars.
First to fourth places in each category also receive an armband. The winner of a category is also given the title of "Champion of Shirkal" (Kharaman ye Shirkal). They are not referred by the more honorific title of "Heroes" (Pahlevan) which is reserved to the winners of Shirazam' national title. The status of Championship is retained for life, but can be amended in case of repeated victories, with different amendment to the title depending on if the victories were in succession of not, in different categories, age classes, and so on.
Although no supreme authority control such things, a win in the Shirkal's Open is commonly considered, among the Shirazamite wrestlers and the press, to be a requisite step for the supreme title of Jahan Pahlavan, the "World Hero". How many championship victories and in which competitions are actually needed is undefined. The only recognized rule is that a Jahan Pahlavan must be unanimously recognized and there can only be one at a time.