Cael wants a pushout rule

[PSULou64]

A couple of weeks ago Askren had an interesting take on lack of offense but didn't really offer solutions.  I don't really have a problem with guys pushing forward and looking for re attack angles, it's not the most exciting style but generally those guys are pushing the pace and will get in and score at some point on all but a few elite guys.  

For me it's the defense only guys who generally back up the entire time and only have scramble offense. Vega fits this description pretty well.  Yes they will attack on their own against mid and low tier guys but against the top guys they will not. This makes for matches where a normally aggressive wrestler won't shoot and the other who won't have anything to counter. The question is where do we go from here?

Maybe quicker stalemate calls, like the five count riding the ankle on top, but when guys are locked through the crotch and trying to turn the corner? If you want guys to take more of the offensive risk you have to make it worth their effort to do so.

[LoserJucoMan]

On 4/8/2026 at 6:19 AM, PSULou64 said:

A couple of weeks ago Askren had an interesting take on lack of offense but didn't really offer solutions.  I don't really have a problem with guys pushing forward and looking for re attack angles, it's not the most exciting style but generally those guys are pushing the pace and will get in and score at some point on all but a few elite guys.  

For me it's the defense only guys who generally back up the entire time and only have scramble offense. Vega fits this description pretty well.  Yes they will attack on their own against mid and low tier guys but against the top guys they will not. This makes for matches where a normally aggressive wrestler won't shoot and the other who won't have anything to counter. The question is where do we go from here?

Maybe quicker stalemate calls, like the five count riding the ankle on top, but when guys are locked through the crotch and trying to turn the corner? If you want guys to take more of the offensive risk you have to make it worth their effort to do so.

I think these refs just need to start giving more stall calls. Having great leg defense and being able to scramble into a takedown is great, but at the same time that's not creating offense. Reattacking is a great skill, but when that's the ONLY way you can generate offense then the coaches have a problem they need to figure out. When these guys that do nothing start to lose due to stall calls then they'll either have two options:

1.Learn to create some actual offense or

2.Risk losing close matches due to stalling.

[Yugdab]

For me the Push out rule just makes sense. most matches in Freestyle are not won because of the rule. It most definitely would create more action. I do think it should be implemented in this manner. After you get your first step out or Stall then the pushout rule goes into play. It would be part of the inactivity. I also think more stall calls need to be called, 1 minute and no activity someone should be called. Two guys neither taking a shot in a 3 minute period has to end. I am not really in favor of the push out point on a grounded opponent necessarily.  If a guy goes to his knees because he is trying to avoid a push out that's a stall call so it would be another point if he has a stall already. 

The other point it would help the guys create and use the mat/Pushout offensively and defensively in the international events. 

When your toward the edge you will have to shoot or you are giving up a point. 

 

Also challenges need to be fixed if you challenge and lose the challenge then its a point for the other guy. Coaches and challenging things when there guys need a breather, it has really taken away from the conditioning aspect of the sport which has and should always be apart of the sport. Some matches have more down time then actual wrestling time.  

Guys just sitting on top and riding is a joke. AJ Ferrari 99% of the time never tries to turn a guy. And he is not alone. 

Edited April 10 by Yugdab

[scourge165]

31 minutes ago, Yugdab said:

For me the Push out rule just makes sense. most matches in Freestyle are not won because of the rule. It most definitely would create more action. I do think it should be implemented in this manner. After you get your first step out or Stall then the pushout rule goes into play. It would be part of the inactivity. I also think more stall calls need to be called, 1 minute and no activity someone should be called. Two guys neither taking a shot in a 3 minute period has to end. I am not really in favor of the push out point on a grounded opponent necessarily.  If a guy goes to his knees because he is trying to avoid a push out that's a stall call so it would be another point if he has a stall already. 

The other point it would help the guys create and use the mat/Pushout offensively and defensively in the international events. 

When your toward the edge you will have to shoot or you are giving up a point. 

 

Also challenges need to be fixed if you challenge and lose the challenge then its a point for the other guy. Coaches and challenging things when there guys need a breather, it has really taken away from the conditioning aspect of the sport which has and should always be apart of the sport. Some matches have more down time then actual wrestling time.  

Guys just sitting on top and riding is a joke. AJ Ferrari 99% of the time never tries to turn a guy. And he is not alone. 

Define "no activity." No points? I didn't see a match where two guys went out there for a minute and just... stood there like it was the last 2 seconds of regulation. 

[Yugdab]

10 minutes ago, scourge165 said:

Define "no activity." No points? I didn't see a match where two guys went out there for a minute and just... stood there like it was the last 2 seconds of regulation. 

If you didn't see a match were two guys neither doing anything but ties and hand fighting for 1 or 2 and many times three minutes you missed the NCAA tournament. 

 

When after 7 minutes and thousands of matches the single most common score is 1-1 that is all you need to know. I am pretty sure no one needs to explain to you what activity is. They have put in rules in freestyle to try and fix this issue I am pretty sure they can do the same and improve on some of those rules. 

[scourge165]

19 minutes ago, Yugdab said:

If you didn't see a match were two guys neither doing anything but ties and hand fighting for 1 or 2 and many times three minutes you missed the NCAA tournament. 

 

When after 7 minutes and thousands of matches the single most common score is 1-1 that is all you need to know. I am pretty sure no one needs to explain to you what activity is. They have put in rules in freestyle to try and fix this issue I am pretty sure they can do the same and improve on some of those rules. 

So the rule book will say, "if you saw the 2026 NCAA Wrestling Tournament... and didn't see guys just hand fighting....?"

I like the specificity! 

[alex1fly]

I've watched thousands of matches and have never felt like 1-1 is the most common score. Maybe in heavyweight.

Guys are going to stall. It's the hardest sport. If you want less stalling, refs need to call more stalling with clearer criteria. "I had no offense all match and only got dinged once in the third period" needs to end. Meanwhile one mat over a guy is in on a leg working through a shot and gets called for stalling. Inconsistency is the problem.

Pushout point clears up ambiguity about edge stalling, which in my eyes has proved to be a gimmick. Inconsistent yes, but also gamifies the edge to be about perception rather than control or progressing your offense.

Edited April 10 by alex1fly

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

Reminder: I like the pushout point in freestyle, but the mat wrestling in folkstyle changes everything.  There is no easy solution for installing a pushout point in folk.  I say this as a coach that reffed for 16 years.  

All solutions that I have seen involve making the rules more confusing.  Not good.

[jajensen09]

2 hours ago, Yugdab said:

If you didn't see a match were two guys neither doing anything but ties and hand fighting for 1 or 2 and many times three minutes you missed the NCAA tournament. 

 

When after 7 minutes and thousands of matches the single most common score is 1-1 that is all you need to know. I am pretty sure no one needs to explain to you what activity is. They have put in rules in freestyle to try and fix this issue I am pretty sure they can do the same and improve on some of those rules. 

Maybe a shot clock would help

[Yugdab]

5 minutes ago, jajensen09 said:

Maybe a shot clock would help

not really in favor of it but if no push out than yea maybe. But all it does in freestyle in most cases is cause 30 seconds of stalling defending someone's shots and if it is in the first period some guys still dont take a shot cuz it probably wont determine the match and the other guy in most cases sees the shot clock also 

[PSULou64]

I think offensively, from the neutral position, we have allowed scramblers too much reward vs lack of risk initiated offensive output.  We can't have it both ways as fans.  You can't ask one wrestler to be the aggressor and attack if the other wrestler will most of the time be rewarded with a stalemate or defensive takedown.

If you like guys who scramble as their sole means of offensive production and champion that kind of wrestling, you can't be surprised or complain with what we get in a lot of matches. 

As far as top wrestling goes, there are way too many riders who initiate no attempt to breakdown or turn.  They react to the bottom wrestler, which is much easier especially if your goal is to ride and never initiate offense.  I would propose that after 1 minute and no offensive points the wrestlers are put into neutral position but no point is given to the defensive wrestler. He's the rub, you only get the riding point of you have scored offensive points during the match and still have a minute of riding time advantage.

[ionel]

Pushouts, ball grabs (not the focus type) and shot clocks ... it could be so much fun!  

[jajensen09]

18 minutes ago, PSULou64 said:

I think offensively, from the neutral position, we have allowed scramblers too much reward vs lack of risk initiated offensive output.  We can't have it both ways as fans.  You can't ask one wrestler to be the aggressor and attack if the other wrestler will most of the time be rewarded with a stalemate or defensive takedown.

If you like guys who scramble as their sole means of offensive production and champion that kind of wrestling, you can't be surprised or complain with what we get in a lot of matches. 

As far as top wrestling goes, there are way too many riders who initiate no attempt to breakdown or turn.  They react to the bottom wrestler, which is much easier especially if your goal is to ride and never initiate offense.  I would propose that after 1 minute and no offensive points the wrestlers are put into neutral position but no point is given to the defensive wrestler. He's the rub, you only get the riding point of you have scored offensive points during the match and still have a minute of riding time advantage.

If there was no riding point matches would be even more boring 

[ionel]

What if:  on shot clock & no score then go to ball grab - blue ball start double boots in on top - red ball on feet with front headlock?  

That'd be exciting!  

[Caveira]

They can just call stalling like they used to.   Stop pretending they can’t.  
 

we had a rule.   They used to call stalling.   Then they started messing with the rules and stopped calling stalling.  
 

Constant messing with the rules is the problem 

Edited April 10 by Caveira

[LoserJucoMan]

1 hour ago, PSULou64 said:

I think offensively, from the neutral position, we have allowed scramblers too much reward vs lack of risk initiated offensive output.  We can't have it both ways as fans.  You can't ask one wrestler to be the aggressor and attack if the other wrestler will most of the time be rewarded with a stalemate or defensive takedown.

If you like guys who scramble as their sole means of offensive production and champion that kind of wrestling, you can't be surprised or complain with what we get in a lot of matches. 

As far as top wrestling goes, there are way too many riders who initiate no attempt to breakdown or turn.  They react to the bottom wrestler, which is much easier especially if your goal is to ride and never initiate offense.  I would propose that after 1 minute and no offensive points the wrestlers are put into neutral position but no point is given to the defensive wrestler. He's the rub, you only get the riding point of you have scored offensive points during the match and still have a minute of riding time advantage.

I'm sure that won't lead to any controversial matches...

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

41 minutes ago, Caveira said:

They can just call stalling like they used to.   Stop pretending they can’t.  
 

we had a rule.   They used to call stalling.   Then they started messing with the rules and stopped calling stalling.  
 

Constant messing with the rules is the problem 

The more "5 counts" they put in the rules, the less the refs call stalling.  

Except, of course,  for activity that ends up out of bounds, which is nearly impossible to get refs to call consistently.  

[Yugdab]

3 hours ago, alex1fly said:

I've watched thousands of matches and have never felt like 1-1 is the most common score. Maybe in heavyweight.

Guys are going to stall. It's the hardest sport. If you want less stalling, refs need to call more stalling with clearer criteria. "I had no offense all match and only got dinged once in the third period" needs to end. Meanwhile one mat over a guy is in on a leg working through a shot and gets called for stalling. Inconsistency is the problem.

Pushout point clears up ambiguity about edge stalling, which in my eyes has proved to be a gimmick. Inconsistent yes, but also gamifies the edge to be about perception rather than control or progressing your offense.

Looking at 125-141 this year at the NCAAs 1-1 was the most common score 10 times 2nd and third were 4-1 and 4-2 i believe 6 and 5 times now I may be off a little cuz i went through them extremely fast but even if i am wrong to some level my point is pretty solid 

 

5-4 was also high about 8 times 

Edited April 10 by Yugdab

[alex1fly]

3 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

The more "5 counts" they put in the rules, the less the refs call stalling.  

Except, of course,  for activity that ends up out of bounds, which is nearly impossible to get refs to call consistently.  

 

4 hours ago, Caveira said:

They can just call stalling like they used to.   Stop pretending they can’t.  
 

we had a rule.   They used to call stalling.   Then they started messing with the rules and stopped calling stalling.  
 

Constant messing with the rules is the problem 

I'm with y'all here. 

5-counts make stuff confusing. Edge stall calls make it confusing too - was it action or no? Depends on how well the wrestlers sold. It's an acting job.

Push out point discourages offensive action bc I can win by pushing you out of bounds. No offense or mat control needed.

Shot clock is a disaster in freestyle, refs get that wrong all the time.

Just. Call. Stalling. Be consistent. It was done for decades. Was it perfect, no, but the new rules sure as heck haven't made it better. Simplify the rules to make it more objective.

[wrestlingfan05]

22 hours ago, alex1fly said:

I've watched thousands of matches and have never felt like 1-1 is the most common score. Maybe in heavyweight.

Guys are going to stall. It's the hardest sport. If you want less stalling, refs need to call more stalling with clearer criteria. "I had no offense all match and only got dinged once in the third period" needs to end. Meanwhile one mat over a guy is in on a leg working through a shot and gets called for stalling. Inconsistency is the problem.

Pushout point clears up ambiguity about edge stalling, which in my eyes has proved to be a gimmick. Inconsistent yes, but also gamifies the edge to be about perception rather than control or progressing your offense.

how do you make stalling criteria more comprehensive anyhow?

[PSULou64]

21 hours ago, LoserJucoMan said:

I'm sure that won't lead to any controversial matches...

We will always have controversy to any extent where there are judgement calls made. It's unavoidable. 

The question remains of how many of us think there need to be changes made or tightening of already in place rules as opposed to how many are happy with the current state of things. We all have different opinions on that and I do believe that maybe these lines are more closely based on generation and where you grew up wrestling more than anything else. 

I can say that 1-1 matches going into double overtime isn't what I want to watch and I'm of the opinion that there are a lot of wrestlers who are looking to get to ride outs to win. You may disagree and that's fine but I also believe that if you want to pick up a larger fan base and grow the sport, the on the mat offense has to be there.

[Caveira]

Coaches won’t start teaching stuff like this……. Would they?

 

[Caveira]

Yes this part is from gpt.   With that said.   On the low end 6 real (non sumo) points per match at the world championships?    (NCAAs next)

“pushouts per match” average for the most recent Senior World Championships (UWW doesn’t release that stat publicly), but we can estimate it pretty tightly from available research and scoring data.

---

What the data tells us

• A large analysis of World Championships matches shows ~8–8.7 total points per match on average
• A pushout (step-out) is always 1 point

So the question becomes: what share of points are pushouts?

Technique distribution (from match studies)

Studies of freestyle bouts consistently show:

• Pushouts = ~15–25% of scoring actions (varies by weight, style, and rules emphasis)
• Takedowns dominate scoring, with exposures/turns next

---

Estimated average pushouts per match

Putting that together:

• ~8.5 points per match
• ~15–25% from pushouts → ~1.3 to 2.1 pushouts per match

Practical range:

≈ 1.5–2.0 pushouts per match on average

---

Context (important)

• Lower weights → typically more pushouts (speed, edge wrestling)
• Heavyweights → fewer pushouts, more hand-fighting + single scores
• Recent UWW emphasis on activity/passivity can slightly increase step-outs

---

Bottom line

For the last men’s senior freestyle worlds (recent era):

Expect roughly ~1.5 to 2 pushouts per match on average

---

 

[Caveira]

Hopefully the data is correct (had gpt count from actual brackets).  With that said looks like a lot more scoring at NCAAs vs sumo freestyle 

Broken down by weight 

Average points per match — ALL 10 WEIGHTS (no falls)

Lightweight classes (more scrambling → higher scoring)

Weight	Avg total points
125	~12.2
133	~13.0
141	~13.4
149	~12.8

 Takeaway:
141 was the most wide-open (lots of 14–6, 16–4 type matches)

---

Middle weights (balanced)

Weight	Avg total points
157	~12.1
165	~13.6
174	~11.4

 165 jumps because of tech-heavy guys (Mesenbrink-type scores like 20–4) 

---

Upper weights (slower, lower scoring)

Weight	Avg total points
184	~10.9
197	~10.5
285	~9.2

Heavyweight is clearly lowest — lots of:

• 3–1
• 2–1

Edited April 11 by Caveira

[LoserJucoMan]

3 hours ago, PSULou64 said:

We will always have controversy to any extent where there are judgement calls made. It's unavoidable. 

The question remains of how many of us think there need to be changes made or tightening of already in place rules as opposed to how many are happy with the current state of things. We all have different opinions on that and I do believe that maybe these lines are more closely based on generation and where you grew up wrestling more than anything else. 

I can say that 1-1 matches going into double overtime isn't what I want to watch and I'm of the opinion that there are a lot of wrestlers who are looking to get to ride outs to win. You may disagree and that's fine but I also believe that if you want to pick up a larger fan base and grow the sport, the on the mat offense has to be there.

I agree with you and i just disagree on execution. I think the refs need to call stalling more I think that fixes the issue. Too many wrestlers are relying on rideouts to get a win, not only is it horrible to watch but it encourages antiwrestling. Either take more risk and initiate offense or lose like Minto and Mcgowan because of stall calls.