Wrestling reform ideas

[jross]

Introduce the passivity clock in neutral situations.  Reward the wrestler holding center that is taking action.  Put the other on the clock.

[jross]

23 hours ago, peanut said:

Shorter season. Too many athletes are visibly injured. A fix would be a shorter season — which would allow a longer period of less intense training. 

Another option for coaches is to keep the matches and fill slots with the depth chart.  

I limit how many baseball pitches my youth boys throw and let others play so we can compete across 5 games in a weekend.  Otherwise it is my fault when their arm hurts.

[Paul158]

13 minutes ago, jross said:

I’d like to see more incentives to wrestle.  A mat so big there is no out of bounds… 

I despised watching Hidlay wrestle the edge and disagree with his matcast narrated excitement about wrestlers that do work the edge.

Penalize egregious guiding out of bounds from the attacker.  But allow movement in bounds to continue scoring out of bounds.

Penalize fleeing out of bounds.

Very good points. Hopefully someone (powers that be) with common sense can make these changes.

[jross]

Allows 2-3 wrestlers with winning records and enough matches per team to compete in the postseason.  They don’t score team points but they can qualify and compete at nationals.

[Scouts Honor]

i might go for the one semester, so shorter season...

but other than that... what do we need..

i would say this has been the most exciting tourney in awhile... even with a given of the champion.

so many upsets.

and not just b/c the huskers are doing well.

[Pablo]

2 hours ago, jross said:

A reversal is not a “better”move but it is generally harder to achieve on a superior wrestler.

If it's "harder to achieve" then, yeah, I think that's better.

Holding someone on their back for 4 seconds is harder than holding someone for 2 seconds, so is worth more points.

Why shouldn't it be the case that doing things that are harder to do is worth more?

 

2 hours ago, jross said:

Why is an escape worth zero and a reversal worth one in free style?  

Points are also about incentives.  Aggressive action from neutral is exciting to watch.

Rather than increasing TD from 2 to 3, I would rather the escape had been dropped to zero.  It is fine as is.

You and I have very different ideas of what wrestling is about.  I view the objective of wrestling to be 

a) take your opponent to the mat

b) expose their shoulders to the mat

c) pin those shoulders to the mat.

You, apparently, are content with (a).

Yes, points are about incentives.  Points in folkstyle reward activities that lead to the objective of pinning your opponent.  Takedowns do that, for sure.  But so does a reversal.  Takedowns can be exciting (although watch Bo Bassett wrestle - takedowns are boring), but back points are more exciting.  And reversals to the back are crazy exciting.

I want to see wrestlers trying to pin their opponents.  You, apparently, don't.

[billyhoyle]

40 minutes ago, Pablo said:

If it's "harder to achieve" then, yeah, I think that's better.

Holding someone on their back for 4 seconds is harder than holding someone for 2 seconds, so is worth more points.

Why shouldn't it be the case that doing things that are harder to do is worth more?

 

You and I have very different ideas of what wrestling is about.  I view the objective of wrestling to be 

a) take your opponent to the mat

b) expose their shoulders to the mat

c) pin those shoulders to the mat.

You, apparently, are content with (a).

Yes, points are about incentives.  Points in folkstyle reward activities that lead to the objective of pinning your opponent.  Takedowns do that, for sure.  But so does a reversal.  Takedowns can be exciting (although watch Bo Bassett wrestle - takedowns are boring), but back points are more exciting.  And reversals to the back are crazy exciting.

I want to see wrestlers trying to pin their opponents.  You, apparently, don't.

At the top level, pins are rare. I think you would enjoy watching HS wrestling. 

[jross]

1 hour ago, Pablo said:

If it's "harder to achieve" then, yeah, I think that's better.

Holding someone on their back for 4 seconds is harder than holding someone for 2 seconds, so is worth more points.

Why shouldn't it be the case that doing things that are harder to do is worth more?

 

You and I have very different ideas of what wrestling is about.  I view the objective of wrestling to be 

a) take your opponent to the mat

b) expose their shoulders to the mat

c) pin those shoulders to the mat.

You, apparently, are content with (a).

Yes, points are about incentives.  Points in folkstyle reward activities that lead to the objective of pinning your opponent.  Takedowns do that, for sure.  But so does a reversal.  Takedowns can be exciting (although watch Bo Bassett wrestle - takedowns are boring), but back points are more exciting.  And reversals to the back are crazy exciting.

I want to see wrestlers trying to pin their opponents.  You, apparently, don't.

Pablo, you’ve put words in my mouth I never said. I didn’t claim takedowns are all that matter or that I don’t care about pinning.  Please stick to what I wrote.

I’m all for aggressive wrestling, and my entertainment rankings show it:

1. Defender reversal from their back directly to having their opponent on their back
2. Aggressive Neutral wrestling to take the opponent from feet to back
3. Aggressive top wrestling in an attempt to pin
4. Tie
   1. Aggressive Neutral wrestling to score a standard takedown
   2. Defender reversal  
5. Defender earned escape 
6. Top wrestling for control without trying to pin (riding time)
7. Aggressive wrestling defended from any position that results in zero points
8. Top wrestler gifts a free escape point
9. Neutral wrestlers not engaging 
10. Bottom wrestler not engaging (turtling)
11. Purposely pushing action out of bounds
12. Purposely fleeing the mat
13. Purposely touching the floor to be out of bounds

Here’s how I rank them by challenge to execute:

1. Defender reversal from their back directly to having their opponent on their back
2. Aggressive Neutral wrestling to take the opponent from feet to back
3. Defender reversal from bottom
4. Aggressive wrestling defended from any position that results in zero points
5. Aggressive top wrestling in an attempt to pin
6. Aggressive Neutral wrestling to score a standard takedown
7. Defender earned escape from bottom
8. Top wrestling for control without trying to pin (riding time)
9. Purposely pushing action out of bounds
10. Top wrestler gifts a free escape point
11. Neutral wrestlers not engaging
12. Bottom wrestler not engaging (turtling)
13. Purposely fleeing the mat
14. Purposely touching the floor to be out of bounds

I’d prefer takedowns and reversals both at 2 points, with escapes at 0; returning to Neutral is reward enough for an escape, and I don’t see why it needs points tacked on. The 3-point takedown was a solid change, though; it creates a clear two-point gap from the escape, which I like.

To you point on challenge reflected by points: why do we award more for a free escape than for defending a takedown from the crackdown position, which takes skill?

Edited 19 hours ago by jross

[hummer171]

Challenge reform.  Throw a brick & the call on the mat is upheld, you lose a point.

[jross]

5 hours ago, hummer171 said:

Challenge reform.  Throw a brick & the call on the mat is upheld, you lose a point.

Yes we really should copy the better parts from freestyle, while keeping it folkstyle. 

[Lipdrag]

I think 3 point takedowns lead to more stalling rather than more action. 

I see quite a few top wrestlers with 3 point leads due to a single takedown being very content to give up the escape and two stalling calls and end up winning by a point.  They could not afford that second stalling call if a TD remained 2 points and therefore would have to engage for much longer in the match.

I don't have data to prove my anecdotal observation but expect that more than enough exists from college and high school to determine if a statistically significant difference in 3rd period behavior of wrestlers has occurred.

 

[Lipdrag]

"Spratley stalled his whole match against Ventresca. Zero shots and caught Eddie with a reattack. "

I know it will be very tough to officiate consistently but I would like a takedown initiated by an aggressor to be worth more than countering a shot then getting a TD from the sprall or scramble after the other guy put himself at risk with the shot.  If you will stipulate that awarding points is meant to reward behavior in addition to rewarding achievement then differentiating between an initiated TD and a counter TD will help with both. 

[tablealgebra]

I'd like to see them be less aggressive on the "fleeing the mat" stall call when both wrestlers are on their feet, and more aggressive on it when a wrestler is defending a single leg.

Edited 13 hours ago by tablealgebra

[peanut]

5 minutes ago, tablealgebra said:

I'd like to see them be less aggressive on the "fleeing the mat" stall call when both wrestlers are on their feet, and more aggressive on it when a wrestler is defending a single leg.

A step out rule would incentivize athletes to stay in the center, and more often than not it would penalize athletes who back up

[Jimmy Cinnabon]

Iowa challenging an inherently subjective judgment call like stalling should not be allowed, just like how you can't challenge a fall.

[1032004]

I say get rid of rideouts.  I don’t like winning on 1 second of RT.

I honestly don’t hate going to criteria like freestyle 

[1032004]

22 hours ago, 1032004 said:

A lot of the “visibly injured” guys ARE the ones that wrestled shorter seasons though.  I was actually thinking that this tournament seems to be evidence of the benefit of testing yourself throughout the season.  Many of the guys that did not make the finals or did not look great were the guys that sat out for extended periods or for key matches (yes some had legit injuries): Ferrari, Alirez, Figueroa, Shapiro, Teemer some notable examples

The only finalists that wrestled less than 22 matches prior to the tournament are O’Toole (20) and Steveson (18).  And of the rest, only Byrd (23), Ayala (22), and Henson (22) had less than 25.   6 finalists had 28+ matches coming in including both finalists at 141 (both of them over 30) and 157 + Spratley and Keckeisen.

Update: every champion had at least 23 matches entering the tournament, and Byrd was the only one with less than 25 (23).

[PSULou64]

I agree with a lot of the ideas here at least in part.  I really dislike that it's stalling if you are able to push a guy out even though he's fighting to stay in when no shot has been taken. In my mind that's not fleeing or backing out.  I also think that like in the Caliendo/Messinbrink match, defending multiple takedown attempts and having "good" defense is really still stalling and should be called as such.  From the top position you supposedly have to work for a turn but they didn't even pretend to make them do that guys like Ferrari, Buchanan and Cardenas were just riding.  How is a bottom guy, who already is at the disadvantage, supposed to get out when the top guy is hip on hip and belly on back.  All he has to do is wait and counter the bottom wrestler. That should be stalling.  

My biggest actual change would be no riding time point without a takedown or back points.  

[Gus]

I will keep beating the drum for the challenge/review process to be amended or abolished. There are too many example of "lung bricks" (i.e. the Taylor/Blaze match last night). Conditioning is so vital in a sport like wrestling that these reviews need to few and far between. Here is the solution.

Step 1- No more referee initiated reviews. I bet at least 25% of the reviews that take place are referees reviewing their own calls. Make the call on the mat and stick with it. Consult with the other ref if needed and move on. If the coaching staff feels like the referee made the wrong call then they can challenge it.

Step 2- 1 Point for failed challenge.