The 3-Point Takedown: Friend or Foe?

[MPhillips]

Just now, ionel said:

... or STALLING!

Stop...

[ionel]

9 minutes ago, MPhillips said:

Stop...

.. but that would be STALLING!  

[Paul158]

12 hours ago, BruceyB said:

I know that you're a newer poster, so just an easy tip, if you type @ and then the users name you're responding to, or simply quote them with the "quote" button under their post, it tags them in your response and they get notified. Welcome to the board though!

And I won't bother with the scenario of 30 seconds with no stall warning, because you can basically do whatever you want in the amount of time and even with how I would like a match to be officiated, there is nearly anyway to justify hitting a guy twice with 30 seconds left.

But with 1:00 left, I would tell my athlete not to stop wrestling. Be conservative and don't take any unnecessary risks, but a minute is too long to avoid wrestling. But be defensive in the ties to slow your opponent down and make it difficult for your opponent get find an opening, if he takes a bad shot and you can reattack for find a front headlock, you stay there and "look" like you're trying to score and eat time off the clock. If you have an opening to get to a leg (which often happens when a guy is in desperation mode late, drop in on the leg and eat time that way.

With a minute left, I look at the goal as to be just active enough not get give up your first stall warning, and then once you get down to the final thirty, you can pretty much just disengage. Like I said above, 30 seconds left with zero stall warnings, you aren't getting hit twice for stalling.

And I know this reply is already too long, but one last point: my argument was mostly in regard to the topic of this thread. With the three point takedown, you often have a wrestler enter the third with a 4-1 lead, in a 1 takedown match (obviously), and with 3 stall calls to give. In this case, they have 3 stalls to give before it effects the outcome of the match. My suggestion with quicker stall calls is to prevent matches where the leading wrestler can dance around the mat without engaging for an entire period with impunity. 

Just curious if you know who Pmilk is? He is by far the best wrestler on this forum. He is a very accomplished coach. He is one of the best wrestlers to come out of Ohio. His father is arguably one of if not the best coaches to come out of Ohio. Don't let the number of posts fool you.

Edited Friday at 03:37 PM by Paul158
missed a word

[MPhillips]

7 minutes ago, Paul158 said:

Just curious if you know who Pmilk is?

I know. But PM is a legend...

[Paul158]

5 minutes ago, MPhillips said:

I know. But PM is a legend...

I know you know but does BruceyB know? I don't think so.

[MPhillips]

1 minute ago, Paul158 said:

I know you know but does BruceyB know? I don't think so.

I don't believe it will change his mind...

[CHROMEBIRD]

3 hours ago, ionel said:

... or STALLING!

Aw man, I miss ILLINIWrestlingBlog. Jombo would be all over this.

[NYupstate]

21 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Not dense at all. I often make the mistake of not explaining fully enough because I have spent so much time with the data that I make assumptions without making the assumptions clear.

Including the TF and pinfall are the numbers in parenthesis in the post you referenced (6.8% vs 7.1%) which brings the numbers closer, but does not favor the three point era. But that is just a single score line. A few posts later I expanded the analysis to include all zero and one takedown matches, and that is more damning for the 3 point takedown.

 

You convinced me. A few extra tech falls is not worth the trade-off for a vastly higher number of single takedown matches.

[MPhillips]

15 hours ago, NYupstate said:

You convinced me.

Or...it was the numbers.

[1032004]

On 6/25/2025 at 10:33 AM, Wrestleknownothing said:

I was just looking at that.

Zero Takedown Matches

• In the two years prior to the rule change (2022 -2023) there were 13 matches where the winner had 1 point (i.e. no takedowns).
• In the two years since the rule change (2024 - 2025) there have been 76 matches where the winner had 1 or 2 points (20 with a single point, 56 with 2 points).

One Takedown Matches

• In the two years prior to the rule change (2022 -2023) there were 51 matches where the winner had 2 or 3 points (i.e. one takedown).
• In the two years since the rule change (2024 - 2025) there have been 352 matches where the winner had 3, 4, or 5 points.
• Even if you expand the 2022-2023 scoring to include 2, 3, or 4 points for the winner, based on the assumption most 4 point matches involve one TD, one or two escapes, and zero or one riding point, the total is still only 281 matches.

No matter how you look at it there has been a substantial uptick in zero (+485%) or one takedown matches (between 24% and 590%).

I think by any metric it is clear that the 3-point takedown has had the opposite effect to what was intended.

I’m not sure how often it happened, but worth noting IMO that even prior to the 3 point takedown, someone could have won and scored more than 1 point without getting a takedown.

Also can you confirm the total number of matches is comparable between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025?  I can’t remember if more teams were still wrestling less matches in 2022 since it was the first year after the “free year.”

[1032004]

On 6/23/2025 at 10:28 PM, Wrestleknownothing said:

I am starting to come around to the counter-intuitive.

If you want to increase risk taking, lower the score for a takedown to 1.5. If you only get 1.5 and a reversal is worth 1, you can no longer run and hide after a single takedown. A single stalling point loses the match. If you want to be safe you need more takedowns to build your margin.

I am beginning to believe they went the wrong direction if they want to promote scoring and risk-taking.

I think the problem is that a lot of takedowns are scored on counters, so guys are afraid to take a bad shot then get countered and now you give up 3.  In theory a way around that would be to award less points for a takedown that isn’t off your own shot, but not sure I want that, I think that’s venturing into the subjectivity of FS and the “who initiated the move” stuff which I don’t like.

[Wrestleknownothing]

25 minutes ago, 1032004 said:

I’m not sure how often it happened, but worth noting IMO that even prior to the 3 point takedown, someone could have won and scored more than 1 point without getting a takedown.

Also can you confirm the total number of matches is comparable between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025?  I can’t remember if more teams were still wrestling less matches in 2022 since it was the first year after the “free year.”

Yes, someone could win 2-1, 3-1, with no TDs but that would be in my 1 TD category. It would only be three or more points that is not captured. And those have to be so rare as to be a rounding error. 

The analysis was only for NCAA tournament matches so the number of matches was nearly identical in the two periods. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

26 minutes ago, 1032004 said:

I think the problem is that a lot of takedowns are scored on counters, so guys are afraid to take a bad shot then get countered and now you give up 3.  In theory a way around that would be to award less points for a takedown that isn’t off your own shot, but not sure I want that, I think that’s venturing into the subjectivity of FS and the “who initiated the move” stuff which I don’t like.

Make all TDs worth less if you want more of them. 

[NYupstate]

7 hours ago, MPhillips said:

Or...it was the numbers.

Yes, the numbers helped.

[1032004]

9 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Yes, someone could win 2-1, 3-1, with no TDs but that would be in my 1 TD category. It would only be three or more points that is not captured. And those have to be so rare as to be a rounding error. 

The analysis was only for NCAA tournament matches so the number of matches was nearly identical in the two periods. 

Ah didn’t realize you only were counting NCAA matches, thank you.

So are you saying this stat below actually captured matches where the winner scored more than 1 point?

On 6/25/2025 at 10:33 AM, Wrestleknownothing said:

I was just looking at that.

Zero Takedown Matches

• In the two years prior to the rule change (2022 -2023) there were 13 matches where the winner had 1 point (i.e. no takedowns).

 

[1032004]

9 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Make all TDs worth less if you want more of them. 

Maybe.  I’m still OK with the 3 pt TD though because I think it’s 3x harder to get than an escape. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

2 hours ago, 1032004 said:

Ah didn’t realize you only were counting NCAA matches, thank you.

So are you saying this stat below actually captured matches where the winner scored more than 1 point?

 

No. I said that stat was for the winner scoring exactly one point. 

[1032004]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

No. I said that stat was for the winner scoring exactly one point. 

Ok but I don’t think scores like 2-0 (escape + RT) or 2-1 (2 escapes + RT) would necessarily be “rounding errors.”  They’d be counted among your 2024 & 2025 data, but not 2022 & 2023.

[billyhoyle]

On 6/23/2025 at 10:28 PM, Wrestleknownothing said:

I am starting to come around to the counter-intuitive.

If you want to increase risk taking, lower the score for a takedown to 1.5. If you only get 1.5 and a reversal is worth 1, you can no longer run and hide after a single takedown. A single stalling point loses the match. If you want to be safe you need more takedowns to build your margin.

I am beginning to believe they went the wrong direction if they want to promote scoring and risk-taking.

This logic makes no sense. A takedown becomes only 0.5 points more than an escape? There'd be little incentive to waste energy trying to get takedowns early in the match. A reverse becomes exactly the same as an escape? Everyone in the top position would give up a reversal on purpose.

And you did a poor job interpreting your data by comparing 1993-2023 and 2024 to 2025. The trend was heading to fewer points per match from 1993 to 2023. You have to plot the trend. Another huge issue with your analysis was discounting overtime matches. Are fewer matches going to overtime with this rule change? How did removing tech falls impact your analysis? Are more matches now ending in technical fall?

Edited Sunday at 05:38 PM by billyhoyle

[billyhoyle]

 

On 6/23/2025 at 9:18 PM, Wrestleknownothing said:

I excluded TF because I wanted to focus on matches that went the distance. But even if you include TF the direction does not change. The impact is more muted, but still large. Including TF, one take down matches then were 5.1% and now are 7.1% (+39%). There is no impact on zero takedown matches. They still rank 9th now vs. 27th then.

I will come up with a way to illustrate the noise.

 

That is a pretty significant decrease in your effect size just by including tech falls (you've lost about 20% of it).  I wonder how much more of that effect is lost if you were to count overtime matches where one takedown was scored as one takedown matches?  And then when you plot the trend, I bet there is minimal change of one takedown matches comparing the most recent years prior to 2023 and 2024-2025. 

Edited Sunday at 05:48 PM by billyhoyle

[Wrestleknownothing]

7 hours ago, billyhoyle said:

 

 

That is a pretty significant decrease in your effect size just by including tech falls (you've lost about 20% of it).  I wonder how much more of that effect is lost if you were to count overtime matches where one takedown was scored as one takedown matches?  And then when you plot the trend, I bet there is minimal change of one takedown matches comparing the most recent years prior to 2023 and 2024-2025. 

OT has never been higher (10.8% of matches in 2025 - there is another thread on that).

And the number of matches that certainly had zero or one one takedown soared with the 3 point takedown. Another point I made above. To summarize:

• In 2022 and 2023 the winner had 1-3 points 215 times.
• In 2023 and 2024 the winner had 1-5 points 428 times.

Both of those include overtime matches.

Even though it is harder to have a tie match when a takedown is worth three times an escape than when it is worth two times an escape, there were still more OT matches (115 OT matches in 2022 and 2023 versus 128 OT matches in 2024 and 2025).

And the reason is that most of the OT matches since the 3 point takedown had zero takedowns.

• The number of times a match entered overtime tied at 0, or 1 in 2022 and 2023 was 57 (50%).
• The number of times a match entered overtime tied at 0, 1, 2 in 2024 and 2025 was 93 (73%).

The three point takedown has had the opposite of the intended effect so far. (Think like George Costanza. If all your instincts are wrong, then the opposite must be right.) Wrestlers are clearly afraid to take a risk presumably because of the fear of the counter. But with a 1.5 point TD if you take a risk, and get countered and escape, then you are only down by a half point. Deflate the takedown (and reversal) not to reward risk, but to take away fear.

[Wrestleknownothing]

8 hours ago, billyhoyle said:

This logic makes no sense. A takedown becomes only 0.5 points more than an escape? There'd be little incentive to waste energy trying to get takedowns early in the match. A reverse becomes exactly the same as an escape? Everyone in the top position would give up a reversal on purpose.

And you did a poor job interpreting your data by comparing 1993-2023 and 2024 to 2025. The trend was heading to fewer points per match from 1993 to 2023. You have to plot the trend. Another huge issue with your analysis was discounting overtime matches. Are fewer matches going to overtime with this rule change? How did removing tech falls impact your analysis? Are more matches now ending in technical fall?

The logic isn't the problem, the timeframe is. I addressed that in subsequent posts.

[ionel]

22 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Make all TDs worth less if you want more of them. 

If pinfalls were worth 0.5 pt we might see some.  

[billyhoyle]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

OT has never been higher (10.8% of matches in 2025 - there is another thread on that).

And the number of matches that certainly had zero or one one takedown soared with the 3 point takedown. Another point I made above. To summarize:

• In 2022 and 2023 the winner had 1-3 points 215 times.
• In 2023 and 2024 the winner had 1-5 points 428 times.

Both of those include overtime matches.

Even though it is harder to have a tie match when a takedown is worth three times an escape than when it is worth two times an escape, there were still more OT matches (115 OT matches in 2022 and 2023 versus 128 OT matches in 2024 and 2025).

And the reason is that most of the OT matches since the 3 point takedown had zero takedowns.

• The number of times a match entered overtime tied at 0, or 1 in 2022 and 2023 was 57 (50%).
• The number of times a match entered overtime tied at 0, 1, 2 in 2024 and 2025 was 93 (73%).

The three point takedown has had the opposite of the intended effect so far. (Think like George Costanza. If all your instincts are wrong, then the opposite must be right.) Wrestlers are clearly afraid to take a risk presumably because of the fear of the counter. But with a 1.5 point TD if you take a risk, and get countered and escape, then you are only down by a half point. Deflate the takedown (and reversal) not to reward risk, but to take away fear.

This is more convincing. I don't think 1.5 point TD helps though. Maybe just going back to 2 pt. 

Or maybe giving more points on a takedown for initiating a move versus scoring on a counter. 

I do think it is good that an athlete who scores a TD is rewarded over one who scores an escape and gets a RT or stall point. 

Edited yesterday at 03:28 AM by billyhoyle

[Wrestleknownothing]

19 minutes ago, billyhoyle said:

This is more convincing, but I'd be interested in seeing a year to year plot in takedowns. 
 

When will you have this plot ready?