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.