I wrestled, coached and officiated a lot of matches for twenty year's.

Frankly vast majority of times stalling is an issue is the fans in the stands yelling it every time their wrestler is not doing well. Every year I would tell parents on my team to quit it with the constant yells for stalling calls or “what’s he doing on bottom (or top)”. Frankly is was often due to their own kids being unable to escape from bottom or score on top. But they loved yelling it. Often the officials got frustrated with this constant crowd moaning for stall calls and it ended up costing our team as the officials started calling stalling on us out of frustration.

The key thing for me on stalling is the motivation. Often people stall when they are protecting a lead or gassed, often a combo of both. As an official this is easier to make stalling calls as you know the wrestler has motivation to stall. Avoiding takedown is also a motivator. That’s pretty easy to see though as guys stall in their feet.

I don’t understand the motivation to stall in the first period though. College and high school have three periods. Each wrestler gets to pick for one. So the first period becomes a swing factor with both wrestlers at full energy levels.

I don’t recall ever in my career thinking it would be good to stall in the first period. Frankly that’s where matches are often won.

And stalling on bottom? Being on bottom isn’t a fun place to be. Frankly it’s exhausting. I wanted to get out of the bottom position as fast as I could. Because getting your face pounded into the mat and having someone ride legs while trying to dislodge your arms isn’t a vacation. So if I ever was stuck down there it wasn’t due to a decision to stall.

On top my criteria is “are they working for a turn” or improving their position to do so. Riding a bull doesn’t look easy. Staying on top of good mat wrestler isn’t either. Frankly if the action isn’t happening on the mat I think restarts are the right answer.

Wrestling can be a tough sport to understand the rules. A lot of newcomers pick up on stalling easily though and love screaming out for stalling calls. Frankly it gets old. My wrestling coach in high school always told us to stop complaining about stalling and do something about it. Rarely do you see high caliber wrestlers complaining about stalling because they dictate the match on their terms.