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Unwritten rules

lewdwar

By lewdwar
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lewdwar Infant Gorilla

lewdwar

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I stole this from themat.com written by DF.  Seems pretty legit.

 

I was watching a documentary about baseball and they discussed some of its unwritten rules (things that aren't in the rule book but players do/don't do out of tradition). Things like if one of your batters gets beaned then your pitcher will bean one of their batters the next inning, never talking about a no-hitter while it's happening, etc).

 

So I got to thinking about some of the unwritten rules of wrestling. These are some I abided by during my competitive days in no particular order:

 

1. You only get once pass at celebrating a victory in an overly emotional way, usually when you win a big tournament (like state) for the first time. After that you have to act like you've been there/done that before. Don't be the Roger Federer of wrestling. For those of you who don't know who Roger Federer is, he's arguably the greatest tennis player in history who's won every major tournament a bunch of times. But every time he wins the same tournament again, he flops down on the court, cries, or gets hysterical in some other way like he's a rookie winning the tournament for the first time.

 

2. You should, as a matter of respect, shake your opponent's coach's hand after the match. The only time you don't have to do this is if your opponent's coach makes a negative remark about you during the match ("He's tired!", "He's doing nothing, ref!" "He's just resting on bottom!", etc). He disrespected you, so there's no need to show him respect by shaking his hand.

 

3. If you're a nobody (unranked) wrestler who makes it to the state finals against a superior wrestler, don't get overly emotional if you lose. You haven't achieved squat during your wrestling career (which is why you're unranked) and only got to the finals through some fluke. So don't act all angry/devastated when you lose as if you were expected to win.

 

4. If you're a nobody wrestler, chances are you're going to be spending a lot of time in the consolation bracket. If the #1 or even #2 ranked wrestler gets beat at some point in the tournament and chooses the indignity of joining you and the rest of the yabos in the consolation bracket, don't act all high and mighty and wrestle to defeat him. He's already lowered himself to try to get a meaningless 3rd place. He doesn't need the additional insult of some scrub wrestling hard to defeat him. The rule is you wrestle a solid match but the #1/#2 ranked wrestler gets to win.

 

5. When a weight class gets called at a tournament and all the wrestlers come down from the bleachers to get their bout sheets, it's the lower ranked wrestler who takes the bout sheet and brings it to the assigned mat for the match.

 

6. Rules for wrestling against the #1 ranked wrestler/returning champion:

*Don't step on to the mat for the match before he does.

*You wait until he offers his hand for the handshake before the match starts, never disrespect his higher position by offering your hand first.

*You never take the first shot of the match against the #1 guy/returning champion.

 

7. Your headgear should be relatively clean and presentable. Don't tape it all up, put stickers on it, have it all torn up. It's pretentious and screams that you're trying way too hard to look tough/cool.

 

8. Tape up visible tattoos. This used to be the sport of kings. Don't denigrate that ideal by your trashy tats. Nobody cares how "meaningful" they are to you or how they make you "unique" (unique like every other jackwagon with tats).

 

9. Win or lose, go to center mat and get your hand raised or stay there while your opponent gets his hand raised. You don't look extra cool/defiant by running off the mat before your opponent gets his hand raised.

 

10. If you get screwed over in the finals there are several ways of handling the screw job. The ultimate option is to not show up to the awards ceremony so the 2nd place podium is awkwardly empty, which lets everybody know a screw job took place. The other more discrete option is to show up to the awards ceremony and stand on the 2nd place platform. But when the guy comes around to drape the silver medal around your neck, don't bow down and let him do so. Instead reach out and take the medal from his hand and hold it to the side during the ceremony. This is a subtle way of letting everyone know that you'll take the medal but you don't really accept it. If you want to really go all out, you can stand on the 2nd place platform but refuse to take the medal as he presents it to you.

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Tom Riddle Infant Gorilla

Tom Riddle

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I stole this from themat.com written by DF.  Seems pretty legit.

 

I was watching a documentary about baseball and they discussed some of its unwritten rules (things that aren't in the rule book but players do/don't do out of tradition). Things like if one of your batters gets beaned then your pitcher will bean one of their batters the next inning, never talking about a no-hitter while it's happening, etc).

 

So I got to thinking about some of the unwritten rules of wrestling. These are some I abided by during my competitive days in no particular order:

 

1. You only get once pass at celebrating a victory in an overly emotional way, usually when you win a big tournament (like state) for the first time. After that you have to act like you've been there/done that before. Don't be the Roger Federer of wrestling. For those of you who don't know who Roger Federer is, he's arguably the greatest tennis player in history who's won every major tournament a bunch of times. But every time he wins the same tournament again, he flops down on the court, cries, or gets hysterical in some other way like he's a rookie winning the tournament for the first time.

 

2. You should, as a matter of respect, shake your opponent's coach's hand after the match. The only time you don't have to do this is if your opponent's coach makes a negative remark about you during the match ("He's tired!", "He's doing nothing, ref!" "He's just resting on bottom!", etc). He disrespected you, so there's no need to show him respect by shaking his hand.

 

3. If you're a nobody (unranked) wrestler who makes it to the state finals against a superior wrestler, don't get overly emotional if you lose. You haven't achieved squat during your wrestling career (which is why you're unranked) and only got to the finals through some fluke. So don't act all angry/devastated when you lose as if you were expected to win.

 

4. If you're a nobody wrestler, chances are you're going to be spending a lot of time in the consolation bracket. If the #1 or even #2 ranked wrestler gets beat at some point in the tournament and chooses the indignity of joining you and the rest of the yabos in the consolation bracket, don't act all high and mighty and wrestle to defeat him. He's already lowered himself to try to get a meaningless 3rd place. He doesn't need the additional insult of some scrub wrestling hard to defeat him. The rule is you wrestle a solid match but the #1/#2 ranked wrestler gets to win.

 

5. When a weight class gets called at a tournament and all the wrestlers come down from the bleachers to get their bout sheets, it's the lower ranked wrestler who takes the bout sheet and brings it to the assigned mat for the match.

 

6. Rules for wrestling against the #1 ranked wrestler/returning champion:

*Don't step on to the mat for the match before he does.

*You wait until he offers his hand for the handshake before the match starts, never disrespect his higher position by offering your hand first.

*You never take the first shot of the match against the #1 guy/returning champion.

 

7. Your headgear should be relatively clean and presentable. Don't tape it all up, put stickers on it, have it all torn up. It's pretentious and screams that you're trying way too hard to look tough/cool.

 

8. Tape up visible tattoos. This used to be the sport of kings. Don't denigrate that ideal by your trashy tats. Nobody cares how "meaningful" they are to you or how they make you "unique" (unique like every other jackwagon with tats).

 

9. Win or lose, go to center mat and get your hand raised or stay there while your opponent gets his hand raised. You don't look extra cool/defiant by running off the mat before your opponent gets his hand raised.

 

10. If you get screwed over in the finals there are several ways of handling the screw job. The ultimate option is to not show up to the awards ceremony so the 2nd place podium is awkwardly empty, which lets everybody know a screw job took place. The other more discrete option is to show up to the awards ceremony and stand on the 2nd place platform. But when the guy comes around to drape the silver medal around your neck, don't bow down and let him do so. Instead reach out and take the medal from his hand and hold it to the side during the ceremony. This is a subtle way of letting everyone know that you'll take the medal but you don't really accept it. If you want to really go all out, you can stand on the 2nd place platform but refuse to take the medal as he presents it to you.

 

4.  I don't care who you are if you go out on the mat you wrestle to win.  Don't take it easy on a guy just because he's having a bad day. Nobody "gets" to win.  You earn it.

 

6.  Don't be a coward.  If a guy has a #1 mark on him you have the chance of taking it away.  If the so-called #1 is dumb enough to leave a shot open, you take it.  Don't sit there and wait just because he's supposedly better.

 

I have some problem with a few of these other rules too, but mostly 4 and 6.  As you can see I do not really post on here, but these "rules" are so stupid that had to log in.

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lewdwar Infant Gorilla

lewdwar

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11. If you win a tournament, don't "invite" the 2nd and 3rd place finishers up to join you on the 1st place podium. It's beyond condescending. You're basically saying to them "You weren't good enough to be up here on your own, but I'll give you permission to join me up here even though you don't really belong here."

 

12. Keep your headgear on after the match until you're off the mat. Have you noticed that the guy who wins is usually the one who pops his headgear strap off immediately after the final whistle or completely takes off his headgear while the guy who lost usually keeps his on? It's like some act of additional bravado after having won. Oh you say it's "uncomfortable" to keep wearing it? You were just wearing it for the entire match you hypocrite. You can keep it on for a few more seconds until you're off the mat.

 

13. Don't wear t-shirts advertising what "tough" camp you went to over the summer. Nobody cares or is intimidated that you made it through some "intense" camp. Besides it makes you look foolish if you end up losing to a guy who spent his summer sleeping in until noon and playing video games until dawn.

 

14. If a guy is wearing those old school tights (leggings) under his singlet then he's either the best wrestler at the tournament or the worst wrestler ever. There's no middle ground when it comes to guys wearing tights under their singlets.

 

15. If you get bounced early from a tournament it's perfectly ok to get the customary serving of extra large nachos with all the fixings and sit up in the bleachers and enjoy it with a huge satisfying grin as you watch everybody else still wrestling and struggling to make weight for the second day. It's one of the greatest joys of losing.

 

16. If the ref who's gonna be reffing your match is big fat guy then it's almost a given he's going to act like power hungry prick. If he's sporting the classic fat guy goatee (because fat guys think a goatee makes their double/triple chins less noticeable) then it's assured he's gonna be mega prick. The reason these fatties are colossal pricks is because (1) they're fat and (2) they achieved very little during their wrestling careers and now get a kick out of passive-aggressively projecting their fat frustrations on other wrestlers. The only good thing about having a fat ref is that if you put your opponent on his back these fatties will call a pin faster than they can wolf down an entire pie since it's super uncomfortable for them to be down on the mat on their huge gut for too long.

 

17. If you opponent is going through an "intimidating" pre-match warm-up (slapping himself all over, blaring angry music from his oversized headphones, doing air sprawls, etc) then you're probably going to beat him fairly easily. The guy's scared and he's trying to hide it by going through this elaborate routine to try to "psyche" you out. The guy you have to worry about is the quiet one who's just standing off to the side of the mat, calmly watching the match going on before you two are up, maybe just nonchalantly bouncing up and down a few times being his entire warm up.

 

18. Awesome singlet + Brand new state-of-the-art wrestling shoes = mediocre wrestler

 

19. Your opponent is unusually undersized for your weight class but is highly ranked even though he comes from a no-name school with a non-existent wrestling history? Prepare to be destroyed.

 

20. You're not listening to a damn word your coach is telling you right before your match if there's a hot stats girl or female trainer nearby.

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lewdwar Infant Gorilla

lewdwar

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21. The token chick wrestler on the all-male wrestling team has major issues that you cannot even begin to comprehend. Just let her be. After a few months of trying to prove "she's just as good as any guy", possibly a year if she's really hardcore, she'll get bored and quit.

 

22. If a wrestler has an injured leg and you see his opponent intentionally avoid shooting in on that leg, don't mistake that for sportsmanship. He's actually hurting the injured leg more by shooting in on the good leg. Why? Because when he gets a single and gets the good leg up in the air he's making the guy balance himself by putting all his weight on the bad leg. Oldest trick in the book to make yourself look like a good sport to the uninformed fans.

 

23. There are few things more annoying than a loud shrieking middle aged woman cheering during a wrestling match when the rest of the crowd is relatively quiet. "WHOOOOOO!" Alright JOHNNY! WHOOOOO!"

 

24. It's always disappointing to win a tournament and the medal you get is the exact same design as the medal you got at another tournament a few weeks ago.

 

25. You made a huge mistake by not taking advantage of the information the announcer said about you to the crowd during your finals appearance at that tournament. While everybody announced that they had a 4.0 GPA, or had signed to wrestle at this or that college, or dedicated this match to their parents, etc...you could have "Been recently nominated for the Nobel Prize and dedicates this match to himself because without him this match wouldn't be taking place right now."

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MattM World Champion

MattM

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Well you have to know of the works of DF to truly understand his musings.  He's got quite a way with words when it comes to explain the lonesome life of the anti-hero and underachiever.  This actually seems to be some of his more tame work on the subject matter.

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jlittlejohn Bantam

jlittlejohn

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16. If the ref who's gonna be reffing your match is big fat guy then it's almost a given he's going to act like power hungry prick. If he's sporting the classic fat guy goatee (because fat guys think a goatee makes their double/triple chins less noticeable) then it's assured he's gonna be mega prick. The reason these fatties are colossal pricks is because (1) they're fat and (2) they achieved very little during their wrestling careers and now get a kick out of passive-aggressively projecting their fat frustrations on other wrestlers. The only good thing about having a fat ref is that if you put your opponent on his back these fatties will call a pin faster than they can wolf down an entire pie since it's super uncomfortable for them to be down on the mat on their huge gut for too long.

 

Hey Lew,

I resemble that remark... If you think I was a prick before, just wait until next time and I know it'll be real soon!!!  :o  Hell, I may not even wait to get on the mat to call the fall; I may just stomp the mat while standing, especially if it's one of your kids on their back...  ::)

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