By Bryan Van Kley, W.I.N. Publisher

I left Las Vegas and the World Team Trials like many people in wrestling, shaking my head at how ludicrous it is to break scoreless ties in some of wrestling’s biggest matches in this manner.

For those of you who don’t follow freestyle that closely, the leg clinch was FILA’s idea a couple years ago on how to end a scoreless period. The winner of a coin flip gets to lock up in a deep single-leg position of their choice. They then have 30 seconds to score, which includes pushing their opponent off the mat for one point.

If they don’t score, the defensive wrestler wins the period. But that hardly ever happens. In the freestyle finals of the Trials, the offensive wrestlers won nine of ten clinches.

The only defensive wrestler to win a clinch was Zach Roberson over Mike Zadick in the second period of their second bout. And in that match, the official, who was sick of the cat-and-mouse game the two guys were playing in the clinch, blew the whistle before Zadick ever got Roberson’s leg locked up.

This leg clinch is only a shade better than the previous ridiculous body-lock clinch freestylers were put into a few years ago.

Team USA freestyle coach Kevin Jackson doesn’t care for the clinch either, but knows it’s a reality.

“Our philosophy of Team USA is to avoid the leg clinch at all costs. I was disappointed in the first group of athletes at 60 and 74 kilos that it came down to that,” Jackson said, referring to clinches in Roberson and Zadick’s final series as well as Joe Heskett and Casey Cunningham’s bouts.

The other dynamic which makes this clinch even more laughable is the manner in which referees are handling it. There were numerous times in Vegas where the official would stop the clinch because one wrestler was failing to “present himself properly” or “fleeing the hold,” which is what the officials are supposed to do. But, the procedure in the clinch is to warn a wrestler once, then penalize him the second time, ending the period. Often times the wrestlers bent the rules again only seconds after a warning because they knew the officials were inconsistent about giving a second warning, not wanting to end bouts in that way.

Zadick, who lost the World title last year by failing to score out of the clinch, said the position could be fair if the start was called properly.

“(How it’s called) is not black and white,” he said. “There’s an area in there where there’s room to cheat them. It makes up for an official that makes a mistake.”

Jackson said the grey area of subjectivity — what officials allow when guys are getting into the position — creates more problems.

“If guys are aware that the referee is going to let (them) cheat, they do everything they can until they’re cautioned,” Jackson said.

On the other hand, the new Greco clinch was a very positive change. Wrestlers are put down in par terre and each is given 30 seconds to score out of a gut-wrench position.

Why not do the same thing in freestyle? Give each wrestler a chance in the par terre position for 30 seconds. If points are scored by both wrestlers, the winner is the guy who scores last. This would put some emphasis back on mat wrestling since the new rules have taken away from that. And it should create more pinning situations as well.

The other option would be to turn off the clock and let them wrestle. One of the best matches in recent memory was the Dennis Hall vs. Brandon Paulson war at the 2004 Olympic Trials where they wrestled nearly 17 minutes until the tie was broken. If wrestlers know they may have to go for 20 minutes, you’d see earlier action.

FILA has dramatically changed freestyle wrestling with these rule changes.

“It’s a tactical match now. They’ve completely thrown out the true essence of wrestling and that’s testing the guy’s heart and soul,” Jackson said.

FILA has a history of doing things their way. Hopefully it will be obvious to them very soon that a major change is needed.

(Bryan Van Kley is the publisher of W.I.N. Magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at Bryan@WIN-magazine.com.)