By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

For most American wrestling fans, FILA is no more than a four-letter word and not just because it’s hard to understand how an organization that oversees wrestling internationally does not have a “W” in its acronym.

Yes, I know that the “L” word in the Federation Internationale des Luttes Associees, based in Switzerland, is french for wrestling. And that may be appropriate for FILA, whose decisions, including rule changes, have come off as very foreign for most U.S. wrestling fans.

Americans also have a hard time understanding why FILA continued to add different styles of wrestling instead of focusing on just freestyle and Greco-Roman, whose numbers — in terms of competitive weights — have dropped over the year.

Yet at the same time, FILA first introduced Beach and Sombo wrestling two years ago and created World Championships in those events. Now the latest of these new sports is Grappling, which was displayed during its U.S. World Team Trials in Las Vegas the first week of June; literally alongside freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers who were battling for a ticket to the World Championships this fall.

Unfortunately, only a few wrestling fans spent any time watching any of the grapplers who competed in any of the five men’s and four women’s weights. And those who did, had no idea what they were watching, even if public address announcer Sandy Stevens tried to explain the new rules.

At one point, I told a young man who was competing in Grappling that I could not understand how points were scored in his sport.

His response: “It’s no different trying to understand how points are scored in wrestling.”

Sadly, that was true and FILA is to blame for changing all the rules; leaving fans to wonder how — rather than cheer — when their favorites scored during the Trials.

But I am trying to be open-minded and even searched out another grappler, Bahar Shahidi, who won the 121-pound women’s weight class and earned a right to compete at the Grappling World Championships in Antalya, Turkey, this September.

“What we do is start standing up and you either want to throw the person or get them in a position where you are in control once you are on the ground,” said Shahidi, whose background was in judo before moving to Grappling. “You get points if you throw them and end up in control. Once you end up on the ground, certain positions are worth points and certain positions are not.”

That included being on one’s back as pins do not exist. Instead, grapplers go after submission holds.
“It doesn’t matter if your shoulder blades are on the ground for three seconds,” she said. “You have to have the person ‘tapped out’ and they have to submit to you or you end up running out of time by points.”

Unfortunately, the only thing I felt was running out of time — after watching this sport, which should be sponsored by an international judo group — was FILA, which needs to correct its errors and bring back true wrestling before any more drastic changes hurt our sport.

(Mike Finn, who was named Journalist of the Year by NWMA in 2007, welcomes comments at mikef@WIN-magazine.com.)