Stalling...its the most complained-about call in wrestling.
Everybody wants it called...on the other guy. We talk about it at almost every officials/supervisor meeting. Its gotten much more consistent over the years.
i thinks STALLING is consistently called inconsistently. at a tournament last weekend, i watched a 145lb match where the wrestlers have faced each other about 4 times already this year. neither was going to engage the other, so we sat through 3 periods of "the dance" barely even hand fighting. the fans would have benefited from a "double stall call" then. the same tourney in the hwt match, it was the usual- no real attempts at takedowns, but a whole lot of pushing, pulling and belly rubbin'- wrestler "A" is a better belly rubber, and pushes more, so .......... wrestler "B" gets dinged for stalling. not sure if it was the same ref or not, but the crew should get together and decide on how they are going control the action. INCONSISTENT.
The reason stalling is a violation is because stalling in wrestling makes it boring to watch. No other sport penalizes stalling (some might argue the shot clock is similar). So its purpose is to keep the match interesting.In many matches, they are either interesting enough already, or nothing is going to make them so. So calling stalling serves no purpose.
most all sports have some sort of rule in place to prevent "stalling" or to press the action. each in their own way.
basketball- shot clock
football- play clock
hockey- offsides call presses the action
soccer- the goalie box presses the action
mma- the stand up
most sports don't have rules in place to prevent stalling as strategy. you touched on that also, but athletes, and coaches will find a way to use stalling as a tactic no matter how the rule changes.
in college wrestling you hear it all the time from announcers. "oh he has the riding time advantage......or he has a two point lead......so he has a stall call to give"
