Extra time and penalties

[tiger_rick]

Right, a nonsense (kayfabe) topic. I thought about this one morning when I was begging my alarm for 5 more minutes.

Wrestling has a time limit. Arbitrarily, there'll be calls for 5 more minutes if the time limit is reached and it's occasionally invoked (or used to screw the GOAT out of the WWF Title at WM12). Almost all sports have some sort of tie-breaker. Extra-time and/or pens in football, golden point in rugby league, judges in boxing, overtime in the NFL.

Should pro-wrestling establish a period of overtime, how long and what would be the tie-breaker? Just the next pin or submission, or something else?

Would it increase the drama and opportunities for telling stories, or just a waste of time and I should go back to sleep?

[Jesse]

Scored by a group of judges, like other combat sports. For realism, the scores should also be completely nonsensical

[King Mal the Glorious]

21 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Scored by a group of judges, like other combat sports. For realism, the scores should also be completely nonsensical

I might be wrong but I think that's already part of the ROH "pure" rules.

[BomberPat]

The Deadlock podcast recently complained about chants of "five more minutes" after the time limit expires in a match; the match has a time limit for a reason, why should the wrestlers arbitrarily be able to decide to keep going for a little bit longer? It's different in cases like Gorilla Monsoon restarting the Shawn/Bret Iron Man match, because in that case it's an authority figure deciding it.

There's a combination of things going on - one is fans seeing anything other than a "definitive" pinfall or submission finish as a non-finish, when if it's booked properly a DQ, count out, or time limit draw can still be a narratively satisfying end to a match. The other, for me at least, is that "sudden death" works in sports that have multiple opportunities to score points - in a single fall wrestling match, what meaningful difference is there between sudden death and the match just not having a time limit in the first place? 

I've always liked the idea of judges, and of transitioning a wrestler into a new feud by having them get into it with a judge who scored them badly, but I don't know how satisfying a judge's decision would be in kayfabe outside of that specific angle. 

[bigfoote]

No idea seriously but I think sudden death, Rumble rules, first to 3 (with next one wins if it gets to 2-2). Last man standing in the ring three times takes it.

[JLM]

The ROH pure title matches have judges scoring the matches but it gets messy when people do stuff behind the ref’s back. Like if someone cheats but the ref doesn’t see it, do the judges have to act like they didn’t see it either and score the match as if it didn’t happen?
 

 If it *does* factor into their scoring, then shouldn’t they be able to call for the DQ/penalty as well? Maybe have assistant ref flags to throw up? 
 

@BomberPat I did think that about time limit draws/five more minutes when The Bucks denied Claudio five more mins against Okada in Cardiff. They said Okada was contracted to defend his title in a 20 minute match and he had done exactly that. An unpopular decision but they were quite right, especially in a title match where the onus is always meant to be on the challenger to definitively defeat the champion. 

 

Edited September 24 by JLM

[Frankie Crisp]

Fewest superkicks wins.

[SuperBacon]

I quite the idea of settling with Rumble rules on sudden death.

[Jazzy G]

Or, as seems to be the case in the majority of situations, you have the "no time limits, there must be a winner match" after you've had your pair of hour-long Broadway finishes, and then the third match inexplicably only goes about 20 minutes. 

[Vamp]

5 minutes always seems an arbitrary amount of time. "I am unsatisfied with the lack of conclusion to this match and would like to see more, but no more than 5 minutes and if it still ends unsatisfactory it's fine."

Wasn't there an Australian indy that had a gimmick where any match that went over 10 minutes would have another wrestler join it? 

 

 

[Carbomb]

Have extra time of two periods of five minutes, with a Silver Pin/Submission.

Then watch the internet explode.

[CavemanLynn]

One of my probably-fake memories from watching WCW on Saturday afternoons with Pat Sharp was a Vader vs Sting match that went into "sudden death" where the next wrestler whose knee touched the mat loses. I remember Sting staggering and just catching himself on the corner, and the commentator screeching "But did the knee touch? Did the knee touch?"

[Merzbow]

11 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said:

One of my probably-fake memories from watching WCW on Saturday afternoons with Pat Sharp was a Vader vs Sting match that went into "sudden death" where the next wrestler whose knee touched the mat loses. I remember Sting staggering and just catching himself on the corner, and the commentator screeching "But did the knee touch? Did the knee touch?"

Wasn't Vader also knocked down while the ref didn't see??

[Just Some Guy]

1 hour ago, CavemanLynn said:

One of my probably-fake memories from watching WCW on Saturday afternoons with Pat Sharp was a Vader vs Sting match that went into "sudden death" where the next wrestler whose knee touched the mat loses. I remember Sting staggering and just catching himself on the corner, and the commentator screeching "But did the knee touch? Did the knee touch?"

There was a WoS match involving Greg Valentine (not that one), where instead of falls it was first to 10 points. A point was scored if any part of the body other than the soles of the feet touched the canvas.

On topic, how about lower the pin count as time ticks on. A count of two scores a pin in the first five minutes and then a count of one after that?

[JNLister]

The annual Big Japan/DDT New Year's Eve knockout tournament has time limits. If a match goes the limit it continues as sudden death with a one-count winning it. It usually turns into guys doing reversals on the mat to try to quickly get into a pinning position rather than try to hit a big move to incapacitate someone for a three count. They'll often use the format to have an "upset" pin where somebody who'd never get a three count on somebody pulls of the one-count.

On a football theme, during the 2018 World Cup DDT not only had VAR for controversial pins (eg hooking the tight), but if somebody was caught breaking the rules, their opponent got a literal free kick.