In the sport of wrestling, there are many penalties and precautionary actions to ensure the safety of each of the wrestlers, but in the three different types of wrestling, Greco-Roman, Freestyle, and Folkstyle, only one of them penalizes for a “slam.”

In Greco-Roman and Freestyle, it is not illegal to lift your opponent and then return him to the mat before your own body hits the mat. This is because in both these styles you are rewarded either 4 or 5 points for a throw where you expose the opponent’s back. Not only do you get points for this, you also slow your opponent down by tiring them out, which is beneficial to the wrestlers performing the “slam.”

I have wrestled all three styles and can say from personal experience that being able to slam an opponent can be very helpful towards winning a match. Also, since this is allowed it helps mix the three styles and possibly increase the amount of wrestlers who participate in multiple styles.

The freedom or number of wrestling moves allowed in wrestling is already very open, but in recent years there have been more rules created to “protect” the athletes when all the styles have generally the same amount of injuries year to year. These rules include things such as not being allowed to lift and return your opponent to the mat if there arm trapped, and it’s illegal to slam your opponent, there’s also a variety of moves that are illegal because they are used near the throat. Charts on Competitivewrestling.com showed that in freestyle 7% of all participants were injured in some way during the season, in Greco 5% and in Folkstyle 5%. So, generally the same number of injuries occur in each style.

Being able to do fewer moves has lowered the true meaning and the “grind” of the sport. This upsets many wrestlers.Tate Martinez, a wrestler here at Rocky says,They are exciting and makes watching wrestling more enjoyable, especially to people who don’t understand the sport.”

These rule changes are not beneficial enough to the athletes for it to be taking away from the sport. This, in turn, is a rule that needs to be taken away to help wrestling stay the way it has always been, which is filled with jaw dropping throws and various aggressive movements.