coach_williams wrote:Bearhugger wrote:I think the key detail here was the blood from his nose. Action is stopped when there is blood. Back in my day (before the AIDS scare), this didn't happen. I had a team mate once that was on his back while his nose was bleeding. The blood was running back in his nose and choking him. It was the only time he was pinned all season. He got up and blew blood all over the mat in anger. The ref picked up the community blood towel and wiped off the mat and resumed action. The towel was thrown over onto the scorer's table. No big deal back then.
I understand why it happens/happened, I just don't necessarily see it as always justified. If a pin is mere seconds away then the competition should be allowed to continue to avoid injury timeouts dictating the game. Can you imagine the outcry if a receiver was about to score a TD and the ref blew the play dead because the DB that was about to tackle him had a bloody knuckle and the ref disallowed the TD? Or what if a basketball team had made a big comeback and was down by 1 point with 7 seconds left in the game and is in scoring range, then the ref noticed a player bleeding from where he got kicked in the shin, blows the play dead and then made the team go all the way back down to the other end of the court to inbound the ball virtually eliminating their chances of inbounding and getting back in scoring range before the clock expired?
The details and dynamics involved in wrestling are no where near any other high school sport. Comparing them rarely accomplishes anything.
