Wrestling Rules: Single Opponent Matches

After watching my fair share of WWE matches over the past month or so I've learned there are in fact rules. They may or may not be followed but I think it is important that we chat a little bit about what they are in the rule book and also what rules only exist in the WWE Universe (yeah there are some cultural rules that we just need to get out there). To start out we are going to focus on Single Opponent Matches. These are your basic, run of the mill, one on one matches without fancy things like chairs, cages, or whatever other random stuff they throw into matches. These are the vanilla matches for a better word. We all love vanilla because we know what we are going to get - but then of course WWE likes to do weird stuff so sometimes you get some random sprinkles thrown in. Surprise!

Here are the 3 "Real" rules (note there are more but this is really all you need to know):

Rule #1: Matches are to be one on one and agreed upon by either the opponents or some form of "management". You can't just have a "match" without both people knowing about it or without some important person saying "You are in a match". Good rule, right? That does not mean that a match can't randomly start from another match or that it can't happen officially after it starts unofficially. 

Rule #2: Matches are by "one fall" which means one person has to "fall" or get beat. You can get beat by tapping out (saying ouch ouch stop by hitting the mat or the other person), pin (both shoulders are down on the mat for a count of three by a referee, count out (when you leave the ring you only have 10 seconds to get back in), or disqualification which apparently happens like all the time. Now random little fact here about counting either for pins or count outs, there is not agreed upon speed of the count. Sometimes it is super fast and sometimes slow. You know, discretion I guess.

Rule #3: Staying in the ring and the ropes. So this rule is an interesting one because in other "special' matches you can go wherever you want and do pretty much whatever you want. Not in these vanilla matches though. You have to stay in the ring or get counted out (see count out) but you can leave if you need a break I guess. You can take a nice little ten count and chill out with the crowd but you have to get back in before the ref (again however fast or slow he likes) counts to ten otherwise you get disqualified. The other rule of the "ring and ropes" is you cannot pin someone or do a submission hold (the hold for a tap out) if you or they are touching the ropes. So, no hooking a foot, an arm, or whatever around the ropes. You have a five count to stop touching them if your opponent touches the ropes so you can't just like squish them against the ropes for hours. This becomes a big thing I guess because the refs are notorious for not paying attention to this rule and counting a pin even though a foot is on the ropes. Go figure.

Now here are the unwritten WWE rules:

Rule #1: You can bring your friends to ringside. This rule is so weird because the match is always one on one but then a guy walks out with like two giant friends and you think "Well this looks fair!" So you can have friends but they can't interfere or you get disqualified. So this will happen ALL. THE. TIME. The refs also will never pay proper attention to these little/big/scary friends on the sidelines unless it benefits their friend. For example, they will cause a distraction to help said friend land an illegal move or to allow another person to randomly run and interfere. It is weird and doesn't make sense to me. They can also fight other friends that happen to come out as long as they don't do it in the ring. This causes a lot of fun problems because there will always be factions of people that like to fight each other. Again, not sure why this is even allowed but WWE likes drama.

Rule #2: Disqualification does not mean you lose the match or whatever title is on the line. This rule is so odd to me and I didn't realize it was a thing until one match happened and the guy walked away after totally breaking all the three rules above with his little belt thingy. Apparently disqualification just means like it didn't happen or something. So basically if you have a bad guy with a title they will just purposefully get disqualified so they can keep their title. I feel like if you cheat you should lose but these aren't mommy rules these are WWE rules so there you go. If it were up to me all cheaters would have to clean the stands or something. Jerks.

Rule #3: Referees have absolutely no power, training, or knowledge of what is going on around them. This is a common rule that is observed at pretty much 100% of the matches. I don't know where they find these jokers but they are giving the NFL refs a run for their money. They typically miss important pins, rope breaks, or interference. They have poor counting skills and are easily distracted by shiny things so they allow a lot more than is supposed to happen. For instance, they are totally cool with someone throwing a guy onto the announcers table and wrestling outside the ring for like 20 minutes. Like come on, that is not allowed people! They also cannot break up fights. If the match is over they kind of turn into spaghetti and just fall away while the loser beats the crap out of the winner or whatever. For instance, Brock Lesnar throwing poor Fin around like a rag doll for 10 minutes after the match and the little ref is all "Oh dear please stop!" They should use big guys with tasers if they can't control the wrestlers.

So there are the basic rules of the "vanilla matches". Now there are a few exciting changes to these matches, because you know, WWE is drama. Here are a few of the most common ones:

• Falls count anywhere -you can pin your opponent anywhere in the entire building pretty much - so this one is fun because the match goes outside the ring and can get crazy!
• No DQ - this means you cannot be disqualified so anything goes. You can use chairs, ladders, stairs, whatever you want to win and you can do it anywhere not just within the ring. This one means you can only win by tap out or pin. These are used a lot for the falls count anywhere matches because why not? It also is exciting when they are for a championship because then the bad guys can't just keep ruining things.
• Multiple falls count - these ones are you get X number of pins before you can win. Usually it is three but it can be up to any number or it can be whoever gets the most in a certain point of time. These are fun if you have two pretty good wrestlers because they can last a long time and there tends to be more action.
• Gauntlet Matches - these ones were new to me and have special rules but basically this is where multiple people come out after a pin. So there are people lined up and waiting and once someone gets pinned out or tapped out the next guy/girl comes in to fight the winner until the whole line of people are done and there is one winner. This is used for placement for bigger matches (the winner gets to go last or whatever). They are kind of fun if you know they are happening but if you don't you are very confused.

There are more special matches like cage matches or ones that use ladders or props or whatever but these are the ones that I think follow the most normal rules. Next up we will need to talk about tag teams because they have even more rules!