The Northern Arizona Wrestling Officials (NAW Officials) have, for a few years now, been enforcing “Fleeing the Mat” rather consistently. I will give just one example; two neutral wrestlers are at the edge of the mat and even though they may have genuinely been working for a take-down, if one of those wrestlers (not because the natural force of wrestling) simply walks out of the outer circle the NAW Officials, are calling Fleeing the Mat.

The NAW Officials have continued with the “fleeing the mat” procedures in response to AWOC emphasizing this in the statewide and local clinics approximately 5 years ago.

AWOC agreed to this because it had became a problem. You may remember we even considered asking the Federation to allow us to test the “Push Out” rule if our efforts as officials did not help in stemming this problem.

AWOC’s concerted effort did help in resolving this issue and we got better at it so it kind of went away. I raise this as a concern because it appears it may no longer be being applied consistently.

Thanks… Abel Estrella