The five match rule has been in effect since around 1994-95 when it was changed from four per day with a one hour rest mandated in between. More and more people are running up against this rule because more schools are needed in one-day tournaments in order to get the brackets full. "Back in the day" an 8 team tournament required only eight schools to fill the brackets; now, it seems at least ten or eleven schools are required to fill an 8 man bracket in most weights. This leads to brackets that contain more than eight wrestlers; these are handled either with bunny brackets (lose one and you're done) or as a 12 man bracket (essentially a sixteen man bracket). This format adds two rounds of wrestling--one on the front and one on the back which increases the chances of a wrestler having six matches in a day if he wins and loses in the correct combination (see above).
All this said, I too think it is time to expand the daily limit to six matches per day.
Last edited by Egg; 01/28/08 12:21 PM.
