Blindfold Tag Team Wrestling
The premise for this game is that there are at least ten
people in the wrestling pool, available for each match, but the selection of
who from the pool actually fight in the given match is aleatory.
This game
is designed to prevent each wrestler from knowing the identity of his/her
partner or opponents. The rules follow:
- Choose
a ref. The ref will list the names
of each person in the pool, numbered 1 to 20 (or however many there are in
the pool) as well as blanks for 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, to index the identities of
the fighters. The ref will then,
in secret, randomly choose the identities of the indexed fighters from the
list of the pool.
- Once
the ref has chosen the teams, each person in the pool will cover his/her
eyes with a pair of eye patches, or in any other way that is not likely to
come undone in the process of wrestling. The ref will then remove the eye
patches from everyone not selected to fight. This process is in the reverse-intuitive order so that no
one yet to be blindfolded for fighting will know the identities of those
already blindfolded, and for this reason is the most critical aspect of
the pre-fight process. It is also
important that no one except the ref speak from this point on, and that
the ref only refer to fighters by their indices. Once everyone but the fighters is unblindfolded, the ref
will place his hand on the head of each fighter and say the index, so that
fighter will know when the ref is speaking to him.
- The
ref will then guide each “b” fighter to a prechosen tagging post, with
which each tagged-out wrestler must remain in contact.
- The
ref will then announce the start of the match. It will be up to the wrestlers to find their opponents and
to find their teammates. A
variation of this game allows the nonparticipants to cheer or offer
suggestions, but only in whispers, so the fighters do not recognize
anyone’s voice. Of course, during
the fighting process, no one may speak anyone’s name, including the ref, even
to refer to nonparticipants.
- If
anyone is about to touch another’s untouchable area, or is currently doing
so, or is attempting to fight a nonparticipant or a tagged out opponent or
the ref, the ref will announce “break”.
However, if a fighter happens to fight his own partner, as long as
the tagged out partner is in contact with the tagging post, it will be
deemed a tag. (This is one of the
oddest parts of the game, insofar as reason might instruct a tagged out
fighter that if someone is trying to fight with him, or even if anyone
comes in contact with him, and the ref does not announce “break”, that
person must be the tagged out fighter’s partner, and the tagged out
fighter is then tagged in. He will
suddenly be in the difficult position of trying not only to find and
defeat his opponent, but also to attempt to break up the fight with his
own partner, and to do so without speaking, as none of the fighter’s may
speak.) This may pose a difficulty
for the ref who must carefully watch the action between teammates. For once the previously tagged-in
fighter touches the tag post and releases contact with his partner, he is
then officially tagged-out and ready to be tagged-in again, which may
happen almost immediately and accidentally if the teammates continue to
fight, thus making it possible that neither partner will know who is
tagged-in. A variation of this
makes things much easier if the ref announces tags, such as “tag 1”
meaning team one has just traded fighters.
- The
ref will count aloud in the event of a pin, but not unless the pinner and pinned
are both currently tagged-in and of opposite sides.