Tag Team - Tag Team Match Rules

Tag Team Match Rules

The basic tag team match has two teams of two wrestlers facing off against each other. All standard rules for singles wrestling apply to a team match. However, only one wrestler from each team, called the "legal man" is allowed in the ring at a time (although heels will often flout this rule in an attempt to gang up on a single opponent). All other members of the team wait outside the ropes (on the ring apron or the floor) in the team's specified corner. Only an active/legal wrestler is allowed to score a fall or have a fall scored against him/her. But any wrestler, legal or outside, may face disqualification for himself or his team for violating rules.

Once a tag is made, the wrestler tagging out has a grace period (typically five to ten seconds) to leave the ring before risking disqualification. Offensive cooperation from a team member is allowed during this time window; thus it is rather commonplace for both members of a team, especially heel teams, to milk this grace period and have two men in the ring simultaneously with only one member of an opposing team.

The following are standard requisites for making a legal tag:

• Both feet of the wrestler on the outside must be flat on the apron.
• The wrestler outside the ring must be touching the tag rope tied in the corner (or the turnbuckle pad in rings which have no tag rope).
• Tags are legal as long as the two team members touch.
• The referee has to see and/or hear the contact between the two wrestlers in order for the tag to be legal.

As the ultimate authority over the match, a referee may overlook any of these at his discretion, and during frenzied action, often will be more lenient with them.

In some multi-man tag matches in lucha libre, a wrestler can make himself the team's legal man simply by setting foot in the ring, and his partner then leaves. This allows for action to become nearly continuous. Two referees, one stationed inside the ring and one on the floor, are employed to maintain order for this type of match.