The Farmer’s Roll is a relatively spectacular female wrestling hold/move, which is much more efficient than one would believe at first. There are several ways to execute a farmer’s roll (take a look at the animated gifs below), but they’re all aimed at dazing and disorienting the victim, so that a pin can be scored afterwards. As someone who has tasted the farmer’s roll from the receiving end, I can tell you, it’s pretty darn efficient at what it’s set out to achieve. If stretched out longer, it can make the victim so nauseous, all she’ll will want to do afterwards is get out of the ring and be left alone.

One way to apply the hold is to stand over a sitting victim and to step over her shoulders with both legs. The attacker then hooks her legs into the victim’s back and does a tumble, dragging the victim with her and flipping her over. Then the attacker rolls sideways with the hold locked in and does the move again. After 5-6 such flips, I was just about ready to surrender.

Another way to do the roll is from a sitting position. The attacker sits down behind the sitting victim and gets her legs around her waist. She then starts rolling sideways, rolling the victim onto her shoulders and back to her bottom again. The advantage of this version is that the attacker can choose to stop when the victim has her shoulders on the mat, and thus she can earn a pin without any further ado.

Japanese ladies seem to have developed a version of their own, slightly more intricate, where the attacker hooks one of her legs around one of the victim’s legs and grabs her crotch with a hand.

Possible escape: don’t let your opponent set you up for the hold. Once the rolling begins and momentum is gained, it’s quite difficult to break out of it.

Rating: despite its rather harmless appearance, the Farmer’s roll is a pretty nasty bugger. It can take all the fight out of you in a jiffy, regardless of how excited you are to be in that ring.