OK guys. As a long time grappler with shitty wrestling, can someone break it down or link to where I can?
Not only the different rules, but scoring as well.
Greco Roman I get it more or less, can't shoot or grab the legs.
But what are the differences between folkstyle and freestyle?
Big differences:
In folk style the refs are much less likely to stand you up for inactivity. The responsibility is mostly on the bottom wrestler to get up. Which is why US wrestlers are so good at getting up from the bottom. Escapes are rewarded with 1 point, and reversals with 2.
In folk style the top wrestler is rewarded with points the longer they stay on top. So folk style wrestlers are really good at holding people down with heavy, draining rides.
In folk style all takedowns are worth 2 points. There is a penalty for slamming, where slamming is defined basically as placing your opponent on the mat with unnecessary force.
Folk style has restrictions on when you can lock your hands together around your opponent on the mat to encourage action on the mat.
While the new "danger rules" change things a bit, in folk you must have control of your opponent for back exposure to score.
In freestyle, there's no riding time, and referees are much more quickly to stand people up if there's no visible progress on the mat. Think Judo. So while there are some fantastic defensive/escape/reversal artists in freestyle like Chamizo there are tons of freestyle guys who just go flat and wet blanket and wait for the standup when on bottom. Additionally I believe freestyle only awards 1 point for a reversal and zero for an escape once control has been established so the incentive to do stuff from bottom is much less.
In freestyle takedowns are scored differently depending on amplitude and whether they land someone in a position where they are in danger of being pinned. 2 points for a snap down to turtle, for instance, but 5 points for a shoulder throw that lands with them on their back (even if they manage to turn facedown immediately after). So you see a lot more throws. Additionally there is no rule against slamming; in fact, slams are often celebrated.
Freestyle awards a point for push-outs (think sumo).
Freestyle does not require an actual danger of being pinned for back exposure to score. So you get things like leg laces or gut wrenches where you lock on to the bottom wrestler in a way that they can't stop from being spun even though they can also definitely keep spinning once their back is on the mat to prevent the pin. A fully locked leg lace or gut wrench can quickly rack up enough points to win the match by a tech even though the bottom wrestler could get rotated forty times and never get pinned.
Freestyle has much less restrictions about locking your hands on the mat.
Real wrestlers correct me if I'm wrong about any of the above, I know the rules changed a lot in the last few years in both free and folk.