No, Ban Basketball is right. Pinfall is an old term that predates the tech fall, and (if I'm not mistaken) was commonly used in professional wrestling. Maybe Ideamark can verify this. I've seen it in local newspaper articles written by sportswriters who don't know that it's an archaic expression.
Let me back up ban basketball and Spider to "pin" down this issue. I "fall" somewhere between the two in age, and I certainly heard it long before having ever heard of Gordon Solie, RIP.
In doing my research for RevRewind, I find myself going through old newspaper articles, college yearbooks and other resources "from back in the day", and the word "pinfall" was commonly used. In a similar vein, words like "grapplers", "matmen", "muscle boys" and "grunt-and-groan guys" (or some variation) were used as alternatives to "wrestler." (Sort of like those who ran track were "thinclads" and "harriers".) It was from an era were writing tended to be more flowery, more elaborate, perhaps even more over-the-top than today's more straightforward style. It doesn't make it wrong or right, it just was.
All that said, Jason, I agree -- "pinfall" is redundant, two words that say the same thing, pushed together.
I was active in PA wrestling from about 1970 to 1984, and I never heard the term pinfall until the last year or so. That doesn't mean the term wasn't used, it just means that I never heard it. Maybe it was big in other parts of the country?
Two other comments RE old yearbooks in their coverage of real wrestling...
> References to pro rasslin' -- refering to a flat wrestling mat as a "ring" (though, some college wrestling programs like Oklahoma State, Indiana, Northwestern, UNI used a roped-off ring till it was banned by the NCAA during World War II) or statements like "Make him submit!" or "Gorgeous George's got nothing on these guys!" (Gorgeous George = late 40s/early 50s pro rasslin superstar.)
> Silly, inappropriate photo captions that seem more appropriate to "traditional" dating behavior -- "Shall we dance?" "Not on the first date!" --not describing a legitimate sport.
These silly captions are doubly maddening when you're trying to locate a photo of a specific individual and the only words attached to the pic are some lamely worded caption -- no names given. I'm sure it's a case of yearbook photographers who didn't make a note of who they were shooting... and/or yearbook editors who really didn't care.
Mark
PS Not-helpful captions are a real problem with Wade Schalles' otherwise great 1980s wrestling photo-book "They Call It Wrestling." Some incredible pics, but no identification of the wrestlers in a large number of the photo captions. For example, in an iconic pic of Dan Hodge flattening an opponent, the caption is presented as a quote, something like "For the first two periods, I thought I was going to die. The third period, I prayed I would." I've heard it was attributed to Iowa's Gary Kurdelmeier... but, because the caption doesn't say so -- and Hodge's victim is so buried, you can't see his face or uniform -- and Gary Kurdelmeier is no longer with us -- we'll never know. (If you DO KNOW, let me know!)
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Re: Pinfalls? 
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