All those guys to come out of Stu Hart's Dungeon (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Chris Benoit, etc) are 'legit,' but only as legit as Stu Hart's training. Thing is, Stu Hart's catch wrestling credentials are kind of shaky. I don't know for sure, but
as far as I know, Stu Hart was kind of trained by Toots Mondt, who was trained by Farmer Burns. Stu Hart would have likely been practising (and therefore teaching) really, really oldschool catch, with little to no guard game. So if you took a guy like Benoit or Bret in their primes and had them face people in catch wrestling contests they probably would have held their own, but against anyone with an even remotely good guard they probably would have been totally screwed.
William Regal's grappling skill would likely have been much the same. Terrifyingly violent top game, barely any guard work. Not really how we talk about catch wrestling nowdays. Al Bundy would have murdered all those guys. lul.
Although talking of pro wrestlers, I can't even imagine how devestating Samoa Joe's grappling must be. Like if you can imagine a three hundred pound guy whose been training in Judo most his entire life then converted to BJJ, trained by Yoshiaki Fujiwara, spars with Justin McCully at Team Punishment, I mean... Like, holy shit, can you imagine anything WORSE than being in the kesa gatame of a highly intelligent three hundred pound Samoan crushing machine? Fuck that.
