[Notorious LURK]

I found this book on catch wrestling while surfing the 'net.
http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competit...s/lesson01.htm

[wildcard_seven]

Good find. I've reserved my opinion on catch-wrestling for some time now. I must say if this stuff is the source of the catch-wrestling popularity boom....wow. Some people (um, wrestlers actually) hate jiujitsu so much that they will jump on the band wagon of this "awesome" wrestling based submission style. This crap is nothing but highschool wrestling with a bunch of noobish submission holds thrown in...the kind of crap you pulled on your kid brother before you knew shit....

What's worse is people, like say, Barnett or Lindland, will claim to have grappling styles (or moves-the "chokeslam") that aren't based off jiujitsu (rather "catch" or something else) but look freaking identical in action....I guess it takes a "catch" expert to discern these subtle, yet "tremendous" differences.

[Sixth]

It's an old find, but a great contribution to the board. Thanks for the linking, man.

[knoxpk]

Good find. I've reserved my opinion on catch-wrestling for some time now. I must say if this stuff is the source of the catch-wrestling popularity boom....wow. Some people (um, wrestlers actually) hate jiujitsu so much that they will jump on the band wagon of this "awesome" wrestling based submission style. This crap is nothing but highschool wrestling with a bunch of noobish submission holds thrown in...the kind of crap you pulled on your kid brother before you knew shit....

What's worse is people, like say, Barnett or Lindland, will claim to have grappling styles (or moves-the "chokeslam") that aren't based off jiujitsu (rather "catch" or something else) but look freaking identical in action....I guess it takes a "catch" expert to discern these subtle, yet "tremendous" differences.

Wildcard I think you are being a little harsh. How old is that book?
I have seen plenty of old judo books that dont look much better.

[wildcard_seven]

Originally Posted by knoxpk

Wildcard I think you are being a little harsh. How old is that book?
I have seen plenty of old judo books that dont look much better.

Yah. But, the difference is judo isn't a sport that's been practically forgotten, has an old book on the subject dug up, and is heralded as grapplings "best kept secret". NOBODY talked about catch wrestling until Matt Furey started promoting the old Farmer Burns material and then all the sudden the "catch" masters start showing up, who apparently have been training for generations in dark basements, waiting for the grappling craze to hit so they could finally make a living again with their "forgotten" grappling secrets....

I know it may sound harsh, but tell me that catch isn't 90% inflated hype formed by a bunch of people who don't want to claim jiujitsu in their grappling roots, either because they want to be different somehow or they are too proud to admit that--as a ground art--jiujitsu is vastly superior.

[Goshinjitsu]

First time seeing it for me. Awesome, thanks.

[Aesopian]

[knoxpk]

Yah. But, the difference is judo isn't a sport that's been practically forgotten, has an old book on the subject dug up, and is heralded as grapplings "best kept secret". NOBODY talked about catch wrestling until Matt Furey started promoting the old Farmer Burns material and then all the sudden the "catch" masters start showing up, who apparently have been training for generations in dark basements, waiting for the grappling craze to hit so they could finally make a living again with their "forgotten" grappling secrets....

I know it may sound harsh, but tell me that catch isn't 90% inflated hype formed by a bunch of people who don't want to claim jiujitsu in their grappling roots, either because they want to be different somehow or they are too proud to admit that--as a ground art--jiujitsu is vastly superior.

Whoah slow down...
Break down your comments.
1st you are probably right as a ground art BJj is superior arguably..off your own back thats indisputable.

As a grappling art however grappling si more than just ground and guard. Its takedowns and control also.

Also consider there are certain fighters who have a catch influenced style that was partially preserved through the Japanese. Some names that come to mind are the Shamrocks as well as Sakuraba.

Finally I think its on BJJ.org that claims Maeda(who taught the style to the gracies) actually had 2 losses in his career and that was to catchwrestlers.

I will agree that many have tried to take the style and make a buck off it but that doesnt mean it doesnt have useful applications either.
In MMA even before wrestlers had a solid idea of what BJJ was all about they did fairly well with NO sub training or guard passing skills. And ofcourse you know that wrestling and catch share the same techiques except that catch adds in some subs.

Do some research you will see that catch fighters and catch influenced fighters are respected. Catch in the US has died down but in Japan it is practiced and it was taught whcih is what led to pacrase, shootfighting, shoot wrestling etc.. We were exposed to BJj in the late 80's early 90's? yet in Japan they were having shoot style matches late 60's-70's where do you suppose those compressions, leg locks spine locks and neck cranks came from?

Historically, shoot wrestling has been influenced by many martial arts such as catch wrestling and Pehlwani/Kushti in the begining and Karate, Muay thai and Judo in the final stages. The strongest influence on shoot wrestling though, has been that of catch wrestling.

In fact, catch wrestler Karl Istaz (used the professional wrestling ring name Karl Gotch) is widely recognised as the single most important figure in the development of shoot wrestling.

Karl Istaz was a student of the famous Sanke Pit gym under Billy Riley of Wigan. The gym was the centre of learning submission wrestling as practiced in the mining town of Wigan, popularly known as catch-as-catch-can wrestling. It was here that Karl Istaz honed his catch wrestling skills. Karl Istaz also travelled to India to practice the wrestling form of Pehlwani, later on he would propogate the exercises using the "Hindu mace" (Mudgals) and would go on to incorporate the Indian system of exercises using push ups, neck exercises, breathing exercises (Yoga) and "Hindu squats" for conditioning.

Karl Istaz eventually travelled to the American professional wrestling where he found moderate success. It was his tour to Japan though, that set the stage for the birth of shoot wrestling.


ShootoIstaz gained legendary status in Japan, earning the name of Kamisama (the God of wrestling). In the 1970's he taught catch wrestling based hooking and shooting to the likes of Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satoru Sayama, Masami Soranaka and Akira Maeda. Most of these professional wrestlers already had backgrounds in legitimate martial arts. Masami Soranaka had been a student of full contact Karate, kodokan Judo and Sumo. Yoshiaki Fujiwara was already a Muay Thai fighter and black belt in judo. Satoru Sayama had studied Muay Thai with Toshio Fujiwara, and went on to study Sambo with Victor Koga. This would eventually lead to added influences of Karate, Muay thai and Judo to the wrestling style.

It is interesting to note that BJJ had evolved and trained against wrestlers and catch wrestlers prior to exposing the style and in the begininnig the BJJ stylists dispatched the wrestlers/catch wrestlers with little trouble. As the wrestlers began studying the art and understanding the style they ecame better at dealing with BJJ stylist through various means (sprawl and brawl..dan henderson, ground and pound etc..) Again I point to Sakuraba who is famous for his success against not only BJJ stylists but several gracies . He was trained by takada..a former pro wrestler .

Please dont mistake this for style v style thread because I am not implying that. All grappling styles can and do influense the other.. wrestling helped influence BJJ and now BJJ is influencing wrestling for mma purposes. But to imply that it is a worthless style is simply incorrect IMO. It has a differnt philosophy and unfortuantley the sport started dying out in the US due to (fake) Pro wrestling.

[Piper]

The Farmer Burns stuff is on "wrestling" rather than specifically "catchwrestling". If guys are interested in books, there is a recent one on "Submission Fighting Techniques" and is available at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097...lance&n=283155

Besides books, the instructional tapes/DVDs produced by Tony Cecchine, Erik Paulson, Mark Hatmaker, etc., are good sources of Catchwrestling techniques. Also, there is a DVD on the history of Catchwrestling from England called "Catch: The Hold not Taken"

[Neu!]

interesting find