119556588 catch wrestling

8/10/2019 119556588 Catch Wrestling

1/6

CATCH WRESTLING

CATCH

ASCATCH

CANONCE A CARNIVAL ATTRACTION, CATCH

WRESTLING NOW INFLUENCES MMA.

BY KELLY CRIGGER //PHOTOS FROMTHE BOOKCATCH WRESTLING - ROUND TWOby MARK S. HEWITT

94 FIGHTMAGAZINE.COM | FEBRUARY 2010


2/6

CATCH WRESTLING

Anywhere you find bored

blue-collar men, youll

find competition. Its in

our blood. Some whittle

away their disinterest with camel rac-

ing, some with soccer, but the more

combative types box or wrestle. In

19th century Lancashire, England,the lads who worked the local mines

oftentimes found themselves with

enough energy to wrestle for bets af-

ter a long day of grinding out coal

(try finding that in West Virginia to-

day). In the Queens odd English, it

was called catch-as-catch-can wres-

tling, meaning catch any break you

can to win. Along with Irish collar-

and-elbow wrestling and Pehlwani

(modern Indian) wrestling, catch-as-

catch-can made its way to America,

probably with some of the thousands

of immigrants who came to fightin the U.S. Civil War in the 1880s.

So what do wrestlers do after a war

when theyre suddenly unemployed?

Join the traveling circus, of course.

COME SEE THE STRONGMAN

Rather than scare away tourism from

American shores, the War Between

the States attracted fighting men from

around the world for various reasons.

Joining the ranks was an easy way to

secure U.S. citizenship. For the Irish

in particular, the Civil War provided

an opportunity to learn new fight-

ing skills they could use back in their

home country where their own Civil

War was brewing. After Robert E. Lee

surrendered, though, jobs were difficult

to find, especially as the South tried to

rebuild from a crushing defeat. Thou-

sands of men used the combative skills

they learned as youths and joined car-

nivals and traveling circuses as wrestlers

and strongmen, blending their arts in a

caldron of sweat and sawdust. It was the

carnival, with all its colorful mystery,that introduced many grappling styles

to America, including judo and jiu-jitsu.

Traveling carnivals offered cash re-

wards for anyone who could defeat

the carnivals own champions. It was

called catch wrestling because the lo-

cal challenger would try to catch any

break he could, like the miners back in

Lancashire. In general, a pin (forcing

your opponents shoulders to the mat)

was an accepted method of victory, but

a submission was more certain, which

could be anything from a toehold to

forcing an opponent to roll onto his

back. Sometimes a choke was a sub-

mission, though they were frequently

barred depending on the wrestler and

the venue since the rules were anything

but consistent. Just as the Japanese

MMA promotion Dream allows knees

to a downed opponent and the UFCdoes not, the rules of catch wrestling

differed from carnival to carnival. Gen-

erally, catch wrestling rules were more

lax than the most popular wrestling of

the dayGreco-Roman, which did not

allow holds below the waist. The term

no holds barred is credited to catch

wrestling, referring to those rare carni-

vals that resembled Brazilian Vale Tudo

fights that allowed everything from the

Boston crab to Forrest Griffins Kyoko-

shikin (see the last page in his book).

Predictably, aggressive and ambitious

men from all across the land wouldtravel hundreds of miles to take up the

challenge carnival wrestlers provided.

Naturally, these challengers went to

great lengths to achieve victory, so wres-

tlers had to prepare for anything a lo-

cal hooligan could dream up. And since

submissions ended a fight quickly and

convincingly, the carnies became very

adept at them. Catch wrestlers were ag-

gressive, and the casual onlooker might

mistake them for being unrefined and

primitive. Catch wrestling historian and

practitioner Kris Iatskevich disagrees.

The system is based on domina-

tion and pain compliance, but also on

leverage, physics, and control, says

Iatskevich. The use of pressure points

also is encouraged to set up techniques

and keep opponents on the defensive.

Catch wrestling has a wide appreciation

of body mechanics and demonstrates a

flexible and innovative mindset when

it comes to submissions. Not only does

it use the typical submissions you see

across styles, but also flows freely fromone technique to another, oftentimes

improvising submissions to better take

advantage of whatever the opponent

leaves open during a scramble. Hence the

name catch-as-catch-can wrestling.

You might be saying, That sounds

like jiu-jitsu, and you wouldnt be too

far from the truth. But there are differ-

ences. For one, the traditional catch

wrestler almost never had clothing,

such as sleeves and collars, to use to his

advantage, so his attacks focused on ex-

posed limbs. But the big difference was

in the mentality of the catch wrestler,who had a Patton-esque mantra of At-

tack, attack, attack! A catch wrestlers

greatest advantage was the offense. He

was trained to seize the initiative and

maintain it, never letting his opponent

have a moment to recover. Jiu-jitsu

tournaments reward points to the ath-

lete who achieves and holds positional

control, so they oftentimes get to a cer-

tain position and hold their opponent

down to win a match. Catch wrestlers,

on the other hand, never stopped at-

tacking until they won.

Its easy to see how the carnivals be-

came the test beds for wrestling tech-

niques, where certain methods became

tested and approved, while others got

95FIGHTMAGAZINE.COM | FEBRUARY 2010


3/6


4/6


5/6

CHUCK LIDDELL

Another catch wrestling hotspot was

Wigan, near the sports trinity site of Lan-

cashire, England, where a moulder named

Billy Riley lived. Riley had a talent for sub-

mission wrestling and made a great deal of

money wrestling local miners and breaking

many of their arms. In 1950 Riley opened

The Snake Pit with a Spartan training regi-men, a low threshold for whiners, and

no tolerance for women and children. It

would become one of catch wrestlings

greatest historical fixtures, turning out

some of the best wrestlers to ever live,

including a man who would eventually

be known as Karl Gotch.

Gotch wrestled in the 1948 Olympics

under his birth name of Charles Istaz. Af-

ter eight years at The Snake Pit, perfecting

the art of the catch, he became Karl Kraus-

er and dominated the European wrestling

scene. In 1959, he came to the United

States as Karl Gotch and quickly estab-

lished his legacy as one of the greatest

true wrestlers to ever step on the mat. It

was Gotch who would use catch wres-

tling to sow the seeds of MMA, but not

in America.

BURGEONING PRIDE

Jim Miller invited Gotch to teach his

skills in Japan. Starting in 1972, Gotch

spent a decade instructing and influenc-

ing a slew of whos who in Japanese wres-

tling, including Antonio Inoki. In 1976,

Inoki promoted a series of mixed mar-

tial arts bouts against the champions of

other disciplines (including Muhammad

Ali), which were hugely popular and gave

him a stage to showcase some of Gotchs

favorite moves, like the sleeper hold,

cross arm breaker, seated armbar, Indian

deathlock, and keylock. Much like Wres-

tlemania in the 1990s, these matches

spread like wildfire in Japan.

During and after his time in Japan,

Gotch was a boon to Japanese wres-

tling, personally teaching many of

the greatest wrestlers there, who in

turn embraced wrestling the same wayBrazil embraced jiu-jitsu. Twelve years

after Gotch began his work in Japan,

a handful of his students formed the

original Universal Wrestling Federa-

tion and Shooto, which gave rise to

shoot-style wrestling matches and

eventually paved the way for MMA in

Japan. Catch wrestling is the base of

Japans martial art of shoot wrestling

and has found a home in an ironic case

of reverse immigration. Japanese mar-

tial arts have been exported through-

out the world for centuries. Catch

wrestling is the first western martial artto establish a following in Japan.

Everyone thinks Japanese marital arts

are so mystic, but catch wrestling had

so many more techniques, says Shooto

champion and MMA trainer Erik Paul-

son. We were learning the north-south

choke, the DArce choke, the anaconda

choke, and the head and arm choke, all

those way back in the 80s. Nowadays

everyone knows them and thinks they

come from MMA, but they were really

some of the basics of Shooto.

In the late 1990s, Yuko Miyato estab-

lished the UWF Snake Pit in Tokyo, Ja-

pan, in order to keep the sport of real

wrestling and catch-as-catch-can alive.

The head coach was Billy Robinson, a

wrestling legend who trained at the orig-

inal Snake Pit in England and who was

widely feared and respected in the wres-

tling community. At the UWF Snake Pit,

Robinson trained MMA legend Kazushi

Sakuraba and current top-ranked heavy-

weight Josh Barnett.

[Catch wrestling] is a root on the tree

of MMA, says Barnett. Catch went to

Brazil with Mitsuyo Maeda, formed thebasis of New Japan pro wrestling and lat-

er Japanese shooting through Gotch and

Robinson, and was an art based on bat-

tle testing. Its aggressive and explosive

and has a deep history throughout the

world and was my first major exposure

to submissions. I see many top amateur

wrestlers who go to BJJ gyms because

thats what they think you have to train

to learn submission. Most of the time

though, those BJJ trainers train the wres-

tlers in ways that are counter-productive

to a wrestlers skills and strengths.



6/6

CHUCK LIDDELL

Todays MMA, modern Olympic

wrestling, WWE-style pro wrestling,

and even the reality-based self-defense

system of Krav Maga are all derivative

of catch-as-catch-can, adds Shannon,

whose Web site (www.scientificwres-tling.com) is an Internet shrine to catch-

as-catch-can. The father of the founder

of Krav Maga, Imi Lichtenfeld, was a

carnival acrobat and wrestler who went

on to win championships in wrestling

before developing the Krav system for

the IDF. Even Frank Shamrock credits

learning his submissions from Minoru

Suzuki in Pancrase, who learned them

directly from Karl Gotch.

Back at the trinity site of catch wres-

tling, Billy Rileys original Snake Pit sur-

vives today as Aspull Olympic Wrestling

Club under Roy Wood, an original dis-

ciple of Riley. Were he alive today (Riley

died in 1977), Riley would be astounded

at how prominent catch wrestling has

become in the proving grounds of

MMA. Unlike many martial arts, catchwrestling was not born out of a necessi-

ty to defend oneself. Its purpose was en-

tertainment and conflict resolution, but

that doesnt diminish its impact on

modern fighting. In fact, catch wres-

tling is the basis of all submissions, and

along with Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, and

western boxing, catch wrestling has ris-

en to the top of the mixed martial arts

heap as one of the disciplines critical to

the success of every fighter. Makes you

want to check out a traveling circus to

see what else theyre cooking up.

Have you ever seen a lone

guy in a gym using the head

crank machine to build up his

neck muscles? What were your

thoughts? Did you pass him off

as silly? Legendary Iowan wres-

tler Farmer Burns made a liv-

ing from those exercises. Burns

purposely increased his neck sizeusing weights and pulleys.

Burns did it to perform an ex-

tremely risky stunt at carnivals,

during which he would hang

himself to prove how strong

his neck was. Burns repeatedly

performed the stunt, subjecting

his neck to the full force of hav-

ing his body dropped from the

gallows and never once got hurt.

And you thought base jumping

was scary.

IN THE

NOOSE


119556588 catch wrestling

Documents