Correct. Folkstyle is a legitimate sport that involved heavy duty conditioning & carefully curated high level competition amongst proven athletes. Catch Wrestling offers none of that. There's literally not one example of someone being raised on "catch wrestling" having success at the highest levels of MMA. I specifically recall when "catch as catch can" started getting namedropped by hipster MMA fans. Barnett & Couture started dropping Billy Robinson's name years ago & claimed to have implemented some of his stuff into their training regiments. What are some examples of these mythical "catch wrestlers" having success in MMA? We'll wait.
"Submission wrestling" lol. That was some dumb ridiculously vague buzz word dropped by sloppy brawlers like Ken Shamrock way back in the day. Take a look at most current MMA champs in relevant orgs: Miocic, Jones, Cormier, GSP, Woodley, Dillashaw, Mighty Mouse, Askren (not a relevant org, but still), Bader, Caldwell. Every single one of them have Folkstyle backgrounds. Numagomedov's style is pure folk. Ferguson comes from a Folkstyle background. GSP didn't grow up on it but learned how to wrestle American Collegiate style because he knew what he had to do to keep evolving (he's the rarest of examples because it's the hardest combat style to pick up later in life along with Boxing. Because they're both, you know....real sports & not some vague, niche nonsense)
To argue that Folkstyle isn't the most sensical & prominent base for MMA is pretty moronic & futile. I'd call it borderline trolling, personally. The proof is in the pudding.