Attention Catch Wrestlers...

Hi, I just wanted to see who else on this board wrestles catch-as-catch-can style, I think we are a rare breed and there aren't too many of us around.
If you do catch wrestle let me know where you are from. If you don't catch wrestle let me know what you think of it or what you know of it (good or bad).
I'm curious because it seems to have some kind of stigma attached to it.
I live and train in Chicago.

 

I think Catch Wrestling is great if there was a school around where i lived I'd actually drop BJJ for it!

 

Me, Masakatsu_Funaki#1 and some other dudes.

Of course, there are different breeds of catch-wrestlers. I call it catch-wrestling, but you could just as easily call what I practice submission-wrestling, shoot-wrestling, combat wrestling or what have you.

I'm definitely not one of those guys who simply wants to talk about the superiority of American carnival wrestlers over every grappler prior to them or following them or who bases their evaluation of a grappler's worth on their "lineage" in relation to the "hookers" of old.

I like leg-locks, I like takedown to submission transitions, I like acrobatic grappling, I like wrestling of all stripe (except maybe modern Greco), I like early Pancrase, Combat Wrestling, Lou Thesz, Sakuraba, Funaki, Ken Shamrock and Bret Hart.

 

Very nice bro I feel the same way about a lot of the stuff you just said!

 

Thank goodness. Last thing we needed is another catch vs. BJJ thread.

Exactly how many places in this country claim to teach catch anyway? I imagine without a central governing body it's difficult to keep track of.

 

I don't do catch wrestling (worked out with a few of them in the past) but instead come from a BJJ background.

I think catch has a lot of really great things to offer and I try to implement quite a bit of it into my grappling arsenal. For instance it seems I'm finding more and more that you can pretty much hit a toehold from damn near anywhere.

I love the neck cranks, the leg locks, and of course the toeholds. I'd like to get some of the catch inspired dvd's from Scientificwrestling but damn they are all so expensive!

I don't necessarily think there is a stigma about catch, but when I first heard about catch wrestling I had already been doing BJJ for several years. And of course I heard about it through Matt Furey and his stupid articles in Grappling Magazine. It was marketed heavily through him as the cool, hip, AMERICAN alternative to combat all these damn Brazilians and their "butt scooting" and who do armbars by "falling on their butts".

But of course that was Matt Furey talking lol.

 

I attempt to do Catch Wrestling. I live around Boston and unfortunately I havent found a place that teaches or practices it. So mainly I do it on my own at the gym and try to apply the stuff I get off the DVD's I have. Luckily my trainers dont mind me doing or trying my own thing.
PhillyD45 I'm guessing that you train with Tony C as you live in Chicago. I heard he is coming to town here to do a seminar next month.

axehind

 

I know a guy that did amatuer wrestling then got into pro wrestling and was taught some catch wrestling stuff , great stuff and rolling with him is fun .

 

If there was a catch school, I would definitely be interested in trying it out. I need to work on my no-gi game, shooting and takedowns anyway.

 

LOL! at Adam Bunker wit dubs already.

 

Checking in.

And i've made a new rule, any guy claiming to be a catch wrestler has to read this book:

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Liederman/Wrestling/Wrestling/album/index.html

 

you train at Tony's?

 

I'm doing MMA for about 2 years now. Lately i've got my first catch wrestling course and loved it. I wanted to add some nasty leg log, toe hold to my arsenal

I'm doing it with Kris Iatchevik. Here is a nice video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znKh9u8jkTM

 

Kris posts on Lockflow. He seems like a pretty cool guy. I used the step over attacks in his move lists on unsuspecting n00bs (I think for a while I was getting a reputation as a leglock guy after putting one dude in a half boston crab), but against higher belts I need to go back to bread-and-butter guard passing.

You've got a good teacher there.

 

What's the differince in American carnival style and English style hooking?

Something that always confused me. Guys like Farmer Burns and Billy Wicks touting there 100 % American style and all that. Didn't the American style develop from pretty much all different kinds of wrestling styles from all over the world?

 

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WHAT IN GODS NAME was that CRAP in the vid!!?

 

eddie goofing around

 

lol that never get's old.

 

A central governing body is the last thing catch-wrestling needs; it's too late for someone to step up and claim to represent "legitimate catch" because there's too many different sorts of people that can say that who never decided to do anything like that who are all equally "legitimate."

One interesting thing about catch is how certain people have worked hard to undermine Lou Thesz, though, just as Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, he was a trainer for many of the shoot-style wrestlers that came out of the UWFi, even being the one to donate his title to the organization. Furthermore, unlike Gotch and Robinson, you can watch his bouts and see actual parallels in his techniques and those that the UWFi alumni employed, such as the rolling kimura transitioned into an armbar or a short-arm scissor.

People generally talk about Robinson being the catch guy that influenced the UWFi, but Thesz was definitely there, and Lou Thesz looks a lot more like Hiromitsu Kanehara and Kazushi Sakuraba in his matches than Robinson and Gotch do in their matches. Not to undermine those guys, but it seems pretty clear that people have attempted to make Thesz "not a big deal", perhaps so that they can make their connections to other living "hookers" more lucrative and important.