Was the level of Pancrase catch really that great?
Compared to what? I stressed the "in MMA" part of your OP in an effort to signal that, as far as MMA is concerned, Pancrase was the pinnacle and Ken was the original King of Pancrase, which is as great an accomplishment as you could've hoped to achieve in this facet of the game.
Alot of Kens sub wins in pancrase were against guys who were inexperienced on the ground.
Who in Pancrase was inexperienced on the ground besides Bas? The Pancrase crew - most notably Funaki and Suzuki but also Fuke (who'd been training with Funaki and Suzuki for years while on the pro-wrestling circuit), Inagaki (who was training Judo from the time that he was 12), Takahashi (who not only had a legit amateur wrestling career but who Funaki considered the best among the younger Japanese fighters and who he had show Ken the ropes in the pre-Pancrase Fujiwara-Gumi days), and Yamada (who'd been training with Satoru Sayama, the legendary Japanese pro-wrestler who taught Yuki Nakai and Rumina Sato and who founded Shooto among other things, since the late 1980s) - consisted of skilled Japanese grapplers. Grappling was the name of the game in Pancrase.
To me it does say something about the sad state of Catch wrestling in MMA over the past 25 years if Pancrase is the best example of applied catch.
I can't argue with that. It's definitely a shame that, other than the BJJ fever sparked by Royce's early UFC run, there hasn't been a comparable craze for other stuff like Judo (even with the likes of Karo and Ronda throwing people around), Sambo, or catch wrestling.
Obviously no- gi BJJ seems to have just surpassed catch at this point at least in terms of numbers training it.
And the innovations in leg locks from Dean Lister to the Danaher death squad guys has really kicked things into another gear.
(Ironically, sometime in the mid-00s IIRC, Eddie Bravo said something about Ken's anachronistic grappling style and about how leg locks don't work in MMA, and Ken responded by inviting Eddie to come and train with him to learn about leg locks - which is doubly ironic considering seeing Royce at UFC 2 and studying Ken's old school instructionals inspired Eddie to start grappling. Fast-forward to today and Eddie can't stop talking about how amazing leg locks are and the EBI is the biggest platform for the evolution of grappling, which consists of the incorporation of leg locks.)
Also how seriously did Ken take his catch lineage?
In order to answer this, I'd have to know what constitutes taking a lineage seriously.
Although Ken had to modify his style later he did not seem to reallg use his catch skills all that much or adapt it
Really? On what are you basing this claim?
although he may have been limited in his ability to do so.
How so?
Clearly if we call him the GOAT of US catch in general it would be a disrespect to the old timers who really embodied the art and were likely far more skilled than Ken.
As I've stressed, my concern is MMA-focused, and as far as the MMA landscape is concerned, Ken is my pick for the GOAT American catch wrestler.
If Demetrious Johnson is considered a catch wrestler (trains pankration under Matt Hume) he’s my pick for the best catch wrestler alive.
I think Frank Shamrock eclipsed his big bro on the ground as well, being more versatile from the bottom and beating some seriously legit guys.
Nah. Frank developed a good defensive guard to stifle Tito, but he still had zero TDD and was getting outgrappled by people like Kiuma Kunioku and John Lober, neither of whom should've been able to get the better of him at that point in his career. Unlike Frank, Ken never lost those fights where he would've had no business losing.
