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History
Lancashire Wrestling first came to prominence as an amateur sport practiced by coal miners and others in Lancashire, England, with a particular center of popularity in the town of Wigan.[3] Catch wrestling was most popular with the carnivals in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th century. The carnival's wrestlers challenged the locals as part of the carnival's "athletic show" and the locals had their chance to win a cash reward if they could defeat the carnival's strongman by a pin or a submission. Eventually, the carnival's wrestlers began preparing for the worst kind of unarmed assault and aiming to end the wrestling match with any tough local quickly and decisively via submission. A hook was a technical submission which could end a match within seconds. As carnival wrestlers traveled, they met with a variety of people, learning and using techniques from various other folk wrestling disciplines, many of which were accessible due to a huge influx of immigrants in the United States during this era.Catch Wrestling contests also became immensely popular in Europe involving the likes of the Indian national wrestling champion Great Gama, Imam Baksh Pahalwan, Gulam, Bulgarian world heavyweight champion Dan Kolov, Swiss champion John Lemm, Americans Frank Gotch, Ralph Parcaut, Ad Santel, Ed Lewis, Lou Thesz and Benjamin Roller, Mitsuyo Maeda from Japan, and Estonian Georg Hackenschmidt. Traveling wrestlers and European tournaments brought together a variety of folk wrestling disciplines including the Indian variety of Pehlwani, Judo and Jujutsu from Japan, and others. Each of these disciplines contributed to the development of catch wrestling in their own way.[4]
Techniques
The Lancashire phrase "catch as catch can" is generally understood to mean "catch (a hold) anywhere you can". As this implies, the rules of catch wrestling were more open than its Greco-Roman counterpart which did not allow holds below the waist. Catch wrestlers can win a match by either submission or pin, and most matches are contested as the best two of three falls. Often, but not always, the chokehold was barred. Just as today "tapping out" signifies a concession, back in the heyday of catch wrestling rolling to one's back could also signify defeat. Frank Gotch won many matches by forcing his opponent to roll over onto their back with the threat of his toe-hold.[5]However, in traditional Catch Wrestling, hooks are used rather than submissions. Hooks are a brutal form of submission, which executes the submission so fast that does not allow them to tap out. Therefore, another name for a catch wrestler is a "hooker." A "hook" can be defined as an undefined move that stretches,spreads or compresses any joint or limb. Catch wrestling techniques may include,but are not limited to: the Arm Bar,the Japanese Arm Bar,the Hammerlock,the Bar Hammerlock,the Straight Arm Bar,the Wrist Lock,the Double Wrist Lock(this move is also known as the Kimura,or the reverse Ude-Garami in Judo),the Head Scissors,the Chest Lock,the Abdominal Lock,the Body Scissors,the Achilles Tendon Hold,the Knee Bar,the Leg Lock,the Ankle Twist(or the Ankle hold/lock),the Abdominal Stretch,the Toe Hold,the Shin Lock,the Key Lock(or the Arm Scissors),the Half Nelson,the Full Nelson and others.Almost all moves have their own variations and different predicaments they can be pulled off in.
Many of such novel techniques arose out of cross cultural exchanges with Japanese Jiu Jitsu proponents.[6]
The rules of catch wrestling would change from venue to venue. Matches contested with side-bets at the coal mines or logging camps favored submission wins (where there was absolutely no doubt as to who the winner was) while professionally booked matches and amateur contests favored pins (catering to the broader and more genteel paying fan-base).
The impact of catch wrestling on modern day amateur wrestling is also well established. In the film Catch: The Hold Not Taken, US Olympic Gold Medallist Dan Gable talks of how when he learned to wrestle as an amateur the style was known locally, in Waterloo Iowa, as catch-as-catch-can. The wrestling tradition of Iowa is rooted in catch wrestling as Farmer Burns and his student Frank Gotch are known as the grandfathers of wrestling in Iowa. Catch wrestling evolved into American folkstyle and international freestyle wrestling.
Martial arts
Judo
Although Catch Wrestling did not normally include kicks and blows, it is credited as one of the three disciplines involved in the series of 20th century cross-cultural clash of styles in martial arts.A notable match in 1914 was between two prime representatives of their respective crafts: the American catch wrestler Ad Santel was the World Light Heavyweight Champion in catch wrestling, while Tokugoro Ito, a 5th degree black belt in Judo, claimed to be the World Judo Champion. Santel defeated Ito and proclaimed himself World Judo Champion.
The response from Jigoro Kano's Kodokan was swift and came in the form of another challenger, 4th degree black belt Daisuke Sakai. Santel, however, still defeated the Kodokan Judo representative. The Kodokan tried to stop the hooker by sending men like 5th degree black belt Reijiro Nagata (who Santel defeated by TKO). Santel also drew with 5th degree black belt Hikoo Shoji. The challenge matches stopped after Santel gave up on the claim of being the World Judo Champion in 1921 in order to pursue a career in full time professional wrestling. Although Tokugoro Ito avenged his loss to Santel with a choke,[7] official Kodokan representatives proved unable to imitate Ito's success. Just as Ito was the only Japanese judoka to overcome Santel, Santel was ironically the only Western catch-wrestler on record as having a win over Ito, who also regularly challenged other grappling styles.
The impact of these performances on Japan was immense. The Japanese were fascinated by the European form of catch wrestling and a steady stream of Japanese fighters traveled to Europe in order to either participate in various tournaments or to learn catch wrestling at European schools such as Billy Riley's Snake Pit in Wigan, England.
MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
Karl Gotch was a catch wrestler and a student of Billy Riley's Snake Pit in Whelley, Wigan. In the film Catch: the hold not taken, some of those who trained with Gotch in Wigan talk of his fascination with the traditional Lancashire style of wrestling and how he was inspired to stay and train at Billy Riley's after experiencing its effects first hand during a professional show in Manchester, England. After leaving Wigan, he later went on to teach catch wrestling to Japanese professional wrestlers in the 1970s to students including Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Hiro Matsuda, Masakatsu Funaki, Minoru Suzuki[8] , Osamu Kido, Satoru Sayama, ( Tiger Mask) and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Starting from 1976, one of these professional wrestlers, Inoki, hosted a series of mixed martial arts bouts against the champions of other disciplines. This resulted in unprecedented popularity of the clash-of-styles bouts in Japan. His matches showcased catch wrestling moves like the sleeper hold, cross arm breaker, seated armbar, Indian deathlock and keylock.Karl Gotch's students formed the original Universal Wrestling Federation (Japan) in 1984 which gave rise to shoot-style matches. The UWF movement was led by catch wrestlers and gave rise to the mixed martial arts boom in Japan. Wigan stand-out Billy Robinson soon thereafter began training MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba. Catch wrestling forms the base of Japan's martial art of shoot wrestling. Japanese professional wrestling and a majority of the Japanese fighters from Pancrase, Shooto and the now defunct RINGS bear links to catch wrestling. Randy Couture, Kazushi Sakuraba, Kamal Shalorus, Takanori Gomi, and Josh Barnett, among other mixed martial artists, study catch wrestling as their primary submission style.[9]
The term no holds barred was used originally to describe the wrestling method prevalent in catch wrestling tournaments during the late 19th century wherein no wrestling holds were banned from the competition, regardless of how dangerous they might be. The term was applied to mixed martial arts matches, especially at the advent of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
