Catch Wrestling
British submission wrestling, born in the factories of nineteenth-century Lancashire. The full name, catch-as-catch-can, sums up its nature: any grip anywhere is allowed.
Quick Facts
United KingdomCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Catch Wrestling
Catch wrestling is British submission wrestling, born in nineteenth-century Lancashire among factory workers and miners. It spread through fairgrounds and circuses, where wrestlers challenged the audience, and from there reached America. The full name, catch-as-catch-can, sums up its nature: any grip anywhere on the body is allowed. It differs from Olympic wrestling in the essential point — **catch ends in submission**. Joint locks and chokes are its core, not an addition. Characteristic are the so-called hooks, painful controlling positions from which the opponent cannot escape without giving up his posture, and aggressive work on the neck and shoulders (double wristlock, toe hold, neck crank). The difference from Brazilian jiu-jitsu lies in the attitude to position. BJJ builds a hierarchy of positions and finishes only from a dominant one; catch is willing to go for the finish earlier, even at the cost of a worse position. Historically it also uses no kimono, so the grips are different. Catch gave professional wrestling its foundation — before it became choreographed spectacle, the matches were real. Through Karl Gotch it influenced Japanese shooto and puroresu, and through them modern MMA. Today it is a minority discipline without a large competitive scene; clubs are rare and quality varies, but its technical legacy remains alive in MMA and submission wrestling.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.