Catch Wrestling is the most Toxic Environment online

The "marketing machine" was the early UFC by the way - the efficiacy is not the issue, the exposure is and that is why BJJ is so well known these days. The reason I say Catch doesn't have that is the fact that the genie is out the bottle and it is now just one more very effective art as opposed to THE effective art, which is what BJJ had for those formative years in consciousness

 

Coming back to what Chadderz OP’d with, this post from “The Grumpy Grappler” summarizes pretty well the issues and they also echo icefields and my own

 

This seems to be quite apt.

 

Bjj had a massive following in the Brazil though, across classes, and I thought they had uptake in Japan before ufc 1?

 

Probably true I think its effectiveness was why it grew in other parts not just its marketing

Catch was probably more popular in the UK than bjj in the early years there were more shoot based clubs for example.

In the Early 2000s if you could find a blue belt to teach you you were lucky, but people sort out bjj over the shoot guys because it worked, heck a lot of the shoot schools became more no gi places because they encountered bjj guys and realised its method of teaching ,hierarchy of positions etc was better

This happened in my club for example

Now catch guys will probably argue those clubs didn't have access to the real/best teacher's and maybe they didn't but the truth is the early bjj guys were also just average blues etc but what they taught, the system and method of teaching was efficient and worked which is why it grew in popularity.

 

Oh yeah, I agree with folks that gracie University certs are a belt mill but the actual content in that curriculum is great.

Y'all think catch and bjj have an annoying "our style is the best" *parade the gods* mentality - judo is 1000 times worse. I never thought I'd meet bad, theory driven judoka till I did.

 

Not really - the early Vale Tudo were the main exposure and that was on the back of Rickson that was post UFC 1 after Roycr hyped him saying "My brother is 10 times better than I am".

BJJ and GJJ were essentially unheard of before UFC1 - there was a small pocket in California, but it was limited to Brazil. Even there is was not the only one, as there were Luta Livre and many other schools of grappling jockeying for top spot...in fact Luta Livre was a Catch system primarily, and produced fighters such a Ruas, Babalu and giave a start to others including Aldo

 

Luta livre was a no gi judo school and bjj was established as an organisation with non gracie schools in the North and other major cities. The gracie had schools in Rio and had a middle class following.

 

Hatem was a catch guy

 

here - wiki also says it so it must be true....

Euclydes Hatem - Wikipedia

 

I'll see if I can find the interviews I read with the luta live guys but they claimed judo backgrounds

 

Judo definitely was added to Luta, but everything points to as much if not more CACC

 

From wiki -

Also around the 1970s, the art of Luta Livre was influenced by Roberto Leitão, a practitioner of judo and wrestling. Leitao also articulated the "Theory of Grappling", sometimes referred to as "Theory of Luta Livre".Roberto Leitao was a University professor of Engineering who had devoted many years to Wrestling and Judo.

 

So the genesis was Catch and latterly added Judo - long after the rivalry started between the schools

 

I thought he was a BJJ purple belt early on, hence why LL use the old BJJ belt system still?

 

Roberto Leitão - Wikipedia


He's a Judo forth dan! I must of miss remembered the LL purple belt thing, that was about a LL turned BJJ guy, Ivan "batman" Jorge.

 

And also that’s Leitao, not Hatem

 

His main teacher was the legendary Orlando Americo da Silvaor "Dudú", who also taught George and Hélio Gracie and defeated Geo Omori in a match.[4][5]

So BJJ is also CACC!

 

I had only ever heard of Leitao (a few years ago when the internet didnt have much info abo0ut luta livre) so i assumed he was the founder!
i didnt even know hatem existed!
thanks hannibal!

now i have a question - what is defined as catch wrestling? is ir submission wrestling of primarily european origin?

 

Catch Wrestling or Catch as Catch Can was the primary style of wrestling and was originally the Olympic style alongside Greco-Roman before Freestyle existed. Wrestlers could win by Pin or Submission. I am still learning about the origins but generally I would say European tends to be the general consensus. Though practitioners also came from India and travelled the world.

In the United States it was practiced alongside boxing as a professional sport. Abraham Lincoln was apparently a champion at one point. It's also the forefather of what is now called "Folkstyle" wrestling practiced in schools and colleges in the USA. Folkstyle is Catch Wrestling minus submissions. And was developed as a "safer" alternative.

My own observations of what is going on in Catch Wrestling tend to bring me to the conclusion that Catch Wrestling as it is being taught is not being taught alongside the foundations that you find in Folkstyle. Ideally you would have someone with a solid base so far as takedowns, takedown defense and mat skills PLUS submissions. But from what I can tell it's people studying the submissions. One of the reasons Curran Jacobs did so well is he had a strong Folkstyle base to operate off of having been a successful Folkstyle wrestler in College wrestling for Michigan State, after wrestling well in Elementary, High School, etc before that.

Building off of what Hannibal said earlier I would point out that it's not just wrestlers who do well in MMA. It almost without fail tends to be FOLKSTYLE wrestlers who may also have some experience in internationals styles that dominate in MMA. The mat skills you see wrestlers like Ben Askren use come from Folkstyle. The top/bottom game of Freestyle being kind of a silly game of spinning people for points, and if you are on bottom just stalling intentionally waiting for the referee to rescue you and stand you up. In Folkstyle you have to control your opponent or fight to be out of their control. If you are stuck on your face for a whole period the referee is not going to intervene to stand you up. In freestyle if you can manage to not get spun for about 4-6 seconds the referee stands you back up.

This article is a good one about the history of CACC in the Olympics: The Olympic History of Catch Wrestling