History of Catch Wrestling - The Ultimate Submission Fighting Art
*Information courtesty of Matt Furey
Table of Contents
Professional Versus Amateur
By the early 1900‘s, Catch-As-Catch Can wrestling had split off into a number of styles, including amateur versions like Olympic, freestyle and folkstyle, and as well as professional. The amateur styles had the dangerous submissions or ‘hooks’ removed to make it safe for competitive sport, much like judo in Japan had been modified from jiu-jitsu.
The other main difference between amateur and real pro wrestling is similar to the difference between amateur and professional boxing. The amateurs have an understanding of the basic fundamentals, but it’s the professionals that know all the ‘tricks of the trade’. Real pro wrestling has a foundation of takedowns, throws, rides, reversals, pins and the like - but, as in any pro sport (such as boxing), the amateur technique pales in comparison. The set-ups are much more refined in the pro style, as are the techniques. And when you add the "hooks" (submissions) as well as the art of "ripping" - you begin improving by leaps and bounds.
Professional wrestling had workers, shooters, hookers, and rippers. "Workers" were pretend wrestlers who were in the professional game but didn’t have the skills and attitude of the real pros, known as ‘shooters’. In order to be a "shooter", you had to be schooled in the professional style, replete with submissions. Even if you were an amateur champion, you were not considered a "shooter" until you knew the professional game. Most importantly, you had to be someone who went to the post each time they hit the mat.
A "hooker" was someone highly skilled in the art of submissions. All shooters knew how to hook, and when you could hook faster than the others, you became known as a hooker, but you were still a shooter.
In boxing you have the knockout artist. He knows the same punches as the others, but he's rougher and tougher than the rest and does whatever it takes to put his foe out for the count. Professional wrestling's equivalent of boxing's knockout artist was called the "ripper." It is the highest form of praise that a shooter can receive from his peers. A "ripper" doesn't simply work for a pin fall or a submission – his mission is to physically maul you. If you leave the ring bloodied, battered and injured, the ripper considers it a job well done.
The heyday of professional wrestling came to an end in the late 1920's, when real shoots or matches began being replaced by staged contests. One reasons for this was that the real pro matches were too long for people to watch (one between Ed "Strangler" Lewis and Joe Stecher went for 9 hours), and that the phony deal with it’s theatrics and acrobatics was an easier sell than the real thing and made more money for the promoters.
As professional wrestling became more and more a business, it’s focus changed from being an athletic contest to that of a making money venture; that if you're not making money, it's a hobby, not a profession. Whatever the reason, the one fact that remains is that many of those who knew the art of real catch wrestling didn't bother passing it on to anyone else, which is the main reason for it’s disappearance.