Catch wrestling

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Catch wrestling (also known as catch-as-catch-can) is an English wrestling style with fewer restrictions than other wrestling styles. It allows techniques using or targeting the legs (unlike Greco-Roman wrestling), it allows joint locks (unlike freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling), and does not require a prescribed starting grip. Rules varied by period, promoter, and competition. It was spread by wrestlers of travelling funfairs who developed their own submission holds, referred to as "hooks" and "stretches", into their wrestling to increase their effectiveness against their opponents, as well as immigrants through Europe and the Anglosphere. Catch-as-catch-can was included in the 1904 Olympic Games and continued through the 1936 Games; it had new rules and weight categories introduced similar to other amateur wrestling styles, and dangerous moves – including all submission holds – were banned. International and national amateur wrestling organizations increasingly standardized...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Martin Burns and the Farmer Burns School of Wrestling; scans by Gordon Anderson, Public domain