Judo Gene LeBell On Karl Gotch

[Slick_36]

It's unrealistic to think Gotch wouldn't have been hitting leglocks on guys with a basic guard. GJJ was supposed to be a self defense at the time, not a sport. You wouldn't have advised a guy to be on his back, you would encourage them to be on top. These guys would have had a better guard than anyone else, but it still wouldn't have been the dangerous guard of a guy like Werdum or Noguiera. They would have been at a disadvantage against a superior grappler.

 

[froggyluv]

Nah, but George pretty much could

45lb Bag

 

[mkt]

You'll have to find me the techniques in catch that weren't effective then. They absolutely had an advanced leglock game that only recently was embraced by BJJ.

Mir learned leg locks from catch guys for this reason:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/mir-mines-more-of-a-catch-wrestling-style.2546297/

 

[Cooliox]

Dim Mak Gene LeBell is the real expert.

I agree.

The only unreliable source in all this is Aikido Gene LeBell

 

[Slick_36]

The 400-0 Rickson claim was obviously exaggerated, but it's not unrealistic for a trained BJJ practitioner at a high level to win 50-100 fights against street fighters who have no knowledge of grappling. Royce Gracie proved himself against trained opponents.



Catch wrestling was "king" back then, because it benefited from having both elements of wrestling and submission, something that pure wrestling and pure BJJ lacked. I never disputed this point. My point is that Catch was basically a hybrid in its nature (not because it borrowed ideas), and for this reason, it lacked specialization and refinement of techniques like wrestling and BJJ do. Therefore, as time went on, wrestling became the best martial art at takedown and takedown defenses, and BJJ became the best at ground submission and defenses, and this more or less made Catch wrestling obsolete for modern MMA training, where fighters are better off training the refined techniques in wrestling and BJJ.

Or it just means catch was assimilated by the other arts that had more competitors. Grappling evolved then and it's evolving now. Amateur wrestling is more than takedowns, it's about control. Which is why in MMA it's so important because control means ground and pound that defends against submission attempts as well as finishes fights. Meaning a top level wrestler likely beats a high level BJJ guy given the same level of cross training as we see in the UFC champions.

So think of it this way, amateur wrestling is literally just catch wrestling without the submissions, since catch also had pinning in the ruleset. BJJ adopted submissions from catch wrestling, especially the no gi moves that are successful in MMA. So a modern wrestler who crosstrains in no gi BJJ is essentially a modern catch wrestler, and that's who dominates MMA today. You lost the lineages and rules of catch, but the philosophy and techniques are mostly carried over between the two, only evolved to current rulesets like BJJ has evolved recently.

 

[mkt]

I agree.

The only unreliable source in all this is Aikido Gene LeBell

Nah, you can't trust any of them 100% except when Gene drinks with Tank Abbott and lets loose with Pit Fighting LeBell.

There's also the SAFTA LeBell who did more covert CIA missions than Seagall and Frank Dux combined.

 

[ralek4grammy]

Are there no treatises / old books on catch wrestling techniques? Because it was considered a sport of the poor / masses?

 

[MMAart]

Or it just means catch was assimilated by the other arts that had more competitors. Grappling evolved then and it's evolving now. Amateur wrestling is more than takedowns, it's about control. Which is why in MMA it's so important because control means ground and pound that defends against submission attempts as well as finishes fights. Meaning a top level wrestler likely beats a high level BJJ guy given the same level of cross training as we see in the UFC champions.

So think of it this way, amateur wrestling is literally just catch wrestling without the submissions, since catch also had pinning in the ruleset. BJJ adopted submissions from catch wrestling, especially the no gi moves that are successful in MMA. So a modern wrestler who crosstrains in no gi BJJ is essentially a modern catch wrestler, and that's who dominates MMA today. You lost the lineages and rules of catch, but the philosophy and techniques are mostly carried over between the two, only evolved to current rulesets like BJJ has evolved recently.

Yes, this we both can agree on.

 

[miscend]

Josh is probably the best catch wrestler in the sport and hes never been submitted. Hes fought guys like Monson, Pawel nastula, Mir and big nog and he beat Dean Lister in submission grappling. CAtch is legit.

And then he gets submitted two years after you say this by BJJ'er Gordon Ryan.

 

[miscend]

I like Lebell (though he seems like an old curmedeon) and really respect catch, but I don't believe this at all:

• Whose legs did he break? It's not like there were submission grappling tournaments in the 1950s and 60s. Did he do this to jiu jitsu guys he trained with in the gym? If so, Gotch sounds like an awful person and I don't think that's true.
• I really doubt the few Americans trained in JJ guys even attempting the guard much. It was clearly popularized in the U.S. by the Gracies (the first guard appearance in any media was the 1987 Lethal Weapon movie)
• If this were possible, I'm pretty sure we'd have seen these easy leg break techniques at some point in 25 years of NHB/MMA.

That's true no one was willingly playing the guard game until the Gracies arrived on the scene. Well after Gotch's time.

 

[RampageFaction]

Judo Gene LeBell was on Joe Rogan's show a while ago and he was talking about former pro wrestler and catch wrestler Karl Gotch. LeBell said that Gotch would love it when Jiu-Jitsu guys would get on their backs and stick their legs in the air for the guard because Gotch would just grab one of their legs and break it. LeBell said he never saw Gotch fail to break the leg of a Jiu-Jitsu guy who was using the guard position.

This shows the superiority of Catch Wrestling which unfortunately is almost a lost art. Look how few guys in MMA are catch wrestlers primarily. Guys like Karl Gotch and Lou Thesz before him would have absolutely dominated The UFC if they had been around and in their primes when The UFC began.

It would have been nice for Gene to expound on that because it just sounds like fluff.

 

[miscend]

Do you know what catch is? Western wrestling is a specialized direct offshoot of catch and BJJ was developed by incorporating judo and catch techniques, just branded cross training. You have it backwards, there's techniques that BJJ didn't have without catch wrestling. The techniques aren't what separate catch, it's the philosophy and ruleset. You get more spinal cranks, leglocks, and emphasis on top control in catch wrestling.

Actually no. Unless you mean specifically American style Pro Wrestling seen on TV? Otherwise wrestling predates Catch-as-can by thousands of years. Even stuff like Pankration, shuai jiao and Traditional Ju Jitsu are far older than Catch.

Catch's origins are from the late 1800s as a hybird style influenced by other styles of wrestling including; Cumberland and Westmorland, Cornwall and Devon, and Lancashire and to some extent Japanese Ju-Jitsu. Alot of the old timer former miner Catch wrestling guys in Wigan have black belts in Jujitsu and Judo, my impressions from them is that Catch has always been an eclectic style.