- published: 09 Sep 2014
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Catch wrestling is a style of folk wrestling that was developed and popularised in the late 19th century by the wrestlers of traveling carnivals who incorporated submission holds, or "hooks", into their wrestling to increase their effectiveness against their opponents. Catch wrestling derives from a number of different styles, the English style of Lancashire wrestling, Irish collar-and-elbow, Greco Roman wrestling, styles of the Indian subcontinent such as Pehlwani and Iranian styles such as Varzesh-e Pahlavani. The training of some modern submission wrestlers, professional wrestlers and mixed martial arts fighters is founded in catch wrestling.
Lancashire wrestfire first came to prominence as an amateur sport practiced by coal miners and others in Lancashire, England, with a particular center of popularity in the town of Wigan. Catch wrestling was most popular with the carnivals in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th century. The carnival's wrestlers challenged the locals as part of the carnival's "athletic show" and the locals had their chance to win a cash reward if they could defeat the carnival's strongman by a pin or a submission. Eventually, the carnival's wrestlers began preparing for the worst kind of unarmed assault and aiming to end the wrestling match with any tough local quickly and decisively via submission. A hook was a technical submission which could end a match within seconds. As carnival wrestlers traveled, they met with a variety of people, learning and using techniques from various other folk wrestling disciplines, many of which were accessible due to a huge influx of immigrants in the United States during this era.