The Success of 'The Story of Catch' (2019)

Two thumbs up Ruslan! Congratulations!

The post war promoters also needed the new rules to give the image that the "new" wrestling was a sea change from the bad old days of the 1930s. They needed local councils to look again at wrestling and permit it in their halls. Similar things had happened in the 1930s.

Sorry ,should be Oakeley.

Hi Ruslan. I do not normally argue with people's ideas on threads ,but I would query your statement that "All -in and Mount-Evans were the same roughhouse "

I doubt if anyone on this site now, saw Oakely's bouts live.

I have seen clips ,which were on the news with the 2 Jack Doyle "Fights" at the RAH.

I did see the first days of Mount- Evans rules at Newcastle.

The ME rules bouts were much more strictly controlled than the Oakely bouts.

Glad I went through this thread.Thanks to all contributors,extremely interesting and enjoyable.

The program. The last picture above is from the London Times

seeing as i had mentioned Gotch taking on Dinnie while he was in the U.K on tour with a play written for him, here's a little photo and blurb from the tattler, 1908-11-18. The tattler was an infamous london tabloid

And the bystander from a week later

i ran this through a colorization program

this was the original 1908 match

$3200 is a bit steep for my blood as well, those old lithographs are indeed works of art,

Waino was a masshole for years. Amherst, I seem to recall. Anyway it’s where he met Riley. The other waino was a weightlifter who also did Grec. Are you going to snap up that poster?

SaxonWolf and Debraco I asked our superstar The Main Mask help with the British Wrestling Assn XX Century Catch Wrestling Rules. He's an Oakeley expert, I am pretty sure he can help. So excited to hear from him. Follow my post on that subject.

when it comes to wrestling we always will be back to the eternal question: GRECO-ROMAN v FREESTYLE. Highly recommend the Olin-Stecher match.

Most folks read my dissertations out loud for pest control. The vermin is bored to death before they can escape hearing range, although some do-gooders believe this is to inhumane for even the likes of roaches and rats

so yeah GRAECO-ROMAN background 100%, and it shouldn't be surprising...Even Geo Hack held Finnish greco belt (its on his famous belts photo). Which shows how prestigious it was to go and win their championship. Finlandia was a leading Euro Greco country.

SaxonWolf and Debraco, you would enjoy this reference:

"Moving indoors, the vogue for wrestling began to appear among the Finnish-Americans about the year 1910. A few years before that, a group of Finns had arrived from Tampere, where they had become wrestlers in the Pyrintö Club: Gunnar Grönlund, Matt Kangas, Väinö Ketonen, Karl Lehto, Jooseppi Lehtonen, Kalle Rantala and Karl J. Wirtanen. In the spring of 1909 there was an announcement in the Urheiluviesti, the sports paper which Wirtanen had begun to edit, stating that Grönlund, Lehto, Rantala and Wirtanen had formed a group and would put on exhibition matches in the Minnesota mining region. Between performances they also taught other interested Finns the art of wrestling, gave shows all over the Middle West, and often took part in matches against other champions. That wrestling was not just a sport popular among a few but was enjoyed by vast crowds is claimed in the series of articles written by "G. A." (Gust Aakula) and K. J. Wirtanen in the Industrialisti in the spring of 1955, amplified with an article in the Ironwood Daily Globe of 26 February 1955".

reference the their alma mater:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampereen_Pyrint%C3%B6

Väinö Ketonen (Finnish spelling) appears in East Lancashire and competes in local pro wrestling matches (Lancashire catch) as early as 1911.

There were two waino ketenons wrestling one of which was an Olympic freestyle wrestler. After he’d been in the states for a while he picked up the CACC and would be an influence on Riley

SaxonWolf, Debraco, enjoy my articles. I am an expert member of the Traditional Sports international movement. My article called THE ROOTS OF MODERN WRESTLING was a subject of my report at the international conference on traditional styles of wrestling couple of months ago.

https://www.wrestling-titles.com/europe/pashayev/

I could read this stuff all day long!

Thanks guys. I do remember reading the name Waino Ketonen before, am I right in thinking Billy Riley said that Ketonen was the best wrestler he ever faced?, something like that? I need to dust down my old books and read them all again. Was there a tradition of submission wrestling in Finland or did Ketonen learn this elsewhere.

So it appears that both styles (Eastern and Western wrestling, if you will) had some submission moves which the other picked up.

Also, while it appears that Lancashire Catch Wrestling and Catch as Catch Can are interchangeable, when describing the wrestling style, am I right in thinking they are two related, but not the same, styles. Almost like "cousins"?

CACC was the style that originated in England, made up of the best bits of overseas styles, brought back by British sailors I think?

I used to know all this stuff!, the older I get, and with the increasingly busy work load I have, I don't have time to keep my knowledge up to date.

will do. I'd also ad that it was a two way street in regards to the technique and knowledge flow, in no old jiudo or handa book is there a double wristlock/kimura or crooked head scissors before its exposure to CACC/Lancashire, there was neither a top wrist lock/americana in CACC/Lancashire before handa/jiudo. In mentioning Yukio Tani it's often pointed his mastery of the CACC leg rides and his ability to flumox other japanese opponents with his use of them. When he crushed Higashi in Paris it was noted that Higashi had no ability to counter tani's leg work

Bacon at the time tried to start a style of catch that consisted of only throws and no mat work to nullify the American shenanigans on the ground. At one point i had uploaded over 3000 newspaper clippings from the 1850's thru the 1940's in relation to CACC, from the UK, America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. After tinypic went out of business it was the end