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.

Various promoters of the exercise, notably J. Wannop, of New Cross, attempted to bring the new system prominently before the public, with the view of amalgamating the three English styles viz.

Eventually, the carnivals' 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.

As carnival wrestlers travelled, they met with a variety of people, learning and using techniques from various other folk wrestling disciplines, especially Irish collar-and-elbow, many of which were accessible due to a huge influx of immigrants in the United States during this era.

[3][4] In 1912, the Fédération Internationale des Luttes Associées (FILA)—current United World Wrestling—was founded in order to better organize Olympic wrestling.

As this implies, the rules of catch wrestling were more open than the earlier folk styles it was based on, as well as its French Greco-Roman counterpart, which did not allow holds below the waist.

[17] This is the reason why leglocks and neck cranks were emphasized as valid techniques, as while they are difficult to use as finishing moves without a good base, they can be used to force movement.

In the film Catch: The Hold Not Taken, US Olympic gold medallist Dan Gable talks of how when he learned to wrestle as an amateur the style was known locally, in Waterloo, Iowa, as catch-as-catch-can.

[citation needed] The response from Jigoro Kano's Kodokan was swift and came in the form of another challenger, fourth-degree black belt Daisuke Sakai.

The Kodokan tried to stop the hooker by sending men like fifth-degree black belt Reijiro Nagata (who Santel defeated by TKO).

The challenge matches stopped after Santel gave up on the claim of being the world judo champion in 1921 in order to pursue a career in full-time professional wrestling.

[citation needed] Karl Gotch was a catch wrestler and a student of Billy Riley's "Snake Pit" gym in Wigan, then in Lancashire.

He first trained the likes of Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Hiro Matsuda, Osamu Kido, then others including Satoru Sayama (Tiger Mask), Akira Maeda, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara.

Starting from 1976, one of these professional wrestlers, Inoki, hosted a series of mixed martial arts bouts against the champions of other disciplines, including a legitimate mixed-rules match against boxer Muhammad Ali.

His matches showcased catch wrestling moves like the sleeper hold, cross arm breaker, seated armbar, Indian deathlock and keylock.

[citation needed] Gotch's students formed the original Universal Wrestling Federation (Japan) in 1984 with Akira Maeda, Satoru Sayama, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara as the top grapplers showcasing shoot-style matches.

Randy Couture, Kazushi Sakuraba, Masakatsu Funaki, Takanori Gomi, Shinya Aoki and Josh Barnett, among other mixed martial artists, study catch wrestling as their primary submission style.