L. A. Toe Hold Club

The L. A. Toe Hold Club is dedicated to training Catch Wrestling.  We are fortunate to have the resources of Scientific Wrestling and the other clubs affiliated with them.  As the popularity of Catch grows we will as well. 

Catch Wrestling

Throughout the history of mankind, wrestling is a sport that has been found in all areas of the world. 

Catch-as-catch-can, or Catch, originating in the mining town of Lancashire, England.

As the name implies, in Catch you do everything you can to catch or defeat your opponent. It is 'all in' fighting, one-on-one, until your opponent submits. Apart from no eye gouging or hits to the 'vulnerable' parts of the body, there were few rules.  The AAU sanctioned and published catch rules in the early part of the 1900s.  In those competitions bar holds or submission holds, where a wrestler locks his opponent's limb or torso into a position it isn't meant to go in other words, going against the bone, were permitted and usually rendered the opponent defenseless.

One of the leading industries in the North West of England was mining.  Because of the nature of the miner’s labor, the men developed naturally strong physiques.  They were not muscular like today's wrestlers but strong and wiry.  These men would come out of the mine pits and wrestle on shale after a hard day's work.

Billy Riley, with the help of friends and wrestlers, was able to open a ramshackle gym in Wigan, that became know as the “the Snakepit.”  Described as cold, damp and basic to say the least, the gym became a center of Catch wrestling in the North West England, a wrestling Mecca, and the epicenter of Catch-as-catch-can or Catch Wrestling.  This enabled Billy to teach submission wrestling to generations of fighters. It was mainly thanks to Billy Riley’s efforts that the Catch style survived into the 20th Century.

If you wanted to learn Catch and you wanted to become a professional wrestler, you went to Billy Riley and he'd make you a champ.  Some of his pupils include: Karl Gotch, Bill Robinson, his own son Ernie Riley  and Jimmy Niblett.

The man credited with its modern global proliferation is Karl Istaz aka Karl Gotch.  Originally from Belgium, Karl Gotch is described as a wrestling gunslinger.   He was known to travel all over the world in search of worthy opponents.  Somehow he ended up fighting against a Wigan wrestler and was blown away.  Defeated but not downhearted, Gotch went to Riley's gym determined to learn Lancashire  Living over a Wigan laundry mat, the Belgian stayed six months and trained at Riley's Gym. catch-as-catch-can.

Eventually his wrestling took him to America  After WWII, professional wrestling started in take off in Japan. The Americans brought wrestlers from the States to battle it out with the Japanese.  It just so happens that Karl Gotch was one of those wrestlers and became know as the “god of wrestling” in Japan. His style stood out as being different to what the other American wrestlers were doing and the Japanese wanted to learn it.  Gotch eventually stayed in Japan to teach Catch.  Roy Wood, at the Aspull Olympic Club, also visits Japan on a regular basis to teach Catch.  He also taught at the Japanese 'Snake-pit' set up by another of Riley's students, Bill Robinson, and participates in various Japanese-Catch tournaments. where he taught the style to others.

With the rise of professional show wrestling under the auspices of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) true submission wrestling has been under threat for the past three decades.  Despite this, it seems Catch has been given an unlikely lifeline with the growing popularity of the MMA competition.  MMA is not for the feint-hearted and in this brutal competition, the submission wrestlers are proving tough to beat.

Examples of wrestlers who have been successful in the MMA arena are Dan Severn, Matt Hughes and Mark Shultz. These competitors have proven, on a world stage, that wrestling should be taken seriously as a martial art.

Check out our Schedule & Events page for training information.  To get updates contact us or sign our Guestbook and we will add you to our email list for  so you can get updates and news.