This idea that all the Japanese catch guys belong to a style called "shoot-wrestling" is a bit of a misunderstanding. Also, you're off about Koga--he trained Satoru Sayama after Sayama had broken off from the UWF and started to formulate Shooto, first as a style and then as an organization. I have seen certain sources mistakenly credit Koga for being Masakatsu Funaki's mentor and the one who taught him his leglock entries (I saw this in that TV Tropes website). Not the case. Koga influenced and taught Sayama, Sayama essentially had a hand in instructing the first generation of Shooto competitors. What he taught was, according to Sayama, most prominently a mix of Karl Gotch and Viktor Koga's instruction, but I'm sure there were other things thrown in there as well.
Nope, the only misunderstanding is failing to see that what happened in Japan was a bunch of crosstraining in different grappling sports. When the japanese MMA-fighters showed up they didn't label themselves as catch wrestlers, they were using labels like shootfighting, shoot-wrestling, shooto or hybrid wrestling.
Not to mention that Koga had students who were around, most famous was Hidetaka Aso.
Meanwhile, you had the guys that stayed with the UWF only to eventually go on, following its collapse, to form Pancrase, RINGs and the UWF-i. You also had Hidetaka Aso forming Submission Arts Wrestling. The guys who founded Pancrase weren't students of Sayama or Koga, but rather Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Karl Gotch. It was Fujiwara who provided Funaki, Suzuki, etc. with their foundation in leglocks and submissions generally. Karl Gotch did play a huge role though, and for a time Funaki would submit tape of every Pancrase event to Karl Gotch for his review and analysis. In fact, in the case of Gotch, he actually came up with the name for Pancrase. To this day, Pancrase refers to their no-gi grappling as "catch wrestling." RINGs had Akira Maeda as the primary influence and the UWF-i had Billy Robinson and Yuto Miyato and others as their primary instructors. Lou Thesz and Danny Hodge were also major influences in the UWF-i and Kiyoshi Tamura actually lived at Thesz's house for a time to get his game refined under Thesz's tutelage.
And your point is? You do mention Aso which does includes the Koga lineage.
As far as a BJJ influence, some of the guys ended up embracing BJJ, just as some BJJ guys ended up embracing many of their techniques, but others, such as Minoru Suzuki, spurned any BJJ influence.
Nope, BJJ took over. Catch wrestling is dead and so is the shootbranches when it comes to the japanese grappling sports. The only two catch wrestling gyms remaining are Hideki Suzuki and Yuki Miyato. Osamu Matsunami had another one but it's closed now. The only shootwrestling that's around moved over to the puroresu.
There's certainly footage of Billy Robinson observing two guys training in the UWF Snake Pit working for heel-hooks, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the heel-hook didn't come to Japan via Ivan Gomes, as that story goes, because the footage is during the UWF-i era of the 1980's, well after Gomes supposedly passed on that technique to the NJPW boys. For what it is worth, I asked Robinson directly about the heel-hook and he said it is a catch-wrestling technique
Would love to see that photo. I didn't say it doesn't exist in catch. I just showed the heel hook to Roy and he said they never trained those kind of leglocks in the Snake pit. I know the carnies did it and it's also worth to mention that both Gotch and Robinson traveled around the world and probably learnt a thing or two.
As far as styles looking different, well of course, something called catch-as-catch-can isn't going to be uniform. It never was. But if you compare certain guys, like for example, Lou Thesz and Sakuraba, you can see a direct line of descent. Other guys, sure the resemblance won't be there as much. Paul Prehn, the legendary collegiate coach and catch-wrestler, outlines leglocks very similar to what you later saw in the games of guys like Funaki, including the figure-four toehold. Some guys like Pat McGill were doing rolling entries into Achilles locks in the 40's and 50's that show an obvious familial resemblance to the stuff that a lot of the Japanese and Brazilian catch guys would later be famous for.
That's how it is with any style of grappling. Especially one whose very name implies an eclectic nature.
Yea, and when they nowadays look completly different they have evolved into different styles, just like judo and BJJ isn't the same anymore. I'm not american so never heard of those two guys you mentioned but looked them up. I checked the techniques in one of Prehns books, the submissions, especially the leglocks didn't look like what they did in Japan. It looked a lot more like the traditional toe holds and calf slicers you only see in traditional catch and not in shootwrestling.
Same with McGill were I watched a video I think you created. Only the achilles lock can be seen in shootwrestling, the other was just like Prehn.
If were gonna talk about standing leglock entries the shootwrestling looks a lot more like they've learnt from Sambo.
Point is they've grown apart. Catch is a sport and it's the same wherever you train it. If you go to Strickland in USA or Roy Wood in the UK you would get the same kind of wrestling. If you would go to Japan however the training would be different unless you go to a gym like Suzukis. I talked with Roy about his time coaching in Japan. He said they were very good wrestlers but they did their own thing, he was mainly criticizing them for laying on their back(guard) and doing lockflows.
Nothing wrong with it, it's just different.