How much submission grappling does a professional wrestler know?

Varies extremely widely, there's more or less no single trend in worked promotions on what one guy might know compared to another, though it can depend a lot on what style of promotion they work for, and who they might have apprenticed with.

Some guys like Davy Boy Smith Jr. can know a great whole lot, while other guys can basically just be spot monkeys, and you could find both of them sharing the same locker room. More 'narrative' focused promotions like the WWE will tend to have more of the latter, while more 'strong style' promotions like NJPW will tend to have more of the former.
 
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rmongler said:
Varies extremely widely, there's more or less no single trend in worked promotions on what one guy might know compared to another, though it can depend a lot on what style of promotion they work for, and who they might have apprenticed with.

Some guys like Davy Boy Smith Jr. can know a great whole lot, while other guys can basically just be spot monkeys. More 'narrative' focused promotions like the WWE will tend to have more of the latter, while more 'strong style' promotions like NJPW will tend to have more of the former.
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Did Brock Lesnar know any before he joined the UFC?
 
Actual pain submissions, a lot of old school guys know a ton. These aren't really joing locks you'll see in jiu jitsu like armbars and omo platas. These are more like tendon and ligament stretches. Generally speaking, anyone trained in Canada is going to have a passing knowledge on ligament stretches and a decent understanding of body mechanics. Your best bet is going to their wikipedia page and looking at who trained them in the profile section. Certain trainers specialize in knowing submission grappling, especially the older guys.

You have a couple of wrestlers who come in with Judo backgrounds. Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown (olympian) were black belts in Judo. Ken Shamrock had his shoot wrestling background he got in Japan. You got Olympic wrestlers like Kurt Angle, Alberto Del Rio (Greco roman) and "Chad Gable" who have picked up some submission wrestling from general interest. Brock Lesnar has done enough MMA training to where he would probably do really well at bjj in his weight class. MVP is a Gracie Barra purple belt and Bobby Lashley has done enough MMA to be pretty decent on the ground.

That's about as deep as I want to go. At the end of the day pro wrestling is still pretty fake and even if guy looks like he has a submission background he might still absolutely suck at it. You really dont know until you see them do a real sport so everything is speculation really.
 
Depends on who trained them. The Karl Gotch students are very proficient at submission grappling. Hiro Matsuda's students such as Hulk Hogan, B. Brian Blair, Paul Orndorff and the like are able to shoot. Garbage wrestlers, indy goofballs and former backyarders often times don't know shit about submission grappling.

With the WWE guys, it depends on their background.


Reportedly, Eddie Graham had a sexual fetish for seeing people tortured which is why he would lure people into challenging pro-wrestlers if they were willing to sign a nonliability contract (which actually explicitly mentioned the possibility of being permanently disabled or dead). Graham got off from seeing Jack Brisco grabbing a challenger in a Full Nelson and dragging him to the ground, where he pushed his face into the mat, breaking his nose and making it spurt blood everywhere. He cranked the hold right until the challenger was about to pass out before loosening it up just a little bit to keep him on the edge of consciousness and prolong and intensify his panic and fear of suffocation as much as possible. According to Jim Wilson, Eddie Graham's perverse sadism made him experience near orgasmic excitement watching his wrestlers break peoples bones, legs, arms, jaws and noses in such fashion.
 
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Calibur said:
Actual pain submissions, a lot of old school guys know a ton. These aren't really joing locks you'll see in jiu jitsu like armbars and omo platas. These are more like tendon and ligament stretches. Generally speaking, anyone trained in Canada is going to have a passing knowledge on ligament stretches and a decent understanding of body mechanics. Your best bet is going to their wikipedia page and looking at who trained them in the profile section. Certain trainers specialize in knowing submission grappling, especially the older guys.

You have a couple of wrestlers who come in with Judo backgrounds. Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown (olympian) were black belts in Judo. Ken Shamrock had his shoot wrestling background he got in Japan. You got Olympic wrestlers like Kurt Angle, Alberto Del Rio (Greco roman) and "Chad Gable" who have picked up some submission wrestling from general interest. Brock Lesnar has done enough MMA training to where he would probably do really well at bjj in his weight class. MVP is a Gracie Barra purple belt and Bobby Lashley has done enough MMA to be pretty decent on the ground.

That's about as deep as I want to go. At the end of the day pro wrestling is still pretty fake and even if guy looks like he has a submission background he might still absolutely suck at it. You really dont know until you see them do a real sport so everything is speculation really.
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That's pretty much it, the even older generation will know more. Pre WWF era guys like Gene Lebell had to be able to hold their own if scripted matches went weird. Get back a bit further to the Lou Thesz era and you were nothing without that training.
 
Daniel Bryan can go on the mat, he’s legit. If you want to know who the real shooters are, check out the old world of sport British wrestlers. All were hard men who would stretch you, especially if they came from Wigan.
 
Calibur said:
Actual pain submissions, a lot of old school guys know a ton. These aren't really joing locks you'll see in jiu jitsu like armbars and omo platas. These are more like tendon and ligament stretches.
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That's what I thought. They aren't cats on the mat but not real submission grapplers either.
 
I would assume that their knowledge base is wide, but not deep.

To execute a technique in a worked match requires only a very basic understanding of how to perform a move.

To execute a technique against a live resisting opponent requires a completely different level of understanding of the technique.
 
Hulk Hogan would have won UFC 1 by flying armbar if Rorion had been man enough to invite him

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A quick thought:

Many pro wrestlers knew what holds were, but against resisting opponents, non idea how to get to the holds or what to do when they couldn't get them.

We saw that with a number of strong style and shoot style wrestlers. Guys like Saku, Kiyoshi Tamura and various Pancrase guys were outliers. I can only imagine we would have seen guys like Bret Hart, Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko unable to apply them properly too.
 
Patrick Jane said:
Depends on who trained them. The Karl Gotch students are very proficient at submission grappling. Hiro Matsuda's students such as Hulk Hogan, B. Brian Blair, Paul Orndorff and the like are able to shoot. Garbage wrestlers, indy goofballs and former backyarders often times don't know shit about submission grappling.

With the WWE guys, it depends on their background.


Reportedly, Eddie Graham had a sexual fetish for seeing people tortured which is why he would lure people into challenging pro-wrestlers if they were willing to sign a nonliability contract (which actually explicitly mentioned the possibility of being permanently disabled or dead). Graham got off from seeing Jack Brisco grabbing a challenger in a Full Nelson and dragging him to the ground, where he pushed his face into the mat, breaking his nose and making it spurt blood everywhere. He cranked the hold right until the challenger was about to pass out before loosening it up just a little bit to keep him on the edge of consciousness and prolong and intensify his panic and fear of suffocation as much as possible. According to Jim Wilson, Eddie Graham's perverse sadism made him experience near orgasmic excitement watching his wrestlers break peoples bones, legs, arms, jaws and noses in such fashion.
Click to expand...


Wow. Kane defends leg locks better than some gi black belts I know.

Not joking. had no idea he had that kind of background
 
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