How much submission grappling does a professional wrestler know?

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

Not joking. had no idea he had that kind of background
A lot of people tend to forget he was trained by Dean Malenko and Jeff Bradley, both of whom have a Karl Gotch / Hiro Matsuda lineage.
 
Hulk Hogan would have won UFC 1 by flying armbar if Rorion had been man enough to invite him

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Hulk hogan is a pussy
 
I mean, the old-school guys like Lou Thesz, Danny Hodge, etc., were submission wizards. Danny Hodge actually used the twister as his finisher and Lou Thesz would regularly launch kimura attacks and short-arm scissors from guard and half-guard, as well as every other conceivable position. He actually won an exhibition against Jersey Joe Walcott using an Achilles lock. Guys like Pat McGill would roll into Achilles locks from standing. A lot of the old-school French pro-wrestlers had very elegant and dynamic submission work.

Basically, old-school professional wrestling abounded with submission experts and Japanese pro-wrestling did as well, largely because they were influenced by the old-school professional wrestlers. British professional wrestling also had a pretty strong tradition of guys with legit ground-games, like George Kidd and of course, Billy Robinson. Later on it became more of a mixed bag. Submission-wrestling became less and less of a necessity in the game. But it is never going to go away completely, because for one thing, an understanding of submission wrestling can help people work a match, it can help convince people a match is legit and it can also help wrestlers defend themselves in the ring when they have to.
 
I used to be a high school wrestler and it helped a lot in BJJ.
 
Hogan would submit the entire UFC HW division


I sorta think Belzer put too much of the blame for that situation on Hulk Hogan and didn't take enough personal responsibility for foolishly allowing him to be put into a hold he had no understanding of. Hogan, you could say, was foolish for doing it, but Belzer--or someone involved with the show--wanted Hogan to demonstrate a move and what else was he going to do with a guy who didn't know how to take a fall?
 
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I sorta think Belzer put too much of the blame for that situation on Hulk Hogan didn't take enough personal responsibility for foolishly allowing him to be put into a hold he had no understanding of. Hogan, you could say, was foolish for doing it, but Belzer--or someone involved with the show--wanted Hogan to demonstrate a move and what else was he going to do with a guy who didn't know how to take a fall?

I mean I'm a pro wrestling mark for sure, but I can easily see a pro like hogan in the glory days of the 70s and 80s easily being able to snap down some guy in a bar and choking em out with little more effort than hulk did belzer. And hogan wasn't a shooter either, so doubly so for the guys who had legit backgrounds like Bob Backlund or the Iron sheik.

There's a story of when Chris Jericho got into a scuffle with Goldberg and basically holding him at will in a front face lock.

Not on par with bjj or judo world Champs but plenty of pro wrestlers used to be able to hold their own against the general population. Size and strength goes a long way.
 
I mean I'm a pro wrestling mark for sure, but I can easily see a pro like hogan in the glory days of the 70s and 80s easily being able to snap down some guy in a bar and choking em out with little more effort than hulk did belzer. And hogan wasn't a shooter either, so doubly so for the guys who had legit backgrounds like Bob Backlund or the Iron sheik.

There's a story of when Chris Jericho got into a scuffle with Goldberg and basically holding him at will in a front face lock.

Not on par with bjj or judo world Champs but plenty of pro wrestlers used to be able to hold their own against the general population. Size and strength goes a long way.
Hogan actually was a bit of a shooter; he was trained by the Brisco brothers and Hiro Matsuda. He's choked out a few guys in real-life confrontations and basically, according to him, ambushed Riki Choshu during a match to take a win over him. Of course, what he claims he did to Choshu isn't really that impressive and I'm sure Choshu, an amateur wrestling champion and a trained submission-grappler would have easily handled him on even footing (assuming Hogan's claim is even true).

I'm not saying he's the second coming of Lou Thesz, but he did have some training that way. Brisco and Matsuda planned on pushing him quick and they felt it necessary that he knew how to defend himself against people who might be jealous.
 
Hogan actually was a bit of a shooter; he was trained by the Brisco brothers and Hiro Matsuda. He's choked out a few guys in real-life confrontations and basically, according to him, ambushed Riki Choshu during a match to take a win over him. Of course, what he claims he did to Choshu isn't really that impressive and I'm sure Choshu, an amateur wrestling champion and a trained submission-grappler would have easily handled him on even footing (assuming Hogan's claim is even true).

I'm not saying he's the second coming of Lou Thesz, but he did have some training that way. Brisco and Matsuda planned on pushing him quick and they felt it necessary that he knew how to defend himself against people who might be jealous.

I'm a big fan of the matches he did with Inoki. Some very good technical work from him against one of the most legit guys ever. Hulk could work his ass off if he wanted.
 
I'm a big fan of the matches he did with Inoki. Some very good technical work from him against one of the most legit guys ever. Hulk could work his ass off if he wanted.
Inoki is definitely legit. I mean, as an old man he rolled live with Brock frigging Lesnar. I'm not a fan of a lot of things he did, but the man is a legend.
 
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.
Hulk Hogan would have won UFC 1 by flying armbar if Rorion had been man enough to invite him

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Almost no one knows that Hogan was a shooter who could really wrestle. His US persona was of a simple minded patriot who relied on brawn and had 3 moves.

He saved his real skills for Japan.
Actually if he had prepared properly for UFC he could have done very well in the early days with his catch know how and size and strength.
 
Almost no one knows that Hogan was a shooter who could really wrestle. His US persona was of a simple minded patriot who relied on brawn and had 3 moves.

He saved his real skills for Japan.
Actually if he had prepared properly for UFC he could have done very well in the early days with his catch know how and size and strength.
He actually worked pretty well in the 70's and early 80's in the USA when he was "The Incredible" Hulk Hogan. He went with more of a powerhouse style rather than a scientific one back then but he had extremely good and versatile matches in the USA before he got that patriot gimmick in the AWA, especially against guys like Backlund. The weird trend of using extremely few moves was less based on Hogan or his gimmick but was the working style in the entire WWF in the mid-late 80's for some reason. A lot of great wrestlers like Bad News Brown, Piper or Greg Valentine worked extremely boring matches in that timeframe.
 
Interesting video about wrestling versus BJJ with a wrestler knowing a little bit of BJJ to avoid the submission. Might be relevant to this discussion.
 
Interesting video about wrestling versus BJJ with a wrestler knowing a little bit of BJJ to avoid the submission. Might be relevant to this discussion.



Really cool vid. Apparently the kid is more than just a "state champ," he's (unofficial due to COVID) CA state champ. Not sure who the BJJ guy is but wouldn't be surprised if he's more than just a random hobbyist purple as well.

https://signalscv.com/2021/07/america-lopez-trent-munoz-highlight-girls-boys-club-wrestling/
 
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A lot of old school wrestlers were actual catch wrestlers before doing the wrestling. Like Brett Hart's dad. Apparently that used to be like a hazing ritual for new guys. The old school guy would "stretch out" the new person. And stretching out means just turning the guy into a pretzels for months. Constantly beating the piss out of them.
 
Depends on their training lineage really. As others have said, ask Sensei Google.
 
Depends on their training lineage really.
Yep. And more than that, sort of training they received. Xpac, aka Sean Waltman, was a protege of Karl Gotch. But though he probably knows a thing or two, I wouldn't think he'd compare to a Suzuki, Funaki or Shamrock. Or a Malenko, for that matter. Yoshiaki Fujiwara trained Taka Michinoku, who is actually pretty fluent when it comes to submission grappling, but he also trained him in a different context than the one he trained Funaki, Suzuki, etc. in.
 
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