Catch: The Hold Not Taken
| Catch: The Hold Not Taken | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mike Todd and Ian Bennett |
| Starring |
Dan Gable Dan Severn Tatsumi Fujinami Mark Cocker John Rigby Jimmy Niblett Roy Wood Tony Francis Alison Coleman Mike Chapman |
| Distributed by | Riverhorse Productions |
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Release date
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Running time
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60 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Catch: The Hold Not Taken is a 2005 documentary film that contrasts the billion dollar industry of professional wrestling with its humble roots in Lancashire, England, where the original tradition struggles to survive.
The documentary examines wrestling's exile from the commercial world of ‘real’ sports and looks at Catch’s clear relationship with the growing modern phenomenon of full contact fighting.
Although there are many styles of wrestling that evolved across the globe, it is widely accepted that modern professional wrestling evolved directly from Catch-as-catch-can. The first widely accepted "world champion", Frank Gotch, wrestled in this style when he beat the "Russian Lion" Georg Hackenschmidt to claim the title. Hackenschmidt, himself a Graeco-Roman wrestler by training, later admitted this was the superior style and later studied the art from Tom Cannon a British wrestler from Liverpool Lancashire (see Hackenschmidt's book The Way to Live).
Catch as Catch Can began as the sport of the Lancashire miners and grew to the height of its popularity in the late 19th to early 20th century. Written history is sketchy as this was a working class sport, without the noble patronage of the likes of, for example, boxing. The history of Catch's growth is explored in the book Catch Wrestling (2005) by Mark Hewitt. Hewitt includes reports from fights from the 19th century involving Lancashire wrestlers in the US, when Catch wrestling was already well established. It is likely that the sport had been around in the United States for a number of centuries, brought by immigrants from Northern England.
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