Shoot wrestling

Shoot wrestling is a combat sport and a general term that describes a range of hybrid fighting systems originating in Japan in the late 1970s, in close association with Japanese professional wrestling. Shoot wrestling has several sub-disciplines eg. Shootfighting, Shooto, Pancrase, RINGS submission fighting and Shoot boxing.

The term "shoot" refers to the real application of techniques, as opposed to a "work". The shoot wrestling techniques are often applied in shoot-style professional wrestling matches, which feature predetermined outcomes, but with much technique applied in a stiff or full contact manner.

History of shoot wrestling and shoot-style wrestling

Historically, shoot wrestling has been influenced by many martial arts such as freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, catch wrestling in the beginning and Karate, Muay thai and Judo in the final stages.

Karl Istaz is one of the most important figures in the development of shoot wrestling. Karl Istaz eventually travelled to the American professional wrestling where he found moderate success. It was his tour to Japan though, that set the stage for the birth of shoot wrestling.

Istaz gained legendary status in Japan, earning the name of "Kamisama" ('god [of wrestling] '). In the 1970's he taught catch wrestling based "hooking" and "shooting" to the likes of Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satoru Sayama, Masami Soranaka, and Akira Maeda. Most of these professional wrestlers already had backgrounds in legitimate martial arts. Masami Soranaka had been a student of full contact Karate, kodokan Judo, and Sumo. Yoshiaki Fujiwara was already a Muay Thai fighter and black belt in judo. Satoru Sayama had studied Muay Thai with Toshio Fujiwara and went on to study Sambo with Victor Koga. This would eventually lead to added influences of Karate, Muay thai and Judo to the wrestling style.

One of his students, Antonio Inoki hosted a series of mixed martial arts matches in which he pitted his "strong style professional wrestling" against other martial arts. Inoki would go on to promote these techniques in his professional wrestling promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Later on, many wrestlers became interested in promoting an even more realistic style of professional wrestling and in 1984, Universal Wrestling Federation was formed. The UWF was a professional wrestling organisation, which promoted the strong shoot style/strong style wrestling. This essentially meant that it employed effective and practical martial arts moves, which were applied with force. The organization even hosted some real mixed martial arts matches, where the wrestlers were able to test their shoot wrestling techniques against other styles.

After the breakup of the original Universal Wrestling Federation, shoot wrestling branched into several disciplines. Each of the disciplines were also strongly influenced by other martial arts.

The major forms of shoot wrestling

Shoot wrestling branched into several sub disciplines after the breakup of the original Universal Wrestling Federation. The main forms are listed below.

*Yoshiaki Fujiwara's students Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki formed Pancrase, which is also a fighting style under shoot wrestling.
*Another Yoshiaki Fujiwara student Bart Vale formed Shootfighting.
*Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama's style of shoot wrestling also includes Muay thai kicks and is called Shooto.
*Akira Maeda's version of shoot wrestling emphasises on submissions and is known as RINGS submission fighting.
*Kickboxer Caesar Takeshi formed Shoot boxing with standing submission aspect influenced by catch wrestling and shoot wrestling.
*World renowned gyms like the Lion's Den, Takada Dojo, Evolution II and Shamrock Martial Arts Academy propagate shoot wrestling based styles of martial arts.
*Canada based Mid-Western Wrestling promoted and showcased unscripted shoot-wrestling matches which incorporated formulated striking along with modified rules to give the sport a real and raw yet entertaining platform. Competitors ranged from all over the world, many as young as 15 years of age. The promotion produced two of the youngest and top shoot wrestlers of the day. Evolution II teammates William Hamilton and Arthur Lee. Both held numerous records and titles including several internationally recognized championships.
*Dutch kickboxer and MMA legend Bas Rutten trained with shoot wrestler Masakatsu Funaki.
*Junior National Korean Tae Kwon Do champion Masa Kin Jim has trained in shoot wrestling. During a brief tour of Japan promoting Korean Martial Arts Masa Kin Jim was fascinated with the style shoot wrestling brought to Martial Arts. He opened one of the first shoot wrestling academies in South Korea in 1998.
*In 2002 shoot and pro wrestling superstars Jushin "Thunder" Liger and Minoru Suzuki squared off in a Mixed-Martial Arts match-up. Suzuki won via submssion(rear-naked-choke) at 1:48 of the first round.

ee also

* Pancrase
* Puroresu
* Shootfighting
* Shooto

References

External links

* [http://www.scientificwrestling.com/ Scientific Wrestling.]
* [http://www.riverhorse.tv/CATCH/ Website of the film 'Catch - the hold not taken', which looks at the history of shoot wrestling]
* Chan, Sam. [http://bjj.org/editorials/19980215-prowrest/ The Japanese Pro-Wrestling: Reality Based Martial Art Connection] . "bjj.org". URL last accessed January 7 2006.