The English term "catch as catch can" is generally understood to mean "catch (a hold) anywhere you can". As this implies, the rules of catch wrestling were more open than the earlier folk styles it was based on, as well as its French Greco-Roman counterpart, which did not allow holds below the waist. Catch wrestlers can win a match by either submission or pin, and most matches are contested as the best two of three falls, with a maximum length of an hour. Often, but not always, the
chokehold was barred. Other fouls like
fish-hooking and
eye-gouging (which were called "rips" or "ripping") were always forbidden. Pins were the predominant way to win, to the point some matches didn't even include submissions as an additional way; submission holds (also called "punishment holds") This is the reason why
leglocks and
neck cranks were emphasized as valid techniques, as while they are difficult to use as finishing moves without a good base, they can be used to force movement. between
Frank Gotch and
George Hackenschmidt, 1908. A "hook" can be defined as an undefined move that stretches, spreads, twists, or compresses any joint or limb. Therefore, another name for a catch wrestler was a "hooker", with the similar term "shooter" being relegated to specially skilled hookers. Catch wrestling techniques may include, but are not limited to: the
arm bar, Japanese arm bar, straight arm bar, hammerlock, bar hammerlock,
wrist lock, top wrist lock, double wrist lock (this hold is also known as the
Kimura in
MMA, or the reverse Ude-Garami in judo), coil lock (this hold is also known as an
Omoplata in
MMA), head scissors, body scissors, chest lock, abdominal lock, abdominal stretch,
leg lock, knee bar, ankle lock, heel hook, toe hold,
half Nelson, and
full Nelson. The rules of catch wrestling would change from venue to venue. Matches contested with side-bets at the coal mines or logging camps favoured submission wins where there was absolutely no doubt as to who the winner was. Meanwhile, professionally booked matches and amateur contests favoured pins that catered to the broader and more gentle paying fan-base. The impact of catch wrestling on modern-day
amateur wrestling is also well established. In the film
Catch: The Hold Not Taken, US Olympic gold medallist Dan Gable talks of how when he learned to wrestle as an amateur the style was known locally, in
Waterloo, Iowa, as catch-as-catch-can. The wrestling tradition of Iowa is rooted in catch wrestling as
Farmer Burns and his student Frank Gotch are known as the grandfathers of wrestling in Iowa. ==Martial arts==