AEW star Bryan Danielson spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp on a number of topics related to pro wrestling, including which catch and grappling holds are underutilized in wrestling.
Danielson said, “Every hold, really. A lot of holds have gone…because of the action-oriented nature of wrestling in modern times, we don’t put a lot of emphasis on holds. I was talking to Mike Rotunda about this because he was a great amateur wrestler, but also knew some of the mean amateur wrestling stuff. ‘Why was the Full Nelson banned from amateur and collegiate wrestling? I know why, it’s because it’s dangerous, but how would you use this to pin somebody?’ He showed me, and, one, it was incredibly painful and felt like it was going to break my neck. Two, it was a really cool thing that we could use in pro wrestling, but we just don’t.”
On the value of holds in wrestling:
“There is a lot of that. You see now, it’s like music now. My wife and a lot of people say, ‘Music isn’t what it used to be.’ No, music is way better than it’s ever been. There are great people doing all these different styles. If you look at Zack Sabre Jr on one spectrum as far as how he uses holds and legitimate grappling techniques, but you also look at people like Timothy Thatcher or Charlie Dempsey or Lee Moriarty or Hechicero doing these different grappling techniques with these holds where a lot of them have legitimate training and they are putting in entertainment aspects of it. It’s really cool. In modern TV wrestling, it’s hard for people to even try to put on a hold for an extended time for fear of losing the audience.”
You can check out Danielson’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
