When would you consider a contemporary fighter a catch wrestler or as using catch as part of his arsenal?
Would it be certain techniques, strategies,...
not much reaction. ok let's make it a bit more concrete. As Barnett is considered a catch wrestler on this forum, if you wouldn't know anything about his background, what would make you think he is a catch wrestler?
Good question, it would be hard with someone like Barnett considering he is so well rounded.
I would say a catch wrestlser is characterised by very great take down skills, like to stay in side control or mount, is great with neck cranks and toe holds and uses exotic catch submissions.
Hope that makes sense.
Linage, strategy, and techniques...
I would think you could tell by an individual with a great ability to stay off their back. Most wrestler's I know have a great ability to stay in side or mount, like NCar said, and I've rolled with a bunch of jiujitsu guys (both gracie and yudansha), but I've never had much experience with leg and ankle locks until I started rolling with catch wrestlers (scuffler and Jason). I'm sure jiujitsu guys have leg locks and stuff, but I guess most of them kind of stress arm manipulations, gi techniques, and chokes. This is just my experience, by the way, and every grappler is different. Also, Mark was the first to really show me what "jonesing" was about. Using pain in interesting ways to move an opponent into a position to further enable the application of a submission is another quality I've personally noticed in catch wrestlers.
There are other things, but this is just a starting list. Like Jake said, the lineage also says something about it. Hope this info helps. God bless
Tony