Eddie Bravo and Catchwrestling

Remember Eddie and Rogan saying Catchwrestling is shitty

and that Tony Ceccine was a fake so here is a Catchwrestling seminar of Tony Ceccine for you to watch then you can post what you think of Tony's material

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4116442962014230732&q=catch+wrestling

Tony has some skills and seems like a good teacher but gets into trouble by fabricating his past.

Tony has some skills and seems like a good teacher but gets into trouble by fabricating his past.

That whole point is still debatable. For example, there's all sorts of discussion on the 'net about how Lou Thesz never really endorsed Tony C... But (last time I looked) Google's cache still had a page from Lou's own forums, where he himself posted what seemed like a pretty strong endorsement of Tony.

OTOH, some of the stuff that has been posted about Tony does seem pretty damning and some of his own students have disassociated themselves from him amidst all the controversy.

Probably nobody knows the real truth but Tony himself and the rest of us will never know exactly what his credentials really are.

Edit: here's the forum post I was referring to. http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=000736

In response to a question about producing videos, Lou says things like: "What you ask is so difficult to do - if it is to be of any value. Tony has done a great job, but it is not easy for me to just "instruct". I worked out with specific guys and coached them in certain areas, but never developed a coaching or training regime for anyone."

and

"I am trying to get Tony to move here and me work with him in his program."

Sure makes it sound like Thesz thought of Tony as legit.

I dunno, I'm not taking sides on this either way. Tony's tapes have some usable stuff on them, whether his past is real or not. That's pretty much all I can add to this.

Eddie Bravo would buttscoop Frank Shamrock into a half-guard and then Twister is ass out!

I like the sidemount escape on that seminar although bjj uses the same escape aswell actually that seminar looked pretty much like a bjj seminar without the gi.

I wish I had the rest of the seminar to show you Ive seen the whole thing.

Nice post, sprhodes, that's about how I feel about it too. Tony has a lot of former associates who are pretty disilluisioned with him. He strikes me as kind of a weird guy who has put out some good material. I used to peruse his forum and have a few of his tapes.

I remember Josh Barnett speaking highly of some of Tony's stuff, too.

The back and forth on the net is just kind of tired.

BTW, I like Eddie's book too. He also strikes me as an odd character. To each his own.

TH

Yeah, I bought Eddie's book a while back... I don't care about the controversy to "taking sides," I'll learn from anybody who has something useful to teach.

Catch will make a comeback.

Believe it or not, catch wrestling legend billy wicks and I talked on the phone recently. One of his students visited my school and told me that billy was interested in talking to me, so I called him.

He told me that he read my book and thought that I was more of a catch wrestler than a jiu jitsu player because of my use of the abdominal stretch, aka the twister.

I told him, "even though I took that wrestling move and turned it out, I'm mostly known for fighting off my back with the rubber guard and half guard".

So then I asked him if there has been any catch wrestlers that were known for fighting off their backs. He couldn't think of any.

Billy also suggested that I wear black tights and call myself the 'little dinosaur" after him. Apparently his nick name is 'the dinosaur" and he's known for wearing black tights. I have no idea why he would want me to be his protege, I was speechless and thinking that he had to be pulling my leg. But anyways, he said the black tights make leglocks harder to slip out of.

I told him that I already wore pants for the same "sweaty" reason, "but I can't wear tights", I told him, "my legs are too skinny, so I'm forced to wear baggy gi pants so that girls don't laugh at my chicken legs".

Billy also told me that tony chechine is a "____" when it comes to catch wrestling. I wasn't shocked.

Apparently tony went to billy for some knowledge and after getting to know each other for some time, billy ended up thinking very "___" of tony. He got into some crazy stories about him but i'm not in the mood to get into them right now.

And ever since that surreal phone conversation he's been emailing me pictures of his school in north carolina including a few shots of his students and random crazy emails that he group emails to everyone. He's in his late 70's but he's still a wild and crazy dude who appreciates dirty humor, I love this guy :)

Billy also sent me the book "Catch Wrestling" A Wild And Wooly Look At The Early Days Of Pro Wrestling In America by Mark S. Hewitt.

After going through the book I can honestly say that I'm starting to appreciate a little more of what pro wrestling has done for the martial arts. It's quite fascinating really.

Maybe I'm more of a pro wrestler than a jiu jitsu player after all, hhhmmmm......

Some of that stuff was pretty decent and like someone said he appeared to be a good guy. One thing is for sure, he would beat the sh1t out of Bravo (especially because of his weight advantage). :0

Did he tell you to get off your back and learn some takedowns already and buttscooting doesn't count.

Ya what about Bravo vs Cechinee.
The guy with the dubious Golden Gloves title would smack out Mr Grappling is actually fighting.

TiTTy

Billy Wicks was supposed to put out some videos a while back, I wonder what ever happened with that.

K, so Eddie Bravo + Billy Wicks = The Unholy Grappling alliance of doom!?!

But really, everytime I grapple with a jujutsu guy I slam him. They don't like that... But 8 times out of 10 they make me tap anyways lol.

I can't really follow this lil vid of Tony's that well... But he looks like he knows his shit! I can't really see how he would learn it without being taught but then again I'm not expert!

That is not Matt, I believe that is Shane Tucker assisting him, IIRC. This seminar was done before I started training with Tony, and Shane was gone by the time I got there.

I have the whole seminar(or at least what was marketed) on CD somewhere. It has some good shit in it, which works pretty well for me.

Eddie, I am curious what the "____" was that Billy said about Tony. While I was training at the Tool and Die, Billy came up and spent about a week at Tony's house and taught us some cool shit. They seemed pretty tight at the time, but I understand they have since had a falling out over something or other.

Which seminar is this? I thought the "Shane" in the video was Shane Tucker, but IIRC, Tony didn't get that tattoo until after Shane left. Is this the seminar video listed as "It Went Down in Chi-Town" or is it another one?

BTW: When I got started in MMA (back in 1998) it was Tony Cecchine who taught me the real ins and outs of submissions and I still use what he taught me to this day.

fos

The clip is from a seminar that was only available on CD-rom and yes that is Shane Tucker.

There are a few cool things in that seminar clip that I will try to work on. Interesting stuff.

I seen a LOT of instructionals and I really rate Cecchines. Spine manipulation is just crazy nasty!

His further nelson from half guard (or is that 1/2 saddle) is VERY usefull.

Justin