just want to know,does he like tony ceccine style
He most probably doesnt know who he is or hasnt seen any of his videos.
He was a collegiate wrestler.
He studied submissions from Karl Gotch's student, a legendary pro-wrestler.
He was doing subs long before ever having heard of the Gracies.
Is he a catch guy? You do the math.
he also studied with Billy Robinson for a while.
the answer is yes (though he may not know the term 'catch', he calls himself a pro wrestler or UWF style)
however there seem to be different flavors of 'catch', just like judo. in some ways he is like tony c, other ways not
"I'd call Saku a wrestler/sambo fighter"
Bill Robinson and Carl Gotch were shoot style pro-wrestlers. I have never heard they did any Sambo. Its clearly documented that UWF guys started UWF by using the style Robinson and Gotch taught them.
While it is true, Sayama and Maeda later incorporated Sambo later to learn from living examples, probably partly because there were few incarnations of shoot-style wrestlers, then. Thus, its undeniable Sambo had a strong infuluence on their techniques.
If you follow periodically, they leanrt shoot-style wrestling first, they added Sambo, probably others. Shooto-style wrestling was what they started, so it could be described as their core style.
Sambo was more of the incarnations of what they were searching for. They looked for more beyond Robinson and Gotch and they found Sambo.
Ironically, Sakuraba, one of the UWF second generation guys, was one of few, if any other, who could reincarnated the shoot-style wrestling, probably because he had a strong wrestling influence and others had none. In old catch, the pinning rule was in effect; therefor submissions have to be incorporated with pin-control oriented wrestling. It came naturally to Sakuraba because he had already knew the latter. Others tried to gain the sub skills without looking after pin-control wrestling, and they would never see the true incarnation of shooto-style wrestling, also known as catch-as-catch-can some hundred years ago in England.
Its a fact there were some skilled submission wrestlers in England long time ago. Does Sakuraba's techniques have an lineage or legacy to them? I see a strong line of path connected by the bridge built by Bill Robinson and Karl Gotch all they from Europe to Asia, and all the way from the preriod when there were some serious pro-wreslters to now when they are extinct.
Billy Robsinon's Snakepit in Japan still trains fighters, though Robsinson recently returned to Arkansas (I think someone should go there and convince him to pass on his skills to people intersted in continuing the lineage of the style). See the following post: http://pub11.ezboard.com/fdragonkingpressnewsletterfrm5.showMessage?topicID=109.topic
The Aspull Olympic Wrestling Club no longer teaches Lancashire Catch but some of the guys there still roll in it. Their url is: http://www.aspullolympicwrestlingclub.co.uk/
I do not think Karl Gotch trains anyone any more.
What a shame that this great art seems to be dying out. Hopfully Tony C. can pass it on to some students before he, too, retires.
Saku is beyond any style, he's just Saku