NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with Dan Kanagie and Billy Warlock of the North American Catch Wrestling Association (NACWA).

The next event for the NACWA will take place Saturday, April 5, called the Virginia Shooter's Challenge. It will be held at Amherst County High School, 139 Lancer Lane, Amherst, Virginia 24521.

The Virginia Shooter's Challenge is a regional qualifier for this year's NACWA national tournament, the Liberty Bell Classic, which will be held later this year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

NACWA events are held under traditional American catch wrestling rules, where you can win by submission or pin. There are no points, no politics, and no sandbagging. Grapplers of all styles, organizations, and levels of experience are welcome. There are six weight classes for men. For women, the Madison System will be used, with competitors matched closest to their weights.

The tournament will not have any points scored, as matches are based on win, lose, or draw format. There are no divisions by experience level in order to stop sandbagging. All kinds of submissions are allowed, except groin attacks, fish hooking, spitting, biting, hair grabbing, intentional striking, and kicking.

We spoke with Dan Kanagie and Billy Warlock by phone Tuesday.

The NACWA national event will invite all the winners of the regional tournaments, said Dan Kanagie, the NACWA national director, in order to "find out who's the best of the best."

As for the competitors at the Virginia Shooter's Challenge, Billy Warlock, the NACWA Virginia director, said, "It's kind of across the board here in Virginia. We've got a ton of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu schools, several of them that I'm friends with that we've opened up to. So it's going to be a wide range of competitors, both amateur wrestlers from some of the high schools here in the area have confirmed that they're going to be attending and sending wrestlers to compete, as well as some of the area's top grappling and, as I said, BJJ gi schools are sending competitors."

Both have been discussing setting up regional catch wrestling tournaments which lead up to a national tournament for years.

The goal of this one, Billy Warlock said, is "to put on the best tournament that we can here in Virginia and get guys qualified to head on up to Philly for nationals."

We also discussed the tremendous potential catch wrestling has to recapture its place as a legitimate and popular professional spectator sport, why the catch wrestling rules result in exciting action on the mat, why catch wrestling is "the workmen's art", why it is "the greatest combat sport on the face of the planet", and much, much more.

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Labels: Billy Warlock, Dan Kanagie, Eddie Goldman, grappling, NACWA, No Holds Barred, North American Catch Wrestling Association, submission, Virginia Shooter's Challenge