NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with Adam Laporte, the owner-operator and coach at the Crank Gym in Eckville, Alberta, Canada.

He will be competing on the card of the Catch Wrestling Alliance International Invitational: The Rebirth.

This event will take place Saturday, June 7, in Collins Court in the John Wooden Center on the campus of UCLA, at 221 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, California 90095-1612. This invitational event will be held under catch wrestling rules, where you can only win by pin or submission. His opponent will be catch wrestler Jon Strickland.

We spoke with Adam Laporte by phone Tuesday.

Although he has 15 years of submission wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and MMA experience, he has only recently started training in catch wrestling.

Asked how he was selected to wrestle on this event, he replied, "My name was passed off. We had gone to train with Roy Wood in the U.K. last July [at the Snake Pit Wigan], myself and two of my younger wrestlers." Those wrestlers "outperformed all expectations," and one of them, Brooklyn Thomson, will also be wrestling in the teen division at this event.

"Roy and Andrea [Wood] were quite impressed, or so they told us, and passed along our information to Raul [Ramirez], who had been setting up this tournament."

We discussed how those with backgrounds in other styles of wrestling are making the transition to catch wrestling, and how it compares for them learning gi and no-gi grappling.

"It's a seamless transition," he said, "because the majority of the holds or the tilts or the pins that you're using, with just a little bit of tweaking, can turn it into a submission very simple. Whereas going to the jiu-jitsu side, you're almost having to relearn some of the fundamentals, because now you're allowed to be going onto your back or you're using the chokes and things like that, which typically in the wrestling side you don't see, it's prohibited."

And he sees many more wrestlers taking up catch wrestling.

"Once more wrestlers start to see that this is an option for them, I think the hold that BJJ has over combative grappling will start to come down a bit. It'll become more of a 50-50, because both are proven systems. Just one has a head start in the market, I guess."

We also discussed the need for more youth to start training in wrestling, the need for catch wrestling to have proper organization, his own preparation for his June 7 match, and much more.

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No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

MMA World Expo. The mixed martial arts community comes to New York City July 26 and 27, 2014, for the fifth annual MMA World Expo, featuring the Fighters Source U.S. Nationals amateur MMA tournament, two days of ADCC no-gi and gi grappling tournaments, MMA fighters, seminars with world-class trainers, vendors, panel discussions, catch wrestling competition, and much more. The MMA World Expo takes place Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, July 27, 2014, at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

Catch Wrestling Alliance International Invitational: The Rebirth. This invitational event will be held under catch wrestling rules, where you can only win by pin or submission. It will take place Saturday, June 7, in Collins Court in the John Wooden Center on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, California. For more information, go to catchwrestlingalliance.com.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

Labels: Adam Laporte, Alberta, alliance, Canada, catch wrestling, catch-as-catch-can, Crank Gym, Eddie Goldman, Los Angeles, No Holds Barred, submissions, UCLA