Karl Gotch
The 'god of wrestling' whose students shaped Japanese MMA
- Born
- August 3, 1924, Antwerp, Belgium
- Died
- July 28, 2007 (aged 82)
- Nationality
Belgium- Height
- 185 cm (6′1″)
- Style
- Catch-as-catch-can hooker
- Weight
- Light-heavyweight (amateur), Heavyweight (professional)
- Active
- 1948–1982
The story
arl Gotch was born Charles Istaz in Antwerp and wrestled for Belgium at the 1948 London Olympics in both freestyle and Greco-Roman. He sharpened his submission game at Billy Riley's Snake Pit in Wigan, the home of Lancashire catch-as-catch-can, and an Ohio promoter gave him the ring name Gotch in honour of Frank Gotch. He won the Ohio-based AWA world title in 1961, but after falling out with American promoters he built his legacy in Japan, where he trained New Japan Pro-Wrestling's dojo and beat Antonio Inoki on the promotion's first card in 1972. His students, including Satoru Sayama, Akira Maeda, Minoru Suzuki and Masakatsu Funaki, went on to found Shooto, RINGS and Pancrase, a name Gotch himself suggested. Japanese fans called him Kamisama, the god of wrestling.
Tap a technique with an arrow to learn how it works.
- 1948 Olympian for Belgium (7th freestyle, =8th Greco-Roman, light-heavyweight)
- AWA (Ohio) World Heavyweight Champion (1961)
- WWWF World Tag Team Champion (1971, with René Goulet)
- NJPW Real World Championship (2 reigns)
- Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (1996)
- Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame (2007)
- George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame (2009)
- International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame (2022)
Defining matches
- 1948London Olympics for Belgium (7th in freestyle, =8th in Greco-Roman)
- 1961Won the AWA (Ohio) world title; lost it to Lou Thesz, 1963
- 1972Beat Antonio Inoki in the main event of New Japan Pro-Wrestling's first show
- 1982Final match: pinned Yoshiaki Fujiwara with a German suplex
Take Gotch's rear waist lock to German suplex: lock your hands low on the hips from behind, step your hip across, and arch back into a bridge. Build it with the daily neck-and-hip bridging he demanded, and practise the throw only on crash mats.
1996–2014
