Billy Robinson On Culture

Previously locked away in the members only area of Damage Control MMA, here's an old gem I found while looking through old hard drives. I thought it an appropriate time to share it with the world in hopes that it might brighten a few days and help us to remember happier times.

[@joemunoz1251]

A true Legend (RIP) Coach Billy Robinson. Catch as catch can master .

[@kprnr7140]

Billy is a legend here in Britain, hes the main reason i started Catch As Catch Can, hes the Master
RIP❤️

[@SonnyBrown]

Awesome! Hope you guys have even more gems!

[@cypresspuz]

THANK YOU! I cant hold my tears when i see the master talking.

[@CarlWinzil]

What an awesome bloke. RIP champ

[@patrickkelley6212]

Culture is everything in the world!

[@dextergarner1286]

Wise words.

[@kallepikku4991]

All these legends Robinson, Gotch, Riley, etc. spend time in India, yet no-one is talking about it. That's like the least explored part of Catch wrestling history, as well as its linkage with Pahlevani wrestling.

[@shooter7734]

Karl Gotch never went to India

[@kallepikku4991]

@@shooter7734 Oddly enough, the guy talked a lot about training with Indian wrestler. Plus he took on all the calisthenics exercises that only Pahlevani wrestlers had at that time. And finally, it's all written in his wikipedia page. LoL.

[@shooter7734]

@@kallepikku4991 according to the transcribed conversation between Jake Shannon and Karl Gotch from April 8, 2005(which you can find easily on Shannon's Scientific wrestling website)
Gotch never made it to India despite wanting to go.
According to Gotch who was living in Wigan at the time while training at Riley's gym you couldn't get into India unless you were an actual citizen of some part of the then British Empire(which he wasn't)
As far as the Pahlevani exercises he learned, he learned them from Akram, Gama's nephew while in England.
Akram was the same Indian wrestler who told Gotch he had once done 9000 squats in a row.....prompting Gotch to do 9001 squats to out do him.
Also the same exercises you referenced had already been brought back to England long before the 1950s when Gotch was training at Riley's gym from 1950-1958.
Even Ian Fleming had Indian clubs as part of the gym equipment of Auric Goldfinger in the James Bond novel published in the 1950s.
The equipment and exercises were common enough for decades before that.
Those exercises and equipment have been widespread in Iran/Persian wrestling for centuries as well.

[@kallepikku4991]

Good to know. Thanks for clarifying.
Btw. I think they are actually called Persian clubs. Iranians took it to India, where British learned it from. Originally Persians had clubs (Zoroastrian clubs), which Indians then localized into a mace (Hindu mace) because it was more suitable to their culture, and finally the British turned it into a workman's hammer (sledgehammer) which were readily available in their lands.
Funnily enough, all the modern gym training with sledgehammers stem from this wrestling tradition, without people really knowing about its long history. They just think it looks cool.

[@kallepikku4991]

Recent 10 years there's been a lot of politically motivated distortions in Pahlevani wrestling history due to rising Indian nationalism. As a part of this, a lot of the old terminology has modified to create a narrative of "endogenous Indian wrestling culture".

[@guitarfan84]

RIP Mr Robinson

[@CoachKussenVuist]

Great video, i miss that guy!

[@frankm5150]

Best of the Best.

[@grawakendream8980]

cool interview, glad you went off the topic of wrestling for a bit. too bad no one did a full on restrospective interview with billy

[@madblank]

Great human!

[@albertgallanosa8600]

Certification.. Then application in NJPW