Catch wrestling (also known as catch-as-catch-can) is an English wrestling style with fewer restrictions than other wrestling styles. It allows techniques using or targeting the legs (unlike Greco-Roman wrestling), it allows joint locks (unlike freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling), and there are no mandatory grips. It was spread by wrestlers of travelling funfairs who developed their own submission holds, referred to as "hooks" and "stretches", into their wrestling to increase their effectiveness against their opponents, as well as immigrants through Europe and the Anglosphere.

Catch-as-catch-can was included in the 1904 Olympic Games and continued through the 1936 Games; it had new rules and weight categories introduced similar to other amateur wrestling styles, and dangerous moves – including all submission holds – were banned. At the amateur level, FILA developed and codified new rules and regulations to replace catch wrestling with freestyle wrestling, which was then considered separate from the dangerous, professional catch style. After a revival effort starting in the 1980s, competitive catch wrestling gradually made a return, leading to The Snake Pit's Catch Wrestling World Championships and notable competitions such as the Snake Pit British Championships and ACWA US Open.

Professional wrestling, once a legitimate combat sport, was competitive catch wrestling. The original and historic World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship was created in 1905 to identify the best catch-as-catch-can wrestler in the world, before the belt was retired in 1957 and unified with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Modern day professional wrestling has its origins in wrestling matches where predetermined ("worked") matches had elements of performing arts introduced (as well as striking and acrobatic manoeuvres), turning it into an entertainment spectacle. In a few countries, such as in France and Germany, "catch" is still the term used for professional wrestling, while in Brazil the term Telecatch (a portmanteau of television and catch) is ocasionally used, borrowed from a popular professional wrestling television show from the 1970s.

In the UK, catch wrestling combines several British styles of wrestling (primarily Lancashire, as well as Cumberland, Westmorland, Devonshire and Cornish) along with influences from the Irish collar-and-elbow and Indian pehlwani styles of wrestling. The training of many modern submission wrestlers, professional wrestlers, and mixed martial artists is founded in catch wrestling through its various descendant styles. Other martial arts with origins in catch wrestling include folkstyle wrestling, Sambo, Luta Livre, shoot wrestling, shootfighting and mixed martial arts (MMA).^{[citation needed]}

Catch wrestling in Britain was predominantly based on Lancashire wrestling, spreading across Britain and internationally. By 1840 the phrase "catch as catch can" was being used in America to describe their Rough and tumble fighting found in the frontier which was characterized by its lack of strict rules and the use of any and all tactics to achieve victory.

The phrase "catch as catch can" reflected the improvisational nature of the style, where wrestlers utilized whatever holds they could "catch" on their opponent with the primary goal being to make the opponent verbally quit by using grappling techniques including holds and dirty moves associated with the American style at the time.

Various promoters of the exercise, notably J. Wannop, of New Cross, attempted to bring the new system prominently before the public, with the view of amalgamating the three English styles viz. the Cumberland and Westmorland, Cornwall and Devon, and Lancashire. The sudden development of the Cumberland and Westmorland Amateur Wrestling Society brought the new style prominently to the front, and special prizes were given for competition in that class at the society's first annual midsummer gathering at the Paddington Recreation Ground, which was attended by Lord Mayor Whitehead and sheriffs in state.

Wrestling on the "catch-as-catch-can" principle was new to many spectators, but it was generally approved of as a great step in advance of the loose-hold system, which includes struggling on the ground and sundry objectionable tactics, such as catching hold of the legs, twisting arms, dislocating fingers, and other items of attack and defence peculiar to Lancashire wrestling.