Gwern is wrong about this. Around 1900 catch wrestling was well established in Europe, and had many similar techniques to BJJ. I consider this an existence pr

Gwern is wrong about this. Around 1900 catch wrestling was well established in Europe, and had many similar techniques to BJJ. I consider this an existence proof for him being wrong; it seems unlikely that these were the only two points where it developed. Catch wrestling split in two ways. On one side, it had submissions banned and became Olympic freestyle wrestling. On the other, they played up the drama and it became modern professional wrestling.