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Wrestling Sports

Wrestling is a general term for a combat sport between two competitors involving grappling-type techniques. The main objective in most forms of wrestling is to pin down the opponent's shoulders onto the mat. There are many popular wrestling styles practiced around the world, as well as many less widely known regional or folk wrestling styles.

Olympic Styles

There are two wrestling styles which are included in the Olympic Games, and are popular around the world.

Greco-Roman — In this style, wrestlers are prohibited from holding any part of the opponent’s body below the waist
Freestyle — In this style, unlike other styles, wrestlers are allowed to use their legs for offense or defense during a bout.

Other Popular Wrestling Styles

Collegiate Wrestling — a wrestling style practiced exclusively in the United States at a collegiate level.
Judo — the objective is to throw or takedown the opposing player to the ground.
Belt Wrestling — the aim is to knock down the opponent by grappling with their belt.
Beach Wrestling — a standing up position style of wrestling conducted on beach sand.

wrestling match

Regional or Folk Wrestling Styles

Boli Khela — a form of wrestling that is practiced in Bangladesh and India.
Dumog — a Filipino style of wrestling while standing upright.
Glima — a wrestling style from Scandinavia, based on a popular sport of the Vikings from over 1200 years ago.
Kurash — folk wrestling style from Central Asia in which wrestlers use towels to hold their opponents, and their goal is to throw their opponents off the feet.
Pehlwani — a form of wrestling from South Asia. A win is achieved by pinning the opponent's shoulders and hips to the ground simultaneously.
Mongolian Wrestling — a folk wrestling style from the Mongolian region, in which the aim is to get your opponent to touch his upper body, knee or elbow to the ground.
Schwingen — a style of folk wrestling native to Switzerland.
Sorro Wrestling — a traditional wrestling style from Niger
Ssireum — a folk wrestling style and traditional national sport of Korea, with the aim to bring any part of the opponent's body above the knee to the ground.
Sumo — two wrestlers within a circular ring try and push the other out
Yağlı Güreş (Turkish oil wrestling)

Glima Demonstration at the 1912 Olympic Games. from: THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF STOCKHOLM 1912

Other Wrestling Sports

Mas Wrestling — participants sit and face each other with their feet braced against a board and each with both hands on a stick. The aim is to pull the other player over to your side.
Arm Wrestling — each participant places one elbow on a surface while gripping the other participant's hand. The aim is to pin the other's arm onto the surface.
Beeni Wrestling — also called Asian arm wrestling, involves two competitors attempting to break free from their competitor’s hold.
Underwater Wrestling (also known as Aquathlon) — an underwater sport where two competitors wearing masks and fins wrestle underwater in an attempt to remove a ribbon from each other's ankle band.
Mud Wrestling — a women only wrestling sport, in mud while wearing only bikinis (unusual sport)
Shin Kicking — a traditional English sport involving kicking the opponent's shins until submission (unusual sport)
Grappling (FILA) — a non-striking hybrid submission wrestling sport sanctioned by the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA), no longer used in competition

Sports Involving Wrestling

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) — a full-contact individual combat sport that includes aspects of several other combat sports and martial arts, including wrestling.
Sanshou (also called Sanda), one of the forms of Wushu — a form of kickboxing from China, which combines full-contact kickboxing, with wrestling, takedowns, throws, sweeps, kick catches, and in some competitions, even elbow and knee strikes.
Jujutsu — one of the forms of competitive Jujutsu is the Japanese/Ne Waza (grappling) system, in which the participants start standing up and they work for a submission. Striking is not allowed in this type.
Amateur Pankration — a modern version of the Ancient Olympic sport of Pankration.
Vajra-mushti — an Indian martial art in which a knuckleduster-like weapon called the Vajra-mushti is employed.

Sports Related to Wrestling

Professional Wrestling — a scripted wrestling-style activity designed to entertain (not a real sport).
Steer wrestling — part of Rodeo events.
Martial Arts — list of martial arts sports.