Quick Guide on the Different Types of Wrestling

Wrestling ranks among the oldest and most widespread combat sports in human history. Nearly every culture, from ancient Greece to the steppes of Mongolia, developed its own form of grappling. The problem is that "wrestling" is an umbrella term. The term covers dozens of distinct styles, each with its own rules, objectives, and cultural roots.

This guide breaks wrestling into four broad families: amateur, submission-based, traditional or folk, and professional. By the end, you will understand how each style works, how they differ, and how to pick one to practice or follow.

The Main Types of Amateur Wrestling

Amateur wrestling is the competitive, Olympic, and scholastic branch of the sport. It centers on takedowns, control, and pinning an opponent's shoulders to the mat. 

These styles are governed by international and national athletic bodies, chief among them United World Wrestling (UWW). Amateur wrestling styles also form the foundation that most other grappling styles build on.

Freestyle Wrestling

Freestyle wrestlers score points through takedowns, exposures, and pins using both the upper and lower body. Legs are fair game for both attack and defense. Single-leg and double-leg takedowns and leg trips are central to the style.

Freestyle is an Olympic discipline open to both men and women. A wrestling match runs two three-minute periods. 

A wrestler wins by pinning an opponent, by building a large point lead for a technical superiority victory, or by holding the highest score when time expires.

Greco-Roman Wrestling

Greco-Roman wrestling forbids all holds below the belt line. Leg attacks and leg trips are illegal. Every attack must come from the upper body.

This constraint produces a discipline built on clinches, throws, and the dramatic, high-amplitude suplex. It's one of the oldest events of the modern Olympic Games. 

Greco-Roman wrestlers need significant upper-body strength and precise hip positioning, setting it apart from the leg-driven attacks of freestyle.

Folkstyle Wrestling

Folkstyle, also called collegiate wrestling, is the dominant scholastic and collegiate style in the United States. Governed at the university level by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, it rewards control and riding time rather than exposure. Wrestlers earn points for escapes, reversals, and near-falls.

Many folkstyle wrestlers later switch to freestyle or Greco-Roman, the two Olympic styles, for national and global competition.

Submission-Based Types of Wrestling

In submission-based wrestling, victory can come from forcing an opponent to submit through joint locks or chokes, not only from pins or points. These styles serve as the bridge between traditional wrestling and modern mixed martial arts.

Catch Wrestling

Catch wrestling traces its roots to British carnivals and the tradition of "catch-as-catch-can" wrestling, and regional styles such as Cornish wrestling and England’s Catch-Hold wrestling. Its philosophy centers on "hooking," which combines pins with submission holds.

Catch wrestling shaped both early professional wrestling and modern grappling. Its techniques still surface in gyms and competition circuits around the world.

Luta Livre

Luta Livre is a Brazilian submission grappling style. The name means "free fighting," and practitioners train without a gi. The style emphasizes takedowns, leg locks, and no-gi submissions.

Luta Livre carries a long historical rivalry with gi-based grappling in Brazil. That rivalry helped push both styles forward and influenced the development of MMA. 

Submission Wrestling

Modern submission grappling, often called No-Gi Grappling, is a broad discipline. Submission wrestling blends takedowns with a full arsenal of submissions. Competition formats reward submissions and positional dominance without any striking.

Submission wrestling sits at the heart of MMA training. It also thrives as a standalone competitive scene with its own tournaments and champions.

Traditional Types of Wrestling Around the World

These folk styles are culturally rooted. Many tie directly to festivals, ritual, and national identity. Their rules, attire, and winning conditions vary widely from region to region.

Sumo Wrestling

Sumo is Japan's ceremonial national sport and the most prominent Japanese wrestling style. The objective is direct: force your opponent out of the ring, or make them touch the ground with any part of the body other than the soles of the feet.

Bouts take place in a circular ring called the dohyō and open with rituals that predate the match itself. The action is explosive and often lasts only seconds. A formal ranking system governs professional sumo, and top wrestlers carry immense cultural prestige.

Shuai Jiao

Shuai Jiao is China's ancient jacket-wrestling style and one of the oldest documented grappling arts. Wrestlers use the jacket and belt for grips, then win with throws, trips, and takedowns much like the belt wrestling traditions found across Central Asia.

The style shaped much of Chinese martial arts and continues today in organized modern competitive formats.

Mongolian Wrestling

Bökh is a central pillar of Mongolia's Wrestling Naadam festival and national culture. A wrestler wins by causing an opponent to touch the ground with any body part above the knee or elbow. Traditional formats use no weight classes, so size and skill both matter greatly.

Competitors wear distinctive open-fronted jackets and perform an eagle dance before and after bouts.

Pehlwani

Pehlwani is a South Asian style rooted in India and Pakistan and drawn from the Persian tradition of Koshti. Wrestlers train in earthen pits called akhara and follow a strict diet and daily training regimen.

The objective is to pin an opponent's shoulders and back to the ground.

Types of Professional Wrestling

Professional wrestling is performance-based entertainment. Outcomes are predetermined, and storylines are scripted, yet the athletic skill on display is genuine and demanding. 

The industry evolved from real competitive wrestling into a global entertainment business with distinct regional styles.

American Professional Wrestling

The American model is often called sports-entertainment. It emphasizes character, promos, storylines, and large-scale spectacle. Dramatic personas, scripted rivalries, and high-production events define the presentation.

American professional wrestling, through promotions like WWE, has shaped the global industry and built a mainstream audience most other styles haven't reached.

Lucha Libre

Lucha Libre is a Mexican style of wrestling known for high-flying, acrobatic aerial maneuvers and a fast pace. Masks, or máscaras, carry deep cultural significance. A luchador's mask ties directly to personal honor, and mask-versus-mask matches are among the most intense in the sport.

Luchador identity often passes through families, creating multi-generational wrestling lineages.

Japanese Puroresu

Puroresu is built on "strong style," which favors stiff, realistic strikes and a sport-like presentation. The focus leans toward athletic credibility and in-ring storytelling, though, like all professional wrestling, match outcomes remain predetermined.

Puroresu has earned a dedicated global fanbase and continues to influence modern wrestling worldwide.

How the Different Types of Wrestling Compare

Point-scoring styles like freestyle, Greco-Roman, and folkstyle reward precise technique and control. Submission styles reward finishing ability. Pin-out and throw styles like sumo and Bökh reward explosive power. Freestyle, folkstyle, and submission wrestling feed most directly into MMA and self-defense.

Traditional and professional styles lean toward cultural connection and entertainment.

How to Choose the Right Wrestling Style

Start with your goal. Olympic ambition points you toward freestyle or Greco-Roman. Self-defense and MMA favor folkstyle and submission wrestling. Fitness, cultural connection, or pure fan interest may steer you somewhere else entirely.

Consider your physical strengths. Greco-Roman rewards upper-body power. Freestyle and folkstyle reward all-around conditioning and explosiveness. Weigh accessibility next, since clubs, coaching, and competition circuits are far more common for some styles than others.

Many elite wrestlers cross-train across several styles to become complete grapplers. If you're just starting out, our beginner tips for getting better at wrestling cover the fundamentals.

Consider Custom Wrestling Gear With SGS

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Our online design & customization platform puts fully editable templates and digital proofs at your fingertips, so you can revise every detail before production. The team store platform lets players, parents, and fans order official gear directly, with custom markup options that turn every purchase into team fundraising.

Start your design online with Sports Gear Swag today and bring your team's wrestling gear to life.