Karl Gotch

Karl Gotch
Birth name	Karel Istaz[1][2]
Born	(1924-08-03)August 3, 1924[3] Antwerp, Belgium[4]
Died	July 28, 2007(2007-07-28) (aged 82)[5] Tampa, Florida, U.S.[6]
Children	1
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Karl Gotch[4] Karl Krauser[4]
Billed height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[7]
Billed weight	245 lb (111 kg)[7]
Billed from	Hamburg, Germany
Trained by	Billy Riley[4] The Snake Pit
Debut	1950
Retired	January 1, 1982[8]

Karel "Karl" Istaz^[1][2] (August 3, 1924 – July 28, 2007), best known by his ring name Karl Gotch, was a Belgian-born German-American professional wrestler, amateur wrestler, catch wrestler, and trainer.

Gotch represented Belgium at the 1948 Summer Olympics in both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling before learning catch wrestling at Riley's Gym, better known as "The Snake Pit", and wrestling professionally afterward.^[1][2] He was given the ringname "Gotch" by Ohio promoter Al Haft in honor of American wrestler Frank Gotch.^[9] In Japan, he became known as a "God of Wrestling" (神様, Kamisama) alongside Billy Robinson and Lou Thesz, due to their collective influence on Japanese professional wrestling.^[10][8] In the early 1970s, Gotch had a hand at training the first batch of students in the Antonio Inoki co-led NJPW Dojo. Gotch had previously trained NJPW founding members Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi. Three notable students of Gotch's were Killer Khan, Tatsumi Fujinami^[11] and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Fujiwara would become the producer of the Karl Gotch Training Book, which detailed the training methods used by Gotch on him and his dojo-mates.^[12]

Gotch had significantly influenced the development of modern mixed martial arts (MMA), especially in Japan. Several of Gotch's students, which included Satoru Sayama,^[13] Masakatsu Funaki,^[14][15] Minoru Suzuki^[15][11] and Akira Maeda,^[16] established pioneering MMA promotions and training schools to transmit Gotch's training. These include the UFC-predated Sayama's Shooto and the Funaki-Suzuki Pancrase, and the Maeda-founded Fighting Network RINGS.

Several other professional wrestlers who had been, at some point, taught by Gotch include El Canek, Riki Choshu,^[11] Masanobu Fuchi, Bob Backlund, and brothers Joe and Dean Malenko.