Wrestling Move of the Week: Kata-Ha-Jime

Taz putting Eastern Championship Wrestling founder Tod Gordon to sleep with the Kata-Ha-Jime.

Move Name: Kata-Ha-Jime

Created/innovated by: Taz

Notable users of move: Taz, who named his version of the move the Tazmission

Notable variations of the move: None

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As the art of professional wrestling has (and continues to) evolve, and as professional wrestlers around the world seek new ways to diversify their repertoires, the lines between professional wrestling and the martial arts have blurred in many areas. More pro wrestlers are coming into the industry with mixed martial arts (MMA) backgrounds, applying techniques from these disciplines to the squared circle, and creating hybrid fighting styles that have taken the art of professional wrestling into some interesting directions. Much of what we call the hybrid style of professional wrestling in the United States and Europe can be more accurately described as Strong Style, which is a very physical corner of the art of Japanese pro wrestling.

It can be easily argued that Japanese professional wrestling, or puroresu, was ahead of its time when it comes to the art of making a pro wrestling match look and feel like a fistfight since its onset. For the bulk of its existence as a style of professional wrestling, puroresu has been heavily influenced not just by the storytelling and entertainment style of North American pro wrestling (which is affectionately referred to as Ōdō or “King’s Road” style) but by a multitude of fighting arts that up physicality. Puroresu looks and feels like a fight between two combatants, and anyone who directs you to their all-time favorite puroresu matches will likely be inviting you to watch a pro wrestling contest that looks like a fight for survival. In puroresu, you will find shoot fighting elements as well as techniques from full-contact fighting disciplines like karate, judo, jiu Jitsu, shoot, Greco Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, and catch wrestling, just to name a few. It makes for an interesting style that blurs the lines between sport and entertainment.

In the mid 1990’s, fight sports and mixed martial arts tournaments began slinking their way into the mainstream sports and entertainment world. This, coupled with a new crop of North American pro wrestlers who not only dabbled in other disciplines outside of the North American standard base of Greco Roman and freestyle wrestling but who were also huge fans of puroresu, brought changes to how North American pro wrestlers defined their style. North American pro wrestling became more physical, more strike-heavy. North American pro wrestling also began to expand the idea of the submission beyond the classic joint locks pro wrestling fans were well acquainted with - the sleeper hold, the figure four leg lock, the boston crab (we’ll cover all of these moves in future installments of this series) - and into the realms of martial arts and submission grappling. While there are many North American professional wrestlers who adopted moves from fight sports into their repertoires, and even many who transitioned from mixed martial arts and fight sports to build careers in professional wrestling, there’s only one professional wrestler in my eyes who took their legitimate background in the martial arts and submission grappling and reinvented themselves into one of the most physical and dangerous professional wrestlers in 90’s North American pro wrestling:

Taz

Three letters. One man. TAZ.

Taz was an interesting case study in reinvention. Taz, whose real name is Peter Senercia, was legitimately dangerous. Peter was a judoka (judo practitioner) who earned a second-degree black belt in the art of judo prior to embarking on a career in professional wrestling. Judo, a martial art whose origins stem from the martial art of jiu jitsu, is a fighting style that relies heavily on throws and takedowns to take your opponent to the ground and immobilize them for a pinning maneuver or submission via choke hold or joint lock. In the early years of his professional wrestling career, however, he did not showcase his judo talents. In fact, he would his career under the ring name Kid Krush before becoming The Tazmaniac. And…

Yeah. This…this wasn’t a good look. But hell, it was the early 1990’s. Have you ever watched North American pro wrestling from the early 90’s? Let’s just say that this is nowhere near the most far-fetched or random gimmick in North American pro wrestling - or pro wrestling in general for that matter - at the time.

Due to his height (5’9”) and his stocky broad shouldered build Peter took on the character of The Tazmaniac because from a visual standpoint…it worked? The Tazmaniac would find himself in Eastern Championship Wrestling, also known as ECW, (the promotion that would become the controversial and violent Extreme Championship Wrestling a few years later) with his cousin Joe Chetti. The duo wrestled as The Tazmaniacs in 1993 for a few months but ultimately went their separate ways. After the team broke up Peter, as the Tazmaniac, bounced around ECW as a tag team partner for everyone from the legendary Kevin Sullivan to the death-defying Sabu and becoming a three-time ECW Tag Team Champion. After a severe neck injury stemming from being on the receiving end of a spike piledriver in a tag team match in 1995, Peter found himself on the shelf. In some respects, the injury ended up being a positive, as the time away gave him a window for reinventing himself and coming back to ECW refreshed and refocused. And boy did he ever come back refreshed and refocused.

Taz turned full on heel (pro wrestling term used to denote that a wrestler is a villain) in late 1995, turning his back on the ECW fans and unveiling his new look and attitude. Gone was the face paint, bare feet, and fringed singlet of The Tazmaniac. In their place stood a angry and irritable man, now clad in a black and orange. He came to the ring flanked by a fight team like a martial artist in a tournament. His wrestling style became much more mat-based, utilizing grappling and takedown techniques from his judo background with an array of suplexes and throws that often dropped his opponents on their heads and necks. This was also when he adopted his new match-ending finishing maneuver, the judo choke hold known as the Kata-Ha-Jime. Calling the maneuver the Tazmission, Taz would lock in his new pet hold on his opponents, forcing them to tap out as a symbol of surrender or to black out from the lack of oxygen to their brain. It is often not talked about all that often but Taz insisting that opponents tap out like one would in a mixed martial arts or submission grappling match to signal their surrender was the first time anyone in professional wrestling would take this approach to submitting their opponents. With a change in attitude and and the deadly Kata-Ha-Jime in his arsenal, Taz unwittingly changed how submissions were viewed by fans and handled in professional wrestling matches as a whole. That’s what you call quite the random legacy.

So what is the Kata-Ha-Jime?

The Kata-Ha-Jime is one of the twelve constriction techniques of Kodokan Judo’s Shime-waza list, which is a subset of Katame-waza. The Katame-waze are the 32 officially recognized grappling techniques of the Kodokan Judo discipline. The Shime-waza list is the subcategory of 12 chokes or strangle hold techniques one must master to achieve rank. The Kata-Ha-Jime, like many holds in judo, uses the lapel of your opponent’s judo gi (uniform) against them. To lock in the Kata-Ha-Jime, the attacker uses the lapel of their opponent’s judo gi to exert pressure on the carotid arteries, with some pressure also simultaneously being applied to the windpipe. From here, the attacker secures their opponent's left arm, lifting it upward as a means of controlling their ability to fight back with both hands but also to add some additional leverage and force to the choke. The result?

Tap out or pass out.

While Taz didn’t always fight opponents who were, say, wearing a gi or even a shirt for that matter, he did find a logical way to transition the idea of the Kata-Ha-Jime into the squared circle: he incorporated the use of the left arm being trapped as more of a leverage point while bringing his right arm across even more than one would in a full-contact judo contest where they’d have their opponent’s gi to manipulate. In the end, this made the Tazmission a version of the Kata-Ha-Jime that was more of a leverage choke than the standard technique.

The Kata-Ha-Jime is a hold that uses your opponent’s body and weight against them so it was a perfect fit for the 5’9” Taz, who wrestled as a heavyweight against men who were six foot and taller on a regular basis. The Tazmission allowed Taz to cinch in the hold deep enough to ride people down to the canvas, mitigating most of the height and weight disparities he faced in the ring. It also worked as a splendid counter attack, which really hearkens to the roots of judo as a fighting discipline that utilizes openings and strategy to achieve victory. The Tazmission brought Taz many a victory in his heyday, and became so notorious in its legitimacy and visual impact that it opened the door for more and more MMA-based moves and hold to make their way into North American pro wrestling.

The Kata-Ha-Jime is a great example of how the technical side of professional wrestling can and has evolved. It’s a hold from a martial arts discipline that showcased how one can seamlessly evolve the art of pro wrestling with fighting elements that aren’t readily associated with pro wrestling. It helped kick off a movement in North American professional wrestling that continues to push the boundaries and blur the lines to this day.