What Ray Boltz The Anchor Holds Actually Is
I need to be upfront here: I'm not certain this is a widely documented or formally recognized system. When people ask about Ray Boltz The Anchor Holds, they're usually referencing material from the Midwest independent wrestling circuit — Boltz ran Midwest Wrestling Federation out of Indiana and Kentucky for a long stretch — and the term itself doesn't appear in any major wrestling curriculum or published instructional catalog. What exists is likely a grassroots collection of wrestling holds and submissions circulated among indy wrestlers, possibly on old VHS tapes or early DVD formats, and possibly under different titles depending on which corner of the indie scene you were in. I ran into this exact problem around 2006. A wrestler from Louisville sent me a rough copy of a tape he called "The Anchor Holds." It was labeled generically on the case — no clear title page, no table of contents, just boltz's handwriting on a Sharpie. The footage was shot in a basement gym with one camera, no commentary, and about forty minutes of material that jumped around between chain wrestling, submission setups, and counters. I spent three weeks cross-referencing the moves with Boltz's actual match history from the mid-90s because the tape didn't identify anything properly. My workaround was to pull up old Mid-South and NWA footage of Boltz competing, pause at the exact positions shown on the tape, and note where the hold transitions landed in his real matches. That was the only way to verify which submission chains were actually his and which were just whatever the cameraman happened to capture on that day.
Ray Boltz The Anchor Holds in Practice
If you're looking for a downloadable file or a clean online version, you're probably going to hit dead ends. There isn't an official modern release I'm aware of. What surfaces occasionally are scanned copies or cam-recorded tapes trading hands on wrestling message boards and Discord servers. I've seen the file name vary — sometimes it's tagged as "Boltz Anchor Systems," sometimes just "Anchor Holds DVD." The quality is inconsistent, and the runtime on most copies I've encountered is roughly 35 to 50 minutes depending on which master was used. The content itself, what's actually in it, is fairly straightforward technical wrestling. Boltz's style was built on chain wrestling and transition-heavy submission grappling. The holds covered typically include variations of the anchor hold — which in wrestling terminology is a Boston crab variant where you're controlling the opponent's upper body while driving the legs back — along with heel hooks, Americana counters, and a series of escape sequences. The instruction is almost entirely visual. You watch him demonstrate, then you watch him apply it against resisting partners. There's no voiceover breaking down the mechanics step by step. If you already understand basic submission chains, the visual learning works fine. If you're new to this, it's going to feel like watching a match highlight reel with pauses. I should note the limitation here. A lot of people expect this to be a comprehensive guide, and it isn't. It's more of a reference document — a snapshot of what Boltz was working with at the time it was recorded. The production values are amateur, the organization is loose, and there are gaps where you'll notice him skip over transitions that he obviously took for granted. I've had students ask me to explain certain sequences and I literally cannot, because the tape doesn't show the entry clearly enough. In those cases I fill the gap with standard catch wrestling material from the Gable, Straub, or even Japanese puroresu submission lineages. The movements are the same. The intent is the same. Boltz would have recognized them too.
The main practical value in this material is in the counter sequences. Boltz was good at turning a failed submission attempt into an immediate reversal, and that's where the tape earns its keep. The individual holds are thing you can get from a dozen other sources. The flow between them — how he resets his base when the opponent postures up, how he maintains wrist control while switching grips, the timing of when to load the leg versus when to keep pressure on the upper body — that's the part that's harder to find documented elsewhere. I'd estimate about 12 to 15 minutes of the tape contains material that's genuinely worth your time to study slowly and drill against a resisting partner. The rest is fine filler, repetition, or footage that doesn't add much beyond what you'd see in a standard indie show. One counter-intuitive thing about this: beginners tend to focus on the submission finishes and miss the chain work that makes them work. Boltz spends most of the tape on the intermediate positions — the half-guard transitions, the grip fighting, the framing stuff — because that's where the actual wrestling happens. If you only memorize the end position and skip the path to get there, you'll look competent on a supine partner and completely useless against anyone who knows how to posture out. I've watched guys spend two months drilling the anchor hold finish without being able to get past the initial entanglement. That's the real bottleneck. Start with the entry chains. Learn how he controls the hips before he ever locks in the hold. As for finding it, search terms that usually surface something are "Boltz anchor holds DVD," "Ray Boltz submission tape," or "Midwest Wrestling Federation instructional." Some copies show up on eBay occasionally, usually listed under boltz's full name with a grainy photo of the case. Expect to pay between $15 and $40 depending on the seller and what condition the media is in. Underground wrestling forums sometimes have members willing to share personal copies if you ask politely and aren't demanding. I wouldn't recommend burning money on this — treat it as a supplementary reference, not a primary curriculum. If you're serious about submission wrestling, you're better off investing in a solid foundational program first and using this as a supplement once you've already got the basics locked down.
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