Jetlag

https://archive.org/details/2002.06.05-masahiro-chono-hiroyoshi-tenzan-vs.-osamu-nishimura-manabu-nakanishi

No comments for Michel Saulnier, which is a pity, because he's an amazing wrestler who looks great in every single match he shows up in, perhaps with the exception of his referee appearances. Just an incredibly fast, athletic, technically skilled wrestler. I am especially particular towards the 1972 Guy Renault match which is one of the finest title matches I've ever seen. A quick glance shows me we have 11 matches of him, with some of them being clipped or JIP. It's very little, but it's worth digging through.

NJPW world also released the full version of the tag where Nakanishi gets injured and Nishimura takes his boots off. Great match, probably one of the best Japanese tags ever especially when you consider the scale. At one point Nishimura gets so enraged he starts punching a bleeding Tenzan in the face and tossing the referee around and wrestling doesnt get much better than that if you ask me.

RIP, he did lots of good stuff in pro wrestling, I loved his one match with Yuki Ishikawa

Another good-great WoS guy though I think he doesn't have quite the high-end matches to stand out above the pack. He's still well worth watching for being such an excellent straight forward heel. The Dave Barrie match is one of the finest examples of a veteran roughing up a rookie and getting the most out of it that I can recall.

I think I'll place Regal higher next time. Him working like that rules.

I actually got into the Japanese amateur/university wrestling scene recently, a lot of nonsense but also some surprisingly good stuff here and there.

The crazy thing is we have seen now almost everyone of these guys so we know how absolutely loaded these cards were, European wrestling in the 1950s was insane. Another interesting bit is German Herman Iffland main eventing against Pellacani, so either Iffland was a face in France quite unlike the wicked Adolf Kaiser, or they ran a heel vs heel as a main bout.

I think Gilbert Leduc vs Rocco Lamban would be a good introduction for US fans, since it has the clear story with Rocco Lamban working the chokehold and some escalation with Leduc trying to bite his ear off. Not that Jim Cornette cares I think, his podcast is pretty much just pure rage porn with the occasional tidbit about older wrestlers that Jim knew.

Found it

No there wasn't. Though some German/Austrian footage was occasionally shown on Catch Up, a show that started around the late 80s and mainly showed NWA stuff from the US. One of the hosts of that show, Horst Brack, even had a mini-feud going on with Rene Lasartesse, culminating in the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCBUfW9IZg

It was from Das Aktuelle Sportstudio, the top sports magazine in Germany at the time (or, well, the 'one' considering only like 3 TV channels existed at that point, I believe.) Laurent is just a Japanese translation (pronounciation?) of Roland. Bock was supposed to wrestle the bear on that show, but the two British wrestlers doing an exhibition, Danny Lynch and Pete Gurr, caused a minor scandal when Gurr started bleeding from Lynchs headbutts and the whole thing was cancelled. A rather infamous incident in the history of German wrestling because it cemented for wrestling to be kept off TV for years for being too violent.

That match is in Loss' google drive. It may be unlisted on Matt Ds channel but I can't find a link right now.

Both were a factor. Looking back at the late 90s transitional period, you can find matches where the likes of Ecki Eckstein are forsaking the traditional european uppercuts and hip tosses for the sake of US-style stomp punches an DDTs.

Also Rolo Brasil was a wrestler from Colombia, like Billy Samson. His grappling is more lucha libre than German, fitted to a European style, so you can see him doing things like a Reverse Gory Special. As we know from the French footage it wasn't unusual for South Americans to come over and find work in Europe.

A good summary on EWP from Cagematch: "In the 1980s and 90s, Hanover was one of the major catch strongholds in Germany. The Catch Wrestling Association, led by Otto Wanz, held its annual "Catch Cup" on the local Schützenplatz, a tournament that brought catch entertainment to Hanover every evening for two months. This took place for the last time in 1998, before the CWA left this territory and stopped organizing catch events a year later. Christian Eckstein, who first appeared in the ring for the CWA in 1996, then founded his own promotion with the aim of continuing the catch scene at the Schützenplatz. Between 2001 and 2005, he still organized a 10-day festival every year, before the last gong on the Schützenplatz fell silent on October 29, 2005. In December 2005, the first show was held in the "Hangar No. 5" event hall, which is still the venue for three shows a year. In addition, an open air event is held once a year at Lake Steinhude. Small events are held every now and then in the premises of the in-house "Wrestling School" where the young wrestlers can demonstrate their skills. The fact that tradition is very important to Eckstein can be seen in the fact that some elements of the old catch-as-catch-can style are still included in the shows today. For example, title matches for the World and Intercontinental Title are held in rounds and with the participation of a second in each corner. But there is also a touch of tradition in the air during the "normal" matches: there are fines and yellow cards for misconduct, before disqualification is issued with a red card for the third serious offense. Technically, the EWP offers a mix of traditional catch and modern wrestling." This article is now slightly out of date, as like I said earlier, in 2013 Ecksteins Co-Promoter Jörg Vespermann left EWP to form POW, with the help of Tony St. Clair, and POW went on to run shows at the Schützenplatz again. Eckstein retired from EWP at some point in the last couple years and EWP rebranded to CWP, now running shows on a much smaller scale. And POW will be running its last shows in October this year. As far as technical wrestlers from Germany go, well, its a complex topic. There simply weren't many actual Germans around in the scene from the 80s onward. Axel Dieter could go on the mat, as he proved in his early 80s matches again Steve Wright and Mile Zrno, and he was a heavyweight too. Supposedly someone like Achim Chall was also a pretty decent technician, he was said to have an interest in Judo and Sambo and incoorporated those in his style, he also supposedly had a 60 minute match against Rene Ben Chemoul at one point, so he must have been a pretty decent wrestler, though there is no footage to prove it. Horst Hoffmann was very well respected and looks like a beast in his French match against Lino Di Santo, tho he was also a heavyweight. Guys like Franz Schumann could also wrestle pretty well, and here's a pretty interesting match between Bernie Wright and young Markus Buchholz that has some more british style wrestling. Other than that the German scene was simply set up in such a way that most wrestlers appearing were travellers and the local scene only had a few regulars like Mile Zrno or Dave Morgan to occupy the limited spots of clean technical guys. And once again, there is simply so little footage of guys like Jörg Chenok or Karsten Kretschmer in his early days. And also, technical wrestling simply fell out of vogue with the crowds as the American influence started rolling in.

A guy on twitter has found a tape with Otto Wanz vs Big John Studd and Wanz vs Gian Haystacks, which sound new. I'm not sure if he has uploaded it anywhere yet, though.

Wow, a new 60s WoS match? Awesome! That was a nice match. Clay Thomson is clearly an excellent wrestler. He hit about a dozen cool takedowns on young Tony. He also did some neat arm attacks that I've never seen before. There was one sunset flip that was phenomenally smooth. Otherwise it was good clean technical wrestling for the most part. Neat, I wonder where the seller got this from?

There may have been a bit of wrestling-cultural exchange going on between France and Canada, with Edouard Carpentier spending the rest of his career up there. I remember one commenter saying Carpentier would always name drop French wrestlers while commentating.

I don't really have a problem with these comments. At the time I had watched a bit if 70s/early 70s AJW and I recall seeing cool matwork in other matches too. There were definitely lots of irish whips and typical joshi style 'hit the same move 3 times in a row' stuff. I think there are like 2 Mariko Akagi matches on tape and they are short forgettable undercard bouts so I'm not sure where that comparison ever came from, I am guessing that comment was based on hearsay. I'm just glad more people are checking out this era of AJW now.

You should check out some Mutoha, by far the best wrestling to come out in the 2020s imo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1d-K3X3Sh4

I'd like to know more about their training.