Jetlag

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.

I have the faint hope that there may be more French stuff that the INA has taped but not uploaded to their archive.

He might be a Top 100 all time wrestler now. He was always fun as the hard headed drunken master in Dragon Gate, but at some point he turned into a sneaky technical master in a grease monkey suit. Thanks to the promotion known as MUTOHA he has been in a string of epic lengthy main event matches. The GENTARO match is a MOTDC and Arai is a big part of that. Combing through his back catalogue in other promotions like HEAT UP, FREEDOMS, Asuka Project, the occasional sparse Dragon Gate appearance where he actually gets to craft a singles match, he has a lot of gems in his resume and is always worth watching. Really unique worker who turns the most basic moves like a cravate, flying headscissor or hammerlock into nearfalls, and he can work all kinds of different matches. I'll have to dig way more into his back catalogue but right now Arai definitely feels like someone who deserves consideration.

You have to make a Twitter account and DM them. They will send you a PayPal bill at the end of each month.

Bad Bones John Klinger has died at the age of merely 40. The cause of death is said to be a heart attack. Eerily enough on he same day as his idol Randy Savage. He had announced his retirement from pro wrestling just earlier this year and was still busy with his retirement tour. International fans may know him from his short stints with TNA and BJW. Down here he was a highly respected veteran and one of the go-to main eventers in any promotion. Incredibly hard working wrestler who committed 100% to the lifestyle and have a WWE-style pro wrestler look.

This rant that was recently posted by a well versed historian on a German messageboard feels very relevant: "It has long bothered me that everything that happened in Aut/BRD is automatically attributed to the CWA. A well-known data site even goes back to 1972, which is total bullshit. The CWA as an organised club that held events under the banner did not exist before 1988 event 87, but then only in Austria in Graz and then from 89 in Vienna. Before that, if you read CWA it was merely a title. Otto got the rights to a CWA title that Jan Wilkens had previously held in South Africa in 1977 (not 73 as is often stated on the net). There was also no tournament that is always mentioned here. Otto passed the title on to Don Leo, the date of 01.09.1977 is also incorrect here, I doubt whether there was a fight at all. The reason was that it was of course better for Wanz to win the title from a champion in his home town than to come home with a belt that nobody knows how and where and above all against whom he "won" it. Well DLJ got a good payday and Otto called himself world champion of the CWA from 1978. At that time it was still called the "Canadian Wrestling Association" (it didn't exist, but who cares). Otto defended the title at home at his shows, which he had been organising since 1972 and then mainly in Bremen, where Nico Selenkowitsch saw potential in Otto and built him up as a top European HW. Otto defended the title at home in his shows, which he organised from 1972 onwards and then above all in Bremen, where Nico Selenkowitsch saw potential in Otto and built him up as a top European HW. This was also reflected in the fact that Otto even won a second world championship title in 1978, the title played out in a tournament in Bremen with Nico of the IBV (International Professional Wrestling Federation). The success proved everyone right, Otto thrilled the crowds and Nico was able to fill the halls. However, the events were always organised under IBV, CWA only came into play on the final evening where Otto received a share per spectator in addition to the fee. When Nico resigned in 1987, more or less due to the intrigues of the new management of the Stadthalle in Bremen and other ricochets, Otto took over together with Peter William. The same thing happened in Vienna. After the 1988 tournament, Heinrich Kaiser (who did NOT organise CWA for the VDB) was booted out and Wanz and William also took over Waltz City. Hanover also belonged to Kaiser and the VDB until 90. Then in 1991 a discotheque owner called Jürgen Windolph took over for the VDB. But only for one year, then came Paul Violka and now the CWA with PEter William. Wanz was never an organiser in Hanover. Sure, he got his percentage for the name, but he had nothing to say, only William did. Cities like Karlsruhe, Hamburg and others were never CWA territory. I'm annoyed that I've been doing educational work for years and then, as in this case, everything is simply labelled CWA on various Twitter pages, sorry X or youtube. But it is not. If you're interested, you can read it. Most people don't care, they just stick with CWA." Source (German) -> https://www.moonsault.de/forum/thread/125606-aufklärung-zur-cwa-catch-wrestling-association/ FWIW, Roland Bock had a few matches against Jack Rowlands in 1974 for IBV, so the clip might be from one of those.

I've come across clips of this stuff on Youtube, highly interesting. There's a high level of athleticism and invetiveness on display that doesn't seem to be far below of what the mexican guys were doing around the same time. Check out this clip, some impressive stuff here: Makoto Morimitsu apparently is a Japanese guy who learned how to wrestle in South America and he has worked there since, trotting the globe during the 2000s. His channel has more stuff, although only highlights and usually doesn't show the finish of the matches sadly: https://www.youtube.com/@makotomorimitsu6249/videos He also has clips of him wrestling in places like Peru and Colombia, apparently wrestling in Peru was also called Catchascan tracing back to the catch as catch can wrestling style. This channel has a bunch more stuff, although quality is a nightmare as all the videos are grainy with a watermark overlaid and low fi heavy metal overdubbed. Gee I love low fi heavy metal as much as anyone but sometimes you can overdo it. https://www.youtube.com/@jaidercito1/videos This channel also has some stuff: https://www.youtube.com/@luchafuertextremabolivialf151/videos The high production value TV stuff from 1997-2002 ca. looks great. I'd love to see the full matches. I've no idea if maybe Bolivia has a TV archive like France and Chile or we need to find the Bolivian lucha super aficionado who has every episode on VHS in his garage. Also, add Bolivia to the list of countries where they fucking love wrestling mummies.