Phil Lions

Some catch TV notes for 1960. We have 21 broadcasts, but I found TV listings for 28 so we seem to be missing 7 episodes. Thursday and Friday were still the usual days catch aired on, but in 1960 there was one show on a Monday and one on a Tuesday too. Found the first mention of a taped show too. Here's what we're missing/what was advertised in the TV listings: February 26: Roger Delaporte vs. Jose Arroyo... Robert Duranton vs. Lino di Santo June 16: no specific matches advertised August 5: no specific matches advertised August 9: no specific matches advertised August 18: no specific matches advertised November 4: L'Homme Masque vs. Ray Hunter... and maybe part of Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Al Hayes December 16: no specific matches advertised For January 22 Axel Dieter vs. Remy Bayle was advertised, but Rabut vs. Castella aired instead. The listing for April 21 says Robert Gastel vs. Josef Kovacs was probably going to be airing, but that ended up not being the case. For April 29 Remy Bayle vs. someone called Gamin (EDIT - Al Gamain) was advertised, but did not air. For May 6 it was said Roger Delaporte vs. Jack Bence may air, but it didn't and instead that match was taped and aired on May 26. For July 22 Robert Duranton vs. Roger Delaporte was mentioned in the TV listing, but did not air. For October 28 Jack Bence vs. Roger Guettier was advertised, but did not air. November 18 was advertised as L'Ange Blanc's first television appearance in 18 months. He had been wrestling in France plenty as a headliner during that time, but just not on TV. The newspaper write-up says that Blanc had yet to be defeated in France and that Bollet was going to try to unmask him.

I just completed my research on catch in Paris in 1959. Here's some additional details that are worth sharing. I have a record of 232 wrestling shows taking place in the city of Paris in 1959. That said, I have a strong suspicion I'm missing some cards so I'd say there's a good chance the shows were actually 250+. Add in the shows that were taking place in various Paris suburbs and we're probably talking about 300+ wrestling shows in Paris and its suburbs in 1959. That number is kind of crazy when you think about it. It really shows you how popular catch used to be back then. And again, this is just Paris. A lot of other cities and small towns in France were hosting shows too. 232 shows in 1959 is almost double what I have for 1958 (119). I'm not sure whether this means there were a lot more events in 1959 than in 1958 or the newspaper I'm using for the research just wasn't posting all the cards in 1958. My guess? Probably a combination of both. According to one article from November 1959 catch TV was usually watched by nearly 2 million viewers. Based on the TV listings that I've seen, there were a total of 30 catch TV broadcasts in 1959. It's possible I may have missed a listing or two, but catch definitely wasn't shown on TV every week. At least ten different venues that I know of hosted the TV broadcasts in 1959. It was always either a venue in Paris or in a Paris suburb. Elysee Montmartre hosted the most TV shows, followed by Cirque d'Hiver, Salle Wagram and Central Sporting Club. The following matches were advertised as airing, but we don't have them in the archive: March 20: L'Ange Blanc vs. Roger Guettier July 23: Jacky Corn & Roger Laroche vs. Pierre Bernaert & Eric Husberg December 5: Andre Drapp vs. Roger Delaporte There's also the June 26/June 27 situation. The TV listings have Gaby Calderon vs. Karl von Chenok airing on June 27. In the archive we have Montourcy vs. Gastel and Mantopoulos vs. Ricetti listed as having aired on June 26, but the TV listings don't show wrestling airing on June 26. The Tony Oliver vs. Serge Gentilly match that's listed in the archive as having aired on January 1, 1959, definitely wasn't broadcast then. Often in these archives when something is listed as January 1 that means they know the year it was broadcast, but not the actual date so they list the date as January 1. You can hear in the video that the bout took place at Central Sporting Club and that venue always hosted wrestling on Saturdays. January 1, 1959, wasn't a Saturday. Plus, among those 232 cards I have 33 cards from Central and there's not a single Tony Oliver match on them. In fact, the only Tony Oliver matches in Paris in 1959 that I know of are of him as the masked Justicier Blanc. Long story short, I think it's possible the match may not even be from 1959. Turns out not only do we have the first appearances ever by L'Ange Blanc and Le Bourreau de Bethune, but in the 1959 footage we also have the very first appearance of Victor Castilla as Quasimodo and the first appearance in Paris of The Big Chief (who got a big push as the top villain in the Paoli/Goldstein promotion). It's also interesting to see what they chose to air versus what they chose not to air. Usually, the main events would make the air, but not always. For example the June 19 show, where they aired McTiffin vs. Guettier and Plantin vs. Parmentier, had L'Ange Blanc vs. Johnny Stein as the main event for the live crowd. For September 3 we got Corne vs. Le Boulch, but instead we could have gotten Leduc vs. Gastel or Ducrez vs. Montourcy. On November 20 instead of Arroyo vs. Chaisne it could have been The Big Chief vs. Duranton. I guess what I'm saying is we missed out on some potentially cool matches. Speaking of missing out on cool stuff, it's a bit of a shame guys like Leduc, Gastel and Montourcy were working for the Salle Wagram group in the late 1950s. It sure would have been nice to see them mixing it up with Paoli/Goldstein guys like L'Ange Blanc, L'Homme Masque, Drapp, Ben Chemoul, Delaporte, Bollet, Hayes, Chief, etc. during this time frame. And yes, I know we have a 1961 Leduc/Gastel vs. Delaporte/Bollet match so clearly something must've changed by then for them to be wrestling each other. I'll get to it eventually in my research. P.S. One final note. In the 1959 press the bad guys are always called "méchants". The good guys get referred to as both "bons" and "stylistes" so those seem to be the common terms at the time.

Okay, so I tried to look up 1968 too since I wanted to see how things looked when Andre was beginning to hit his stride in France. The newspaper has both the TV schedule and the Paris live event line-ups. I haven't researched this in detail, but a quick search turned out a bunch of catch TV broadcasts. What's evident straight away is that in 1968 some of the shows were taped, and some were still live. By now the shows were usually airing on Saturday nights, but I saw a couple that aired on Friday night as well. And there were still weeks where there was no catch on TV. It should also be pointed out that by now catch was also airing on TV in Switzerland and Luxembourg as well. There's no mention of exactly what matches were airing there - just TV listings that catch shows were airing on TV in those two countries. Anyway, here's a few examples of how the TV worked in France in 1968: Andre the Giant vs. Franz Van Buyten (c) for the World Heavyweight Title and Le Petit Prince vs. Bobby Genele were taped at Palais da la Mutualite in Paris on January 8, but aired on January 20, Saturday, at 11:20 p.m. Robert Duranton vs. Eddy Williams and Roger Delaporte vs. Vassilios Mantopoulos were taped on March 17 at Elysee Montmartre in Paris, but aired on March 23, Saturday, at 10:55 p.m. Cheri Bibi, Eric Husberg & Jose Gonzalez vs. Gilbert Leduc (subbing for Bruno Asquini), Guy Mercier & Le Batman aired live from Gymnase Municipal in Gonesse on April 6, Saturday, at 10:35 p.m.

I did a quick sweep through the first six months of 1964. First of all, I should point out that in 1964 wrestling coverage is almost non-existent in the newspaper I'm using. Back in 1959 the paper used to post all the live event line-ups, but in 1964 there's only a handful of mentions of wrestling. It does still publish the full TV schedules though (for both French TV networks, as a second one began in April 1964). Here's what I was able to find in terms of catch TV broadcasts: January 23, 1964 at Salle Wagram (Thursday at 9:40 p.m.) Ricki Starr vs. Robert Gastel January 30, 1964 at Elysee Montmartre (Thursday at 9:25 p.m.) Hercules Cortez vs. Le Grand Vladimir... Andre Drapp & Monsieur Montreal vs. Roger Delaporte & Pierre Bernaert February 21, 1964 (Friday at 9:15 p.m.) First in Thursday's paper a catch TV broadcast was advertised for the Friday, then on Friday a boxing one was advertised instead, but ultimately it was catch that aired. It's not too clear, but I think the match that aired featured Rene Ben Chemoul. April 10, 1964 at Salle Wagram (Friday at 9:45 p.m.) Ricki Starr vs. Ski Hi Lee April 19, 1964 at Cirque d'Hiver (Sunday at 9:20 p.m.) No specific matches advertised May 3, 1964 (Sunday at 9:20 p.m.) No specific matches advertised May 24, 1964 (Sunday at 9:20 p.m.) No specific matches advertised June 7, 1964 (Sunday at 9:10 p.m) No specific matches advertised June 21, 1964 (Sunday at 9:20 p.m) No specific matches advertised June 26, 1964 (Friday at 9:25 p.m.) No specific matches advertised Interestingly enough, the only show that we have from 1964 is listed in the archive as having aired on May 15. However, I specifically checked, double-checked in fact, the listings for that day and there's no mention of wrestling airing on TV that day. So either the date in the archive is wrong or perhaps the catch broadcast was a last minute addition and wasn't advertised in advance.

I've researched the live events in Paris all the way through the end of June 1959 and I thought I'd take a crack at figuring out the TV situation a bit better. The newspaper I'm using has very spotty TV listings for 1958, but in 1959 it started publishing the full TV schedule. Having looked at the TV listings through the end of June 1959 it turns out we may be missing a lot less footage than it appears when you first look at it on paper. What I mean by that is that it seems like during the period in question catch wasn't airing on TV every week. The shows aired on different nights, at different times, had different durations, different announcers, emanated from different venues, etc. It wasn't a fixed schedule by any means. At this point all the shows were live. Usually either Roger Couderc or Claude Darget was doing the commentary, but sometimes they would have guest commentators too. Here's what the catch TV schedule looked like during the first half of 1959 based on all the TV listings that I went through. I'm posting the full live event line-ups, if I know them, just to give you an idea what else was on the cards. The main events are listed first. The matches advertised for the TV broadcast I've put in bold. Of course, sometimes additional matches from the cards aired too, in addition to what was already advertised as airing. I'm also adding the air days and times. January 2, 1959 at Elysee Montmartre in Paris (Friday at 10:05 p.m.) Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Jose Tarres... Juan Botana vs. Pierre Boss... Ami Sola vs. Paul Desbune... Pierre Bernaert vs. Serge Francille... Michel Saulnier vs. Robert Moine January 9, 1959 at Cirque d'Hiver in Paris (Friday at 10:05 p.m.) L'Ange Blanc vs. Paul Villars... Liano Pellacani vs. Iska Khan... Comte de Daidone vs. Serge Gentilly... Modesto Aledo vs. Gilbert Cesca... Jean Rabut vs. Ischa Israel = L'Ange Blanc's debut. February 5, 1959 at Salle Wagram in Paris (Thursday at 9:35 p.m.) Le Bourreau de Bethune vs. Gilbert Leduc... Robert Gastel vs. Gaby Calderon... Guy Mercier vs. Robert le Boulch... two other matches = Bourreau de Bethune's debut. February 27, 1959 at Salle des Fetes in Saint-Denis (Friday at 10:35 p.m.) Johnny Stein vs. Jean Bout March 6, 1959 at Palais des Sports in Paris (Friday at 10:05 p.m.) L'Homme Masque vs. Roger Delaporte... Al Hayes & Ray Hunter vs. Dr. Adolf Kaiser & Karl von Kramer... Pierre Boss vs. Matthias Roesges... Jacques van Dooren vs. Jesus de Heredia... Jean Fryziuk vs. Inca Peruano = The show was held at Palais des Sports because Cirque d'Hiver wasn't available. March 20, 1959 at Cirque d'Hiver in Paris (Friday at 10:05 p.m.) L'Ange Blanc vs. Roger Guettier... Andre Drapp vs. Johnny Stein... Cheri Bibi vs. Jacky Corn... Al Araujo vs. Julio Gasparrini... Moise Besch vs. Mouton April 2, 1959 at Sally Wagram in Paris (Thursday at 9:35 p.m.) Charles Humez vs. Paul Debusne... Le Bourreau de Bethune vs. Stan Karolyi... Jose Tarres vs. Karl von Chenok... two more matches = Humez's debut as a wrestler. April 26, 1959 at Elysee Montmartre in Paris (Sunday between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m.) L'Ange Blanc vs. Robert Charron... Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Jesus de Heredia... Pierre Boss vs. Ami Sola... Jo Rinaldi vs. Ischa Israel... Verrier vs. Mignani = Aired as part of a "Tele-Dimanche" show that also featured non-wrestling stuff. it's not clear if the whole match aired or just a few minutes from it did. April 30, 1959 at Elysee Montmartre in Paris (Thursday at 21:35 p.m.) Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Roger Guettier... Robert Charron vs. Marcel Chauveau... Henri Lambert vs. Roger Laroche... Claude Dreyfus vs. Janos Vadkerti... Jo Rinaldi vs. Gaston Maujean May 9, 1959 at Salle des Fetes in Puteaux (Saturday at 10:15 p.m.) Jacques van Dooren vs. Jean Bout May 23, 1959 at Salle Auguste-Delaune in Drancy (Saturday at 10:05 p.m.) Robert Gastel & Karl von Chenok vs. Gilbert Leduc & Claude Montourcy May 30, 1959 at Central Sporting Club in Paris (Saturday at 10:50 p.m.) Roger Delaporte vs. Roger Guettier.. King Kong Taverne vs. Bernardo... Pierre Lacoq vs. Mic Charre... Julio Gasparrini vs. Andre Marie... Claude Dreyfus vs. Louis Dareine = Originally, Georges Gueret was the advertised opponent for Delaporte, but then it changed to Guettier. The TV broadcast was built around the idea that Delaporte has now had a change of heart and would no longer be a bad guy. This was to be his first appearance as a good guy. He was going to be interviewed prior to the bout and would denounce his former evil ways. June 4, 1959 at Elysee Montmartre in Paris (Thursday at 10:05 p.m.) World Lightweight Title: Ischa Israel (c) vs. Jean Rabut... Serge Reggiori vs. Remy Bayle... Mignani vs. Challais... Jacques Jourdan vs. Martin... Jean Wanes vs. Serge Francille June 19, 1959 at Cirque d'Hiver in Paris (Friday at 9:15 p.m.) L'Ange Blanc vs. Johnny Stein... Roger Guettier vs. James McTiffin... Pierre Lagache vs. Jacques Bernieres... Serge Reggiori vs. Ted Lamare... Bob Plantin vs. Marcel Parmentier June 27, 1959 at Cinema Palace in Garenne-Bezons (Saturday at 22:15 p.m.) Gaby Calderon vs. Karl von Chenok P.S. Also, since there was talk about this earlier in the thread, here's how the good guys and the bad guys were referred to in this newspaper write-up from May 1959 (stylistes and mechants):

Here's something interesting about L'Homme Masque, which I just found out. You see, back when he made his debut in December 1958 on the very next day the French press reported that Great Zorro (Hans Mortier) was under the hood. They were still saying so as of the beginning of February 1959. And then we get to this newspaper write-up below previewing the Masque/Delaporte TV broadcast from March 6, 1959. According to the article fans and even some wrestlers had been claiming Zorro is under the mask. He had disappeared from French rings several months prior after being involved in a terrible car accident. Story had it L'Homme Masque had marks on his face, possibly burns, and that's why Zorro was the assumed wrestler under the hood. However, according to the promoter, L'Homme Masque was not Zorro. So, unlike L'Ange Blanc who was exposed in the press as Francisco Pino three weeks into his run and unlike Le Bourreau de Bethune who was exposed as Jacquez Ducrez the day of his debut, there was still doubt as to who L'Homme Masque was, four months into his run.

I haven't seen enough TV listings to answer this definitively, but most listings that I've seen are for Friday airings. Not all though - there's some for Thursdays too. Sadly, most of the listings just say wrestling without specifying what is actually airing in terms of matches. If I knew what was airing I could get a much better idea of how things work. Oh well. Also, a good amount of the shows aired live, but I would assume not all did. Here's a few examples where I do know what was airing and when: Take the 1/2/1959 show (Kaiser vs. Tarres / Botana vs. Villars). It was held on a Friday. The start time at the venue was 9 p.m. and the TV broadcast was scheduled for that same night with a 10:05 p.m. start time. So that one seems to have been live. Ditto for a Friday 3/20/1959 show with Blanc vs. Guettier - start time at the venue 9 p.m. / airtime 10:05 p.m. There was also the Friday 6/10/1959 show with Guettier vs. McTiffin and Parmentier vs. Plantin, which also aired live (start time at the venue 8:45 p.m, air time 9:15 p.m.). On the flipside, the Thursday 2/5/1959 show with Bourreau vs. Leduc did air live that night at 9:25 p.m. The Thursday 4/2/1959 show with Humez vs. Debusne and Tarres vs. Chenok aired live too, at 9:25 p.m as well. So, in short, Thursday and Friday were usually the air days during this time, depending on which venue was hosting the show since each venue had its usual day it hosted shows on.

I've been doing some new research on Paris as I want to do an article on L'Ange Blanc. My resources are limited to one French newspaper, but even so I've been able to piece together a good amount of information and I thought I'd share some of it here to provide some context for the French catch TV bouts. I''ll use this post by @ohtani's jacketas a starting point: Not sure about how things were when Andre made his debut a few years later, but in the late 1950s wrestling was shown on TV typically around 10 p.m. Usually after 10 p.m., but sometimes a little before. It wasn't a fixed timeslot. And like in later years, it wasn't shows just by one promotion either. Henri Deglane did retire in 1950, but then returned in October 1954. The interesting thing about his comeback, which lasted through February 1955, was that he was no longer working with promoter Raoul Paoli (who at the time was running shows at Palais des Sports, Cirque d'Hiver and Central, with Alex Goldstein as his matchmaker). Instead Deglane was working for Henri Chausson at Elysee Montmartre. During this time Deglane was critical of Paoli/Goldstein and tag team wrestling, which Paoli/Goldstein had just introduced in France (Felix Miquet & Francois Miquet vs. Eddie Brush & Jack Wentworth at Palais des Sports on November 1, 1954, being the very first tag match in France). Deglane thought tag team wrestling would, and I quote, "completely demonetize wrestling". Obviously, it didn't. Far from it. The wrestling venues in Paris in 1958 and 1959 were Palais des Sports (a.k.a. Velodrome d'Hiver), Salle Wagram, Elysee Montmartre, Cirque d'Hiver, Central, Stadium, Palais de la Mutualite, Lancry Arena, and Salle des fetes de Clichy. Palais des Sports was the biggest one (capacity being around 18,000) and Paoli/Goldstein would do shows there bi-weekly, from around September through May, and then take a break in the summer. They had four other venues - Cirque d'Hiver, Central, Stadium and Lancry Arena. Most of these were running weekly. Then you had Salle Wagram (another weekly venue), which was using a completely different group of wrestlers and was kind of running in opposition to the Paoli/Goldstein crew. Typically, you wouldn't see Wagram wrestlers on Paoli cards and vice versa. And then there was Chausson's Elysee Montmartre, which would often host two weekly shows and use talent from both of the other groups. Here's what a typical month of wrestling in Paris looked like in 1959. I'm posting only the line-ups, because I don't have the results. The main event is listed first. As you can see, quite the busy schedule. And you have to remember, this is just Paris. There was a lot of wrestling going on elsewhere in France too, but Paris was the center of it all. Here's February 1959, which saw 29 wrestling shows take place in Paris: As far as the masked guys were concerned, L'Homme Masque was the first one to pop up on the scene. That was at Palais des Sports in December 1958. Then came L'Ange Blanc (Francisco Pino) in early January 1959 at Cirque d'Hiver (in other words, both masked characters were introduced by the Paoli/Goldstein group). Pino had been wrestling as himself in midcard matches at Elysee Montmartre for about a month, then took about three weeks off, and then he appeared as the masked hero L'Ange Blanc. He was a major hit straight away. The newspaper I'm using for the research says that L'Ange Blanc's television appearance where he vowed to put all the bad guys (les méchants) in their place was viewed by 4 million viewers, which is a huge number for the time (in fact, that number equates to about 9% of the entire population of France back then). L'Homme Masque may have been the first, but Blanc was the one who truly kicked off mask-a-mania in France. A number of new masked characters started popping up on the Paris scene over the next several months. Most important among them was Le Bourreau de Bethune (Jacques Ducrez), who first appeared in early February 1959. What was interesting about him was that he was the first masked character that wasn't introduced by the Paoli/Goldstein promotion. He was a Salle Wagram attraction. And right away he, along with others from Salle Wagram, began hurling challenges at L'Ange Blanc. Bourreau is remembered as L'Ange Blanc's biggest rival, and they did eventually work with each other, but initially they were working for different promotions and had nothing to do with each other, other than the occasional cross-promotional challenges. L'Ange Blanc's other big masked rival, and one who was actually working for the same promotion as him, was L'Homme Masque. The two had a big match at Palais des Sports in May (in what may have been the final wrestling event at the venue), wrestled each other all over the country, and eventually it was after a match with L'Homme Masque in March 1961 when L'Ange Blanc unmasked. Other masked characters who popped up in Paris during the first half of 1959 were Mr. X, Superman, Le Justicier Blanc (Jean Fryziuk at first, and then Tony Oliver), and Mysterman (Karl Gotch). What's interesting is that in most of the cases the identities of the masked wrestlers were exposed in the press very quickly. L'Ange Blanc got exposed a few weeks after his initial appearance, Bourreau de Bethune's identity was revealed the day of his debut, Justicier and Mysterman were revealed pretty quickly too. This didn't seem to hurt the appeal of the characters much, but I was surprised to see them getting exposed in the French press so quickly. The press must've had an insider feeding them info, IMO.

Off the top of my head, there's a Flesh Gordon and Prince Zefy tag match from November 29, 1987, that you've missed. There's also a midgets match in the same broadcast.

August 11 is the correct date. August 25 is the Finlay tag. I'm not sure if The Golden Falcons in 1980 were the same guys as the Golden Falcons who show up in the French catch TV footage in 1971 against Ben Chemoul and Bordes, but it was the same gimmick at least. They also worked in Greece in 1969 and probably elsewhere in Europe too around that time. They were billed as a tag team from South America. They had the same look/gimmick as Halcon de Oro I and Halcon de Oro II, who wrestled in Mexico in 1968. Again, I'm not sure if it was the same guys or not, but I would assume so. Especially the 1969-1971 team in Europe. Here's a promo photo of The Golden Falcons and some shots of them in action in Greece in 1969:

Yay! My account finally went through. I had been stuck on the "awaiting approval" stage for some time. Thanks! It's been a good year or two since I've seen this one, but I remember being quite impressed with Le Big Chief too. In fact, I would even go as far as to call him one of my favorites from the catch stuff that I've seen. Not because he was the best wrestler or anything, but because he had a great presence and an aura of danger about him. Also, there was this one moment where Di Santo flipped him over the top rope, which was quite impressive for a guy of Chief's size. Didn't expect him to try a flying body press either. No idea who Le Big Chief was, but wish there was more footage of him. Admittedly, I am biased since Zigulinoff is one my favorite characters from that era in European wrestling, but I quite enjoyed this one. In terms of actual wrestling it wasn't any good, but I thought it was some good comedy, especially the stuff with Zigulinoff knocking Gastel on the top of his head and Gastel tying up Zigulinoff's hair in the ropes. Yeah, Tarres was all about the headbutts and knocking people out with them. So much so that in addition to being known as "Cabeza de Hierro" (Iron Head), in Spain he was also known as and sometimes billed as "El Noqueador" (the Knockouter or something along those lines). That worked quite well for him since usually in Spain, as best as I can tell, the matches were generally shorter and more action-packed so Tarres constantly trying to knock people out with his "cabezazos" fit the Spanish style quite well. That's probably part of the reason why he was such a big star in his home country. The biggest one for quite a few years, in fact. One final thought. I recently watched the April 6th 1968 six-man tag with Cheri Bibi, Eric Husberg & Jo Gonzalez vs. Gilbert Leduc, Guy Mercier & Le Batman. What an interesting piece of business that match was. Tons of tags. In and out, in and out. Constantly. The first half of the match, and most of it really, was almost all babyface shine. Almost too much so. Then you have Batman, who completely disappeared for half of the match, which was odd, coming back to win the whole thing for his team. It wasn't one of those matches that has a lot of actual wrestling in it or much of a structure to it, but it was pretty faced-paced and fun. And you had a super hot crowd that was eating it all up. This kind of felt like a French house show main event, that's meant to send the crowd home happy, broadcast on TV.