ohtani's jacket

The Sheik of Araby vs. Harry Lewis... Everyone was young once, but they doesn't mean they were good. That's a bit harsh maybe, but watching the Sheik grapple isn't exactly thrilling. I got bored of Chicago and decided to watch a couple of Rikidozan fights. I watched the Rikidozan/Kimura shoot. I'd actually never seen it before. Like most shoots, it wasn't that interesting until the ending where Rikidozan unleashed on Kimura and knocked him out. Quite a surreal finish to a wrestling bout. Rikidozan vs. Don Leo Jonathan. This surprised me a lot. Jonathan was an incredible physical specimen, but I wasn't expecting him to be such a good match-up for Rikidozan. Basically, the only interesting parts of a Rikidozan fight are when he's striking his opponent. Jonathan not only brought great looking strikes to the bout, he sold extremely well for Rikidozan's blows. We've all heard the stories about what a good big man Don Leo Jonathan was, but this was the first time that I saw the proof. Cowboy Carlson vs. Vincent Lopez -- this was a total surprise. Carlson wore jean shorts and cowboy boots (if you can believe it) while Lopez was a middle-aged, irritable version of a worker whom I had previously seen in his prime during the 1930s. Together, they put on one of my favorite matches in the entire Chicago Film Archive collection. Just a really great, stiff brawl that was chock full of action and didn't outstay its welcome. So many matches tried to be like this in the 50s but few succeeded as well as this one did.

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Michel Chaisne (aired 2/28/57) This was our first real look at a character wrestler from the 50s footage. Kaiser is a guy whose reputation proceeds him. Jetlag has done a lot of research into him and gave an excellent write-up of him on Segunda Caida. Personally, I found him more camp and humourous than threatening or menacing. He got his ass kicked for most of the bout. It wasn't until the end where he applied his strangling hold that he seemed remotely sinister. The finish caused quite a stir, however, so let's see how the crowd react to him going forward. The match itself reminded me of those four round matches on World of Sport that would showcase the gimmick wrestlers. The jury is still out on Kaiser, but he's a name to keep track of.

I think if we see it as the latest in a series of matches like Khan vs. Oliver and Bout vs. Pellacani then it makes sense. I’ll try to watch it again and ignore the fact that it’s a title match, which shouldn’t be hard to do as I can’t find a record of this title change taking place. Hopefully, we get some other title matches too so that we can see how they were typically worked. Some of my favorite Bert Royal stuff was when he’d get livid fighting Marc Rocco, so I think we got the best of Bert Royal here.

Bert Royal vs. Tony Oliver (aired 2/22/57) Watching a young Bert Royal is a bit like seeing a young Prince Charles. Bert Royal was on the very first episode of ITV wrestling in 1955 and was a staple of televised wrestling for almost 30 years. I've always thought of him as the Dory Funk Jr. to Vic Faulkner's Terry Funk, but the one thing he was genuinely good at was playing the fired up babyface, which he did time and time again against Jackie Pallo, Mick McManus, Chic Purvey and Steve Logan. It's no surprise then that he excels at that role against Tony Oliver. This is supposed to be a title match -- I'm guessing for the British Middleweight title (European title histories from this era are a mess) -- but it never really gets going because of Oliver's inside moves. Don't get me wrong, I think Oliver is fantastic, but Walton and his legend of purists wouldn't have enjoyed this. Bert didn't get to wrestle in this, and some of his retaliatory moves had me questioning the rules of French catch. As far as I recall, in British wrestling you couldn't strike a wrestler that was lying on the mat, but Bert struck like a cobra every time that Oliver was prone. Oliver was brilliant at working inside moves, and he had an amazing mug that looked like he'd had his face punched inside out and was still grinning, but despite the niggle and aggression, I'm not sure if this was title match worthy. That would be my only criticism, especially after Royal won with a comeuppance move. If you take title match wrestling out of the equation, or you choose not to care about the title match prestige as much as I do, then this was a great niggle-filled bout.

Gypsy Joe vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 11/7/79) Gypsy Joe vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 1/16/80) These were a pair of Texas Death matches inside a steel cage. The second match was more complete than the first and had a proper finish. They spent half the match working a clean bout, however, until Joe introduced a foreign object. My boy Hara could bleed but these were a bit slow and not as violent as I expected. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu & Masa Saito (2/3/83) This was good but it reminded me more of the lead-in matches to an apuesta match than an all-time classic. The long Scorpion Deathlock sequence killed it for me. That was one of the worst sequences I've seen in a long time. It was kind of painful how long it lasted. On the plus side, this had some neat exchanges between Inoki and Saito. Antonio Inoki vs. Gorilla Monsoon (JWA 4/16/69) Jeez, Gorilla wasn't very good, was he? Gorilla the commentator would have shat all over Gorilla the wrestler. Antonio Inoki & Giant Baba vs. The Destroyer and Bull Ramos (JWA 2/26/69) Short clips. Most of the action is between Baba and The Destroyer. Antonio Inoki & Giant Baba vs. Wilbur Snyder & Danny Hodge (JWA 2/11/69) Like most people, I would have preferred to have seen Snyder and Hodge work the mat against Baba and Inoki instead of being brawling, American heels, especially since the legend of Danny Hodge is about as elusive as Ray Stevens, but I liked Snyder's work in the clips. Antonio Inoki vs. Andre the Giant (12/15/74) These guys worked so many matches together I forget which ones I've seen. This one was from Sao Paulo so I think I'd remember it if I saw it. It was all right. It was slow and in the end it was one giant stalemate (no pun intended), but if we're being honest a lot of Andre's work is like that. It's easy to marvel over his speed and agility during this period, but I'm not sure why his matches needed to be so long. Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (8/17/79) Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (1/7/77) These guys don't mesh the way that Hansen and Jumbo didn't mesh. Even in a short sprint like the one from Stampede, the pacing is uneven. The match from '77 is better but it suffers a little from "Have to work the mat against Inoki" syndrome (even if it's not your forte.) I'm pretty sure other people like the Hansen and Andre match-ups more than I do but they are two of my least favorite Inoki pairings.

Franz van Buyten vs. Bob UFO (Rocky Della Serra) (aired 7/28/84) I am pretty sure this was Rocky Della Serra, the brother of Bob Della Serra, who was the masked UFO. This wasn't bad. It felt like the best Piratenkampf match you could have on television. I don't think you can expect to see the long, gritty Piratenkampf matches from the house show handhelds. It was more like the World's Greatest Reslo match. I'm pretty sure we've seen this type of TV before as well with the staged crowd reactions and the cutaway to the folks sitting in a studio. The ones sitting in front of that painting. I've definitely seen that painting before in some of the colour footage we have. Televised catch was at death's door at this point (pardon my analogy), so just the fact that this was halfway decent was a godsend.

Thanks to the Segunda Caida guys for supplying footage of the great Franz van Buyten who passed away this week. Franz van Buyten vs. Robert Gastel (aired 7/5/71) This small masterpiece was a reminder of why I think van Buyten is one of the European greats. His opponent was the brawler, Robert Gastel. They used to call Gastel the "The Bull Of Batignolles", and "Le Matraqueur des Rings", the Bludgeoner of the Rings. A man described by one journalist as "a monument to violence." We have footage of Gastel wrestling the barefoot judoka, Gaby Calderon, but this is the first full length match we've seen. What I loved about this is that even though Gastel was clearly past his prime, van Buyten treated him entirely on his merits as a wrestler. They could have easily fucked around like we see in so many matches from the Chicago Archives and other classic wrestling sources, but van Buyten wrestled a beautiful match. Gastel was known to have some wrestling skill and van Buyten respected that. And when it came time for the bludgeoning, van Buyten sold it beautifully. The thing about van Buyten was that he was just so graceful. Even in a match like this, against a guy who abhorred poetic grace, there was something sublime about the way van Buyten wrestled. It's hard to imagine that a guy like him got old and sick. This was a wonderful bout to watch in light of his death.

The broadcasts are all archived as “Catch.” Ocassionally, the title includes the broadcast date or venue. The TV guide listings I’ve seen from the era list the show as Catch. Interestingly, they seem to give the TV director a credit. It will be interesting to see if there is a shift in tone between the late 50s stuff and the 60s footage. We haven’t seen a lot of cartoony gimmicks yet. For the first 30 years of its existence, professional catch came under the umbrella of the FFL, which I believe is the official governing body for amateur wrestling. The two parted ways in 1958, so it will be interesting to see the effect that has.

I am not sure about the television slots, but the show was always listed as "Catch" similar to how Joint Promotions was "Wrestling on ITV." During the 60s, there were seven "galas" a week in Paris at l'Elysée Montmartre, la Salle Wagram, le Stadium, le Palais des Sports de Paris, La Mutualité, le Cirque d'Hiver and Vélodrome d'Hiver de Paris. I'm assuming that the producers of the TV show taped at different venues similar to how Wrestling on ITV taped at different venues around the country. We may never get to the bottom of it and people will simply refer to it as catch just like British wrestling is referred to as World of Sport or Joint Promotions.

Jean Bout vs. Liano Pellacani (aired 2/15/57) This was fantastic. Just a great heavyweight fight. The crowd was hot and both guys did a great job of whipping them into a frenzy. I was impressed by the pace they worked in the opening fall. Even when things slowed down in the second fall, the intensity was still there, and when they finally let rip with the brawling there were all these guys in the crowd punching the air and egging them on. I've mentioned before that it can be difficult to get behind the French baby faces, but I thought Bout was tremendous here. He kept stalking Pellacani around the ring like some kind of machine that can only go forward. Pellacani drew a lot heat by simply being Italian. At one point someone threw a cigarette or cigar at his arm. He wasn't quite as good as Jim Oliver, but he was burly and good at the rough and tumble stuff. They worked an injury finish, which was a common finish in Europe and at times the bane of my existence when going through the British footage. I was okay with it here since we haven't seen too much of it yet and it didn't ruin the bout. For what it's worth, I've been really impressed by the seconds in this 50s footage. Man, do they put some work in. They even fix the wrestlers' hair. The crowds are great too. They look like caricatures from a French movie. We get another few appearances from these guys so I'm looking forward to seeing how they go with other workers, and whether the chemistry was simply good this night.

For what it's worth, here are my favorite early Finlay matches before he hooked up with Princess Paula and changed his look (and style): Dave Finlay vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (3/9/82) Dave Finlay vs. Ringo Rigby (2/16/83) Dave Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (3/23/83) Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (6/13/83) Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (8/23/83) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (11/23/84, JIP Rd 4)

Dave Finlay & Ian Gilmour vs. Guy Mercier & Alan Mitchells (aired 8/25/80) Ian Gilmour was one of the golden boys of British wrestling during the 1970s. The footage we have of him is mostly of him tagging with Jeff Kaye though he does appear in one of the only Jackie Pallo matches we have. It looked like he was having fun playing a lippy heel in front of a delightful French crowd. Finlay still had a bit of the "lad" about him. He looked like some kid Gilmour brought with him on tour. I think he's better in his early ITV work but perhaps I'm biased. You could see flashes of his mean streak during the beatdowns he gave but he mostly played second fiddle to Gilmour. He looked like an absolute thug, though. You could have easily cast him as the muscle in any Brit crime flick from this era. He seemed to have a perpetual scowl on his face, and the way he beat guys up felt like he was trying to hurt them. The French guys were classic old-school, French grapplers. They looked like the splitting image of amateurs turned professionals, and body sculptors. I'm more familiar with Mercier's son, Marc, than either guy, but they looked like solid technicians. The match was entertaining. The crowd certainly enjoyed it. I kept wondering if the commentator was Roger Couderc. Whoever he was, he was having a whale of a time. There were a few too many shenanigans with the ref for this to enter the cannon of great French matches, but it was fun.

Before I dive into this week's catch, I want to clear up some of the confusion over what promotion is running the shows. I did a little digging and apparently there were four promotions in the 60s and 70s. The first was the Federation Francaise de Lutte Professionnel (The French Federation of Professional Wrestling) headed by matchmaker Maurice Durand. His stable of wrestlers included Gilbert Leduc, Le Bourreau de Bethune, Cheri Bibi and his convict henchman Eric Husberg, Jack de Lassartesse, Jose Arroyo, The Batman and James Brown. Then there was the Federation Francaises des Lutteurs independants (The French Federation of Independent Wrestlers) led by Roger Delaporte. This was the promotion that was based in the Elysee Montmartre. Its talent pool included Delaporte and Andre Bollet, Bobby Duranton and his valet Firmin, Lino di Santo, Frank Valois and Eddy and Jacky Wiecz. The Federation International de Lutte de Combat (The International Fighting Federation) was headed by Albert and Rene Ben Chemoul and Alex Goldstein. It included wrestlers like Walter Bordes and Gilbert Cesca. This group ran shows at the Cirque d’Hiver. I believe a lot of the 70s footage we have is from this promotion. Lastly, there was the Federation Francaise de Catch Professionnel (The French Federation of Professional Wrestling) run by Robert Lageat and Etienne Siry. This promotion featured names like L'Ange Blanc, Andre Drapp, Jean Menard, Le Petit Prince, Jacky Corn, and others. According to which source you read, these promoters either competed with each other for the ORTF television slot, or they worked together sharing talent with each other. We don't have the full picture yet. A lot of the English information is confusing as it says that Roger Delaporte took over the Federation Francaise de Catch Professionnel in 1960 but it's not clear if that is the promotion run by Lageat and Siry or some other organization. The English info points to Delaporte as being the most important promoter at the time but the French info leans more toward Lageat, Siry and Durand. At the moment, it's not clear which promotion was on TV at which time. Hopefully, that will become clearer as more footage is released. It may depend on the venue. It doesn't appear that there was any type of unifying body like the NWA or Joint Promotions, but we're still trying to put together the pieces.

Marc Rocco vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 10/4/79) Hara looks like Rudy Ray Moore in this match. Hara was such a fabulous talent. I don't think people appreciate how great he was in the early part of his career. Rocco was so timid in Japan. If you watch 1979 WoS Rocco, he is the most brash, loudmouthed wrestler imaginable, but he was a pussycat here. Match never reached any great heights but I feel as though Hara deserves his own thread. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dynamite Kid (8/17/79) This was from Stampede and was a hell of a match. When I think about Dynamite Kid, I always imagine what it would have been like if he'd stayed in the UK and had great matches against Rocco, Jones and Finlay, and oddball matches in Germany, but you watch a match like this and you can understand the appeal of wrestling abroad. People still don't appreciate how phenomenal Fujinami was in the 70s. If you ask me, he's the greatest junior of all-time. Unquestionably. I honestly don't see an argument for anyone else. This was a killer match and had the best non-finish I've ever seen. It was so good that I actually think I prefer it over a legit finish. I've always thought the Marty Jones bout is Dynamite's best but this is the first bout I've seen since then that's given it a run for its money. Hot damn this was good. Dynamite Kid vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 7/21/79) This was a long title match worked with the British rounds system. It lasted for 7 four minute rounds and was another excellent bout. It was slower than the Fujinami bout but a superb title match. I've said time and time again that Dynamite Kid was one of the most talented teenage workers I've ever seen, and here he was at 20 years old delivering a stone cold classic on his first tour to Japan. Hara was a special worker too, but to me this was vindication that Dynamite was a sensational talent. Things went downhill quickly but at least we saw him deliver on his talent. For some reason, I keep thinking he's like the Randy Rhodes of wrestling even if that's not strictly speaking an accurate analogy. Dynamite Kid vs. Kantaro Hoshino (1/15/82) This turns into a shoot. It's fun to watch how uncooperative they are and the way they keep reaching towards the eyes. Part of me wishes all wrestling was like this. Dynamite Kid vs. Kantaro Hoshino (4/7/83) Here they are again. This is a match-up that has a lot of potential, and they do some nice things, but there is a marked difference between 1982 Dynamite Kid and 1983 Dynamite Kid. He starts to work this slow, methodical Bret Hart style pace. It's very stop/start compared to his earlier work. Tiger Mask is at ringside so it's glaring obvious that Hoshino is just fodder for Dynamite to send a message to Sayama, but still you can tell that this is not the same DK that impressed so much in the 1979 matches.

So, I watched a Bob Geigel studio match from the 60s where Geigel was torturing a guy named Johnny Ramirez with digit manipulation, and busting open his nose. The wrestling world needs more Bob Geigel matches. When I saw the listing for Yulie Brynner vs. Rose Roman, I thought Brynner was a cute ring name. Then she took the towel off her head and was completely bald. As you can imagine, much of the bout was about Roman not being able to get a handful of hair. I don't think Brynner was around for long. There don't seem to be too many match records anywhere. Who would have thought her work would live again one day on YouTube? The Mighty Atlas vs. Red Bastien was better than the average Mighty Atlas bout, I suppose, but still a Mighty Atlas bout. After watching a couple of Bob Orton matches -- against Harry Lewis and Billy Hickson -- I have come to the conclusion that Orton was decent at dishing out a beating, and sold well when the other guy retaliated, but was completely unremarkable otherwise. Now I know that will come as a surprise to you that an Orton could be unremarkable, but it's true. The Hickson match was a catch weight bout and had some interesting parts, but Orton is not one of the stars of the 50s for my mind.

Antonio Inoki vs. Roddy Piper (9/22/77) I'm not a fan of Inoki vs. foreigner matches, obviously, but this wasn't bad. I don't know how much of his persona Piper had developed in 1977, but his personality disappeared into the same vacuum that so many foreigner wrestlers' characters do in Japan. That left us with Piper the serious wrestler, however, which was an interesting take on a guy you think you know all about. He drew on his boxing background, which I thought was cool, and he was a much better fit than you would imagine for Inoki's MMA leanings. Just as it's getting good, Inoki wraps it up, but it wasn't as though Piper was meant to be a serious threat to Inoki, so it is what it is. Marc Rocco vs. Isamu Teranishi (IWE 10/6/79) Dynamite Kid vs. Isamu Teranishi (IWE 7/19/79) Isamu Teranishi was one of the best workers in Japan at this time, IMO, but I haven't seen him have a match to rival the Fujinami match from the DVDVR set. This could have been great but they were from television and incomplete. The Dynamite Kid match was the better of the two but they kind of pegged things back instead of going full tilt. Dynamite Kid vs. Isamu Teranishi (1/6/84) This was physical and had a lot of intensity. Kid had his killer, psychotic football hooligan look going on and looked like an absolute beast, but it looked like his roided frame had wrecked his conditioning a bit since he couldn't really pick up the pace when the match demanded it and instead kept setting for a breather. But they hit hard. Riki Choshu & Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Hiro Matsuda & Masa Saito (6/15/79) This was nice. Really nice. Even an angle between Sakaguchi and Crazy Leroy Brown couldn't derail this bad boy. Masa Saito was a great pro-wrestler. I guess everyone knows that already, but man, what a worker. Everyone is well-versed in the Choshu style of wrestling but when he was young he did a lot more amateur shit, and you know who else did amateur shit? That's right, Mr. Saito. I desperately need to see a Saito vs. Choshu singles match from this era. So good. But it wasn't just them. You also had the dangerous barefoot style of Hiro Matsuda, and the spry power wrestling of Big Sak, as we're told the Americans call him. Just a beautiful blend of wrestlers.

Baron Arena vs. Sonny Myers... Baron Arena was an interesting guy. He claimed to be the original Gorgeous George but had to stop using the name after Wagner filed a lawsuit against him. That didn't stop him from claiming to be Gorgeous George, though. The tales only got taller as he aged. They must have worked as well as some of the papers got him confused with Wagner when he died. It looked like he was pinching Baron Michele Leone's gimmick here, but I guess I say that about every guy with terrific hair. Myers was a young guy they were trying to get over. His finisher was an atomic drop. For some reason, I find that charming. I saw him against a fella named Kostas Davelis as well. Now with a name like Kostas Davelis, you'd think I made my latest and greatest find, but it wasn't meant to be. It was the same formula as the Arena match. Real half-hearted veteran vs. youngster shtick. Bob Geigel vs. Buck Weaver, on the other hand, how had I not seen this earlier!? Everyone knows Geigel as a promoter but he looked like a hell of a worker as well. This was one of the best 50s matches I've seen in a while. They were light weights so they only got about 10 minutes. I could have watched them trade holds for another 30 minutes, but they packed so much great shit into their bout that I couldn't help but come away impressed. I loved the finish. I think it was botched but it was botched in a way that felt violent and organic. It was a real "holy shit!" moment for me. This is on of my short list of 50s matches worth watching.

Iska Khan vs. Jim Oliver (aired 2/1/57) This was good stuff. On the surface, it wasn't that dissimilar from a lot of 50s matches with Asian stereotypes, but it was stiffer and nastier. A lot of that was due to Oliver, who was allegedly quite fiery in real life. I really liked his performance here. I could see Khan being more of your generic Asian worker against other wrestlers. Oliver had an edge to him that made this more violent than expected. You could see it in the way he barbed with the crowd after the bout. It's a shame that he doesn't show up on tape again, but his brother has a match against Bert Royal which I'm looking forward to. Francis Louis/Jean Claude Bordeaux vs. Antonio Pereira/Mota Dos Santos (aired 4/24/72) What the fuck happened to catch in the early 70s? I've been reading some memories from a guy who lived in Paris in the early 70s and the scene seemed watered down at the time, but between this and the swimming pool match, I'm at a loss. This was some avant-garde shit right here. It was this gimmick called Luna Wrestling 2000 where the wrestlers are shot into the ring by a springboard powered by compressed air. There is an AP clip about it on YouTube if anyone is interested. The actual wrestling is hard to follow since it's skinny, preliminary types doing a bunch of loose, flippy shit. There are rules until the third fall where there no rules, and only a few ways where they can use the springboard to do a move. The leaps get boring after a while but it's worth seeing once.

On paper, Chief Lone Eagle vs. Great Jojo looked like it would be bad. I mean you had a Native American gimmick against a fat Mexican worker with Russ Davis doing his stupid voices. But I'll be damned if these guys didn't mean business. It's just a shame that Russ Davis is such a despicable commentator. This match ended with probably the worst thing I've heard him say -- "Chief Long Eagle is going home with his drum and his squaw, and he'll probably beat them both." WTF, Russ Davis? Gypsy Joe vs. Leon Kirilenko wasn't the famous Gypsy Joe. This guy had a wild Ron Jeremy look that seemed out of keeping with the 1950s. It reminded me of Baron Michele Leone. These guys tumbled about for a bit but didn't have a license to really get going. Tiny York vs. Johnny Gilbert was two fresh-faced preliminary workers trying to make some sort of name for themselves in the territory. For some reason, Davis shat all over them. It didn't seem like a bad match to me, not compared to some of the shit Davis had commentated over previously (with glee, I might add), but cranky old Pappy went as far as to say it was a match he wasn't proud of. Way to put over the new talent, Paps.

Antonio Inoki & Giant Baba vs. Mil Mascaras & Spiros Arion (JWA 3/2/71) Who would've thought Inoki vs. Mascaras was a match-up you'd want to see? I'm old enough to remember a time when that match-up would have been an absolute horror show for most people. There wasn't a hell of a lot else going on in this match. In fact, the entire time I kept wishing I was watching an Inoki/Mascaras singles match, but hey, at least it was an eye-opener. Antonio Inoki & Seji Sakaguchi vs. Johnny Powers & Pat Patterson (8/24/73) This match was full of hot air. It was really just a bunch of jawing and posing and a whole lot of begging off. Inoki vs. Patterson was fun, but Patterson clearly came from the Gorgeous George School of Wrestling and didn't have a ton of offense. This was the first time it struck me that Sakaguchi was meant to be a stand-in for Baba. Why has that never occurred to me before? The best thing about this was probably Patterson's heel promo.

Mile Zrno vs. Jimmy Ocean (Hannover 1992) Hey, these two had another match together. The final couple of rounds aired on Reslo. I would have liked to have seen the whole thing since I dig the whole Rip Rogers vibe that Ocean has. Couldn't really get the full picture on this, but glad to see Ocean doing his thing. Mile Zrno vs. Franz Schumann (Hannover 9/9/91) I never did make up my mind about Schumann and whether he's any good. This had some nice wrestling but it kept being broken up by ref comedy spots. It was real house show fodder. You could imagine the campervanners and holiday-makers getting a kick out of it, but not the guy looking for Zrno classics.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz Van Buyten (aired 1/17/72) This was a disappointment. You hope for a classic between these two and you get a gimmick match, and a shitty gimmick match at that. Some of the work seemed okay but the match was long and they committed the cardinal sin of being boring. The finish was stupid and the match was completely unsatisfying.

Joachim La Barba vs. Inca Peruano (aired 1/17/57) According to my research, Inca Peruano was a Peruvian wrestler named Rocky Tamayo who went on to work for the WWWF, All Japan and New Japan under different aliases. He also worked in territories such as St. Louis, Florida, Memphis, Georgia and the Carolinas. La Barba was better known to UK fans as Pancho Zapata. They actually showed a clip of him wrestling Jeff Kaye on the final WoS episode. He made one early appearance on ITV where he KO'ed by Mick McManus. That was the same episode that had an extremely rare appearance by Luther Lindsay. There was nothing pretty about this match. It was a good ol' fashioned slugfest. Personally, I thought it was a terrific brawl and hope to see more matches like it in the future. If you're serious about your brawling you may find that the comedy detracts from it a bit, but I liked how they packaged it all together. Entertaining bout.

Mile Zrno vs. Robbie Brookside (Hannover 10/9/99) I had high hopes for this and it didn't disappoint. Brookside is basically the evolution of all those skinny kids who debut on WoS in the late 80s. I have a soft spot for him because of that documentary where they followed him around on the UK indy scene and also because he was a flag bearer for British wrestling after the demise of WoS. The early part of this was upstart youth vs. veteran wrestler. Then Brookside started to play the aggressor and got himself on the wrong side of referee Jeff Kaye. I thought Brookside did a good job of the heel here. You can easily imagine a guy like Robbie Brookside being in some blowjob babyface tag team that tries to be The Rockers but comes across more like The Dynamic Dudes, but the dude knew how to performer. Never judge a guy by his hair. Finally, Mile woke up and kicked the shit out of Brookside like the kick ass beast that he was. In the midst of all that there was some nice wrestling. Mile looked like one of the better technicians in the world in 1999. Another keeper from the great man.

Marcel Motta & Angelito vs. Le Marquis Richard Fumulo de la Rossignolette & Black Shadow (5/28/85) This was late into the catch broadcasts but there was still a lot of good stuff on ITV in 1985 so I thought I would give it a go. It was actually pretty fun. It was a bit like watching a lucha undercard match where you don't know any of the workers. Actually, I thought the Marquis looked familiar and he ended up being Jacky Richard who we saw in a lot of the late 70s/early 80s tags that ABCCatch uploaded 5 years ago. Not an essential match by any means but better than it looked on paper.