David Mantell

Was going to bump this up to provide context but can't find my original post so will post this anew. I think it's still Didi refereeing this one and he does gomin the water. I think they make reference to the Borne Vs Leo match at 21:00.

This really belongs on the Germany thread but 1) He moved over to Germany full time so spent more time there than say Tony StClair or Caswell Martin. 2) He has done a lot of training work there. 3) There is clearly some sort of before/after aspect between generations, regardless of whether Steve is the cause, between the style of Axel Dieter Senior/Achim Chall/Roland Bock/Gunther Wagner and the style of Alex Wright/Ulf Hermann/Ecki Eckstein/Michael Kovacs. In the context of Britain, Steve Wright was just another Ted Betley apprentice just like brother Bernie, both Bulldogs and Johnny Smith. But someone Betleyfied 90s German Catch and he seems the likely suspect.

... Okay, how about this? Jean Phillipe de Lonzac, fine specimen of the New Catch generation takes on a veteran from Antenne 2, Elliot Frederico Le Rocky Du Ring.. Rocker gets the best of a top wristlock battle, throwing JP around. De L gets revenge, vaulting over and knocking the grim one off his Rocker. He uses a splash on the bigger man! Rocker gets aside chancery throw into mat side headlock, coming out only to shouldeblock JP down. He gets the headlock again but JP pulls his head out to make a hammerlock then gets a headlock of his own. He cartwheels over Rocker's drop-down and gets an armbar.Rocker begs for mercy to slow things down. De L headlocks him and h3 tries a rope break and gets stuck in the ropes. De L snapmares and flying bodyscissors and dropkicks him twice. We cut to Rocker getting his heat back with chops and axehandles and illegal hairpulls and punches and stomps on a fallen opponent and a headbutt. He uncovers a corner and posts JP into the bare hooks. He does the same in the opposite corner and gets an Avertisement. He gets pressure points, knocks out de L's knees and Manchettes him. He continues the illegal attacks on his fallen opponent (and a young kid too, to add to the heat), picks up JP and clotheslines him down. Rocker suplexes the youngster and splashes him for the pin.And boy are the Les Pieux crowd angry. In Britain they tender to send kids as lambs to the slaughter to bigger heels in catchweight bouts like this - Fit Finlay and Danny Collins' first bout in 1986 springs to mind. We've got a similar deal here.

Not just any old swimming pool either. It's the very same pool where the Mercier Brothers faced Albert Sanniez and Mario Petrolini. With the same evening commuter train passing by in the background. If you recall the missus of the arguing ringside couple got thrown in the pool, nice red dress and all, so if neither female wrestler took an aqua bump here, it's nothing to do with the kind of politically correct chivalry-in-slapstick that gave us the one sided pie throwing games on Game for a Laugh that I mentioned on the British thread review of Simon Hurst Vs Ray Robinson recently. Or that bit in the AWA WrestleRock Rumble video where Da Laydeez push Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in a pool and have a giggle. Otherwise we might see both wrestlers here pitch the poor old ref in the drink and disappear of into the night together as girly mates for life. And speaking of Monsieur L'Arbitre - So that's Didier Gapp with hair. The same Didier Gapp who tried his damnedest to upstage a bunch of British (and one honorary Brit Owen) at the Heumarkt in the early 90s. The same Didier Gapp whose whole miserable petty official persona actually made him a comedy cult hero among 90s CWA fandom and, as SR mentions, continued being a fixture of old school German/Austrian wrestling into the 21st Century with the EWP. I like the cool video fault at the start by the way. Very David Bowie Ashes to Ashes video. Oh and that IS a swimming pool, it just seems to be next door to a harbour. This could get messy on a bad weather day with chlorine ending up in the sea and mucky sea water ending up in the pool. Leo is pretty roughhouse with the bodychecks and high whips at the start. Gapp stops Borne booting Leo off, or was she going for a headscissors? Leo easily breaks Borne's bridge with a good old elbow to the stomach. She armdrags Borne back down when the latter gets up to sling her in the ropes and again in response to a hiptoss, but Borne finally gets that headscissors (see I was right!) Leo loses the arm and takes forever to snap out and kip up only to be scissored back down several times. She tries the roll out escape but Brigitte tickles her (!) to make her lose balance. Finally she concertinas Borne's legs to bend them open and ends up with double legs but Borne is twisting back and forth to get out. She does get pin counted to 2 a couple of times but in the end flips Leo off. Some lecherous cameraman has climbed onto some nearby scaffolding and we get his longshots of back and forth armdrags and armbands and throws before cutting to the presenter and Delaporte eager for someone to fall in. Brigitte pulls Leo off the ropes and applies a single toehold which she improves to a Gotch toehold. She turns Leo over and Manchettes her in the back when Leo sits up to attempt a counter. Leo uses a manchette of her own to get out and proceeds to an argument with Didi over it. Leo gets a bearhug which Borne escapes by bashing her sides, then manchettes her down. Leo gets the bearhug back then rope a dopes Borne to try get a better grip but Brigitte boots her down and splashes her (not in La Piscine sense.) but Leo does get a bodyscissors. Brigitte does get the odd 2 count out of it as does Leo with the help of a couple of illegal throttles. Borne, fighting fire with fire, pulls her up by the hair and Manchettes her off, Leo side chancery throws and chinlocks her. Brigitte elbows her in the stomach to break it, but Leo is back with the side Chancery throw to chinlock soon enough. Brigitte uses the same elbow escape then totally loses her cool, stomping Leo. When Didi tries to interfere she nearly throws both of them in the water and get an Avertisement for her pains. Chastened, she opts for a lot of snapmares and the odd lariat before getting Leo on the top rope, tying her up and charging her. Didi again narrowly avoids a soaking - he could show Modesto "Kamikaze" Aledo or even Ricky Steamboat a few tricks slingshotting himself back in the ring) and give Borne her Deuxieme Et Derniere Avertisement. He manages to eventually free Dewerdt (as the driver of a passing train honks his horn in appreciation - was he a Catch fan? We'll never know.) Leo plays possum on the canvas but it's a ploy to legdive and legspread Borne. As @Matt D mentioned she did the butts (to the stomach not the crotch) and upgraded the legspread to a standing toe and ankle legspread combo. She pulls Borne away and gets the headbutt in to the behind but Borne pushes up and gets into a pre victory roll position -not quite a headscissors. (I'm not sure what Matt's issue with this is, it all seems clean enough stuff the guys could do without attracting comment.) Leo gets up and Brigitte indeed does the victory roll. getting a few armstretch press pins for 1 out of it and even Leo getting 2 with a folding press attempt. Leo eventually gets rear double arms - if she had a surfboard in mind it doesn't come off as Brigitte somersaults out, catches Leo with a couple of ground position dropkicks and dodges a Big Splash. She gets a hammerlock , throws Brigitte into the ropes, trips her neatly and might have got a folding press only Borne rolls out of the way, nearly into the water. She tries the same hammerlock/ropes/trip sequence but Borne sidesteps and boots her in the behind. Borne gets a waistlock, atomic drop and seated rear bodyscissors. She then lifts and dumps Leo a few times, the old Ah Ouais spot although the crowd don't chant it. Leo tries unlocking the feet and leaning back for a pin attempt; neither succeed. Leo turns in the hold to face Borne, possibly trying for a pin, in the end getting a back weakener and the chopping Borne down off the ropes. She boots and Manchettes Borne down, slams her, hair drags her twice and gets in another few Manchettes. More side chancery throws until Borne surprises her with a folding press from behind for the one fall required. Nice happy pop from the crowd. Quite a slow methodical bout, very like German/Austrian Catch before Steve Wright revolutionised their style. Although to be fair a lot of the space it the bout is used wisely for crowd working and psychology, this being very much a La Bonne Vs La Méchante match. Only one bout this week. Looks like I'll have to find a bonus bout to match to two newies each in the British and German threads...

He wrestled Johnny Kidd in 2006 for Premier Promotions at Worthing Pier Pavillion. It is a bonus feature on the DVD for Frontiers of Honour 2 (ROH/FWA/IPW:UK co promotion) also that year. Not only does it WIPE THE FLOOR with everything on the main event of the disc but as a venue the Worthing Pier Pavillion makes the cheap and crappy gym FOH2 was held in look like chopped liver frankly. Bigger crowd at the Pavilion too. Poor old Nigel had to wrestle an unfunny comedy match at FOH2 against JC Thunder. Months earlier he had to be straight man to Comedy Colt Cabana at the Coventry SkyDome, in that WOS-TNG match I maintain should have been James Mason Vs Dean Allmark.

https://www.discogs.com/release/9707964-Häppy-Pepi-und-Bruno-Schatzer-Schurli-oh-Schurli-Mitzidu-bist-spitze?srsltid=AfmBOorAuPTM6SK-YLqrPdGf-n60H0GAwlVAFKneJCQOnD4D_B4h_LaO ************************* Also some information on the German Wikipedia page about his hometown, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simmering "Georg Blemenschütz (* 25 December 1914, † 15 November 1990): Wrestler, sports organizer, picture and antiques collector; the four-time world and six-time European champion contested more than 600 professional fights, of which he won 348. [ 24 ] His grave was taken into the care of the City of Vienna in 2020. [ 25 ]" †**************†****************** https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Georg_Blemenschütz

Short snippet of Georg "Schurli" Blemenschutz in action - once again teaming with Caswell Martin to take on Indio Guajaro, but the other half this time is not Judd Harris but instead "Rasputin 1" who is neither Johnny Howard/Sean Doyle nor the Raspoutine we saw on the French Catch thread but instead appears to be none other than Wild Angus I intend to investigate that "Schurli Oh Schurli" piece of music and find out if it is actually about Blemenschutz or not.

From the same Hungarian show, Battle Royal featuring Egypt's hero Mamdouh Farag, France's answer to JYD Mammouth Siki, Crusher Verdu, Inca Viracocha, Germaz(?), Monsieur Marcel Montreal, Martinez from Colombia, Charley Verhulst, Paco Ramirez, Ray Glendening, and Bad Bull.among others. Some fairly syruppy gospel music is playing, not a million miles removed from Brother Love's theme. A loud horn instead of a bell signifies the start of the bout. People are gradually eliminated until we are down to Siki and Verdu. the latter of whom gets the win.,

Game For A Laugh was a hugely popular and utterly annoying Saturday evening light entertainment show which revolved around people playing ribs on each other and taking it in good humour, hence the title. A big ingredient of this was studio games which revolved around giggling girlies throwing custard pies at their husbands and boyfriends. (For some reason they never had men throwing custard pies at their wives/girlfriends. I wonder why not?). They also featured Candid Camera type hidden camera pranks overseen by presenter Jeremy Beadle. (He would later go solo and do his own show Beadle's About which consisted exclusively of these hidden camera stunts.) One subspecies of the hidden camera ribs involved couples going for an evening out at some public entertainment and one half excusing themselves only to suddenly reappear as part of the show. Simon Hurst (not relation to Lenny - or AFAIK Patty) was an amateur wrestler and wrestling fan who had come into contact with Marty Jones and was learning the pro game from him. Master and student decided to contact Game For A Laugh and pull a stunt where the Hursts went to a wrestling show and Mister needed to nip of to the Gents - just in time to miss a bout where Ray Steele destroyed a Masked villain and then tore off his mask to reveal it was Simon. At which point Mister Beadle came up to poor embarrassed Mrs Christine Hurst and told her it was all a glorious prank. Hahaha. You get the general idea. Anyway, in thie subsequent months, things have got more serious. Hurst has actually turned professional and is now having his first TV match and once again his missus is at ringside. We've met his opponent, another Ray, this time Ray Robinson previously in this thread, a hard no nonsense type who would later flirt with being a Heel in the post TV years. It's a tough challenge for a newbie. And yes, Christine is at ringside in her usual seat - just as a fan. not as a valet or manageress or even personal second like the young Jeanie Clark. Round 1. Robinson sportingly lets rookie Hurst armdrag him a few times before getting a side heädlock on. (Picture in picture of Christine watching). He hits the ropes and bodychecks Hurst down, side chanceries and rear chinlocks him from the seated position. Simon breaks the lock and lakes an arm for a wristlever, leaping over from arm to arm and armdragging Robinson in for a crosspress for 2. Robinson totally dominates Hurst with an up and down finger Interlock test of strength, before going for a wristlever of his own, but Hurst rolls out. Ray gets front facing pressure points, occasionally releasing and rope-a-doping Hurst back into the hold. After about 3 or 4 of these, Hurst uses the release to slip behind Robinson and roll him up in a folding press for another 2. The pair have another finger Interlock, single sided this time and it's Simon who gets the advantage, bending the arm into a back hammerlock. Robinson counters by putting his own head between Hurst's legs and backdropping him but Hurst goes for a sunset flip on the way down and nearly gets it before Robinson powers his way out. Hurst gets a single leg takedown and seated leglock from in front, changing to a standing toe and ankle before Robinson spins him out with a leg throw. Robinson gets a side chancery throw and further nelson but bridges out of the pin. He Full Nelsons Robinson who tries bending over to throw his man off like Andy Blair did to Alan Kilby in the last bout. Having weakened his attackers arms with these, Robinson reaches behind his head, unfastens Hurst's hand and steps away. Hurst gets a side headlock and takes Robinson down to the guard but Robinson wedges his head free. He gets a double underhook suplex on Hurst and cross presses him but has trouble getting the shoulders down and then the bell goes. (Contrary to what Kent says, Hurst is not saved by the bell, it doesn't get even to a 1 count.) Round 2. Robinson gets a side chancery and a good long throw across the ring with it. Hurst is up at 5, he delivers two forearm smashes which Robinson no-sells, nearly overbalancing on the second (rookie botch!). Robinson lands just the one forearm smash in return but it floors Hurst like a winning KO punch in boxing. Once he is up,, Robinson posts him and tries for another. Hurst manages to reverse it but Robinson diverts himself to the ropes and comes back with a bodycheck to floor Hurst again. He then gets a posting, a powerslam for 6, a long vertical suplex and a crosspress for the winning fall. Christine smiles sympathetically at her Man. This was Hurst's first and (despite what Kent says) last proper TV bout, despite Jones training him. He gets to show the tricks he has learned before being put away. I wonder if he had yet been smartened to the business or if this was another case of Rip Rawlinson from The Big Time, being strung along while paying his dues. Jeremy Beadle passed away of complications from leukemia in 2008 aged just 59. A nation swallowed and tried hard not to all cheer at once. Sorry, but he was an AGGRAVATING human being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Beadle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_for_a_Laugh

What television was that? Prior to 1989 and Catch Up, there was Bock versus the bear (plus JIP tag warm-up) on ZDF Sportstudio, The Bock/Inoki and other 1978 Inoki bouts filmed by Japanese promoters for their own use on Japanese TV. Something on SWR which contained at least 4 different clips of Roland Bock's 70s matches as 16mm colour film inserts the 1986 one off RTL special headlined by the six man tag Austria Vs USA with "USA" consisting of Haystacks, Kirk and Quinn with Stax hilariously doing his "us Americans" promo in a Manchester accent. various news magazine features and earlier cinema newsreel items Otherwise Germany/Austria had home video of varying quality instead of TV from 1979 onwards.

Article on Roland Bock : https://www.patrickwreed.com/blog/ywi3yijbus8ga9w6tqlfh56isokwpp

Ah. So really it evolved separately there with the stadium shows starting the scene whereas with the rest of Europe it starts with newsreels from America and local promoters and sport wrestlers getting together to do their own live version. "Kats", I guess, is where it starts to integrate into the bigger picture of European wrestling with the annual Festival at stadiums in Athens and talent from all over the continent came to participate and have a working summer holiday.

The missing link in all this was NORMA MORICEAU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Moriceau Norma Moriceau was the costume designer on Mad Max 2. Demolition, particularly with the masks on, were based on the character of Humongous. The Road Warriors/Powers of Pain look was based on the character of Wez, Humongous' sadistic boyfriend. Norma Moriceau was an Australian (where Mad Max 2 was filmed) but lived in London in the mid 1970s and was friends with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood who ran the formative punk clothing shop SEX where the Sex Pistols got their start. McLaren and Westwood's designs for the shop were largely based on ideas from the gay S&M underground such as the chest harnesses that ultimately inspired Humungous's and ultimately Demolition's look. Malcolm and Vivienne took the chest harnesses and other ideas previously sold secretly from the back pages of porn magazines and made them into high street fashions worn by young people to provoke and upset their elders. Soon, all of London was full of punk rockers in black spiked leather and chest harnesses. Moriceau took the ideas her friends and all the cool kids in London were into and used it for the costumes for her wild post apocalyptic film. By the time Mad Max 2 had gone mainstream and was being picked up on by wrestlers such as the Road Warriors and Demolition, chest harnesses and shiny black leather just meant futuristic and science fiction looks. It's only years after the Demolition gimmick came and went that LBGT+ culture has gone mainstream and shops like Prowler selling REAL chest harnesses - in Leather not Cloth - have started popping up in respectable High Streets and us straight folk have looked in curiously through the window and thought to ourselves "Hang about, that's DEMOLITION'S old costumes" and never thought the same way about the Demolition gimmick again!

This was from Joint's first TV taping since losing their monopoly on ITV wrestling , filmed Oldham December 1986, screened January 1987. Belgium's Jean Paul Auvert (see him on some mid 80s German VDB videos. I think I've already posted one tomthe German thread. Andy Blair from Scotland, no relation to Rusty (or Tony) was trained in 1982 as part of the same training camp that produced Superheavyweight Mac Hardimann aka Scrubber Daly. Mostly he got used as a tag partner for Big Daddy - masked duo The Spoiler &King Kendo or ex-masked duo of against Daly and his fellow former Masked Marauder Lucky Gordon (no relation to Flash.). Here, he takes a step up in the World, getting a British title shot at Light Heavyweight Champion Alan Kilby. Deaf wrestler Kilby first won the title in 1985, beating the Birmingham Steve Logan for the belt after Marty Jones vacated it, and would go on to lose/regain it four times (the first to Golden Grappler trophy winner King Ben in 1988, then to Skull Murphy in 1995, then to Dirty Dan Collins in 1996-1997, the heaviest Danny would reach before his first retirement in 2002 and finally to Mad Dog Ian Wilson in a series for WAW of Norfolk in Oct/Nov 1988. Kilby was last seen wearing the belt to RBW shows aged 59 in 2003 before retiring a year later. Round 1: Blair rolls his way out of wristlevers before using an elbow to pick away Kilby's arm force wristlever of his own. Kilby can also roll out, take an arm back and use a cross buttock throw to transition to a side headlock on the mat. Blair gets a headscissors but Kilby quickly snaps it open and kips up. Both men twice simultaneously go for a legdive, effectively blocking each other. They both times politely shake hands which fans applaud. Kilby gets a grovit into a side chancery throw but Blair rolls up nicely. Kilby sandbags to block a cross buttock throw and gets a headlock, switches arm and takes his man down with his own throw. Blair gets his headscissors again. Unable to kip out this time, Kilby turns the headscissors upright, pulls his head out and neatly slips on a ground side headlock. Andy stands up in the hold so Alan transitions to a side chancery throw but Blair rolls up nicely. Alan appears to get the better of a finger Interlock test of strength but Andy leans back into a crossed headscissors (and gets 1-counted for his pains!) but Kilby spins round 180 degrees to make a front folding press then convert to a cross press for 1. Kilby gets a single leg and drops into a leglock, Blair crossfaces him in response. The bell goes, Kilby graciously helps Blair up and they shake hands. Round 2: Blair gets a single leg and tries to turn the champion over into the mount forca Boston Crab but Kilby holds his body rigid and refuses to turn (actually quite an impressive feat of strength.) Andy gives up and Alan gets a wristlever with the palm and inner arm turning upwards. He twists backwards forcing Blair to roll and pounces-almost a Splash as his man is in the guard, but can't hold Andy's shoulder. They break and Alan goes for an arm but Andy slips in behind with a standing full nelson into side Chancery throw into further Nelson and gets a couple of 1s. Kilby gets a rear chinlock into seated side headlock. Blair stands and turns in the hold to face Kilby. Kilby regains the side headlock p on and takes it down to a kneeling position but Blair nicely handstands up to uncork his head. Blair gets another full nelson into side chancery throw but Kilby resists a bodycheck attempt, sidesteps a second one, throws Blair to the ropes, trips him on the rebound and catches him with a side folding press for the opening fall! Round 3: Blair gets a legdive into a legspread on the mat but Kilby adjusts both pairs of feet with his hands so as to reverse the legspread. Andy resists however so Alan starts over. He gets a cross buttock throw but it goes into the ropes. He gets a couple of throws which Andy doesn't roll up from so easily this time. Andy gets single and then double legs and tries again for the Boston Crab but once again Alan holds himself rigging and will not turn into the mount. Andy releases and returns the compliment from the end of Round 1 by helping Kilby up. The champion gets a full nelson, Blair is not strong enough to break by downwards bicep pulling but instead manages to lean forward so far Kilby cannot maintain his grip, so breaks the hold that way. Blair gets a single sided finger Interlock - rather than go for a wristlever Hectakes thecarm out to weaken and strain the joints. Alan follows suit but with more vigour and topping it off with a high whip forcing a somersault and bump. He gets a side chancery throw and crotchhold into bodyslam. Blair gets another full nelson into side chancery but the stronger older Kilby resists a throw. The challenger switches to the underhook position but the bell rings. Round 4: Blair straightens out a Kilby side headlock into an armbar and tries a posting but Kilby drops to the mat to resist a la Ken Joyce. Blair walks into another finger interlock overpowerment and Kent Walton is critical of this but to be fair to Blair, from the upside down position he slips his legs over Alan's shoulders and flips him over into a double leg Nelson but Alan double leg chops out. Blair gets behind and smashes the back of Alan's neck. Alan shows him how to do it properly with a knee to double him up then a powerful elbowsmash to the back of Blair's neck. Touché. They shake hands, but Blair isn't done with the power tactics, firing off four forearm smashes and a back elbow, flooring the champion for a 7 count. He goes for a rear chinlock into full nelson but Kilby hiptosses him off. For once Blair gets a finger Interlock advantage - Kent is surprised -!and he gets a double armbar, the lower on held to the mat by his foot. He gets the full double wristlock (step one towards a surfboard) Kilby tries to power round on each side but can't make it. He somersaults to the mat and Blair resists going for a double leg folding press, still maintaining the arms for the double armstretch. Kilby tries bridging to relieve the strain and looks to be trying something else when the bell goes. Round 5: Kilby shoves Blair down and posts him twice. Blair shoves him down, gets the single leg and again time turns him over into the mount for a Boston Crab but Kilby forces a wide legspread on Blair and rolls away. He sportingly lifts Blair up and shakes his hand. Kilby posts Blair who absorbs the impact well and goes for the legs but neither he nor the champion can progress from this so they reset. Kilby gives Blair a chop tomthe back of the neck but misses a double leg takedown. Blair gets behind for a waistlock into side folding press but Runs Out Of Mat (Kilby's soles brush the ropes). Blair gets a side chancery throw into further nelson for 2. Kilby gets a side chancery into posting, two more side Chancery throws and a Legdrop of Doom for 7. He gets a legdive into Indian Deathlock. Blair sits up but Kilby throws him off a couple of times. The bell goes and referee Peter Szacazs has to untwist the legs. Round 6: Challenger Blair gets in behind with a full nelson, drops for a rear double legdive and folds up Champion Kilby's legs into a Frank Gotch figure four toehold and adding a half chinlock. He tries to convert to the double rear wristlock to make a surfboard but is unable to get that first wrist, never mind the second, so settles for delivering a kneedrop to Kilby's back before releasing. Kilby jabs and twice posts the young challenger, gives him an over the knee backbreaker for 4 and collars him for a double kneelift for 5. He whips him into the ropes and catches him with a spinning kick to the torso and finally a crotchhold, bodyslam and crosspress for the second straight fall to defend his title 2-0. Blair congratulates Alan and puts the belt back around his waist. A good sporting technical contest only lacking an equalising fall by Blair which could then give him the chance to score some almost deciders to be a nearly champion before finally going down. Perhaps Kilby's pride as a shooter stood in the way of converting a fall to this relative newbie. Still it was a fine shop window for young Andy Blair's skills, a lot better than jobbing out to Richard "Red Ivan" Krupa or being rescued from monsters by Big Daddy. After Kilby retired as champion in 2004, the title was revived by All Star in the early 2010s, mostly held by Dean Allmark.

By American standards, Rick Martel was traditionally considered a scientific wrestler, even after his heel turn to the Model. Here he gets to clash style with an actual Euro technician, an Austrian/German of the post Steve Wright generation of technicians, Franz Schumann. Martel is managed by Klaus Kauroff hi They play the Star Strangled Banner for his before the contest, ignoring that he is in fact French-Canadian. (A blind woman and a Stevie Richards look alike sing the words - patriotic Americans beware, the audience WHITSLE all over it!). Kauroff wears stars and stripes jogging bottoms. Martel has his sequin jacket (Want one for night out!) and 1991 purple gear, no Arrogance nor the "Yes! I Am A Model" giant pin bage. I think Schumann is defending the CWA World Middleweight Championship. Martel's work here magnifies the difference between US Technical wrestling and European. He tends to perform all his clever moves as spots rather than chain sequence s. He can't roll out of armbars (unlike Franz who does a fair bit of rolling and kipping up out of armlocks. Martel on the other hand punches his way out. He does do one good transition - a drop toehold into riding crossface Camel Clutch.). Mostly he reminds me of Danny Collins after the heel turn in 1994 from Danny Boy to Dirty Dan. He does attempt to curl up and roll out from under a Boston Crab. He does one or two kip ups himself and snares on a headscissors once, turning it sideways and cranking it forwards only for the beeper (bell substitute) to signal the end of the round. He cartwheels out of a Schumann leg flip one time (and smirks with heelish smugness about it) which actually DOES fit the local Euro style. He also pulls his head out of a side headlock to form a back hammerlock on the mat then starts turning Schumann over into the guard for a further nelson pin attempt before the beeper again saves Franz. Mostly Martel just does a lot of roughhouse/dirty stuff that in the WWF would have counted as normal brawling done by some babyfaces. It would have been interesting to see pre- WM5 babyface Martel coping with the CWA and old school Euro wrestling culture. Schumann gets the win by rolling over on a flying bodypress á la Wendi Richter at WM10. I don't think he's wearing his infamous Bret ripoff pink and black tights but he does do a sharpshooter (Scorpion Deathlock/Chono Powerlock ) If you like a cheap laugh, look out at the end for the World 's Worst Postmatch Pyrotechnics - a shot of a single sparkler being held aloft.

Usually the idea was that the babyfaces/blue eyes/bons were just generally better technical wrestlers anyway and that's why the villains eventually resorted to brawlng and fouling. The good guys had to prove themselves against other good guy in clean matches. France didn't have a Kent Walton type commentator out to educate the viewers (Couderc often gets compared to Walton but really they were different breeds) so it's hard to say how much 1982 French fans appreciated good technical wrestling. Probably older fans who remembered bouts like LPP/Saulnier had more of a taste for it. The kids and younger fans however may, as you said just been there for the action and cheering Les Bons/booing Les Méchants.

By the way. here are Cohen and Shadow facing each other eight years earlier: And here they are two years before even that:

Other than having gone there, how much exposure to Lucha culture would Gerard Hervé have had a chance to experience? Pancho Zapata was probably a lot closer the mark than Mil Mascaras when it came to most European fans' idea of a Mexican wrestler in the 60s/70s.

Who else would Americans have heard of? Let alone the French? They tried to sell Lucha movies in Spain and they flopped - fans reared on the CIC couldn't relate to it at all. We never heard about him in Britain. I first saw him in back issue adverts in PWI in 1988.

There were a lot of other luchadors who could have been him America. Point being, if Americans were that unfamiliar with Lucha culture, what chance did a Frenchman have unless he'd seen it up close?

Was in Blackpool on Tues/Wed this week soaking up the last of the seaside summer sun - passed by (as I often do in these trips) the place where The Destroyer and Billy (Steve Regal and the late Drew McDonald) did battle nearly four decades earlier and I thought of this post.

Any chance we could see this?

Yeah, I was about 6 or 7 at the time. Weetabix did trading cards, the first of which was the scene of the green monster eating Flash. They previously did World Of Sport trading cards with sports Yes/No questions you had to scratch off to correctly answer - collect five correctly answered cards and you could send them off to be entered into a prize draw. Annoyingly none of the questions were about wrestling, at least not in any packet of Weetabix that crossed our threshold. Gordon did (in those days) look like sort of like a luchador who'd just had his mask pulled off though.

Fair point but I can see logic in the idea that he got the idea of a superhero character from Lucha culture. Bear in mind at this time most Americans thought Mil Mascaras a one-off when in reality he was a fairly generic Mexican masked babyface of the time. So it's anyone's guess how a Frenchman could have picked up on such a trope, short of actually going out there and immersing himself in the culture. You're right that he was on TV as plain old Gerard Hervé in 1979, but he may have already been doing the character for his own KMG company (the G stood for Gordon) founded in 1979 and the alleged ancestor of (I)WS(F).

There's a rather large gap in the INA tape copy between matches during which we hear an engineer introduce this next bout as Catch A Quatre even though it's just a singles bout. Black Shadow comes in wearing a gold jacket- I think we saw it before in his 70s appearances. At at time when Dave Bond and Johnny Kincaid were getting into trouble for incorporating the more antisocial elements of Afro-Carribean cuture into their heel Carribbean Sunshine Boys gimmick, alleged African American Shadow (Cazal lets slip that Shadow is actually from Morocco) was getting over as a heel in France without any hassle. Cohen, le Bon, ex one half of Les Israeliens tag team with Gass Doukhan, (they were both Algerian Sephardic Jewish- Cazal claims Cohen to be a former North African champion). gets the early upper hand, dropkicking Shadow out of the ring and leapfrogging and armdragging him, stepping over one side of a finger Interlock straight into a flying headscissors takedown. Shadow nicely flexes Cohen's legs open to not only release his head but get a two count folding press. He uses an illegal pull of the hair to take down Cohen in a top wristlock test of strength. Cohen does the classic French headscissors as counter to armbar and keeps snapping it back on each time Shadow escapes. Shadow eventually places a knee in the space where his head went, creating a modified Indian Deathlock and using illegal closed fist kidney punches (nice to see closed fists still got heat in 1983 France) whenever Cohen sits up to attempt a counter. After referee Blanc Cohen rolls forward in a finger Interlock to get another headscissors. He turns on to his front, propped up by his fists and leg-throws Shadow out of the ring, rather like Kid McCoy's Yorkshire Rope Trick minus the ropes! Another Cohen headscissor sees Shadow kicked in the face. Shadow side chancery throws Cohen and drops down with Cohen dropping down beside him in a George Kidd ball. Cohen baits Shadow with various producing limbs before catching and throwing him, securing a reverse arm hank, before high whipping him for a bump. Shadow does it back (for less of a bump) and maintains wristlever dominance even through a snapmare until he counters with a headscissors. Shadow puts his feet on the ropes and Blanc, as in the last bout, pulls Cohen off physically rather than verbally calling a break, getting himself some heat. Shadow wins a test of strength to get a double knee press but can't get Cohen's shoulders down. This then develops into Cohen bridging and, as traditional, eventually monkey climbing Shadow and a Bascule situation developing. Cohen legdives Shadow and spins him round on one foot until he collapses.. Shadow gets a H&S into pressure points on Cohen who uses a double leg chop to escape. A back and forth ropes exchange ends up with Shadow at ringside. He gets back in and gets a legdive into leglock, snapping off various attempts at a chinlock counter by Cohen. George uses his spare leg to kick Shadow in the face forcing a break. The next finger Interlock results in Shadow getting some kind of foul and Cohen in pain, selling it. It looks like Shadow is using biting on these interlocks but the ref sees nothing, standing an Aux Chiottes L'Arbitre chant for Monsieur Blanc. Cohen retaliates with a good long nip on the nose but he lacks Shadow 's practice at that kind of fouling and leaves toothmarks when earn him a premier Avertisement from Blanc. It all goes a bit American after this with rope running and bodychecks (apart from one sunset flip attempt by Cohen which Cazal gets excited over, thinking it will mark the match returning to "un Catch peut-être plus Classique" - yay. maybe he's secretly a purist like Kent Walton!) and both men miss Big Splashes on each other, winding Shadow the worst - he sells it like a stomach upset. Shadow gives Cohen some stomach trouble of his own with an illegal closed fist punch which Blanc almost sees and is suspicious enough to privately warn the Morrocan. He is more careful to conceal subsequent foul shots. Having floored Cohen for 7 he lets rip with the dirty wrestling- illegal punches, legal thumps and illegal rope-assisted stomp on his fallen man until Cohen ends up at ringside, detaching a sponsorship message from the apron in the process. Shadow continues the foul treatment when Cohen comes back, choking Cohen with the ropes which FINALLY earn him in Avertisement. Shadow continues the treatment, twice posting Cohen before dragging him outside for a ringside beatdown the IBA would never tolerate. He gets back in the ring and celebrates as the heat rains down. Fans help Cohen back but it just sets him up for more treatment. Shadow gets a full nelson and Cohen's waving arms bash into Blanc's back. earning him a Deuxieme Et Derniere Avertisement. Encouraged by this, Shadow rope chokes and stomps Cohen back out of the ring, An angry Cohen storms the ring and grovits Shadow but one illegal kidney punch and some stomps later, Cohen is back out and Shadow is further provoking the audience by making a "wiping his hands" gesture! It goes on like this, Shadow doing thecfirst on Cohen + eventually earning himself his own Deuxieme Et Derniere Avertisement. (Somewhat unfairly the crowd start an Aux Chiottes L'Arbitre chant while this is happening.) The next Avertisement will end the contest. Cohen finally makes a face comeback, he fights back with postings and a hefty series of Manchettes that leaves Shadow trussed in the ropes and Cohen flirting with disqualification as he pounds on him - and then threatens Blanc, before cooler heads prevail. The referee unties Shadow and Cohen throws him outside before climbing the top of the ring post. When Shadow returns, Cohen leapfrogs, double legdives and slingshots him - straight into Blanc who is knocked out. Cohen leads the crowd in a Knockout count over both opponent and official - it reaches 10 but Blanc waves it off. He corners Shadow who bodyscissors him Cohen chops him down and goes after Blanc but is, ironically, saved from a DQ by Shadow who grabs him from behind by the hair and corners him. This time Cohen gets the bodyscissors and bashes a heel on the heel's head. He dodges a Shadow charge and throws Le Méchant outside. Shadow regains the advantage and throws Le Bon out of the ring, doing everything he can to keep him there and continuing the dirties when he finally does get back for a while. Still no DQ even though one woman at ringside is screaming for that final Avertisement. Cohen drags him outside for a ringside brawl then throws him back in where he gets the one required fall with a flying tackle. Cohen is still annoyed at Blanc and won't let him raise his hand, raising it himself and locking his arms rigid whenever Blanc tries - in the end MC Fred Thomas (interesting name for a Frenchman) raises Cohen's hand. Classic game of two halves - fifteen minutes of mostly good scientific wrestling with Cohen frustrating Shadow by being just that bit more technical than him and fifteen minutes of Shadow getting his revenge with wild dirty brawling that would give an ECW crowd un Petit Mort. I know which half I preferred and I can guess which half OJ will prefer.