David Mantell

H's (re) posted a poster with Catch Sur L'Eau on it, so I've posted a comment underneath "Le Catch Sur L'eau - que pensez vous de cela?" See where that gets us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188513425037928/posts/1610588352830431 (It's for the same match as above with the Angelito/Jacky pareja increible

That could be the reason why the old guard were all slow moving guys who focused on a protracted struggle for holds if they were all at least heavyweights. Although most of the earlier footage we have from newsreels focuses on heavyweights (like the young Hansi Rooks) because they are inherently more lurid and that is what the cycnical newsreel makers liked to zoom in on. P.S. Was watching those Roland Bock clips from the 70s, he seemed to work in that same style as Dieter and Chall.

Nah, he just hates other people posting on his precious FB group. Especially not videos, photos or links "stop ; lés lutteurs francais ont leurs documents"

I've put out a request for a native opinion on this. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188513425037928/posts/que-pensez-vous-du-catch-a-leaucatch-a-la-piscinegimmique-degeulasse-ou-aspect-i/1610115159544417 EDIT: Plantin deleted it. Ah well....

RIP Brian Maxine.

As with the Genele bout this starts off as a stylish technical bout before Falempin gets nasty and starts attacks on the mat. Prince keeps things technical as long as he can. Eventually Falempin gets really nasty, stomps Prince out of the ring and earns himself two Avertisements. All rather disconcerting is you mostly know Falempin from his later clean tag team with Jean Corne. Unlike with Genele. Prince forces Falempin back onto the technical straight and narrow. Prince has a good variant of the George Kidd/Johnny Saint ball but Falempin lifts him up and pitches him to ringside. Prince finally gets a series of Planchette Japonaises and a sunset flip for the winner. Falempin is no more sportsmanly than Genele, refusing a handshake and wandering off. Couderc tries an interview but Prince is mobbed by ringside fans. I'll concede Prince is good as an American style babyface but this isn't really what I was hoping to see when I saw his name on the video listing. Perhaps there were viewers in 1977 who'd missed Albert Sanniez's recent heel turn and ended up feeling the same way after tuning in to his and Prince's singles bout that year.

"Un combatte des stylists" says the announcer early on an that's what we get at first. LPP has all the traditional French moveset including a backwards rather than forwards roll and a neat trick where he does a ballet style pirrouette to upgrade a wrist lever into a back hammerlock as well as an escape from a standing full nelson by dropping down and sliding the arms out (I've got an old Spanish wrestling textbook which describes this in text and photos but this is the first time I've seen footage of that escape being done.) Prince is in stockinged feet (although he wears walking shoes to the ring.). Genele at one point adverts a LPP rollout by patting him on the bottom to make him roll back into the hold! Genele has a definite power advantage yanking LPP this way and that by the arm before he he could counter. Eventually this starts to include some rulebreaking to maintain his advantage and is duly chastised by the referee. When Prince gets holds of his ownsuch as a headscissor, Genele goes for the ropes - major heat in Europe of the "you coward" variety. Prince eventually sends Genele crashing to ringside, then gets him in a Frank Gotch toehold. Genele escapes and kicks a downed Prince before breaking out Les Manchettes. Prince hits back with Manchettes of his own and a headbutt to the stomach in the corner. Things get more scientific again, Genele even does a decent toupee on Prince. Prince takes things to the mat with headscissors and armscissors. Genele eventually reverts back to the rough stuff including attacks on the mat. Prince brawls back, then pulls out a mid ring sunset flip for the one required fall. The defeated Genele gets a shot in from behind before Prince dropkicks him out of the ring. As with the Michel Falempin bout, this starts as a good wrestling bout before turning into quite a fight. Genele is quite the thuggy young heel.

We do have the big names of the pre-1980 era in their early eighties dotages and can see how Axel Dieter, Achim Chall, Rolo Brasil etc worked. Zrno was the crossover point, the last of the old style German wrestlers who worked holds over long periods and focused on the nuances of the struggle over a hold rather than the clever and agile ways to get out of a hold. By the late 90s all the hip young kids like Kovacs, Herman. Eckstein and Alex Wright were working like Danny Collins or Robbie Brookside. By 1999, Kovacs was having a classic British style lighter weight title match with a visiting Jason Cross that would truly have warmed the cockles of Kent Walton's heart. Wright, unlike Caswell Martin. Johnny Saint or even his own brother Bernie, stayed around in Germany long term and full time and became very much part of the furniture. As a top drawing card blue eye and as a trainer, he became a big influence on the overall direction of the technical end of German Wrestling. The kids who followed his approach mirrored the wave of youngsters in Britain in the 80s (the Birmingham Steve Logan. Danny Collins, Ritchie Brooks, Kid McCoy etc) who worked that exact same style. Imagine if. say, Prince Zefy or Marc Mercier had transplanted themselves to Germany and by the 90s all the young kids were doing flying headscissor takedowns, backflips out of an overhead standing wristlock and reverse snapmares as counter to standing hammerlock, instead of cartwheeling out of wristlocks Then German wrestling would have gone French instead of going British.

I don't see why. A watery ringside would solve a lot of problems in AEW for a start rather than have botched aerial spots ending in hard landing and career shortening injuries. However since no one in France was doing triple somersaults off the top turnbuckle, you can't argue that the floating ring interfered with anyone's balance. The pools were quite nice modern urban sports palaces which looked rather good on TV. I particularly liked the outdoor pool for the Mercier brothers Vs Albert Sanniez/Mario Petrolini from La Derniere Manchette 1984 with the sun setting in the background, very picturesque. The water made a good crowd barrier to stop fans attacking heels. Plus it was just part of the culture over there. People in France in the 60s/70s/80s accepted swimming pools (and the odd lake in the park) as natural places to hold professional wrestling shows. It was not some kind of gimmick like mud wrestling (after it broke from its roots in traditional Hindu wrestling in the soil), it was just taken for granted as normal. Plus I had the same idea myself asleep in bed one night as a child, so feel somewhat proprietorial about "Water Wrestling" as as schoolfriend of mine, who showed up in the dream, named it in the dream.

That looks like the real Texas Outlaw/Captain Redneck to me rather than Lincolnshire Poachers Ron Clarke as I was expecting. Am I right? Between Rounds Disco includes Bananarama's cover version of Venus by Shocking Blue.

Steve Wright having a clean scientific/technical bout in Germany And here are Zrno and Wright doing much the same thing in Graz, Austria in 1980: Wright is already accomplished at the DynaniteKid/Danny Collins playbook of escapes, he does a neat Danny -style scoot between the legs although not with Collins' blinding speed. He even cheekily uses referee Mick McMichael's shoulder to flip over a la Vic Faulkner/Owen Hart. He even gets a surfboard on Zrno. Plenty of monkey climbs, bridges and folding presses with bridge, the last of which gets him the winning fall. Wright was busy revolutionising German Wrestling with his British style although other North Sea crossers like Caswell Martin (see 1980 bout with Achim Chall posted several pages for a real clash of the Generations) were also spreading the new Gospel. Picture quality is sadly poor with intermittent colour, most likely either multi generation copying or a worn down copy (or both). Ring looks to be IBV/CWA type, big with sponsors adverts on. Between rounds playlist includes Dusty Springfield's I Only Want To Be With You (only 16 years old at the time)

@sergeiSem has it down as 3rd April, not 4th March. I've posted this occasionally as an example of what VDB was like as opposed to iBV/CWA but not really reviewed it. Unfortunately the audio is badly out of sync by about a minutr Definitely those early rounds show off what Wright could do and Morgan also (plenty of neat spring ups including out of headscissors.) At one point the referee trips up over the two competitors and gets rolled over by them as they struggle over a chin lock. Things go sour when Morgan offers his hand as he did at the start but this time suckers Wright in for some forearm smashes and a lot of rope related fouling. Consequently there is a lot of Wright fighting fire with fire and the referee going a bit far with the "allowing for retaliation" as Kent Walton would say. One good bit where Wright catapults Morgan over the ropes to ringside. Most of it is Steve just lowering himself to the masked villains's level. In Britain many blue eye Vs heel matchups were structured like this. A clean first half and dirty second half. Kendo Nagasaki did this a lot with skill opponents in the 60s/70s. The early rounds of this before the Masked Morgan starts wrestling dirty are another good example of what Wright could do.

... shades of Bill Alfonso on his arrival in ECW as "troubleshooting" referee on a one man mission to restore order to the "outlaw" league?

This also shows Steve's technical skills well despite Didier Gapp and his unfunny upstaging antics.

The only real difference was that when wrestlers did break the rules in Britain away from the ITV cameras, they pushed the boat out more for fouls and violence., Clean matches were much the same on Reslo, on Screensport and on the Pallos's 1981 tapes (and indeed om camcordings) as they were on World of Sport. The difference was only in terms of what could be gotten away with in terms of dirty wrestling.

Steve Wright having a clean scientific/technical bout in Germany

Why?

In Britain, Finlay and Murphy were certainly NOT under-rated, they were a respected heel team and this whole reunion run was a big deal. ( Regarding the Blue Bloods, I think you're confusing having a rep with having had an American career.) Finlay took Tony StClair's British Heavyweight title around this time and Blackie was being touted as a hot challenger. Clwyd as we've discussed got an extended push as a promising young Welsh lad and TV star in Wales and Southern ROI through Reslo. He clocked up some 14 Reslo appearances, often as a lighter partner in peril to the stars - Blackie here, Orig The Promoter, Flesh Gordon, possibly even Pat Roach. Had Big Daddy done more than the one Reslo bout (and not brought his own in house tag partner Scot Valentine and in house heels Dr Death and Count Von Zuppi). The Squad get the 2-1 win here. I'm reminded how Kent Walton said tag matches could be either a great technical match or a great fight. This was one of the latter. Murphy gets a gator hold for a submission but otherwise it's the villains beating down on Clwyd and occasionally get hit back by Blackie. One of the lightweight plastic crowd barriers becomes a weapon of retaliation by Blackie and I don't blame the referee for not responding, it ranks alongside Big Daddy wielding a plastic bucket for an ineffective comedy weapon and the bucket was light relief. I believe Finlay and Murphy went on to have a heel Vs heel match with Kendo Nagasaki and Blondie Barrett which sounds fun. Not long either side, the Riot Squad get another big Reslo bout -with Paula as part of the package. In this case against the promoter and the guy who everyone in America thinks is the greatest legend of British Wrestling ever. Mainly because they've heard of him. Given this fuss over Lord Steven Vs the Belfast Bruiser in the 90s, this bout is important as it's the only professionally shot footage of Fit Finlay and Steve Regal facing off in an Old School British ring. The good guys come to the ring to a pub knees-up version of a patriotic Welsh anthem. Regal is announced as Steve Jones (not the Sex Pistol.) Despite his notorious ego, Orig takes a backseat and lets Regal shine here. The Welsh Big Daddy, El Bandito sells extensively for Finlay before tagging in Regal who handles the opponents nicely until they start double teaming. He fights back, tags Orig who copes nicely until being caught in a Murphy Boston Crab with Finlay providing extra leverage. The patriotic Welsh hero submits on his own Welsh wrestling TV show! El Bandito's woes continue in the second fall until he resorts to brawling his way out of trouble with a plastic roadworks crowd safety barrier. This does allow Regal to come in and take over with a backdrop and flying body press on Finlay for the equaliser, causing Colonel Brody - in drum majorette getup- to storm to ringside to protest the antics of the kid he bashed in but failed to kill in Blackpool all those years before. Regal continues to dominate Finlay until Brody gets him in the back with his baton. This doesn't injure Regal but it distracts him enough for Finlay to get him from behind with a Tombstone piledriver for the winner. Orig protests loudly in Welsh and he and Regal are joined by Boston Blackie, Doc Dean and Tracey Kemp to confront Finlay, Murphy, Brody and Paula with the blue eyes having a one man advantage. Short action packed, not especially scientific but I expect both Regal and Finlay included this match in their promotional packages they would send to WWF and WCW every few months in the early 90s, leading to this:

Already reviewed this one: Seems I was right OJ. Okay I'll have another watch of it over dinner, It's what Kent Walton called "A Great Fight" rather than " A Great Wrestling Match". What really does it down for me is the lack of chain wrestling spots, with the action just frozen in holds when they pop up from amidst the brawling. I know that was the indigenous German style - intensive struggle and sweat and drama over the mechanics of a hold - but Steve Wright is the specific guy who revolutionised that and brought speed and chain wrestling sequences to Germany/Austria (Germans actually called technical work"British style" apparently). What he needs is someone who can reverse his holds and he does the same to them in all sorts of inventive ways. A bout like this is like Bob Backlund defending his WWF title against monsters like Killer Khan, Jesse Ventura and Big John Studd - all big Monsters that should surely eat him for breakfast except that he could wrestle them in knots, all big drawing cards to make fans think tonight's the night Backlund faces his Howdy Doody Doom and pack out the venue. But none of them any use for showing what a gifted skilled sportsman Backlund really was. I guess being brought up as an old time European fan rather than being an American fan, less responsive to storytelling than you OJ. Still, this is 80s/90s CWA, the most American friendly old school Euro territory there was. It gets over on the summer festivities crowd, drunk on good German beer and good German sausage meat, but then they are just the German equivalent of little kiddies come to see Big Daddy effortlessly mow down the villains and make it look Easy, Easy.

Cool Cat Jackson you all know about now, the Reslo identify of George Burgess whom Joint Promotions put on ITV as The Jamaica Kid in the Seventies and Jamaica George in the Eighties. Anaconda was a bit of a rent a heel sandbag for Big Daddy. As well as having the misfortune to be teaming with Rasputin to lose to Big Daddy and Pat Patton in 1988, their performance was torn to shreds by legendary Wigan rippers Ernie (son of Billy) Riley and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore in the First Tuesday docu on the Snakepit. Anaconda's other accomplishments in losing to Big Daddy includes singles match KO loss in the early 80s, a 1991 tag loss on Scottish TV a few months after this bout with the mauve Kamikaze to Daddy and Johnny Kidd and finally being in Giant Haystacks's corner for his famous 1981 Wembley loss to Daddy, standing next to Banger Walsh in identical Giant Haystacks t-shirts. Clip is 5:31 and they lock up at 2:41 for a start. Or rather they lunge at each other then break off to circle and Anaconda shouts abuse in English at the German fans. The same again at 3:15. By 3:37 even the referee is fed up and gives Anaconda a warning for stalling. Things start going with Anaconda throwing George a couple of times for 6 or 7 counts anelbow for three and another for 7. Pretty soon Anaconda is stomping all over George like a kid on a sofa. MC is going ballistic but the ref just stands and watches. 30 secs of clip left. Ref orders him off finally, round bell goes, end of clip. Perhaps we shall see the outcome some other sunny day.

No kidding. Have a listen to this nasty little tale from the 1890s Paris music halls. later an international hit in the 1930s

Swimming pool matches were just a part of French wrestling culture and have to be accepted for what they were, just as the use of "baths halls" (local council pools temporary boarded up during winter months) was part of the furniture in 50s/60s Britain. Pools stayed in use all the year round in France so floating rings were were a good way to adapt these venues to host wrestling shows. This one goes back far enough to predate the INA's video recorder and only be preserved on B/W overseas sales print, which shows you how long running a "gimmick" they were. Whatever else, they were not some kind of barrel-scraping gimmick match like mud wrestling. I'm not just biased because of my childhood dream about "water wrestling" which turns out to have been conceptually identical to Catch A L'Eau About 5 years before Angelito and Richard had their fun pitching no nonsense referee Roger Delaporte into the pool before being made to pay for it, here he is getting the same treatment in his old capacity as France's number one Mechant. Andre Bollet had retired from a car accident a year or two earlier otherwise this would be a two singles rematch of that Jan 1969 surviving colour tape bout; instead we get Magnier in Andre's place. (The commentator mentions that these days Delaporte is that teaming with Cheri Bibi.) Referee is Firmin, valet of Roger Duranton, sixties answer to Paul "the Butler" Butin/Claude "Best Boy" Blanchard. Apart from the aforementioned water bumps by Magnier, it's just the generic brawling final minutes of a match where they just Manchette each other while waiting for the seconds to count down. Delaporte is old and grey and nearly ready to turn Arbitre but pulls off a good turn as a grumpy old Vieux Pontoufle (the French HATE old men.). He hunches up to oversell pain from bumps and cowers out the way of Manchette bursts. At one point the commentator speculates if Delaporte has rheumatism from his old age. Quite the opposite of the Sheriff Roger Delaporte we would soon come to know. Muscleman Montreal has the strength advantage. As Montreal is a power wrestler and Delaporte an old guy, there isn't much (any?) in the way of flipping and somersaulting out of holds, armbars and later front chanceries and hammerlocks and a long running rear headlock are worked on the mat for long periods. Montreal 's face comeback curiously consists of chokes on the ropes and suchlike di to ty wrestling. Warned by Firman Montreal eventogets fed up and throws the ex stooge into the drink, followed by Delaporte, spitting water like a Dolphin. Montreal claims victory but is DQ'd. In retribution he throws Firmin back in the pool. Delaporte takes the float back but staggers and falls off. Actually there seems to be a lot of tropes at work here involving the Chiottes Arbitres and it being IK for last Bons to beat up on them. Al this four years before Guy Mercier and horrid little man Michel Saulnier started doing that routine. Imagine if the WWF had held a swimming pool show in 1988 and Miss Elizabeth had been thrown in the pool - or better still had sportingly jumped in in her best frock. Then again, remember the 1986 SNME sketch with Savage and Jesse where Randy announces "I'm gonna teach this woman how to swim!" then pitches her off a bridge into his pool.

Again from Victoria Hall, Hanley 16th June 2000. Three years before Dean Allmark Vs Mikey Whiplash and 14 years after Mighty John Quinn Vs Tony StClair. Kendo Nagasaki's "Millennium Comeback" was one of the bright spots of All Star's 1997-2001 dip period when Brian Dixon was supplementing his income with a sideline in male stripshows (the behaviour of female punters at which he later described as "the biggest education [he] ever had in [his] life.") and the shows were mostly headlined by the UK Undertaker and the Big Red Machine. A dead giveaway about the historical context is the signs saying "JABRONI" and "SUCK IT!" betraying that, somewhere else in the world, the WWF Attitude Era is in full throttle mode. A month earlier, longtime traditional British wrestling phoneline Wrestlecall held a poll for Wrestler Of The Millennium which Naggers duly won. A trophy ceremony took place at the same Victoria Hall Hanley. For starters, Kendo was late according to manager Lloyd Ryan, then Tony Walsh's son Darren turned up with a note from former World Mid Heavyweight Champion Marty Jones protesting Kendo's poll win. This ended in an argument between Walsh and Ryan and eventual fisticuffs , at which point Kendo finally turned up, salt-bombed and Kamikaze Crashed Walsh and then finally got presented with his trophy. Fast forward to this evening. There was originally a whole long bit at the start (which I've got on VHS) where Lloyd Ryan was supposed to be the Tag Partner but his arm was supposedly broken so MC Gordon Prior had to go back to the dressing room to find another tag partner. Vic Powers got the gig. Cue the start of this video. The first fall goes by without Kendo tagging in - Powers (whose brother Phil I saw live in Dudley back in the spring) has an even time with Walsh but is completely dominated by Jones. The crowd have completely forgiven Jones for his past eight years since 1992 as a heel (road tested in Germany 1990 as we have seen on the German Catch thread.). Jones taunts Naggers to tag in to no avail. Eventually Walsh gets the opening pin on Powers. Lloyd Ryan is furious claiming that there has been an illegal tag but the referee has none of it. A brief ringside brawl starts and the heels retreat to the dressing room but are coaxed back. Kendo gets a public warning for a weapon used in the brawl. Walsh misses an aerial spot and after stomping him on the mat. Powers finally tags in Naggers. Kendo kicks Walsh around on the mat.flings him to ringside, VICIOUSLY whacks him with a chair and coffee table and whips him with a tag rope. The referee, for reasons out of camera shot, gives Jones a public warning. Walsh is dragged back in the ring and double teamed. Even Lloyd joins in with his cast. Kendo finishes off Walsh for the equaliser with an old time combination of his, a backdrop and splash cross press pin. Jones finally has enough, knocking out the ref (he's still a heel at heart.) attacks Kendo from behind, gets him on the floor and has a go at the mask. He pitches Powers out of the ring and beats down on an interfering Lloyd Ryan. While he is outside doing this. Kendo revives the referee then locks up with Walsh, at which point the ring collapses! Kendo does a sort of belly to belly suplex and a slam on Walsh for the decider. Needless to say Jones is unhappy, he and Kendo throw furniture at each other before Kendo leaves, chased away by Jones with a corner pad. Jones, aggrieved, demands a singles bout with Kendo where if he doesn't beat and unask Kendo, hecwill burn his boots and retire. No idea what happened next, but the Millennium Comeback continued another 18 months until December 2001 and Kendo's third retirement and only formal retirement match. It's not very scientific but if @ohtani's jacket likes a good brawl, he'll love this one. Very cod ECW hardcore of its time (Kendo was a fan).

Marc Mercier's Memoirs published:

Joined in progress, so perhaps Saint did more of his trademarks earlier on. However we quickly get a decent Johnny Saint ball with an arm offered that turns into a cross buttock throw and a feet first landing from a throw of Fu's. Hamill does a great side headlock bounce of the ropes into a sunset flip for a 2 count, Saint rolls out backwards and goes for a folding press but Kung F double ankles him and Saint cartwheels back upright. It ends when Saint is thrown and rolls back in a folding press predicament. Hamill takes the bait and grabs his legs but it turns out to be a trap for Saint to score the folding press with bridge pinfall of his own.