David Mantell

Yes, Switzerland did become CWA overspill territory. Until Catch Up on RTL in 1989 (mostly WCW with some CWA thrown in) and until shows like Reslo and New Catch started splicing in CWA footage (or in Reslo's case getting an S4C outside broadcast unit to take the North Sea ferry to the tournaments to film their own footage) Germany/Austria did not have its own Wrestling TV per se - instead they went for the Home Video market, selling tapes ranging in quality from broadcast grade professional multicam OB unit productions of Otto Wanz's CWA World title defences available from high street rental stores down to cheapo single handheld camcorder efforts sold via the merch table. Apparently the "Killer" Inoki 1978 tour was shot by the Japanese promoters whose camera crews accompanied him to Europe. The legendary Roland Bock match was shot on VT and we have the entire thing on YouTube A couple of earlier bouts including Lasartesse were shot on film and we just have snipers in focus on YT.

They had shows but Switzerland was never its own territory much less its own wrestling culture or wrestling style. I'm sure they had shows in Monaco too but it was just another stop on the French house show circuit.

Yes, I posted four of those seven just above. Two of the other three are also about the French scene - a women's match plus interview with one combatant similar in character to TV items Mitzi Mueller would do in the UK in the 70s plus a feature on a Paris theatre director who had to crawl to Delaporte to use the Elysée Montmartre for his productions after he let May 68 students use his own theatre and they trashed it. A snippet of a tag match involving Rene Ben Chemoul and Robert Duranton (with Firmin being thrown over the ropes) and some good contextual shots of Elysée Montmartre helpful for visualising how TV Catch bouts looked in the flesh. The one non French feature being a trawl through Hamburg's red light district where among the sex shows etc they came across a womens'mud wrestling show. ********** It seems to me that the underlying point is that all of these stations are in French speaking enclaves just outside France itself - Monaco, Luxembourg, Romandy - and probably much of their viewership was across the border in France itself so I would suggest part of these stations' reason for existence was to compete with French national TV. With France's then two national channels having pretty successful Catch coverage -a hit show indeed- and since (O)RTF could not copyright the concept of French Catch or the French scene, it is quite natural that they should produce their own wrestling shows.

I see something other than French Catch Tuesday was posted today. Is it a week off this week?

With Britain 1955-1969 we've had more joy with private film collectors (viz Clay Thompson Vs Tony StClair) than with the official Granada TV Archive. (And I bet they've got all the Granada Cinemas films of Paul Lincoln shows too, which would be like having a 60s version of Reslo or Screensport. And again consider how we do have that Wild Man Of Borneo match. From a private collector.) Perhaps the same is true of Television Suisse Romandy and there are editions laying around in various old boys' sheds and attics across Europe. Interesting also how the French language service seems to be the only Swiss TV channel to do wrestling - broadcasting it to the language group whose state broadcaster already covers the sport.

I'd vote James Mason or Dean Allmark over Zack Sabre Jr anyway.

I'm not saying they didn't have shows, I'm saying it wouldn't have had its own scene.

It's of relevance: (1) in order to work out what might have happened to those 1975 TF1 bouts (2) to identify which bouts October 1967-December 1974 were on Channel 2, therefore in colour, therefore potential candidates for chroma dot recovery processing to restore them to (authentic) colour some day.

Benn watching this. Very good. Interviews with Delaporte, Andre Bollet (showing his paintings), Vassilios Montopolous with Mrs Montopolous and their son and even footage of Peter Maivia. Also Rene "Jack" de Lataserre who says that there was no wrestling scene in Switzerland so he had to go to Germany to get his start) They've also got a version of this on their site. (Which explains why Swiss TV did the below docu.) Plus there are a couple of pieces on there. This one from 1960- it includes Lataserre tagging with Robert Duranton (complete with Firmin) and Duranton in fine form giving an interview in front of a bar crowd. There's a fault near the end but if you can get past it there's a bit about the melancholy beauty of a ring after the show (!): https://www.rts.ch/archives/1960/video/un-match-de-catch-26385496.html And this one from 1968 - This is a bunch of film inserts for a live magazine show called Carrefour (Crossroads - no not the old British soap opera in a Birmingham motel!). The wrestling clip is near the end and does have audio unlike some of the earlier film. Vassilios Montopolous and -I think- Jean Corner- are training in a ring in Geneva when two blokes come out, stop them and start talking about their aesthetic qualities in front of them. They then try the same trick ona young Andre Rousimoff who sorts them out by picking one of them up and giving him a scare! https://www.rts.ch/archives/1968/video/carrefour-10-10-68-26184882.html

This was RTS1's name up until 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTS_1_(Swiss_TV_channel)

or else they just did a whole run of shows with those two bouts and the June one got filmed and the August 21st one is that poster. Again. presumably because it was on the still black and white, still VHF, still 819 line TF1 ****** Any info on that March 20, 1976 broadcast I dragged up? (Montreal Vs Viracocha/ Roca & Hassouni Vs Sanniez & Caclard) Was it indeed TF1? If so, and if it was a test colour recording, it could be another unwiped tape that found its way to the INA like the Jan 1969 one.

In which case August 21st was just a house show where they put on rematches of both TV bouts?

Trios until relatively recently was an exclusively Lucha term. I've no idea if the CIC in Spain even held six man tags but they called tag matches Catch a Quatro, a literal translation of the French Catch A Quatre so I expect they would have used the term Catch A Seis. "Les Bons et Les Mechants" is also a kayfabe term, idiomatically "The Goodies and The Baddies"

Four of them,all in the late 60s on the RTS show.

Actually the other bout advertised on the June 28 TV clipping - Zarak Vs Mike DeByser is also on that bill. I don't recall ho I got hold of that 1980 date (possibly that's what Plantin said it was) but August 14th was a Thursday in BOTH 1975 AND 1980. If 1975 is actually correct and the June 28th date is correct for the TV broadcasts, maybe rematches of the TV bouts were doing the rounds on the house show circuit.

Another Johnny Saint match from France (against the same opponents Michel Falempin)

(@ohtani's jacket there is 8mm colour fancam of Hell's Angels Vs Dennisons and I've posted it to the British thread long ago. I can bump it up if you like) We arrived at the Elysee Montmartre and get a potted history of its roots as a dancehall. Roger Delaporte who owned the place is in the front row. First off we get a few minutes of the end of Monsieur Montreal Vs Inca Viracocha. In the 1960s Montreal was a French version of Tarzan Johnny Wilson, same sort of handsome muscleman. Apparently Montreal 's real name is Marcel Cherot and Monsieur Montreal is an old bodybuilding title he won. It's the last few mins of a strength match. Sanniez gets cheered while Caclard (or Calgar according to the INA official YT) gets booed, like the split reaction for Savage and Elizabeth in the mid 80s. Caclard has a similar crewcut/goatee look to heel Bernie Wright in 1985 Germany. He and Sanniez can do all the characteristics French "Vaultigeur" stuff as well as Les Bons. Things really speed up when Khader is tagged in against Sanniez. Sanniez makes no attempt to tone things down so as not to upstage Les Bons - in many respects he is still a Bon at this point and he and Caclard are a Pareja Incredible. The first time Caclard tries to reverse snapmares himself out of a Hassouni hammerlock, Khader just releases the hold and lets him crash but he pulls off the counter a few minutes later. Roca can do the Scisseaux Volees counter to armbars. So far no sin of the back somersault response to a top wristlock. Les Mechants double get nastier, both of them including Sanniez stomping Rocas and Hassouni dropkicking the pair of them out the ring, one foot each. Caclard seems to be the nastier of the two. Roca's gets a surfboard on Sanniez, the announcer calls it "un Pippon.". Les Bons double team Sanniez in their corner and even try tying the tag rope to his foot but he pulls out of it. The heels eventually strike a hot tag inasmuch as heels can. Hassouni still dominates Caclard but Caclard fight back better. Rocas gets the opener on Sanniez with a sunset flip despite Caclard's attempt at interference. Les Mechants get an extended period of dominance over Rocas with Sanniez stinging away with repeated dropkicks. While not tagged in he leaps the ropes to dropkick Roca's who is recovering from a posting, then holds the top rope to spring back outside to the ring apron. Caclard quickly drapes himself across Roca's for the equaliser and the crowd are FURIOUS. Caclard has a vicious heel Dynamite Kid look to him. The heels have some great double teams, Caclard holding Roca's in a full nelson for a Sanniez dropkick. Later when Hassouni has made the hot tag. Caclard gets dropkicked to ringside and gets into a fight with Delaporte and some other ringsiders who throw him in, lumberjack match style. Hassouni gets posted by Caclard but he backwards leapfrogs him and rolls him up in a folding press for the decider. It is, as OJ Says a very fast paced engaging bout, although it loses some shine as the heels take over and gain their heat. A good exhibition of the French style. Talking of TF1 and colour, this bout is in colour yet is supposed to be a TF1 broadcast from 1976? @Phil Lions please can you check and confirm if the transmission details the INA provide are correct? It's in a lot better quality than most of the other early INA colour recordings so it might be a rare transmission master rather than an off air recording like most of INA's colour stock. In which case possibly TF1 were already shooting some stuff in colour prior to Spring 1977 and were line-converting it to 819 line B/W for transmission. Perhaps they even did colour testing broadcasts like ITV and BBC1 did August-November 1969?

I never call babyfaces in America "Bons" or "blue eyes" or heels in America "Mechants". Although anyone who insists on calling babyfaces outside America "tecnicos" is digging their own grave if they ever use that term in reference to Ultimate Warrior, Uncle Elmer, Big Daddy, El Gigante ... 😆

Christmas 1985 at the Bremen Stadhalle on the last day of the Catch Cup and we have another misfit. Fit Finlay, back home one of the most hated villains, having watered with Marty Jones over the World Mid Heavyweight Championship and about to go into a big feud with Big Daddy climaxing in an FA Cup Final showdown, the second time he and Daddy have done this, is astonishingly on the good guys side. Now admittedly Steve Wright and Tony StClair are both long gone from Joint Promotions. Wright is over here rewriting the local style while Tony is mostly working for Orig Williams and Brian Dixon doing TV for both on S4C's Reslo and Screensport's Satellite Wrestling. But it's still pretty odd. Finlay is Irish and so is Rasputin on the other side (the proper one Johnny Howard, not the Raspoutine we saw on FR3 in 1982.) which may explain THE DJ playing old Irish drinking song No Nay Never at the start. (Howard was actually a student of Finlay's dad. ). Rasputin and Colonel Brody know Finlay only took well, all three are regulars on ITV wrestling. Guajaro is the unknown quantity, locally based his whole career. Finlay is indeed cheered by the German audience and does a Hulk Hogan style dear cupping routine as he gears up to face Brody. The Colonel had the size advantage getting some big throws on Finlay and using hairpulls. Finlay gets a great sunset flip which Brody counters by dragging him right through by the ears! Good guy Finlay is like a poodle having a fight with a Doberman. He eventually hits back with some kneedrops and Tony and Indio tag in, then Rasputin and Steve. From here it's just standard Brits in Germany. Wright dropkicks all three heels out of the ring. Rasputin goes to work on his trainer's son ith an elbowsmash, posting, slam , fistdrop and piledriver. Brody posts and butts him,But Finlay absorbs a posting, backwards leapfrogs and gets a front folding press for the opening fall. The villains work over Finlay in retribution. They triple cream him in their corner. Then they do the same to Tony and Steve. They beat Toby at ringside so badly that Rasputin gets a yellow card, but he soon pins Howard (apparently this is a best of 5 falls.). Finlay end up being ganged up on and falls to a Brody firemans carry suplrx to make the score 2-1. The heels are catching up! Finlay and Wright go to work on Indio, with Steve getting the flying tackle forces 3-1 win. Finlay, StClair and Wright leave as amigos but soon Finlay would bring Paula to Germany and became heel like in the UK. Finlay and Wright would have their CWA wars and in 1990, Finlay would win the (All Star) British Heavyweight Championship from StClair. ************** Quality is a bit ropey especially the colour signal which is mostly missing apart from a few flashes. At the end we get the introductions and opening moments of an Otto Wanz CWA title defence against Moondog Rex (which I've previously reviewed.)

By this time the Big Daddy formula was fully established although it took his war to shut Mighty John Quinn's mouth to really have Daddymania running wild. Daddy only gets involved briefly, most of this is Tony dealing with two brute heavyweight heels. Bruiser/Bully Boy Muir is a familiar enough piece of Daddy fodder. Bronco Wells had two notable headline matches, this one and earlier in '78 Kendo's first match as an unmasked wrestler in which Kendo totally dominated him (and the complained in his 2018 book that Wells was a lousy opponent..) StClair nicely levers out of a Muir headlock for starters Then when Muir gets a single leg into toe and ankle, Tony rolls out (anyone else think he was going to leg-throw Muir and make the big bald baddy somersault?). Muir gets a wristlever into armlock against the joint into hammerlock but Tony again rolls off with his arm in the hammerlock position. Disgusted, Muir tags Wells. He tries a cross armed grovit but StClair cartwheels out. Wells gets a hammerlock, takes Tony down in the mount, bars the other arm and turns Tony into the guard. and cross presses him for a pair of 1s. Tony cartwheels again beautifully from a Wells throw. Muir very reluctantly tags in (and he's not even facing Daddy.). Muir gets a wristlever but StClair rolls backwards then forward then back a bit and unpicks the hold with his foot and takes Muir's extended arm. Sadly Muir does not roll out - he goes for the ropes to force the break. Muir gets a bearhug but has to lift Tony up to get it on leaving a lot of his own back available for attack. Tony considers an elbowsmash to the shoulders but goes for pressure points and a series offour big Bionic Elbows to Muir's shaven skull. He gets his release on the third one and Muir collapses back in his corner, tagging Wells. So far, no sign of Big Daddy, but Tony is doing so well in this quasi handicap tag anyway. He gets full finger Interlock and fires a lean back dropkick off it. Wells is jumping with rage and Tony slapping him around doesn't make him feel any better. He gets dirty with a concealed illegal punch that floors Tony for four, a headlock on the ropes that has Daddy in and complaining and various illegal attacks on the prone Tony. Now StClair is fired up, he scores two mighty forearm smashes then tags Daddy. Wells tries to tag Muir who tries not to be tagged. In desperation they try a double team, each villain getting a top wristlock and for a while they do force him back into his corner, but Daddy overpowers both and sends them toppling. Wells then Muir then Wells take the bodycheck and they both flee outside. StClair tags in to lure the villains back as it looks like they will just plain vamoose. They don't fancy facing StClair either - Muir is down at ringside and Wells nearly joins him but Tony drags him back. Wells finally gets the heat back, getting in an illegal concealed punch and a legal kneelift before tagging Muir. He prematurely drags Tony off the mat and scores several blows of varying legality ending in a double team that again has Daddy complaining. Muir gets a side chancery throw then full nelson and smacks Tony's head in the corner. He gets a hairpull and another full nelson and tries another corner move but Tony reverses it and scores a dropkick. He absorbed a posting well and lunges for Muir's stomach but bounces off. Undettered, Tony gets double legs and a front folding press for the first fall! Muir avanges his "honour" with a quick concealed punch to the triumphant Tony, doubling him up. It earns him a public warning. Second fall. Tony is recovered enough to go. Muir still posts him, picks him up and posts him again so his back connects with Wells' fist in the corner pad. Wells gets a bunch of elbows against the cornered StClair which earn his team the Second And Final Public Warning. Wells continues the posting treatment but makes the mistake of posting Tony into his own corner. Tony uses Daddy's help to score a lean back dropkick then tags the big man in. A bodycheck, three postings, a side chancery throw and the Big Splash is what it takes to get the Second Straight. Daddy and StClair win 2-0. This is actually the second semifinal of a four team KO. Earlier, Giant Haystacks and Big Bruno Elrington beat Wayne Bridges and Lee Bronson to win the first semi and now it is is time for the final, but instead two towels come down. Just three months earlier Haystacks and Elrington had upset Daddy and Gary Sensor in what would be Daddy's last ever TV defeat. The big villains did face - and lose to - Daddy and StClair in December as the Xmas Big Daddy tag. Daddy's only in this for a minute or so, The rest is a rather interesting handicap tag of Tony StClair handling two big brutes.

It reeks of trendiness. It's something hip and fashionable to do in certain circles. Especially if you have other territories which have their own name for six man tag and someone calls it Trios in that context. I can understand someone saying six man tag if that's the only term they know but calling a Triple Tag Match off World of Sport or a Catch A Six off Antenne 2 in 1985 a "Trios" has a really snooty air to it.

Georges de Caunes (father of Antoine "Eurotrash" de Caunes) also did a lot of wrestling commentary for (O)RTF. You'll notice the programming titles are all French which underlines that this is RTSuisse the French language channel. All of these wre outposts of French TV wrestling rather than separate territories with separate TV shows. Northern Italy could well have gotten the RTS signal which is another example of overspill like being able to watch World Of Sport in the Netherlands or WOS and Reslo in the ROI. What's extra interesting is that Italian Catch died out in 1965 and except for occasional bursts of training school shows from those two brothers in Piedmont, stayed dark for 23 years until the WWF invaded in 1988 yet for 5 years 1965-1970 the North of Italy still had regular access to TV wrestling.

Tele Monte Carlo had the same 819 line format as ORTF 1er Chaise by the way. It went colour SECAM in 1973. No idea what picture format RTS the Swiss French language channel used. They went colour in 1968. I think all of these TV shows should be considered offshoots of the French scene. None of these places were large enough to be wrestling territories in their own rights. Incidentally if you had a good enough TV aerial, you could watch ITV complete with World of Sport in the Benelux countries. We went on holiday to the Hague (capital of the Netherlands) in August 1984 and stayed at the Bel Air Hotel and I got a PERFECT signal for the wrestling that Saturday (5pm Dutch local time) - there was a battle royal on. So being able to get a signal, even a perfect signal, does not equate to your territory being televised. Most of Ireland could get the signal for S4C and Reslo had a big enough following in Ireland for Orig Williams to follow in with live shows (he continued touring there until 2002, the final couple of years with WWF tribute shows.). The ROI could also get the ITV signal not just from the same HTV transmitter as S4C but also from ITV in Northern Ireland. But that's not the same as if RTE had got together with Fit Finlay's dad to produce their own local TV wrestling show airing out of Dublin.

It seems to be mostly populated by talent from the French territory - even people from elsewhere like Bert Royal spent a lot of time in France and did the TV there. I'm not surprised Monaco had a TV wrestling show. In theory Monaco is an independent principality, in practice it's just a rather posh town on the South coast (I went on a French language camp holiday in Cap D'Ailles in 1990 and we would hop on a coach up the road to Monaco to use their swimming pool.) not large enough to be a culture or a wrestling territory on its own, but given the wealth there it's not surprising that they had their own private TV station covering the South of France and North of Italy. It was one big business investment rather than a public service. Private stations owners from Ted Turner to Rupert Murdoch go for wrestling as easy cheap programming. So wrestling fit the bill for TV Monte Carlo.

We dedicated a good page or so earlier in the thread to the subject of heel refs in France (apparently imported from Austria and the Heumarkt in the late 70s). The disconcerting thing is that by the 80s the entire cadre of French referees seem to be a bunch of Danny Davises except Delaporte who is promoted as the heroic last uncorrupt sheriff in town. giving Les Mechants rough justice just like Martial would do in the 60s. The French HATE petty officialdom and expect the worst from train ticket inspectors, parking wardens, Les Gendarmes (there is a BIG problem with les flics in France, most of whom are signed up to a hard right wing police union) so wrestling referees apparently fall under that same category. In Britain, the IBA (regulator of ITV and other commercial broadcasting until the 90s) would not stand for such nonsense, insisting that referees were shown to be moral authorities in central of the action at all times. This permeated through to UK audience expectations of referees. They might be gullible enough to be suckered in to looking the wrong way by heels but they were forces for justice. Puny American referees who couldn't enforce rules were unacceptable.(I remember being shocked at age 12 in 1987 when a ref in a WWF Special was knocked down and the bout just went on and was not halted until the new ref srrived. Left to their own devices away from home, British wrestlers were keen to experiment with corrupt and miserable refs - viz Dalbir Singh, in against Haystacks in Zambia 1976, beating up the referee or Tony StClair, Steve Wright, Dave Taylor and Owen Hart all ganging up on Didier Gapp for spoiling their tag match at the Heumarkt.