David Mantell

Standard pitch the heels to ringside only with added wetness. Apart from their boots, the wrestlers are dressed for a swim anyway. Most swimming pool matches are just like normal matches only with a floating rather than a secured ring. *Shrug*

Der Henker (German for "The Hangman") was supposedly a German who had come West of the Rhine. In fact he was a Spaniard who have come north of three Pyrenees after travelling a fair bit else of the World - Oscar Verdu, aka Crusher Verdu, formerly in the WWWF under both Lou Albano and Tony Angelo. Still under his Henker hood, he would have a French Heavyweight title win in the early 80s. This run would last until 1974 at least, with Par Roach confronting him and Daniel Schmidt after an ill gotten consolation pin. Back in 1970, it's a slow moving bout with lots of waiting around in holds until Jacky's dad throws in lhe towel after a reverse piledriver. Jacky gets carried off, Pere Corne is interviewed (and refuses to face the camera) says his son was in no state to continue, blames the referee. Crowd are spitting heat at Der Henker, the Chiotte Arbitre and any other poor soul. Bout 2 is joined in progress, some selling noises and a knockout count and we fade up to the bout. Le Dec spends a long time on an arm extension on Mychell. LeDuc uses his toupee to get out of the hold. Mychell offers his hand but has an angry expression, or is that just his rest face? LeDuc does the toupee again twice in the more conventional cross scissor form that everyone else in France (and even a few Brits) did. Bert works Gilbert over with a bodyscissors. LeDuc tries a pin attempt and wristlock in the scissors but to no avail. He eventually drags his way out inch by inch like Johnny Saint. They then exchange Manchettes. Mychell gets a headscissors. Three times Le Duc tries to toupee out, The fourth and fifth times, he lands on his knees and escapes but Bert just puts the scissor back on. On the sixth go, Bert starts to pull him back, but Gilbert spins round into a cross press for a 2 count and they agree to try something else. Similar situations involving a standing full nelson, a Boston Crab and another bodyscissors which Mychell counters into a single leg toehold. That sort of thing. Skill but not speed. Audience claps respectfully. Action picks up a bit including three neat blockbuster supleex from Bert. A fourth is countered by a Le Duc side chancery. He goes for a pin but it ends up in the ropes and a Manchette battle breaks out. Bert flips LeDuc neck first into the ropes but he gets up at 4., puls out one more Manchette, goes for a slam and cross press for the pin. They hug and LeDuc offers Mychell a swig of his Perrier bottle. He partakes heavily. Apparently this was a World Light Heavyweight title bout, champion LeDuc is presented with the belt and a bouquet of flowers just like in title matches in Britain. Two fairly solid if not action packed bouts. Lutte Academique as the commentator on the Bert-Gilbert bout put it. Modern fans would probably slag these bouts off for their "lack of work rate." In theory I say to hell with them but in practice there were skil-and-speed merchants out their who leave the American "booo-ring" smart mark brigade without a leg to stand on. At least with these bouts the long running hols accusation does have some basic validity. I seem to recall Mychell was on World Of Sport a couple of years later, I shall have to look it up.

Four Brits, one German and one American. Wright. Taylor and StClair, as we know, have previous with Diddier Gapp and decide to start winding him up. Wright starts dancing with him during inspection of fingernails, StClair actually gooses him! Gapp gets it worse from the heels however who trip him up and later on give him a painful looking crotch shot. Fast past but stylistically unremarkable five falls Triple Tag. Wright has the two most memorable moments - he gets the middle fall on Colonel Brody while Brody is distracted by a ringside fight and he also does a version of Vic Faulkner's "Cease!" distraction trick.

I get the impression it was just something fans and the general public in France took for granted. I wonder if they also did boxing in floating rings?

Bob says "faut savoir nager" ("Must know how to swim") I've mentioned to him your dislike of swimming pool matches. We'll see if he gives any insights.

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.