David Mantell

I've just remembered I have this on my wall, which I bought from Camden Market in London some years ago. Anyone know the back story?

The Saint-Prince match was like that except Saint dominated and Prince was the comedy heel getting stroppy at being made a fool of. Saint was better mixing his style with another master technician to create scientific classics with no distractions. Like combining two soup flavours. Being the moral counterpart to a heel was a distraction.

How NOT to use Johnny Saint! Courtesy of Germany's VdB, 1987 (You can tell it's Germany what with the gong instead of a bell and the DJ between rounds.) And I'm not just talking about Brody's attempt at the end to outdo fellow "South African" Col De Beers - (incidentally the former UK Magnificent Maurice and the former WWWF Polish Prince crossed paths in Germany quite a bit, indeed I think Ed W got the idea off Shaun B.) Saint gets in a few of his tricks but is mostly used as a kicking bag to get the bigger dirtier wrestler some heat. It's a pity because German audiences very much got the point of Johnny Saint as you can tell from the Johnny chant and some other German JS bouts I've seen. Brody could be a much better wrestler than this too - check out his 1991 Eurosport match with Owen Hart.

Some more Finlay - Interesting shoot interview with the then Carl Wallace of Double Trouble mainly focusing on Finlay and also on other British stars of the time. I thought about posting it to the French Catch thread as I'd just posted a New Catch DT match from France against two Old Catch stars (Flesh Gordon and Franz Van Buyten) but the content has more to do with this thread and besides which Karl/Carl/Pierre says Double Trouble worked for All Star (which I don't recall but in those post TV years it could be patchy what you did or didn't know about. and indeed namechecks Brian Dixon.

By the way, that's an awfully large amount of page space that one half hour solitary tag bout gets in that TV listings magazine. Half a page. About the same as the size of the panel in TVTimes's listings for a Saturday afternoon for a full five hour edition of World Of Sport (not just the wrestling slot but the On The Ball football analysis, the horse racing, the International Sports Special, any oddball sports features and the football results/pools numbers). All this for a wrestling show in the same length and timeslot as ITV's midweek late evening wrestling show, except that would typically have two bouts in the same amount of time. In fact the level of printed hype mostly resembles a major championship boxing match on 1990s ITV on a Saturday night in the same timeslot ("The Big Fight Live" with Gary Newbon.) Which seems to suggest to me that a wrestling TV broadcast certainly at this point was still a big deal in France.

Nice Andre docu interview. Backing music is dodgy Eurovision song, written by Serge Gainsborg, sung by France Gall about being a singing Dolly. (They later did a song together about lollipops. You work it out.)

Interestingly both these bouts were were on Channel 1. The 1971 bout you can see from the listing above. In the case of the December 1977 Zarak Bordes match the female continuity announcer is in front of a backdrop covered in old school TF1 logos, I still reckon TF1 wrestling was rare as the channel was in b/w until 1977 so one would expect at least a few B/W bouts for 1975-1977 unless this was a rarity. It's filmed in a very different style from normal, overhead from a balcony looking down on the ring. The ORTF was broken up at the start of 1975 and channels 1, 2 and 3 became TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3, each run independently of each other, so perhaps this is a one off. I've already reviewed the 1971 bout three pages back. If it was in b/w that's a pity, I hope as many as possible of the 1967-1974 bouts were on Channel 2 in colour with recoverable chroma dots. Rewatching the 1971 bout it too is shot in an unusual style with a lot of use of a camera angle corner-wise on to the ring, so maybe this was a rarity too. Zarak was in a simpler red/orange costume/mask in 77 but still the same strutting arrogant masked man The commentator admits that he is a British living in Paris because he likes the air of the place. Fast action packed bout suddenly ends in a draw. For some reason the audience and Bordes think he's won it and get stroppy when it is indeed a draw.

This reminds me a lot of masked wrestlers in Joint Promotions in the mid 80s like The Emperor (Bill Bromley), Battle Star (Barry Douglas) or El Diablo (Tony Francis). He's a fellow Brit so it makes sense. Bigger dominant masked man brutalises clean wrestler to get a win and heat. If this was Britain, they be warrming him up nicely for Big Daddy. But it isn't, Zarak was a well established masked man and it wasn't even the first time Bordes had faced him. Chants for Bordes "Mama-doux mais mais" and for an unmasking "Hey hey la Cagoule" merge and become inseperable. We've discussed already the role of the heel ref in French Catch from the late 70s onwards, suffice to say almost all refs except Delaporte were basically Dangerous Danny Davis, especially Michel Saulnier and Otto Weiss.

Apparently this was Flesh Gordon's TV debut, (broadcast the same month as Hulk Hogan's first WWF match. funnily enough.) Herve is anything but flash here, plain mint green trunks and pudding bowl haircut, working down on the mat despite his lunch background, very little escaping other than one nice cartwheel. Ramirez wears a matador's jacket to the ring which marks him as the heel - if Tito Santana ever wore his El Matador getup on an FFCP Catch show, it would massive heat for him. Herve gets a second public warning for stomping a fallen opponent and pleads his case to the audience - if this was England, the crowd would be booing him and Kent Walton would be excusing him for not knowing the British rules. Lots of arguments between Herve and referee Saulnier. It ends on a countout but even then Saulnier seems to change his mind and the audience give him heat.

Like Kent Walton said, some tag bouts are good wrestling and some degenerate into fights. This was more the latter. It was from the same Bedworth TV taping as the match where Nagasaki hypnotised Brookside and was probably on last to send the crowd home happy. (It was also the final All Star bout on ITV - after this there was a WWF episode, one last Joint Promotions episode headlined by Pat Roach Vs Caswell Martin and then The Final Bell. Reportedly this episode was briefly in question as the IBA were none too happy about said hypnotism angle.) Although a slug- and punch it does have nice opening and equalising scores - Jones's folding press and Murphy 's gator. The folding press does create some problems for later in the bout - Murphy's DQ should have been the decider (if his gator counted) or the second straight if it didn't, so why the extra session? South gets DQd also to make it 3-1 apparently! Having said that Murphy throws a great Disqualified Heel strop afterwards threatening to hospitalise Jones next time they meet, almost as good as McManus in the Saint match. South and Jones would meet again a decade later with the crowd on the other side as the Legend Of Doom beat Jones (who went arrogant heel in 1992) for the World Mid Heavyweight Championship May 1999 at Bristol's Colston Hall.

One slight snag with the above. This also had a decent if not gigantic crowd and it's from 2003 (FFCP, starring an older Marc Mercier.) Correction, it was IWSF. The FFCP was not revived until 2006, Marc Mercier was still buddies with Flesh and Jacky back then. I assume IWSF also promoted Le Petit Prince's retirement match in 2001 against Claude Rocas.

Ah, I was wondering who this Rick Hunter was. I guessed he would have some Don Owen linage if he was from Portland (it's not the sort of thing that would have occurred to him, I doubt he knew about Owen or PNW beyond anything Hunter had told him about his local scene back home.)

OK I'll be honest, I hadn't spotted that either on first viewing so that makes two of myself and Kent. I'll have to check up on Martin Conroy's claim at the end that McManus had been "doing that for years." (how many good guys would be on their second and final for that to work for a heel like Mick? ) I'd still say it's structured like how a DQ finish should be, the fouling gradually building to a crescendo where the heel has proved himself/herself utterly incompliant with the rules due to being utterly out wrestled and you can see that same structure in the Haystacks vs Rasputin and Haystacks & Daddy Vs Viedor and Szackacs matches I posted in that other thread quoted above. UPDATE: Nothing in Tony Earnshaw's late 70s book to say if McManus had pulled similar stunts in previous bouts.

The discussion about DQs was here on page 5 of the "Why is America always assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread. Posted November 22, 2023 As for DQs, done the right way it can be very satisfying to see the heel sent packing in disgrace on a third public warning: Current MC Laetitia Dixon-Allmark is particularly good at this - I have seen her lead All Star audiences in chants of "OUT! OUT! OUT!" at DQ'd and protesting heels.

Can't find a review of this bout but I do remember quite a bit of discussion about DQ finishes on here. How to do a disqualification finish properly and leave the public happy. * Have the blue eye dominate until the villain has to resort to dirty wrestling * Have the heel gradually get penalised for their fouls * One last nasty foul to finally top it off * Once DQd the baddie has to throw a strop like John McEnroe and really work the crowd into a jeering frenzy. Like the Finlay match. it's not the best possible use for Johnny Saint but it's a great vehicle for the heel, whether they get away with it (Finlay) or get a comeuppance (McManus).

The difference is that Italy and Spain's Old School scenes had died out in 1965 and 1975 respectively whereas (International) Wrestling Stars (Federation) has roots going back to 1979 and its top headliners were not ex -WWFers but Trad French old timers who first made their name on terrestrial TV- Monsieur Jacky (TV debut 1971) Flesh Gordon (TV debut 1979) Prince Zefy (TV debut 1985-1987). About their next biggest stars at that time were Scott Rider (around by the 1990s) and masked men Cybernic Machine and Bad Mask who followed in the Delaportesque tradition of Les Piranhas, Mambo Le Primitiv and Les Maniaks (and whose names were broken English). Survivors of the old days or else new stars built in the tradition of that later period. It was the same in old school Britain by the late Noughties - the biggest stars of All Star, RBW and Premier were ITV 1980s veterans Robbie Brookside, Drew McDonald, Karl Kramer, Blondie Barrett, Keith Myatt, Steve Prince, Steve Grey, Mal Sanders and Johnny Kidd were still sporadically around) early 90s wonderkid James Mason and the Hanley crowd (Dean Allmark, Robbie Dynamite, Mikey Whiplash etc) who had started with the dubious GBH in 2000 before being retrained from scratch by All Star's veteran crew and going on to dyed in the wool neo Old School careers. All Star in the UK and WS/IWSF in France are fairly similar companies except the French one (or its Belgian affiliate) seems to have had some more TV post-1980s along the way, although details are sketchy. (But apart from my memory of seeing it advertised online, Marc Mercier mentions them getting TV in that feature article on the French scene I posted on here months back.)

One slight snag with the above. This also had a decent if not gigantic crowd and it's from 2003 (FFCP, starring an older Marc Mercier.)

Fair enough. It makes more sense than El-P's suggestion that it's a simple case of the circus coming to town and attracting a big audience through sheer novelty. All Star's post TV boom in Britain was given a similar shot in the arm through the WWF/WCW boom while the still considerable popularity of Trad British wrestling in turn smoothened the way for the American boom far more effectively than the popularity of the US territories could pave the way for the WWF's original 80s WWF boom. Now if we can just find an explanation of how Wrestling Stars or the IWSF as it then was drew that hefty looking house, mostly kids and teenagers by the looks of it, in FYR Macedonia - and what it was being filmed for ... One clue we have is that there WAS some sort of TV show relating to IWSF's Belgian affiliate Eurostars. I know this because I remember seeing their website in the Noughties.

Bump - check those audiences out. Pretty big for a "dead" scene. I'd still love to know what TV outlets Eurostars had even in France/Belgium to start with, (let alone FYR Macedonia)

Anyway, that was October 1989. Getting away with talking Old School French Catch. A few months either side of Roger Delaporte retiring from promoting with all his old talent on New Catch and accessible to any UK TV Set capable of getting the WWF on Sky. They did have to put on All Star versus WWF Jobbers as dark match or two on the same British shows. Pity they didn't have similar employment laws in France to get Flesh, Jacky, Jessy, Zefy etc some work at the Bercy. Clearly Guy Mercier didn't think of that when he got the Catcheurs intermittent worker status and all their other rights.

Dug around in cupboard under stairs. No luck. Checked YouTube. Match not on there. Dug some more in cupboard. Found it. VHS player still working. Zipped through Snuka matches, checked out Hart/Bravo from the first ever WWF show, zipped through HH promoting NHB in Brussels. Stopped at Hayes in front of a greenscreened Eiffel Tower. Hayes says he's going to tell us about Paris and some of his old haunts and the stories about Paris he CAN tell us (as opposed to the ones he can't because Rebel Ray Hunter is not under a Legends contract and neither are Delaporte and Bollet ...) Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Notre Dame etc. Quasimodo gets a mention so that's one catcher namechecked. Similar guide to London - Buck House, the same Parliament stock footage used for Summerslam 92. The Axeman from the Pallos 1991 video gets a mention. Goes into a profile of Jimmy Hart. FFWD ... Ah here we go. People who complain about Flesh Gordon and his Dolly Birds, at least FG's DBs don't wear Silly Wigs like Vince's ones do. (Although given what we now know about Vince, a Silly Wig or two might be useful for keeping their hair clean.) Silly Wig girls carry placards. Raymond looks like Finlay with that tache and mullet. Even . Gorilla mentions the wigs. A year earlier Akeem 's Silly Wig girl had a placard with his slave name One Man Gang on it. Hayes reckons there are 30K in Bercy. Hayes says the Frnch people know their wrestling, they "haven't changed since WE used to wrestle there 20 years ago" (1969 was the year Gorilla turned babyface and aligned with Bruno in the WWF. Not sure if Hayes was in America by then.) Hayes mentions the Palais de Sport (sic) which sounds like a mashup of the Cirque d'Hiver and the Elysée Montmartre. Gorilla says the promoter at PDS was a bit dodgy. Alex Goldstein Phil has already vouched for. Name checking Edouard Carpentier was as natural for Gorilla as name checking the Bulldogs, Regal, Adams etc was natural for Americans a few decades younger challengesd to name British wrestlers. The one(s) who made it in America. Lazy really. Some vague mention of Les Flics. Generic play by play..Heel heat, false tag, hot tag to Marty. Jimmy interference, Rockers win, back to the studio to introduce DiBiase's first match with Blade RunnerRock in nearly 4 years. Okay, thanks for giving me an excuse for checking the VHS player still works.

(I'm looking for that wonderful word Francochard or whatever that El-P used earlier in the thread, but not having much luck.) I'll dig out my VHS copy of World Tour 1990 and have a listen myself and let you know exactly what Gorilla said.

One more Finlay match. As I've said, Finlay's brutalising ways over smaller opponents soon caught the attention of Joint Promotions ' ultimate neutraliser of heels who starred turning up at the end of Finlay's early 1986 TV matches to issue challenges just as he did with Haystacks a couple of years earlier. The blowoff, as I mentioned, came in Cup Final Day 1986 Finlay doesn't get the Big Splash and he astonishingly gets up from the (legit dangerous) Double Elbow backdrop which Bret Hart says Max C would pay opponents bonus money to take. He also kips up nearly from a Daddy bodycheck although Daddy manages to distract Finlay so that Collins can get a fall.. In the end Finlay gets the nearest thing to a table bump you could get away with on ITV, landing on top of Kent Walton 's monitors, leaving Daly to take the Daddy Splash. Amusing but to look out for - out of the ring fighting was NOT tolerated in Britain especially not on ITV at this point (the Kendo/Myers ladder match deliberately contains some "American style" ringside fighting to soften viewers and the iBA up for the WWF specials.) and so referee and former Barons tag team member with Ian Gilmour on both sides of the Channel, Jeff Kaye goes out to restrain Daddy and ends up riding around on his back!

Been rewatching this one and noticed something about the ring. I think it's actually an old school Catch ring as seen on earlier TV with a nice new white ring apron and matching Cushions De Protection covering over the old red strappy CDPs Bernard Marionnaud (as named on the ring aprons) was a Fermnch perfumer. That's his company's emblem on the CDPs. Interesting choice of sponsor for a "vulgar" "plebian" sport, but there you go.

The CWA as Wanz and Willhelm cannibalised it out of the IBV always was a heavyweight territory (like Paul Lincoln Promotions or like the whole of American Wrestling come to that) which restricted Finlay 's scope to do his Bully angle but on the plus side made him work harder technically. It's good to see The Finlays try their double act out in a different territory. Notably they get to do their spot, banned by ITV, where Paula accidentally slaps FF when the double teamed opponent moves out of the way. I like the bit between rounds where he starts doing bodybuilding poses while she is fanning him off with a towel. Only a pity we don't have Orig Williams's English commentary on here "a MMMMOVE for a MMMMOVE!!!" etc. Also it's on there that Orig claims Charlie Verhulst as Zrno's trainer which was queried on the French Catch thread by @Indikator who said it was Michael Ujevic.