David Mantell

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Jacky Richard's hair is cropped short in that bout - had he lost a hair Vs hair match recently?

@Matt D's Video says September 8th 1980 but Bob Plantin just posted a poster on his FB group saying Jan 24th. I know it was not unknown for French or British TV to leave matches in the can for months before airing them but eight months is quite a gap. Or was 24th Jan an earlier TV match INA didn't record? (If so, it was the same venue, Cazal says it's the Cirque d'Hiver early on.)

Like I've said before. what we need is a French version of @JNLister. There probably is one- fans there like fans everywhere else doubtless kept records and lists. Possibly one made it online and just needs to make it across the language barrier.

Been reading some of @JNLister's essays on his site. I particularly liked this one on the Mountevans Rules. I'll only post a link for now but if it's OK, John I'd love to copy and paste it across. https://johnlisterwrestling.com/british-wrestling-rules-the-fight-network-2007/

Okay another Van Buyten match to bridge the gap between 1971 and 1991ish. It's got a childhood favourite heel of mine Lev Grand Vladimir whom I remember seeing on World of Sport aged 6 in 1990. The YouTube clip gets off to a bad start with a smirky looking female continuity announcer. When I was 14 in 1988 and would sneak out to the lounge at 4am Thursday night/Friday morning to watch WWF Challenge, nothing made me go more postal than the female nighttime continuity announcer who took the urine and assumed her audience were just watching for cheap laughs. The mark of a network licking its chops at kicking wrestling off air in a few months. Anyway I digress .. Strogoff and Vladimir together mind me of Vladimir's tag team with Mal Stuart in Blighty two years later, which went down in defeat to Big Daddy and Sammy Lee with the future Tiger Mask getting most of the limelight for once. Franz and Ivan had a rather brawly previous singles bouts about a year earlier. Daniel his no moustache and a fringe haircut, he reminds me a bit of Tarzan Johnny Wilson's less colourful brother and tag partner in the Flying Wilson Brothers, Peter Wilson. Oh yes and it's Les Bons' lucky day, referee is Roger Delaporte. Vladimir is a lot more agile than his partner - or Gastel or the DTs - and really bumps around the ring. Daniel handles the one and only flying scissors of the. match. He goes a bit wild stomping his opponent in retribution for earlier beating down on Franz, which Delaporte treats compassionately " allowing for retaliation" as Kent Walton would say.. It all ends, as OJ says, with a brawl outside the ring and a DDQ although Delaporte changes his mind in the end and gives the brothers the win. It seems that the Van Buytens had a definite type of opponent over the decades, big lurking Mechants for them to be the heroes against. A flip through Alessio's 1970-1987 playlist seems to confirm this, singles bouts with Vladimir and Strogoff, another bruier heel in Karl Schneider, then in the 1980s Bob "UFO" Dellaserra Frank Merckx (who reminds me of Randy Colley) and John Harris. (Canadians UFO and Harris were almost an earlier version of fellow Canadians Double Trouble.). Only aging arrogant heel Jacques Latasserre stands out from the pack. At the end it cuts straight to the main evening news bulletin showing again why I think the 10:30pm timeslot wasn't all that bad.

Worth examining the subject of continuity in France as a pro wrestling territory by winding back to this 1971 bout from INA's stock of overseas sales films. It's got another familiar face in here, Robert Gastel "Le Bourreau de Batignol" ( the. Batignol Beheader) the big badass heel we saw tagging with Fred Magnier before. It's a very American friendly matchup - handsome muscular babyface Vs big hulking brute heel, again in his skull/crossbones jacket that would make the World Riot Squad proud. With his tache and physique. Van Buyten reminds me of the young babyface Don Muraco in the AWA around this time. The commentators actually call Gastel the smaller and more "effete" man!!! FVB is already doing the same Scisseaux Volees takedown he did 20 years later with Double Trouble., leading into quite a long sequence of headscissors. Gastel does a brave job resisting the takedown, briefly out of it like a lighter man and briefly hints and levering out from underneath before eventually going for the rope escape (this does not get the mind of HEAT it would get in England if a heel used he cheap way and bottled out of escaping/reversing/countering a hold that way.) Buyten gets the scissor back on again (the commentator claims the headscissors is a Belgian speciality LOL.) Gastel tried for a pint and Van Buyten uses an amazingly high bridge to avoid it. A real strength bout. The crowd seem to like this chanting "Ahhhh OUI Ahhhh OUI "for Van Buyten to tighten up the hold and make Le Merchant scream. Gastel DOES get to rope-related hear when he uses them for leverage. Gastel the former army boxing champion eventually cuts loose with closed fist punches asnd the odd headbutt, earning himself his first Avertisement (public warning.) Van Buyten has had enough, Hulks up and delivers a long string of postings and four body slams (the first of which he visibly struggles with) and several near knockout counts before getting the cross press for the win. Initial verdict, this would have made a solid late 80s WWF match, say Dino Bravo and Ken Patera. Further reflection- there is an odd continuity between Gastel and Double Trouble as opponents - big bulking brawling Mechants all three of them.

Okay, I've been a good boy long enough, time for some Eurosport New Catch! Featuring a survivor of the days before INA opened its doors in 1975 and started taping matches in colour off air, plus a future WWF superstar with a glittering Gold future ahead of him. Audience seems pretty darn good for a supposedly dying territory, interesting to see the use of coloured light on the crowd, a thing WWE goes in for nowadays. Nice reminder from Franz Van Buyten at just past six minutes when he does that most Catch Francais of reversals, the Scisseaux Volees takedown in response to an armbar. Brits would just use a simple roll on the mat to untwist an armbar - or maybe a cartwheel for real showoffs like Dynamite Kid or Danny Boy Collins, (who was a BIG favourite with French crowds at this time as there is New Catch footage to prove, just a pity we don't have some Old Catch 1986/1987 FR3 footage of him defending his European Welterweight title on Delaporte shows.) Double trouble are no more scientific than most roided Americans of the period but looks impressive. Somewhere out there Max Crabtree was watching on a Sky Astra box or a naughty VHS copy, licking his chops at the idea of booking these two for Ring Wrestling Stars and letting Big Daddy loose on them. By contrast Flesh (bulkier than his high flying whippersnapper days with Walter "Pappa Doux" Bordes but not yet the tubby bald moustachioed Flesh of the Noughties/Tenties) is prepared to sell for Double Trouble and take some bumos unlike Daddy. There's a hint of Aux Chiottes L'Arbitre from the crowd when he gets a yellow card and also of his latterday DQ losses when he and Franz are counted out, although rather than beat up Double Trouble, the ref and anyone else in sight, F and F crouch down and wail about their loss like a pair of bluesmen.

There have been similar debates in Britain for decades about whether the BBC should have adverts. BBC News 24 does have them outside the UK - here in Britain while they are on we get a whirring countdown clock over corporate news footage of BBC jounos out in the field. Also many 1960s shows like Doctor Who and Steptoe And Son have two or three fades to black in them where overseas broadcaster showing bicycled 16mm kinescopes of the shows could pause playback to run an advert break or two. Two channels meant wrestling in colour from at least December 1967 with the hair match (possibly October, the show with Peter Maivia was on channel 1 but there might have been some unknown broadcast on 2 between times) which for us means just the one colour bout January 1969 but the possibility of chroma dot restoration some day for dozens of other bouts Dec 1967-1974 if INA will spend the money.

Happens all the time with the TV Licence over here. ORTF started screening adverts in the late 50s. To be fair, it's been pretty difficult working out when the last match was because there was no real French version of Greg Dyke who made quite a production number of killing off ITV Wrestling, holding a big press conference at a Swiss media fair to announce it. New Catch started with some preview episodes in 1988 on TF1 the former Channel 1 which was privatised 1987. New Catch moving to Eurosport in 1988>1989 was the French equivalent of The Final Bell on ITV December 1988. However, Old Catch as such ended quietly on the FR3 networki n November 1987.

Clwyd never got another ITV match but was a staple of Reslo going through the late 80s and early 90s (before splitting his time between heel Gary B Ware and clown Dunk). He was often the blue eyed boy in peril tagging with heavier good guys like Boston Blackie and promoter Orig "El Bandito" Williams against top heels like Finlay or even The Superflies with Saraya (Senior) managing (I've already posted them facing Clwyd and visiting French mega- Bon Flesh Gordon), but here he is taking on Tony Stewart, seen on the last page against Danny Collins and later holder of the British Lightweight title holder and delivered of a strange quasi shoot interview about his training regime involving digging up the sand with a plank of wood. "Boy wrestling" was just an accepted staple of the UK and probably the entire European business and remains so today in promotions like Rumble. It's Wales Vs Ireland so Ireland, in the form of Stewart, gets some crowd heat at the start from the partisan Welsh crowd, but still keeps it clean in a nice fast paced little bout. Some excellent folding presses here. Bout gets cut short when Clwyd gets caught by the neck in the ropes. The tape cuts out but presumably Stewart refused the TKO and it was a no contest (which won't make OJ happy) but the two shake hands which makes the crowd happy and ready to forgive Stewart. On other occasions, the two would tag up. The S4C signal could be easily received in Southern and Eastern Republic of Ireland, so we'll that Orig regularly toured with the stars of Reslo, even beyond 1995 and into the early Noughties with a WWF tribute bill until he took ill and had to retire in about 2002. No idea what Irish viewers made of the anti-Tony faction in the audience. Clwyd seems to have been content with his Young Welsh National Hero big fish in small pond status. He clocked up some 14 Reslo appearances. Maybe if the show had continued beyond 1995 he might have replaced Orig himself as top blue eye. Apparently he had a good long career retiring in 2010. Bainbridge's last recorded bout was November 1990.

Bainbridge at 16 in the middle of his first title feud with Jim Breaks. As I mentioned earlier, Bainbridge actually took that European Lightweight title from Breaks a couple of times. Against Clwyd, PB only had to (jointly) put on an exhibition of skill - here he has to take on some psychology as hero to Breaks's villain. He gets the crowd on his side early putting a Breaks Special on Breaks himself, even leading them in a clap as the crowd get excited, selling and getting tortured by Breaks, being the poor boy in trouble against the hated villain, then coming back with a neat pinfall by reversing a standing full nelson and rear body checking Breaks into the ropes then tripping and folding him for the opener and nearly getting a straight second while Breaks is distracted in a row with a young Lee Bamber (a familiar face on more modern clips I've posted here). All the more traditional functions of a blue eye/babyface. Kent Walton sums it up "Bainbridge has learned a heck of a lot about this business since we saw him last year." Breaks got his heat back by illegally tangling Bainbridge's arm in the ropes to soften it for a Breaks Special equaliser and again (after a desperate defensive burst by Bainbridge) again for a decider and a heat-seeking taunt from Breaks. Other times it was Bainbridge who was successful - he won and lost that title from Breaks on three occasions 1987-1988. Middle of the bill bout on next was one of Clive Myers and Steve Grey's many clean matches over the years(I think I've alre Ady reviewed one), which underscores what I was saying about the role of clean matches to create a scientific utopia for heels to be the serpents in. Bainbridge only got one other match in front of ITV cameras and it didn't air - a no contest (possibly another double knockout like with Clwyd) in December 1987 in West Bromwich against Peter Collins, at this point the "College Boy" big brother of Danny Boy, but later a mega heel of the late 90s early 00s as Mr Vain. From what I can see on 1987 posters, PB and PC were quite frequent opponents in 1987. Bainbridge has been promoting his own shows as South West Wrestling (SWW) in, as the same suggests, the South West of England. He's a bigger burlier guy with a long biker-type beard these days.

Whose definition of "not ready" is that? They had both mastered one specific element of the overall package and could give a good show of that element, in a territory where that element was particularly valued. They were capable of having a serious sporting bout and impressing with their technical skills. They served their purpose in that regard. They weren't main eventing, but they weren't an amusement like midget wrestling either. They were a calm section of the overall package that underscored the sporting nature of the overall presentation. Like any other clean match.it provided a blue eye/babyface Utopia which it would be up to the (minority in the UK of) heels to then disrupt, later in the evening.

New young talent was always part of the solution. Everyone across Europe was saying that in the 70s/80s/90s. See Roger Delaporte's comments in that book on the French Catch thread. That's why Fin Martin of Powerslam was so keen on Hammerlock in 1993/1994, he wanted to divert young kids away from the Traditional British Wrestling scene in the hope it would kill it off. The mid/late 80s was a blossom period for teenage whizzkids rookies in the UK. At the time the only two breakout rookies in France were Prince Zefy and Yann Caradec. There was a few years' gap in the late 90s for young talent. You had Darren Walsh, Tony Stewart, the "three Js" - James Mason, Jason Cross, Justin Hansford/Starr. Then a quiet period for a few years until 2001 when the Hanley crowd- Dean Allmark, Robbie Dynamite (Berzins), Mikey Whiplash (Gilbert), Playboy Johnny Midnight, Kid Cool - all pop up on the scene in the fallout from the dodgy New School "Great British Hardcore" promotion which Hanley Council banned, and the veterans retrained them into Traditional British wrestlers and they became the backbone of All Star in the 2000s and 2010s.

Well yes, I get the context because I lived through it. And I can safely say that in Britain in 1987 bouts like Bainbridge Vs Clwyd were not considered the problem. Big Daddy tags were considered the problem, if anything was. Obviously for Greg Dyke, any and all wrestling was the problem, including Hulk Hogan. Purists were out there and their numbers supplemented by people whom Kent Walton made feel kind of guilty about themselves for not being purists.

Another point about Kent Walton - the clean technical British style is a play by play commentator's dream come true and it gave him plenty of scope to be analytical and scrutinizing in a way that a typical WWF match would not and that even most US territories would struggle to match. Being the quasi-serious sportscaster was a preferable alternative to poking snooty intellectual fun like French commentators did or lower brow pub comedian fun like the two commentators on Screensport 1985-1986 did or just being a shill like the American commentators (or like some modern UK commentators like Alex Shane or Aaron Nix who comment in the general style of Ben Elton). The purist crowd, especially in earlier times, also included those fans and practitioners of legit Lancashire Catch Wrestling who watched - and sought gainful employment from - show wrestling as a second best option to legit Prize Grappling. As I've said in the past, when Kent was on his pulpit like the "Beware Too Much Showmanship Could Ruin Wrestling" article in World Of Sport annual 1979, he was singing from basically the same hymn sheet as no nonsense Wigan Snakepit alumni like Ernie Riley (son of Billy) and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore in the 1989 First Tuesday The Wigan Hold docu on Riley's Gym.

The purists existed (and all three of Kendo, Rocco and Finlay knew how to work purist if need be) and like I said Teenage Boy Wrestling was enough of A Thing to have survived to 2024. TBW was solely clean sporting matches, there were never really any TBW heels. Occasionally a promising TBWer would be put up against someone like Johnny Saint and make a good impression getting a consolation fall before going down 2-1 and Saint and the TBWer would shake hands. (See also Danny Collins Vs Tony Stewart further up this page, with an early twenty something Collins now graduated to the role of veteran helping give the rub to the young star.) Even if it wasn't most fans' preferred tipple, it was considered necessary to have these bouts for the sake of sporting credibility. In any case, the existence of TBW didn't in any way assist Greg Dyke in his quest to eliminate all Saturday afternoon wrestling and put something more yuppie-friendly on to make American advertising execs happy to pay for advert spots for expensive cars during those timeslots. Otherwise there would have been a Black Saturday type situation instead of the wholesale pulling of wrestling from ITV (apart from non syndicated 4am weekday screenings of year old WWF tapes that fell below Dyke's radar).

I did specify "in pure terms of scientific technical skill" and I would stand by it being self-obvious that even at that young age Clwyd and Bainbridge's respective repertoires of clever escapes/reversals/counters were vastly in advance of Hogan's or even Orton's just as Hulk and Bob's knowledge of crowd psychology were light years ahead of what Peter or Geraint's would ever be (and as for TV promos, I doubt either GC or PB ever cut one in their lives.) Also even if fans really preferred seeing Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks or earlier on McManus and Pallo, they were subjected - and pretty receptive - to the message pumped by Kent Walton that they should learn to appreciate clean scientific bouts and would be better more cultured more sophisticated wrestling fans if they did learn. Like tuning in to the late John Peel 's radio show and hearing him play some eclectic art-rock record and be lectured by him that this was proper good music even if all the casual listeners wanted was to hear the current pop hits.

I think there's a difference between reactions to that bout. British fans steeped in the traditional British style don't malreact to bouts like that. It's a different, not a defective, way of doing the business, made for different societies with different expectations of what a wrestler should be. (Even Jim Cornette is generally careful to include disclaimers over geography and history when criticising lighter wrestlers like Marko Stunt.) Matches like Clwyd vs Bainbridge here or 1978 Davey Boy Smith Vs Bernie Wright or Nipper Eddie Riley Vs Ian McGregor 1984 or Kid McCoy Vs Ritchie Brooks 1988 or even 1984 Owen Hart Vs Steve Logan MK2 are still a thing to this day- check out any number of modern bouts involving the Bryant brothers from Rumble that I've posted on here. Also the concept of work rate is predicated on the idea of rest holds and the hold designated "rest holds" in American Wrestling lore do not serve this purpose in British Wrestling, instead being set ups for the next clever/graceful escape or reversal. Traditionally the round breaks provided he rest element - nowadays when wrestlers want a breather they start cheerleading the crowd. In France Saulnier and Prince did have to pause in side headlocks on the mat because they did not have round breaks.

Personally I think that in pure terms of scientific technical skill it's self evident that even at that early age Clwyd and Bainbridge could wipe the floor with Orton let alone Hogan. And for fans like me who were educated by Kent Walton on what our wrestling tastes should be, that was the deciding factor. Also the overall look of WWF matches like Hogan Vs Orton was a relatively recent development due to Dick Ebersol's work on SNME, and late period ITV still could run rings around most Studio Wrestling from most US territories at the time and the five years or so before. Also to be honest the phrase "teenage boy wrestling" seems to imply that there was something perverse about bouts like that. I'm sure they had their share of gay male fans - and certainly hetero female fans - but nobody even remotely thought of bouts like that as some sort of twisted erotic novelty. They were just fine sporting contests between promising young stars getting their first push. Bouts like that were the most thoroughly sports-presentation pro wrestling I've ever seen. They happen in 2024 and older fans remember 1980s bouts like this are pleased to see that it is still a thing nowadays and the six year old kids learn from their elders how to react to this sort of match and clap along to the good moves and good sportsmanship.

Montopolos really is growing on me, a fast nimble lightweight of a type common to 60s France - see also P.Prince and M. Saulnier (although all three also visited Britain and appeared on ITV 1965-1970, as indeed did Andre). Duranton 's "valet" (in the Virgil sense, not the Missy Hyatt sense) is called Firmin, he's basically Marquis Jacky Richard's butler Paul Butard 15 years ahead of time. I recall seeing a spectator invade the ring and Andre/Ferre give him a jolly good spanking. I guess it was this bout I saw. Duranton and Ferre both get buttonholed by the commentator after their match with Ferre's voice instantly recognisable as the same man from WWF promos two decades later, you can almost hear him Surrender The World World Tag Team Championship To Ted DiBiase. France was a tag team territory and it stayed a tag team territory into the modern era. I have spoken to a couple of older French friends, neither of them especially wrestling fans.yet the phrase Catch A Quatre with the C and the Q made to sound alliterative, rolls off tongue and mind as neatly as Two Falls, Two Submissions Or A Knockout does for most older Brits.

I think I've already reviewed this bout a little further up, but this is the same Steve Haggerty from Canada who appeared on World Of Sport tagging with Colin Joynson as the Dangermen and was also cruelly tortured and humiliated by Les Kellet around the same time, if that's what you meant by "the Real Steve Haggerty."

Battle of the whizzkids - Peter Bainbridge not long afterwards having a couple of short European Lightweight title wins at Jim Breaks's expense - one of the last few youngsters he jobbed to in their first title win. I thought he had been a flash in the pan at that time but apparently he wrestled for many years and is now a promoter. Gary Clwyd or Gwraint Clwyd as viewers of S4C's Reslo knew him, seemed to have a bright future until the late 90s when times were hard and he had to share a Dunk The Clown tribute gimmick with Blondie Barrett. Later on in the Noughties he reinvented himself as the heel Gary B Ware. Some good pinfalls even if Bainbridge messes up on his victory roll equaliser and has to go for a second try. Lovely folding press pin attempts. Another double knockout like Dynamite/Rocco 1981 or Sanniez Vs Cavillier 1969 on the French Catch thread. Not as much pathos as the finish of Dyno/Rocco but still a bit bittersweet that a fine scientific contest between two promising youngsters was cut short. (In reality it helped keep both strong for future appearances.) Hogan/Orton comes from a WWF Special from late 87. Possibly someone didn't like the bout and taped over it. @ohtani's jacket What point exactly were you making at the end there? Apart from Greg Dyke being a cheap two bit Jamie Kellner who (unlike Kellner) couldn't even kill the territory properly, the usual cited weakness of the late 80s British scene is the superheavies like Big Daddy. Young fresh faced skillful white meat babyfaces blue-eyes were very much the solution not the problem. Their kind coming in and Daddy and Stax fading out was a positive step forwards like Bret and Shawn replacing Hogan, Warrior and the Steroids Brigade.

Actually Fred Magnier also gets a good kicking in that last bout from Roger Delaporte (French fans hated referees but they LOVED Delaporte) but it isn't enough to save young Bob Plantin from getting carried out unconscious. Great moment when a disgusted Delaporte has no choice but to declare Magnier the winner, the look on his face says it all "Yeah, darn it, that slime all is the ****ING winner."

Lady Blossom on World Of Sport Bobby Barnes Vs Chris Adams with his the girlfriend Jeannie Clarke seconding him. Next time she appeared on a Wrestling TV show was 11 years later in Texas when she was not nearly so affectionate to Chris. Is it just me or did she already look a bit heelish in 1979?