David Mantell

Who were Don and Eddy? Anyone recognise them?! I concede they could be "American" only as much as Tommy Mann, the Black Diamonds, Dave Bond and Rollerball Rocco all were. (or as much as "Alan McGregor" or "Marc O'Connor" were Scottish or ditto Fit Finlay and Ian Gilmour) Gastel is a big bull of a heel. A French version of Bill Watts after he turned heel on Bruno in the 60s. Wears a skull and crossbones on his jacket just like the pirate flag that the World Riot Squad carried with them on All Star shows in the 2010s. Interesting to see the young Fred Magnier as I'm mainly used to him as the old codger heel in street clothes who sticks his nose into Michel DiSanto Vs Michel Chaisne clean match and gets a good kicking frm the elder Michel before being sent packing: To be fair he still looked pretty decent in the other bout on this non INA show from Bob ALPRA's channel: I think this is actually a colour kinescope rather than a VT copy. It has that filmy look to it.

As promised on the British wrestling thread. here is the caption slide from the French overseas sales prints to Arabic speaking countries : No prizes for guessing what the Arabic word translates as (except it 's got the definite article al- on the front of it)

Found a clip on Alessio's channel which Phil had something to do with of Spanish wrestling with "Kamikaze 2" (presumably Benny not Modesto Aledo) in CIC action in Barcelona 1964 (four years before the above French TV bout) against Catechara. Benny does the same low centre of gravity movement and squatting in the corner as .Les Kamikazes but he has a very different look, black nylon mask with possibly red face, ears visible under the fabric. He does what I assume is the famous flip back in the ring after being thrown out, quicker and snappier than, say. Rick Steamboat's version of said move.

Sanniez actually became a French Jim Breaks in more ways than one. By 1978 he had adopted a similar "horrid little man" heel persona to Breaks minus the temper tantrums. Not sure what your problem is with the double knockout - it's the exact same finish as the much-lauded World title match between Rollerball Rocco Vs Dynamite Kid in December 1981 (transmitted after the New Year of 1982). Those ring ropes look rather slack - I wonder if this was deliberate to set up the finish. Notice the commentator mentions Sanniez's green trunks which indicates a colour Channel 2 broadcast.

The FFCP (not to be confused with the CCPR) was also still providing the FR3 network with TV bouts at this time and would continue to do so until November that year. Most of the top stars on those TV shows would become the main talent pool for New Catch and the IWSF which eventually became Wrestling Stars. (There's a lot we still don't know about WS's origins. English Wikipedia says (I)WS(F) was founded 1979 in Montereau-Fault-Yonne.)

Sounds to me like this CCPR could be the French equivalent of Premier Promotions in the UK. Although if the Association Beauvaisienne de Catch et d'Athlétisme in Beauvais is still going that could be a rival candidate.

From 1990, tapings done in Aberdeen Scotland for late evening screening on the Grampian/STV regions of ITV, later rescreened in a graveyard slot o. Granada TV in 1991. (The French equivalent would be New Catch's brief return to TF1 in 1991 which El P saw and which that Sturry guy is being quite sneery about in his vlogs.) Another good technical match with Danny, like Steve Logan mk2 n the above 1984 match with Owen Hart now in the role of the seasoned veteran getting the 2-1 win but conceding a fall to the young whizzkids and making him look like a bright young prospect. (Kent Walton mentions Danny having his eye on some heavier championships - in fact Danny had been British Heavyweight Middleweight champion and possibly was champ for the second time by this point - he beat Finlay the previous year before his infamous DQ loss of the title to Richie Brooks in 1990 but I'm not sure if this bout was taped before or after Daddy regained the belt. Probably before otherwise Danny would have worn the belt to the ring, Walton would have noticed and made a rather different comment.) Stewart uses Kid McCoy's Yorkshire Rope trick (also a fave of Owen Hart especially during the Blue Blazer phase) to good effect a couple of times including one setting up the equalising pinfall following a hiptoss into cross press. Some good folding press attempts too including Danny's opening fall in round two and a couple that Stewart crawls out of.neatly. Stewart also uses a crucifix (flying further nelson). Collins gets the decider after deftly converting another hiptoss attempt into a backslide. Speaking of McCoy and Stewart, 1990 would see some bad luck for the former beget some good luck for the latter in 1991. McCoy vacated his British Lightweight title he won on stoppage from Steve Grey on ITV in 1987, after a falling out with Brian Dixon over his and father King Ben's match with Kendo Nagasaki and Blondie Barrett in Chelmsford The following September Stewart would win the title off Jimmy Ocean and hold it for 22 months.

Interesting. I wonder if Tony stays clean as I remember one early 70s Clay match on YT where Kent Walton remarked how all Clay's opponents resorted to dirty wrestling against him. Whether this was something Thomson insisted on backstage I have no idea. Having said that, I have never heard of Tony ever being anything other than a blue-eye/babyface. At worst one who might be driven to extreme measures by a particularly dastardly villain such as Mighty John Quinn but even then look thoroughly ashamed of himself once he'd calmed down (viz. St Clair & Sands Vs Quinn & Nagasaki, Lewisham 1987 as previously posted on this forum.)

The first time I ever saw or even heard of a Handicap tag was the above match on TV in 1985. It was pretty much like one of those WWWF TV matches where Andre would be fed two jobbers in one sitting. Rumble recently did an update on that match: The Bryants will already be familiar figures to readers of this thread, I have raved plenty about Nino on here. I discussed the Henchmen on here sometime back as an example along with the UK Pitbulls of the survival of the Superheavyweight type from the Big Daddy boom era (along with earlier examples like the Klondyke brothers and Docker Don Steadman. Don't worry about the decidedly non Old School rung - it was on loan from another Promotion, SOS Wrestling as the regular Rumble ring was in use at another show Rumble was running that same night. To make up for it, the MC is the legendary Lee Bamber and the venue is the building known formerly as the Orchards in Dartford, former 1980s ITV venue. See earlier in the thread for more details on both.

Anyway, getting back to what I was originally going to post about: Owen Hart- Honorary British Wrestler? Many of you by now will have seen Owen's classic World title matches with Marty .Jones on ITV in 1987 and Danny Collins on camcorder in 1991 What doesn't get mentioned so much is that Owen basically did his apprenticeship over here in the mid 80s. Here he in early 84 against Steve Logan (MK2 the Birmingham blue-eye) who at 20 going 21 gets to be the veteran in control for one of the first times in his career. The bout is joined in progress just before Logan scores the opening fall. We get one round of Owen battling back to equalise, then they go to a draw. Kent Walton forsees the Blue Blazer with his comment about how Owen is doing well with "the acrobatic stuff" and should do more of it. (Owen incidentally has his light blue trunks on- these would later become light blue long tights in Japan etc in 1987 before becoming the Blazer's preferred shade of blue in the WWF.)

By the way, Wrestling From Great Britain was indeed the title under which ITV Wrestling kinescopes were marketed to overseas TV stations (as discussed on the "Why is America assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread. Some of the INA French Catch kinescope prints have a similar slide in Arabic which I intend to decipher and post my findings to the French Catch thread. It does underline my point from several months back that ITV and (O)RTF had considerably greater outreach for their wrestling programming than the average NWA member in the US/Canada. They certainly would not have to face down some angry Ole Anderson type at the next NWA convention growling threats at them for their show being accessible to his audience.

800ft = 240,000mm. 16mmx25fps=400mmps 240,000/400= 2400/4=600secs=10 mins footage

Is that George Kidd? He looks very much like he's doing the famous Ball there.

Put it up on YouTube some time please.

Something else I've spotted - Jean Pradinas, later the director of most 1980s TV wrestling in France, gets a namecheck in this December 1968 kinescope.

Been looking for the second 1968 match for some time, I saw it before but lost it because I didn't realise it was from as early as 1968. Love the Kamikazes intro with them squatting on the mat like alien insects waiting to pounce. They have quite an interesting attacking style to, squatting down to jockey for position like creepy scuttling critters. No shouts of Hey Hey Pappa Doux for Bordes yet in 1968 And no shouts of Hey Hey La Cagoule for an unmasking or two reither, Bordes had a long career doing tag matches with a formula like this, from matches with Chemouel Vs les Kamikazes in 1968 to matches with Flesh Gordon vs les Maniaks in 1985. RBC to FG - how's that for a historical spread of talent to have worked with? Chemouel's reputation in the 50s was mostly based on him being a technical wrestler (not to mention a shooter- George Kidd in 1952 was prepared to at least temporarily job away his Mountevans/NWA World Lightweight title to FFCP champion RBC before getting his win back and a triple crown of titles). This and into the early 70s were really his dotage years. Not extreme dotage like George Kidd in 1975 or Johnny Saint in 2011 but getting on a bit. Perhaps like Martel and Santana doing the pretty boy thing in Strike Force well into their thirties Context.:At this point Benny, the second Spanish Kamikaze was still active in Spain's CIC. Stuff to watch out for. One of Les Bons (I forget which) is thrown outside and a middle aged bloke in a peak cap keeps on helping him up when he is desperately trying to sell. So he tries desperately to avoid being helped up. Also RBC's dad Albert is att ringside to check on his son after he goes down a fall. He makes another few in this bout saying how the Kamikazes masks hide their charming smiles and nicknaming one of them Mitzu.

As I've mentioned, we know from the speaking clock time signatures that some bouts were broadcast Sunday 5pm, which may account for kids in the audience at shows (which were otherwise screened past their bedtimes) - possibly these were repeats of an earlier late evening broadcast (like London Weekend Television in November 1991 for several Sunday lunchtimes rescreening a match from the previous night's WCW Pro Wrestling as part of Pat Sharp's Funday in the run up to WCW's three nights in Dec 1991 at the Olympia in Kensington.) Of course if these were repeats, that would explain why INA didn't bother taping them. They filled out their quote on late evening master screenings of bouts.

Actually check out Farag's second. Tony StClair, no less, in the green T shirt. Late 80s StClair by the looks of him. Announcer mentions him at the start. I like where the MC tells off Vallas in a thick cackling Cairo accent. ( Actually I forgot he was German and thought he was American because of the MC addressing him in English, hence my calling him "the American" on an earlier edit of this post.) Arabic vocabulary: Shoderfest= shoulderblock. Sidering= Whip into the ropes Bodehslam= go on, guess! Elboh = ditto Dropkick= ditto Nice pin too, Vallas does a cross-buutock throw into a crosspress but Farag rolls through and upturns it into a pin of his own. I've seen Pete Roberts do this. Anyway, getting back on topic to the subject of France ...

Was he the commentator who got sacked for breaking kayfabe and got key back all the other commentators threatened to go on strike for him? Even Couderc tended to make sarcastic jokes - during several bouts including Mammouth Siki Vs Daniel Schmidt from 1978 for example, he referred to a wooden chair used as makeshift ring steps as "L'Escalier Du Service"

This was the business model in England, intestive touring rather than one off giant houses.

It's only a pity his European Welterweight title loss to Dynamite Kid (on WOS March 1978) is not apparently in circulation.

A common problem with masked wrestlers. Eddie "Kung Fu" Hamill ditched his hood for this very reason. Kendo Nagasaki had the same problem - one imposter, Bill "King Kendo" Clarke, managed to build a solid if unspectacular career as a journeyman heel. Ange Blanc and Le Borreau de Bethune obviously inspired their share of ripoffs, most obviously Al "White Angel" Hayes and Paul "Doctor Death" Lincoln (although AB Vs BdB was itself nicked off El Santo Vs Blue Demon in Mexico.

British wrestlers had similar complaints in TVTimes articles from the 1970s. Big Daddy seems to have been the commercial antidote for the business. Daddy in the UK, Flesh Gordon And The Cartoon Characters in France and Otto The TV Strongman And The American Imports in Germany/Austria seem to have served the same purpose in all three territories as the quick fix commercial escapes from an early 1970s pan European dip period in wrestling that caused the deaths of Spanish and Italian Wrestling and a lingering decline in Greek Wrestling.

I rather gathered that from that 1982 Swiss TV documentary. Probably the nearest British equivalent would be The Sportsviewers' Guide To Wrestling. Or else Mick McManus' Wrestling Book from 1970.

Two moves in particular - pulling yourself up into a flying head scissors from a top wristlock and getting a behind the back chancery into reverse overhead flip as a counter to a standing headlock- are as crucial to French Catch as rolling on the mat to untwist a wrist lever is to British Wrestling. (Both do exist in the British style - in one 1980 British Welterweight Championship match, challenger Young David aka Davey Boy Smith attempts to use thie overhead flip counter to Hammerlock on champion Jim Breaks, only for Breaks to arrest the momentum and drop Young David on his behind rather like an Arn Anderson spine buster.) 1960s French Lightweights like Le Petit Prince and Michel Saulnier would backwards somersault from a top wristlock British wrestlers would leap into a somersault if their arm was suddenly wrenched upwards doing a wrist lever. I have even seen the odd American do this, such as Barry Darsow during Demolition vs the British Bulldogs . The aim was to force a bad landing but some wrestlers such as Pete Roberts could actually make a feet first landing.