David Mantell

Needless to say I am of the opinion that the survival to the present of Old School British Wrestling, Old School French Catch and Old School German/Austrian Catch (certainly they are in better condition than any mainland US/Canadian scene except New York). is a defining feature of all three "Stronghold" Euro territories as much as the abundance of footage of all three scenes. An interesting issue is how badly French TV execs were scarred by the 1961 failed cancellation and how whereas in Britain, Greg Dyke made a big song and dance in 1988 about cancelling ITV wrestling, in France, the moved to Eurosport on Astra at the start was presented to the French public as merely the latest of a series of recent channel moves. In reality, the end of the preview run of New Catch on TF1 In late 1988 was the equivalent point in the cycle of The Final Bell on ITV mere weeks earlier/later.

Just spotted this. Nope, you can lay all that at Delaporte's door. As I've discussed before, the likes of Le Batman, Le Bete Humane and Le Hippie Du Ring were the root of it and it continued into the 21st Century with the likes of Cybernic Machine and Bad Mask. All that was the French equivalent of Big Daddy vs Giant Haystacks or Otto Wanz vs the American Superstars.

https://www.facebook.com/bobbyandkeef/videos/1237645530840673 UPDATE: NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! From the height of All Star's Kendo-led post TV boom - Wolverhampton 12th February 1991, Kendo Nagasaki and regular partner Blondie Barrett face Giant Haystacks and The Headhunter who I thought was Skull Murphy but turns out to have been future Legend Of Doom Johnny South, nominally still a heel at this point. Indeed Stax and South earned their place in this bout as heels beating Tony StClair and Steve Regal, while Kendo and Bob beat Steve Adonis and Robbie Brookside in the other semifinal of this four team knockout tournament, possibly by hypnotizing Robbie again. Stax HATED being the blue eye but against Nagasaki he had very little choice. Stax starts off against Barrett but flicks him out of the ring and advances slowly and menacingly on Kendo on the ring apron. Kendo gets down to help his partner, Stax taunts them before challenging South. Blondie and South is a pretty even match but South is in trouble when Naggers tags in and worse when Kendo and Barrett start the double teaming. Haystacks makes several failed attempts to tag in. When he succeeds, Blondie goes out on the apron and he and Kendo look at each other as if to say "Well it's not my go, is it yours?" An infuriated Stax drags in legal man Barrett for a good working over before tagging back South who after a few attempts (mostly broken up by Kendo) pins Barrett for the opener with a long vertical suplex a la Ric Flair. Nagasaki and Barrett only finally regain the advantage when Kendo attacks South with The Bell on the timekeeper's table. This was about as hardcore as British Wrestling got back then and @ohtani's jacket is an example of what was NOT allowed on TV although Kendo often did this spot on untelevised shows and even on the Mick McManus VHS. It earns the team a second and final public warning (this being a 1KO match, PWs and DQs applied to a whole team.) but softens up South for Kendo to cross press him for the equaliser. After loads of false starts, Stax gets the tag but then goes on the rampage, hits the referee and blasts Kendo with his own salt to get himself and South DQd and leave Kendo and Barrett the winners. Stax guillotines Barrett and challenges Nagasaki to a singles match as the crowd roar their RAGE that top hel Kendo got away with it again. Months later in Croydon we got Stax and Kendo solo - on TV! Again OJ, note the DQ finish and how it leaves the fans in ENRAGED heat just like the TKO with Der Henker in 1970. No dissatisfaction with the "cheap" finish, just pure unadulterated HEAT!!! How It Should Be Done.

Two more thoughts on Henker versus Jacky. 1) The commentator does say that Der Henker has recently come back from a successful run in the USA. 2) The TKO finish certainly gets heat.Nobody is complaining about it being a screw job finish however- if anything the crowd's gripe is that Henker should be DQ'd for his brutality. See my new post on p39 of the British thread for another example of this from 1991, two decades after this.

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. Print news story about a Le Duc Vs Mychell bout supported by a Der Hunker Vs Jacky Corne combat, presumably the same show:

Actually @Matt D has them labelled the other way round. Blair and McDonald Vs Borne and Magnifique Manetry Gowart. However I've checked and the short haired girl is indeed Brigitte, she was on TV in 1978 against Lola Garcia This should auto Fast Foward to 35:53, I've written it into the URL This was part of La Derniere Manchette, that strange TV production FR3 put on in 1984 a year before taking over Catch coverage from Antenne 2, part of its odd mixture of current bouts, archive footage and crowd skits set at a pretend house show (actually shot in a TV studio) with opinions from Roger Delaporte and the inevitable French TV celebrity guest opinions. If you want to watch earlier in the clip, they've got Roger's heel Vs heel bout with L'Homme Masque from the 50s on. Nicki MacDonald should be a familiar face for readers of the British thread - Naughty Nicky Monroe, dubbed a "Soho Sex Kitten" by Orig Williams in the middle of a Reslo Welsh language commentary, former heel tag partner of Klondyke Kate, they wrestled Mitzi in her 1987 Royal Albert Hall retirement bout before Nicky turned blue-eye on Kate and ended up facing her for Mitzi's vacated British title on BBC2's Raging Belles docu (where we saw her other life caring for the elderly) only to be injured by the victorious Kate and put out of wrestling for a couple of years to win the title. Reslo stayed around long enough to catch her reconciling with Kate and reforming their heel team in 1995 but Nicky truly found her calling in life as Mrs Nichole South, wife of Johnny South and hardened keyboard warrior keen to stick her claws into anybody with a bad word about her husband and his Legend of Doom gimmick or else coming to Kendo Nagasaki's defence when the old boys are bitching about him on Facebook. The two Blonde women have a bad biker babe thing going on in UK Rockers/Bloussons Noirs/early Road Warriors peaked cap. There is a hint of Leilani Kai and Judy Martin's heel WWF Glamour Girls tag team. The two biker blondes have a power advantage over their opponents, short haired minidresses Blair looks like a little girl doing ballet. Nicki certainly knows her British style escapes and kip -ups as well as attacking moves including a nice Frank Gotch figure four leglock. Les Bomnes get an easy first fall The Bad Blondes restate their dominance early on with front chanceries and side headlocks on Brigitte til she escapes, converting a side headlock into a hammerlock. The bad girls get a public warning but soon get an equalising pinfall. They continue the work on both Bonnes and eventually get the decider. The actor playing the beardy spectator gets so wound up he has to be restrained but he female celeb pundit is quite impressed with her first Ladies Wrestling match.

Poor old Oliver Grey isn't having much luck lately. While I was in Dudley watching Mickey Long in action. to whom Grey would lose his "Superslam" (Mountevans British Heavyweight) Championship on Monday Oct 28th, Grey himself that same Sat night, under his alias Joel Redman, also lost the semifinal for a British title for his Salisbury based ASW South training school promotion for All Star to former student gone heel Brandon Lee who apparently wrestles for OVW as EC3. Not a particularly technical bout (something Grey/Redman is good at) but pretty action packed for the eight minutes it lasts. Ring announcer is old time legend Lee Bamber, the guy in the golden jacket from ITV In 1988.

I watched this too last night. I think they call him Dynamite Smith (I recall reading about this somewhere). I think he worked heel and Benoit worked face in order to stay consistent with Stampede. Smith does do some fouling including hair pulling. Smith's original ring name was John Savage which was actually quite a good name for a heel, but at that stage (1983) he was a nice kid TBW. He was Ted Betley's nephew John Hindley. Betley retired from his Wigan gym to his family in the Isle of Man (this was worked into Joint Promotions storyline with Alan Dennison taking over Young David mentorship and eventually himself feuding with Jim Breaks for the British Welterweight Championship.) But Hindley wanted to be a wrestler too so Betley made him his very last student.

I was going to mention, the announcer makes a fuss about his mask being Red, so much so that I suspect this bout was originally in colour on channel 2 It can happen - Peter Thornley > Bill Clarke > Dale Preston. Or indeed 1960s Spanish Kamikaze (Modesto Aledo/Benny) > 1970s French TV Kamikazes 1 & 2 > Ian Gilmour as a good guy Kamikaze on ITV in the early 80s.

Hisaru Tenabe seems to think otherwise: https://www.wrestling-titles.com/europe/france/fr-h.html

July 1980. Same month, same Graz tournament as Otto vs Don Leo professionally filmed, same grotty handheld as Wright vs Zrno (same corner-on angle). Fresh off the back of losing a Big Daddy Tag before several thousand at Wembley Arena, Mister Yasu Fuji the Hater of Brits, Good Buddy Of Might John Quinn, pulls into Graz, Austria. If Kent Walton in 1985 is to be believed, the man facing him, Wolfgang Saturski, son of Walter, held the European Welterweight title (last confirmed sighting, being handed back to Max Crabtree by Dynamite Kid along with the British title before he caught the plane to Calgary) some time around now before losing it to Jorg Chenok in 1981 who, after four other defences, turned up to defend against new young British Welterweight Champion Danny Collins (next confirmed sighting of the title) and duly lost the belt. I've posted this match before as an example of Fuji in action in all three "stronghold" territories but now I'm going to give it a proper watch - generational murk, dilapidated colour signal and all. So far, so tough. It seems to be patched together snippets of the two taking turns to put headscissors and bodyscissors on each other. Saturski starts with a nice flying headscissor and Fuji does a neat figure four scissor but we don't see how they got in and out. Fuji was from SoCal (he held Gene LeBell's LA version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship in the early 70s) so he worked American style so don't expect much defensive work off him. He relies on HEAT. Weeks earlier he was the number three villain in Britain after Stax and Quinn. Here he is in Austria which was on the same side as Japan in WW2. He goes and gets him some heat by beating down on Saturski and parading in victory, arms aloft. We next see young Wolf with a sleeper on Fuji, releasing he downward pressure so as to bang on his skull with his hand. Then he has a Japanese Stranglehold on the Japanese (to be fair, it was Kent Walton that named the hold that.) He put a knee in but doesn't go for a surfboard. Just let's his man drop to the mat. Then cut to them brawling. Kind of them to put this bit in for OJ. In the first transition of holds in the footage, Fuji has an armbar on but Wolf snaps a headscissors on him. Impressively, Fuji turns it upright to the rollout position then rolls him over into the unhook position - then rolls again and again until he reaches the ropes. In Britain this would have got him massive heat but Les Autres Chiens aren't too bothered. So Fuji gets his heeling boots on (yes he is wearing boots after having taped feet in Britain) and chokes out Wolf on the bottom rope. Fuji pounds Wolf, Wolf headrams Fuji. Two postings. Wolf gets a top wristlock on Fuji, no selling punch from Fuji. Fuji bends Wolfs arm over the ropes and bites it, Wolf pitches Fuji to ringside. More Fuji chopping and choking Wolf o the bottom rope, stomping him on the mat, chopping him, applying nerve holds. Wolf tries to snapmares Fuji on the top rope. Fuji fetches something from his corner, hits Wolf with it and gets a formal telling off. Fuji has a Camel Clutch on Saturski who gets out from behind as the bell rings and Fuji rings his bell with between rounds. He catches WS again between rounds, uses the ropes to help a Boston crab and goes for a slow standing ankle lock. Wolf kicks Fuji in the face but then rolls over to get up allowing Fuji to retake the hold. This happens again so Fuji sits down in the hold. Wolf bashes Fuji with the heel of his boot and puts a single leg Boston on, bashing at Fuji's kneecap, gives up and switched to thumping him around the ring. Wolfgang then goes really mad, he has Fuji down in a leglock with the other leg trapped in the ropes. The bell goes but Saturski ignores it. The referee tries to pull him off but he just bundles in into the package too. Finally Wolfgang gets up as does the referee who reprimands him. Fuji's leg is still stuck in the ropes and Saturski steps on another rope to tighten it. Still with the new round not started, he attacks Fuji in the corner, folding up his legs. The two star afresh with only 4:13 of clip left. They take turns to pound and grovit each other in the corner. The cameraman is distracted by an excited woman in the crowd. When he cuts back we see Wolf karate kick then dropkicks Fuji out of the ring. Fuji is back at 8 but Saturski ties him up in the ropes like they do on Reslo, Old Catch in fact anywhere except ITV. He holds a finger aloft "look what I'm going to do" then pulls Fuji's goatee good and hard. It mostly stays on so Wolf puts a knee in The referee unties Fuji . Wolfgang grabs him in a neck breaker submission. Fuji flails around and rolls out so Wolf drops hi on his knee. He's up at six so Wolf hurls him into the corner and starts headbutting. There are 78 seconds of clip left. Fuji turns it round in the corner for some chops. Wolf rolls him along the ropes.again points and again yanks on the beard. Comes off the opposite ropes for a flying forearm. The bell goes with Fuji in the ropes. That was the last round. Time limit draw. Saturski sits on the top rope and despondently argues with the referee. We see the ref walk across the ring. End of clip. A rather messy brawl, the edits didn't help. Fuji tried to get dirty as a heel but Wolfgang acting equally dirty didn't making him look like the avenging hero, just a hypocrite. By the end of this, I was rooting for Yasu Fuji although to be fair, six year old me thought he was cool too.

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.