David Mantell

Both @ohtani's jacket and myself have talked about this one, but never properly reviewed it. So here goes: Le Hippie du Ring pays a visit prior to the match and shakes hands with both participants. Bear in mind in America at this time, hippies were heels like The Love Brothers or Captain Lou Albano. In France he's a harmless Hillbilly Jim type. Angelito is Spanish and masked and being touted as the new Ange Blanc. Jacky Richard is decades away from being a big fat bald man in a shirt and tie, here he's a spry earl/mid career heel. Female referee decades before Aubrey Edwards and even years before Rina Chatterton -Babette Carole, no nonsense matriarchal type, former lady wrestler of the sixties now laying down the law on the men. Angelito as Le Bon takes throws better than Richard Le Mechant and does a great Jim Breaks horizontal spinout from a wristlock. Richard puts a knee across Angelito's chest to prevent him kipping up in an armlock. Angelito levers out but JR replies. Angelito does the Kid McCoy/Owen Hart rope trick to try and untwist his arm but Richard maintains control. Angelito finally breaks the hold by dumping Jacky over the ropes. Richard switches to a hammerlock. Angelito tries to reverse snapmares out of it but JaR blocks it and lands him back on the mat sort of like Arn Anderson did with his gourdbuster. Some more good escapes by Angelito including a trip from behind and another rope-assisted backflip, but yet again Jacky keeps the hold. Fast paced back and forth but gets a nice round of applause from the crowd and I think they even bow to each other like judokas. Jacky finally gets dirty and starts stomping Angelito on the mat, Babette restrains him and starts a ten count, attacking on the mat was heat in France just like in Britain, but in America it was just good clean wrestling. Crowd "gives the bird" (annoying high pitched whistle sound) to Richard to express their heat- German fans go for this a lot too, I've noticed. Babette finally physically pulls Richard off and gives him his first Avertisement- crowd really warm to her. Richard still up to his tricks, nearly earns un Seconde et Dernier. Angelito fires a dropkick then Hulks up by tearing off his own mask like it's a Hogan t-shirt. Babbette, flips it to ringside, commentator says it's the first time he's ever seen that done. At this point Angelito, like Jacky, has a full head of hair. Angelito goes quite wild with dropkicks and les Manchettes. Angelito appears to be flying out of the ropes but does a Rick Steamboat/Modesto "Kamikaze" Aledo slingshot back in, headscissors Richard and drags him out with him. Angelito gets a neat British style cross buttock into cross press but only gets a 2 count. Richard back to controlling Angelito on the mat. Angelito reverse flips from off a standing wristlock then manages to throw Richard a couple of times. Richard eventually boots Angelito out of the ring Babette gives Richard a severe talking. Richard goes to wallop her with a Manchette but she ducks and judo throws him out of the ring and gets a good pop from the crowd. Definitely NOT Aux Chiottes with this Arbitrice. Richard gets a standing Double-nelson but Angelito breaks it with force and backwards dropkicks Richard, goes for a pin but only gets a two count. Angelito moves neatly from a back hammerlock to a headscissor on the mat. Jacky eventually pries it open and kips up. Angelito has a neat cartwheel on one hand years before Dynamite Kid. He eventually springs off the top turnbuckle for the flying bodypress and pin. Angelito and Jacky are very sporting and hug afterwards despite the Bon/Mechants divide. Afterwards the commentator buttonhiles Babette for an interview - she mentions her own former wrestling career. She's single, prefers it that way (hence the dumpy crop hair and black trouser suit I guess) and works as an Archiviste for her day job. Good fast paced French style face/heel match. These two had a bright future. Indeed .... Proof if need be that New Catch was the heir to Old Catch. Richard is now lev Travesti Man, mutant love child of Big Daddy, Adorable Adrian and WWF Dusty Rhodes, still with his butler Paul Butin now repackaged as "Best Boy" Jean Claude Blanchet (no relation to Kate) still being allowed to stand on the ring apron which not even American managers could do. Angelito is rocking a Big Bossman/Mountie/The Trooper Del Wilkes style law enforcement officer gimmick. He has an Alsatian and Richard has a Yorkshire Terrier and the bigger dog desperately wants to maul the smaller yappier one. This could have ended very badly indeed. Twenty years on both men are now bald. Angelito is a bit haggard by now but isn't fat like Richard is by this point (and will get fatter in later years.) Richard has a green boa and jazzy entry music. The two have a bit of a dance off. Trav swivelling his hips and Angelito doing that cowboy shuffle dancing that Sam Houston did in the WWF. Sadly Babette is not part of the reunion, instead we get Welsh ref Chico Roberts on loan from Reslo. Richard gets a start, cross buttocking Angelito but Ang kips up. Blanchet has to pamper Trav/Jacky quite a bit, often running in the ring to do so. Angelito reverses one hiptoss into a Planchet Japonais (monkey climb). The big man bumps around a lot. Angelito does another ,monkey climb then a feet first landing from a backdrop into a dropkick. He snapmares the big man. Commentstor Orig Williams reckon an Angelito Vs Johnny Saint match would be good. Travesti Man finish. You're a promoter Orig, put it on! I wonder if he ever did. Travesti goes all Warrior for the finish with a gorilla press and slam and splash for the pin. Nothing like as athletic as 20 years earlier, a product of a newer more cartoony era, but good enough fun.

@JNLister Have been to Birmingham Library yesterday and looked through 1985 TVTimes and researched the move of the timeslot from 4pm to lunchtime. It started in April just before the FA CUP, they moved wrestling to 14h-15h one week then moved at further back to lunchtime, then moved back to teatime.. The FA Cup was done at its usual times, lunchtime for Danny Collins' title win and 1410h for the Daddy tag. Then a couple of weeks later in late May they again moved in two stages to 1455h then 1230h and it stayed that way most of the summer, occasionally going back to 1550h, but by August it was firmly relocated to lunchtime. When World of Sport finished in September 1985 and the standalone show commenced, it was pretty much anchored to various lunchtime slots until the end in December 1988. When WCW moved to Sat daytime in summer 1992 it started at lunchtime but quickly moved to teatime, the first regular Sat teatime ITV slot in 7.5 years.

Surprised @ohtani's jacket hasn't already reviewed this one, but I see you like Martinelli, OJ, so you should like this one. Fantastic scientific match, too much to pick out any specific details. This was before Saint won the belt, Kent says Saint would like a shot at George Kidd. Well in 1976 he got the belt but not the champion - shades of Lex Luger in 1991 and We Want Flair and all that. Keith gets the opener in penultimate round 5 but Saint takes mere seconds into the sixth and final round to get a reverse bridge folding press and make it a final round equaliser ana a 1-1 Broadway.

Some links: https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Γιώργος_Τρομάρας Greek Wikipedia article on Tromaras https://greekreporter.com/2022/01/24/tromaras-modern-day-hercules/ English language Greek news website obituary for Tromaras Apparently he visited Saudi Arabia in 1990, I have added this to the English Wikipedia "WWE in Saudi Arabia" article

Since I posted a Zefy match from a CWA tournament on the German Catch thread some time back, here to balance things out is Ulf Herman taking the trip the other way across the Rhine for a Eurosport New Catch TV taping in the early 90s. Billed as the medieval sounding Ulf The Cruel and sporting a Ritchie Brooks mullet, bit of a goatee and jazzy early 90s leotard. The Grim Rocker is in his corner and one Danny Gardinier is in Zefy's and gets beaten up by Ulf and Grim pre match. Cut to several minutes into the bout. Ulf dominates Zefy with big late 80s/early 90s power moves like Kellus did. Zefy mounts a comeback and goes for the Superfly Splash but Grim Rocker pushes him off the top rope and he crashes and goes down to a 10 count Knockout on the mat.

Current French star Hugo Perez El General running a wrestling school in the 2010s. Gannon Gray from this clip appears tagging with Hugo in the below 2023 Wrestling Stars match previously posted and reviewed on here: Notice how this was still a thing in France 2023, just like Catch A Quatre itself.

Prince Zefy title defence of uncertain vintage, possibly late 90s but more likely at some point in the 00s. I'm guessing Zefy's march to the ring here was inspired by watching Goldberg which would put this no earlier than 1998. I think the ring announcer says Kellus is Canadian . Oddly filmed - a good well anchored hard cam and a horribly shaky and lopsided looking handheld roving cam spliced together. Huge crowd - was this before 2007!and France's second American Wrestling boom when houses shot up across l'industrie du Catch, including the IWSF? Talking of Dark as a first name - I have a French Star Wars (A New Hope) story book my grandma bought from a jumble sale in the 80s in which the dark lord of the Sith is called "Dark Vader" which may have been what he was called in France and from where this guy got his ringname. It's a rather French thing I guess, it's hard to think of too many people in the English-speaking wrestling world called Dark, maybe mid 80s valet Dark Journey. I guess it's just one of those faux-English names C21st French promoters go for, like Bad Mask or Cybernic Machine. Kellus wrestles his very North American style and Zefy bumps around for his big late 80s/early 90s power moves before taking over with plenty of action stuff like leapfrogs and a flying tackle. And so it alternates. Zefy misses with the traditional French flying headscissor counter but makes up for it with a neat Planchet Japonais. Kallus removes the corner pads from two corners, MC goes ape excrement about it but the Percy Pringle-esque referee pays him not one jot of attention. Eventually he gives Kallus a public warning and sorts out the pads but by that point Le Mechant has dragged Le Bon outside and is busy whipping him into the crowd barriers - I say Aux Chiottes L'Arbitre! La publique shows it's disapproval by pelting the ring with balls of scrunched up paper- did they take notepads to the show especially to do this? Kellus undoes another corner pad and tries to whip Zefy into it but ends up hitting the metal hooks himself. Zefy goes on one final counter attack culminating in a big Superfly splash 3/4 of the way across the ring for the pin, the win and the successful title defence. Not a patch on Saulnier Vs Renault or even Vs LPP but Zefy makes it worthwhile with some neat agile moves, his high flying finisher being the highlight of the bout.

A punch was a foul, not a "weapon". It got heat. It was a foul like "handball" is a foul in Association Football (and I suppose "football" was a foul in Field Handball.) I like Vic best in clean matches where he is clearly enjoying playing the sport at which he excels. Vic versus Johnny Saint both times but especially the 1-1 draw in Oldham 1981, Vic and brother Bert Royal versus brothers Roy and Tony StClair in 1971, Vic's various bouts with Mick McMichael where their banter was used to express their friendship while playing each other at sport but (except for the 1983 bout cut short in round 2) never got in the way of them putting on a technical clinic.

He wasn't a comedy wrestler like Les Kellet, Catweazle or Kevin Coneelly. Any humour was just him being himself. Throwing punches was a serious foul in British Wrestling. Heels got heat - and public warnings - for it and would go to great trouble to conceal it from the referee. Blue eyes only ever did it once in a blue moon in dire emergencies and would have fits of guilty conscience over it. That punch Faulkner threw that cost him the British Welterweight Championship was probably the only one of his career.

There was one more Breaks Vs Faulkner TV match in 1977, a tag match from Skegness filmed August and screened October, pitting Breaks and Alan Dennison against the Royal Brothers. Bert and Vic won 2-2. Dennison was a blue eye by this point so I don't know how that heel team worked out

That would be this:

The classic lineup of the Sensational Superflies - Jimmy Ocean and Rowdy Ricky Knight with his missus Sweet Saraya (the current Saraya/Paige's parents) - the same tag team plus sexy harlot manageress from Reslo 20 years earlier - in the ring at the legendary Fairfield Hall in Croydon for Jimmy's retirement match as the headline bout of a Fan Appreciation Night for All Star Wrestling . The Flies' archenemies back in the day were blue eyed boys The Liverpool Lads, Doc Dean and Robbie Brookside. However after WCW used the Lads as enhancement talent then dumped them, Doc Dean stayed on in Florida as an indie wrestler and plumber (before dying suddenly in 2018) while Robbie came back to Britain and became an elder statesman on the UK scene (while furthering his German career as mega heel Wildcat Robbie Brookside) forming a new Liverpool Lads with his cousin Frankie Sloan. I posted a match of the new Lads in Leamington Spa 2010 several pages back but with Doc Dean, although then still alive, settled in Florida, the Superflies had to make do with the New Lads as their final opponents. Fast paced if technically unremarkable tag bout which made the punters happy especially the older one from the early 90s. @Jetlag please note one of the Superflies does a DDT on Sloan. The Flies get quite a bit of heat on Sloan, dragging him out of shot into somewhere in the stands, until Robbie tags in. The match ends with Saraya trying to interfere and having both her men slingshot straight into her. She collapses to the mat and the good guys score the win. It's missing from this version but I've seen a longer cut of this where all five break character and hug in the ring to commemorate Jimmy's retirement. Ring announcer the legendary Lee Bamber. 25 years earlier he was ring announcer on ITV at that same venue but with blond hair and a gold jacket to match.

This was a title change. Breaks was challenging for the British Welterweight Championship after he one by the one required submission in the first of the four aTV bouts and so earned a title shot. The score was one apiece. Between rounds. Breaks charged into Faulkner's corner, apparently up to no good. Faulkner slugged him and for that was disqualified making Breaks the new champion (in all Europe, titles changed on any sort of win.). This gave the heel Crybaby massive heat which he only further enhanced by bragging about being the new champion. The match on ITV Wrestling site is where Breaks regained the title. However Breaks appealed due to Vic scoring the winner while Breaks was distractedly having an argument with Bert Royal. Due to two controversial title changes in a row, the title was declared vacant. Breaks beat Faulkner for the vacant title that November at the Royal Albert Hall in their fourth TV bout. but shortly afterwards lost it to Dynamite Kid who then became European Champion after beating Jean Corne (on loan from the world of French Catch.) There was a rerun of the Bert Royal interference angle in 1979 when Breaks, who had regained the vacant British title after Kid went off to Stampede, appeared to have lost it to Davey Boy Smith. then a TBW billed as Young David, after his trainer Alan Dennison (who had been inspired to repent his heel ways and turn good after facing Dynamite in the latter's 1976 TV debut and was now a confirmed friend of the Billington/Smith family) distracted Breaks. This led to a famous rematch where Davey scored a final round equaliser to make it 1-1 (and would actually have got a second win 2-1 had not an earlier fall been disallowed) causing an enraged Breaks to dare Dennison to come after his title. This Alan did and won it and held on for 3 years before losing it back to Breaks in 1983 - just in time for the Next young whizzkid who beat Breaks - Danny Boy Collins - to make his debut.

Interesting considering the wars those two later had over the CWA World title. A male German version of Klondyke Kate and Naughty Nicky Monroe's mid 80s heel team (except they later reconciled) with Mitzi Mueller as Otto Wanz. Or maybe the Haystacks/Daddy mid 70s tag team before the feud.

He wasn't a Funny Guy. He was a skilled technical wrestler who was - legitimately - a bit of a "cheeky chappy" type but please do NOT mistake that for him being a comedy wrestler. He may have liked a laugh now and then, as we all do, but he was basically a serious wrestler.

Two notable things apart from the action: firstly there was a rather splendid cup up for grabs. The other was that Renault's three young daughters were sitting in on commentary. Not that the commentator could get much out of them except a long sheepish pause followed by "Oui" rather like the prelude to Monty Python's Nudge Nudge sketch with John Cheese interviewing not very verbose schoolboys Palin, Jones and Idle. About five minutes before the end they give up and interview their young blonde mother. He does get one of them to declaim a clearly rehearsed goodbye. It's a surprise Renault was not his early 80s skinhead biker Blouson Noir look from his tag team with Jacky Richard. I know he is meant to be a Ted but he looks more like your average 1970s street thug, like the late great Lee Brilleux, lead singer with 70s pub rock band Dr Feelgood or maybe some criminal thus trash on 70s UK cop show The Sweeney. I was expecting him to be a heel as per 9 years later but here he's having a clean match in the French style and @Jetlag this is how the French clean matches are. Very acrobatic, very "Souple" (ultimate compliment for a French wrestler from the French commentators) . Lots of reverse snapmares, backflips from standing wristlocks, not so much flying headscissors but lots and LOTS of cross buttock throws in a side headlock. Renault is a lot taller than Saulnier and the imbalance reminds me of Adrian Street and Jim Breaks on ITV about 6 months earlier. A few few pauses in side headlocks as there are no round breaks so they need rest. One brief bit of needle triggers a Manchette exchange and nearly a ropes foul til L'Arbitre calms them both down and they shake hands. Saulnier gets the pin for the win and the cup with a neat folding press with bridge that would please Johnny Saint, Kent Walton and probably Bob Backlund too. Verdict: great scientific catchweight/poids libre bout. Le Petit Prince is still the best Saulnier opponent though.

There was always a slow accretion of bits and bobs of American wrestling in all Euro territories. Cages. Chains and wrestlers carrying snakes were all cited as examples of the vulgar barbarism of the American game in one BBC breakfast TV news panel of promoters in 1988 but by 1990 Reslo had given us the first two and a decade later we had not only a snake but Jake himself to administer it (until he had to flee the country after he starved it to death.) Ultimately British and therefore European wrestling was the mutant love child of 1920s newsreels of Strangler Lewis era American Wrestling and the legit Lancashire Wrestling scene. So I am cautious about lamenting such impurities as the beginning of the end. Closed fist remained enforcedly illegal and could still get heat from a crowd in Britain even in the Noughties - recently Rumble has been enforcing the no closed fist rule but it's not getting the heat it would have 20-30 years ago. A DDT is just a front chancery and drop - legit enough for FILA to ban it from Olympic Freestyle. The likes of Ecki were also working for Germany's New School Americanised promotions like WXW and the GWF (French equivalent was ICWA, British equivalents were UWA, FWA, LDN post 2012), so they had to wrestle Americanised some of the time.

Are we talking Otto versus the Americans or the WWF/WCW invasion? Alex Wright as well as Brits like Regal, Taylor and Finlay were if anything pumping up interest in the European style in America and hence among European fans of American Wrestling. In Britain there was the realisation that this strange exotic style came from our neck of the woods and was something we had grown up taking for granted - I imagine the same was the case in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. (Alex actually got a bigger push in WCW than the Brits- none of them progressed beyond the TV title but Alex got to be a World Tag Team Champion. Regal and Finlay only achieved things like World tag or secondary (IC/US) singles titles in WWE in the Noughties.

Yes, we examined him earlier. I would refer in particular to this comment: "Although like the old generation of Chall, Dieter senior etc they work and sell holds over longer periods, these guys do know their escapes, especially very British inspired ones like rollout from wrist levers ( both KK and Franz who goes over on his head like Owen Hart.). "

He seems to Euro it up pretty effectively in this match:

Germany had a technical style but it was a slower more ponderous one than Britain or France, with holds worked for longer periods. People like Axel Dieter, Achim Chall and Rolo Brasil all worked that style, the likes of Mile Zrno and Louis Lawrence carried it on to the next generation. You see more of it on the VDB CrappyCam footage than you can on the IBV/CWA broadcast quality multicamera footage. What the Germany/Austria really needed was its own firebrand skill-and-speed lightweight superstar like George Kidd, Le Petit Prince and Johnny Saint who could have really shaken up the scene. German fans got the point of Johnny Saint but German promoters didn't. Steve Wright was the nearest Germany/Austria had to a resident technical wizard and he was an import, but he seems to have managed to produce a bit of a revolution. By the 90s we suddenly have a new generation like Steve's son Alex Wright, Ecki Eckstein, Ulf Herman and Michael Kovacs who worked a more British style and could have British style technical matches with visitors like Danny Collins, Robbie Brookside, Jason Cross and James Mason. Case in point the Kovacs Vs Cross match I previously posted: Otto Wanz Versus The American Stars was, as I've said, was merely the Austrian/German equivalent of Big Daddy Tag Matches in Britain or Flesh Gordon And The Cartoon Characters in France.

Ian McGregor having similar problems to Raymond four decades later. He loses by Gator submission. Skull attacks him after the match. The submission is disallowed. So Murphy promptly knocks the kid out for a count of 10 and wins that way. Sacrificial lamb, basically.

I was mainly thinking of the criticism levelled at people like Ted DiBiase for being a "wrestling heel." Some of that mindset existed even in Britain. Steve Logan MK1 (the heel South London Iron Man one) was once in the gym shooting and coming up with some really great moves. A watching and impressed Johnny Kincaid asked him afterwards why he didn't do more of this in his pro bouts. Logan replied that with a face like his who would want to cheer him. Though what that had to do with using good technical moves is anyone's guess.

French Wrestling in Germany. I'm classing this as German Catch despite it being two French stars, not so much because it took place in Germany but because it was a CWA show. By my rules, the Pete Roberts Vs Dave Bond 1978 FFCP bout on Antenne 2, and Rocco Vs Danny Collins and Scrubber Daly Vs Kid McCoy on 1991 EWF New Catch tapings are both French wrestling. However Summerslam '92 counts as American Wrestling, the EWP's show in Kent 2003 counts as German Wrestling and Joe E Legend Vs Chad Collier on an All Star show in Croydon 2004 counts as British wrestling. Flesh Gordon we all know about, Kato may be the same person as Kato Bruce Lee on Antenne 2 1983-1985. By American standards this would be scientific albeit slow. Holds are worked for long periods without counter, most of the first half is each man applying a standing wristlock. Kato eventually does a British style rollout and Flesh does some traditional French counters- backflipping in a top wristlock, the flying headscissor take down. This was for a World Mid Heavyweight title which Flesh won from Kato. I wonder what referee Mick McMichael (kiltless for once) English commentator Orig Williams or more to the point Mountevans champion Marty Jones thought of that.

Two different recordings of the same bout. One fan cam and one CWA OB multicam home video match licensed to Eurosport New Catch. Colley still looking like Detroit Demolition from Southeast Continental. (Ironically his Demolition co-founder Bill Eadie also wore that style of leotard in his later years.). His bone is the only part of the Moondog gimmick on show. Scientific Steve makes a breath of fresh air from Obese Otto as an opponent, confounding the big clumsy American heel with all sorts of technical and acrobatic tricks en route to the win. Now personally I prefer a good two way scientific match but I know a lot of you Americans think this is how things should ideally be, a scientific good guy Vs a big brawly brutal bad guy to emphasise the face/heel divide. So I suppose you should all like this. Me, I'm just happy to see a CWA match with some technical work in it, even if one sided.