French catch

[David Mantell]

Quote

Posted 1 hour ago

  5 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

And then from the first week of 1989 they replaced New Catch with WCCW.

Because at that point Eurosport launches on Astra and New Catch takes up residence in its appointed new home, starting with reruns of the 1988 TF1 bouts but soon moving to footage especially shot for Eurosport complete with fancy big ring with a giant Eurosport logo on the canvas.

Accessible to any UK TV set that can get any of the WWF (other than year old WWF Challenge at 4am and the six Specials broadcast 1987-1988 while they lasted) and full of all sorts of familiar faces from ITV.

  5 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

December 26, 1988:
Mister Kong vs. Danny Garnier
+ at least one more match [INA doesn't seem to have the full broadcast]

Actually a week and a half AFTER The Final Bell !!!!  And with several months Catch Americain either side of the run to cushion the blow, the start of which was just 5 months after the last Old Catch on FR3.

  5 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

Yes, there were some regional repeats of matches on various France 3 regional channels, but more interestingly than that there were also some matches that were broadcast only regionally. Came across a few (in 1982-1991).

The 1987 matches were part of a sports magazine show on FR3. Just occasional filler content. Nothing significant.

Yes, Catch went on but it was mostly regionally scattergun scheduled or fully regional rather than syndicated and therefore (1) went under INA's RADAR (2) was often not in their offices' region. Except when it was reasonably syndicated and we got a 1987 archiving or two.

 

And then we have Eurosport New Catch from 1989 until whenever (I've heard 1993) with the brief return to TF1 in 1991. ...

... And then for several years going through the 1990s and into the C21st Bernard Van Dam's Eurostar and/or Flesh Gordon and Jacky Richard's IWSF have some sort of TV deal with various stations around Europe - including, it would seem, FYR Macedonia, where its popularity was enough to go in and hold a TV taping locally. which drew a good crowd mainly of kids and young people - and was still going strong enough to cash in on the post 2007 WWE boom for (I)WS(F) to draw arena-esque crowds to cheer an older tubby bald moustachioed Flesh Gordon...

[David Mantell]

On 1/16/2025 at 2:03 PM, David Mantell said:

Proof that the tradition of weird French gimmicks like Les Pihrannas and Les Maniaks is still alive, from 2017 I give you IGWE AND MUNGU!!!

 

(Commentary on the first bout is in Flemish aka Belgian Dutch. It's a whole cultural MINEFIELD if you call it a separate language or a dialect of Dutch.  Mainly from Dutch people in the Netherlands who don't like Flemish being called a separate language like they don't like you calling their country "Holland".)

Imagine a two man cross between Saba Simba and Papa Shango and you got it.  La Bete Humane or  Mambo Le Primitiv for the Twitter generation.  The thing is, you can imagine these two in against Walter Bordes and young Flesh Gordon back in 1983-1985. 

Heels dominate with irreguliere tactics, Bons try to fight back but what can they do? 

...And was still going in sufficient shape in 2017 for this Flemish/Belgian Dutch language edition to still be running by then, even after Flesh and Jacky have retired from the ring.