French catch

[Jetlag]

From what I've seen Axel Dieter had no problem doing all those flying headscissors, ranas and difficult bridge ups and working a fast paced match, just look at his matches with Mile Zrno or Steve Wright himself. No small feat considering by 1980 he was nearing the end of his career, and he wasn't exactly a small man. Knowing he worked France and Spain quite a lot I wouldn't be shocked if he had been quite the athletic guy in his younger days aswell. We know wrestlers did the quicker handspringy stuff in Britain and France before Steve Wright came around. Also, I've never heard of Steve Wright training anyone besides his son, until his son Alex founded his school in the early 2000s, where Steve would help out sometimes. The guy most credited for training the younger lightweight types in Germany in the 90s is Bernard Benesch, a French wrestler who worked for Lasartesse as a referee in Hamburg. Franz Schuhmann, the most prominent lightweight in the scene, credited Lasartesse himself with training him in the 80s, and he has said most of his training was bumping and how to use the ropes, almost everything he knew he learned from other guys while wrestling, either by being in the ring with them or watching them.

Here's Beneschs student Markus Buchholz in action against Bernie Wright:

You can see this mirrors a World of Sport style match a bit more, but I don't see how we need Steve Wright in the equation, given his brother Bernie is right there and probably showed young Markus some things in the ring before the match.

 

[David Mantell]

Dieter could fly about but he didn't do the specifically British stuff (rolling or cartwheeling or sometimes something even more clever, to untwist an armbar) that all the young kids in the 90s did. Scisseaux Volees, particularly as a counter to an armbar, was more of a French thing anyway (in Britain people would try it and get thrown off.)

Dieter did definitely go for the old German thing of exploring every single option for getting out of a hold, one by one, and the last one he tried was the one that worked. Which (to get back in topic) appears to be the preferred style of Ms Leo Dewerdt of Belgium.

[David Mantell]

(Will review Bernie Wright Vs Markus Buchholz on the German Catch thread. I suggest discussion of that match continue over there.)

[David Mantell]

On 2/21/2025 at 12:01 AM, David Mantell said:

Gary Clwyd/ Welsh in France! For a guy with one ITV match against fellow TBW Peter Bainbridge, he certainly got about a bit.  I make that 16;TV bouts in a career.

Cullen at this stage is still a blue-eye (he started going heel during his World Heavy Middleweight title feud with Robbie Brookside in 1991-1992) . As far as the  live French audience is concerned, the most familiar figure would be faux Cowboy Jessy Texas who has been knocking around the FFCP turning up on TV to feud with young Flesh Gordon since as far back as 1983. Another familiar face would be referee Charley Bollet, kid brother of legendary heel Andre Bollet and another survivor of Old Catch on A2/FR3.

Fourth participant Jörg Schrage is a German doing a gimmick as a heel truck driver.  In England this would be a truly sinister thing - lorry driver sadly have a bad reputation for being unmasked as serial killers and sex murderers over here. Fear not however, he's just a curmudgeonly German truckie.  He and Jessy do a really strange promo with Jessy hanging out the cabin door of Jorg's truck.

Match itself is not a lot to write home about, one fall after ten minutes of action. Gary pays homage to the local flavour with a nifty Scisseaux Volees takedown which unfortunately crashes into the ropes, not in a Kent Walton "Ran out of Mat"kind of way but rather as if the ropes were an unexpected obstacle the wrestlers collided with that mucked up their big spot. Cullen pulls off a neat monkey flip and the heels get the win with a rather badly done low flying version of the LOD's Doomsday Device off the middle turnbuckle on poor old Gary.

The rest is the heels doing their dirty work (Bollet gives them a Premier Avertisement) and the blue eyes retaliating. Reasonably action packed but technically nothing that you couldn't have seen on WWF or particularly WCW TV at the time.

Gary Welsh had another match in France. Unfortunately it was teaming with fellow youngster the Young .Wiganner against North American monsters Double Trouble (Rick Crawford and Carl "Quebecer Pierre" Wallace. I suspect a squash ...

And so far I'm right. It looks like Demolition Vs enhancement talent b circa 1988.  Lots of bodychecks and. Gary stays tagged in for most of the match, Wiganner gets in a tiny bit offence with about two dropkicks. The rest of the match is five minutes of bodychecks and double teaming, culminating in a Bulldogs style slamming ones own partner atop the opponent for the pin.