Phil Lions Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 2 hours ago, David Mantell said: Quasimodo was Spanish btw. He was indeed. However, he didn't get the Quasimodo gimmick in Spain. The Quasimodo gimmick was first introduced in France and then he took it around the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 4 hours ago, David Mantell said: Yes but it started picking up intensity around '71 before going up yet another gear in the 80s. Delaporte was the root of both Marc Mercier and Richard/Here's gimmick ridden product in the C21st. Quasimodo was Spanish btw. He was on ITV too in his time. Is the TV we have from '71 onwards predominantly Delaporte's promotion or do we have footage from other promotions as well? I would argue that there were even more gimmicks in the 60s than there were in the 70s, especially in the way of the success of L'Ange Blanc and other masked gimmicks. When I was going through all of the posters and match records we have from the era, I noted plenty of gimmicks that never aired on TV like the knockoff OSS 17 gimmick (the French version of James Bond), and so on. A lot of this stuff didn't make TV. That may have been because promoters wanted to push their top guys, or because politically the promoters were better off keeping the gimmickry stuff off the screens. We know that Catch was under attack in the early 60s for not being the sporting contest it portrayed itself as. We still don't know how the TV worked, tbh, which is something always bothered me. How did the broadcaster decide which promotion they would show each week? Was there an agreement amongst the promoters as to the rotation of the promotions or was it t the whim of the broadcaster? One thing that's notable about the catch broadcasts is that you very rarely see the workers dressed up in their gimmicks. This seemed to be intentionally kept off the screens. You don't see Spartacus in his Gladiator gear, for example, or M'Boa with his snake. You don't even see Batman in his full get up. There's an episode from 1969 where the heels are wearing their full costumes, but I can't think of too many other examples outside of the L'Ange Blanc run. Things appeared to be a lot more lax by '71, but I would counter that there wasn't a pick up in intensity with the gimmick workers. Rather, I think there's a serious decline in both the foreign talent available and local talent. There's a lot of amazing light heavyweight wrestling in the early 70s and some cool heavyweight stuff involving the feds, but there isn't a steady stream of new talent. When you don't have talented new wrestlers, you tend to get guys relying more on gimmicks to get over. However, gimmicks were always a part of French wrestling just like they were always a part of British wrestling. I'm fairly sure there was a steady overlap between 60s French gimmicks and the Paul Lincoln gimmicks of 1960s England. After all, there seemed to be an exchange of talent between the two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetlag Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 8 hours ago, Cien Caras said: Yeah Chilean Dracula may be a low-key great and overall the wrestling seems better than the average quality in Argentina. Someone needs to deep dive into Chilean lucha and get a sense of the culture and if there was indeed some dramatic shift in presentation that reflected some kind of entertainment mandate under the Pinochet regieme. Or they just saw what was popular in Argentina and created their own version. This is the best I could find, it’s understandably in Spanish but hopefully someone smarter than me can translate https://web.archive.org/web/20160624042207/https://teamwwechile.com/la-historia-de-la-lucha-libre-en-chile/ There are a few more Dracula matches on YouTube, seems like a great rudo. This channel has put up all the episodes from 1981-1982, although in lesser quality. Seems this guy screencapped them from elsewhere so they must be out there. The official Chilean TV channel has posted only 1-2 episodes and a few clips. They said they were working on releasing all the episodes but that was 8 years ago, so... Some of the episodes have guys with more luchaesque masks. I am pretty sure the real Rayo de Jalisco shows up on a few episodes (unless there's a Chilean guy who decided he's gonna imitate Rayo de Jalisco). There's also an Angel Blanco who seems to be a Chilean luchador, and an El Matematico who has a similiar costume to the Mexican guy but I'm pretty sure its an imitator. This channel has also collected an insane amount of clips of old south american wrestling, seems the concept of the cartoon gimmicks was insanely popular on the continent as the Argentinian show infected all the other countries: https://www.youtube.com/@Cuadri2013/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said: You don't see ... or M'Boa with his snake. Snake seems to be in this one. Poor thing gets put in his mouth several times, must have scared the bejeezus out of the poor serpent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetlag Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 40 minutes ago, Cien Caras said: The translation isn’t great but this seems to be a good history of wrestling in Chile https://elazotevenezolanoelblog-blogspot-com.translate.goog/2015/12/los-anos-dorados-del-cachacascan-en.html?m=1&_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp Talks about the transition from the the classic "Cachacascán" era (literally catch as catch can) to the Titanes era in the early 1970s which the author represents as the end of the “golden era”. Yes, that seems to confirm my suspicion. Cagematch mentions that the Titanes program was introduced in 1971 on state TV, with the footage being destroyed in the war, then it was started up again in 1977. Judging from the results from the very first show in 1971 they already had the cartoon gimmicks then with Batman and Robin being there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said: I'm fairly sure there was a steady overlap between 60s French gimmicks and the Paul Lincoln gimmicks of 1960s England. I don't think it's up online anymore but there was some cinema sportsreel footage of M'Boa in England for an opposition promoter, possibly Paul Lincoln. I don't think Joint would ever have put M'Boa on ITV with or without the snake act, although if they had, TVTimes would have come running to do a lifestyle feature on life at home with the snake with M'boa and probably Mrs M'Boa too being interviewed about their pet and how they look after it. which would have taken a lot of the heat out of the gimmick. (Which reminds me, I really should dig out and scan the At Home with the Roccos TVTimes feature with notorious violent heel Rollerball Mark Rocco and his wife Anne standing round the kitchen cooker and Anne saying what a wonderful helpful around the house chap her husband is. I would LOVE to see BILL WATTS' reaction to that .... ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 6 hours ago, David Mantell said: Snake seems to be in this one. Poor thing gets put in his mouth several times, must have scared the bejeezus out of the poor serpent. I don't think I've seen that before. Surely, I'd remember him putting the snake in his mouth. It's from '71 which again points to more lax broadcasting standards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Since wrestling in the Middle East has become a side topic of this thread, does anyone know anything about any scene in Saudi Arabia before WWE in the C21st? There's a Wikipedia redirect just waiting to be turned in a proper article if anyone has any details: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Professional_wrestling_in_Saudi_Arabia&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:WWE_in_Saudi_Arabia#Previous pro wrestling in SA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Another thing that came along in the early 70s which El_P cited as an example of the decay of French wrestling was Swimming Pool Matches. This was on TV in October 1973: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale Wolfe Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Don't have much to add but Dracula can really go, eh. Some great footage here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 2 hours ago, David Mantell said: Another thing that came along in the early 70s which El_P cited as an example of the decay of French wrestling was Swimming Pool Matches. I did not do that. I never even mentioned swimming pool matches, ever. The one thing I did was say I saw a Flesh Gordon match once in a harbor during a festival in 1990, and the ring was floating on the water. You must have misremembered, as they say... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Okay, it was in a harbour. Same basic concept, floating ring in water, wrestlers fall in and get wet and laughed at by spectators. I think I said I once saw photos of a floating ring in a lake in a park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Just to show it wasn't all gymnast lightweights in 80s France. Here are two heavyweights slugging it out in a working class rural village in France. Quote Lumberjack Savoyard, before becoming Fort aux Halles de Paris and harvesting several tons of meat per night, Alain Lesage had dragged his wrestling pumps into all the good rooms, dear to Félix MIQUET and his 130 kilos near Chamonix. Filmed as very often by amateur cameras, his confrontation with the Auvergne Batistou gave off, apart from the gunpowder, a good smell of deep France where parochialism still had enormous importance in the villages at that time. Very few scissors volleys and jumps carried in their luggage but everything.....in the breaststrokes.....it's heavy. It is nice to see in the locker room, during the warm-up, Walter Bordes and Michel Falempin as well as Gérard Bouvet and Jean Ménard. We can also see Daniel Dubail '' called '' the little prince, The stylist and former Olympic selection for his country Morocco, Kader Hassouni and the extremely discreet the formidable John BLACK whose career will be shortened by a very serious accident during a dramatic fight at the Elysée Montmartre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 I wonder if Batistou had been watching Hillbilly Jim and Uncle Elmer on Canal + ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 23 minutes ago, David Mantell said: Okay, it was in a harbour. Same basic concept, floating ring in water, wrestlers fall in and get wet and laughed at by spectators. Missing the point, again. I did not cited these kind of matches as an exemple of the decay of French wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 30 minutes ago, David Mantell said: Here are two heavyweights slugging it out in a working class rural village in France. Oh yeah. Clichy. That famous rural village. Holy fuck. When you don't know, just don't make shit up. Just don't make shit up in general. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 41 minutes ago, El-P said: Oh yeah. Clichy. That famous rural village. Holy fuck. When you don't know, just don't make shit up. Just don't make shit up in general. Where does it say Clichy on there?. Bob Alpra doesn't mention Clichy. He does say that it's got the smell of parochial deep France . "A good smell of deep France where parochialism still had enormous importance in the villages at that time." YouTube doesn't do Smellovision so we'll have to take his word on that. EDIT: A comment 5 years after the video was posted asks if it's the Gymnase Racine de Clichy and gets no response from Bob if that's what you mean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 29 minutes ago, David Mantell said: Where does it say Clichy on there? It took me about 5 seconds to find that information on the video itself. 29 minutes ago, David Mantell said: He does say that it's got the smell of parochial deep France . And that's true. And that also doesn't mean anything in term of where it was actually taped. Even if there was no way to know where it was taped, just making shit up about it happening in a rural village is just giving fake informations based on nothing but a random, unsourced youtube video description. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 From last summer: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 Quote The most shocking thing to me is not that there was actual pro-wrestling on Antenne 2 in 1985 still (I was way too young to know though), but that Bernard Menez had been a guest announcer. Bernard fucking Menez. Inviting guest "intellectuals" to cast their lofty judgement on the action seems to have been a longtime part of French TV wrestling. A whole gang of them seem to have come along for the ride for this match from November 1970 involving The Barons (Jeff Kaye and Ian Gilmour) pretending to be Scotsmen (like Gilmour and Finlay did nearly a decade later.) Typically they yap on a lot about quel Spectacle magnifique et gymnastique it all is, but none of them know a single hold, move or countermove to be able to call it in their commentary - nor, I guess, would they ever want their fashionable friends to ever catch them on TV displaying that kind of knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 NEWSFLASH - Marc Mercier is retiring from the FFCP and the wrestling business: https://www.facebook.com/ffcatch/posts/pfbid023LQFdaZDDchDrfEJAGcgKJpAoSwg1En4BRLmjVcsE7PGiVdnRvCXhyAktr12Skmbl Quote Quote Communiqué F.F.C.P. Il est temps pour moi de refermer cette porte ouverte en 1975. 49 ans se sont écoulé... Je quitte donc cet univers qui fut le miens durant des décennies. Je passe à autre chose... Adieu monde du Catch. F.F.C.P. communication Time for me to close this door that opened in 1975. 49 years have passed.. So I'm leaving this universe that was mine for decades. Moving on to the next thing... Goodbye World of Wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted March 11 Report Share Posted March 11 On the subject of Prince Zéfy, nice compilation video from about a year ago, including footage from New Catch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 On 7/2/2020 at 1:42 AM, ohtani's jacket said: Guy Mercier vs. Allan Le Foudre (aired 1/24/70) Charly Verhulst used the alias Allan Le Foudre in this match despite the fact that even the commentator and Guy Mercier referred to him as Charly Verhulst. I guess that was the name Verhulst went by in earlier appearances in France. It's not the first time a commentator has pointed out that a wrestler is using a different name. Anyway, Verhulst was a fine Belgian wrestler. This match was an experiment in using a rounds system. It featured five five-minute rounds with the winner decided by two referees at the end. I believe they were also wrestling for a purse of 10,000 francs. I'm not really sure if pinfalls or submissions counted. It seemed like the winner was determined at the end of the fifth round. Although in this case it appeared to be a draw, which defeats the purpose of determining a winner over five rounds. I'd have to watch it again to understand the rules. There was some great wrestling as the emphasis here was on catch as a sporting contest. Mercier looked better than in any other match I've seen him in. I do wish he would stop doing Leduc's moves, however. It's cool that we have so many different types of Verhulst matches. It's probably an artificial construct based on how few matches we have, but he feels like a traveling Naoki Sano type. The rounds stuff is an interesting experiment, but I think it works better with 2/3 falls. Am watching this bout. So they did have rounds in France after all. At least sometimes. Verhurst (pronounced Veruce) was cited many years later as Mile Zrno's trainer by Orig Williams on English language commentary during a CWA Zrno Vs Fit Finlay match screened as part of a New Catch episode on Eurosport. Interesting looking venue with the big coach-and-horses doors and lamp pillars. Hopefully there are retrievable chroma dots on this film as I would love to someday see what this place looked like in colour. Nice bit with the two heels at the start. Kurt Kaiser must have been very close to the bone for a country under Nazi occupation just over 25 years earlier. Latasserre (sp?) being a great arrogant heel. They're doing "primes" again! Both men get awarded a hefty prime of 10,000F during the head scissors escape sequence (with Mercier forming a human corkscrew with his bent legs to help twist out of the hold.) The curse of the celeb intellectual colour commentator strikes again, this one wants LeFoudre to win because he looks the more sympa of the two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 On 3/27/2024 at 10:26 AM, David Mantell said: @ohtani's jacket said The rounds stuff is an interesting experiment, but I think it works better with 2/3 falls. As with All Star, Rumble and the late TWA in C21st UK the rounds here were basically a relic rather than a novelty. On 3/27/2024 at 10:26 AM, David Mantell said: @ohtani's jacket said Mercier looked better than in any other match I've seen him in. I do wish he would stop doing Leduc's moves, however. I'm not bothered who "owns" the moves as long as it makes for a good skillful bout. At least Guy Mercier isn't slapping the referee around (as he would start with poor old Michel Saulnier about 7 years later.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Mantell Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 On 3/27/2024 at 10:26 AM, David Mantell said: @ohtani's jacket said . It featured five five-minute rounds with the winner decided by two referees at the end. I believe they were also wrestling for a purse of 10,000 francs. I'm not really sure if pinfalls or submissions counted. It seemed like the winner was determined at the end of the fifth round. Although in this case it appeared to be a draw, which defeats the purpose of determining a winner over five rounds. I'd have to watch it again to understand the rules. Wel I got it anyway! It was just a bog standard five rounds no score draw! The "purse"you mention was the Prime some stinkin' rich fan offered to pay each man for a good scientific bout this far. At the end of the fight MC Raymond Poignard (sp?) pauses to check with the ref before confirming it is indeed a draw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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