French catch

[Indikator]

Mile Zrno was trained by Michael Ujevic

[David Mantell]

On 4/13/2020 at 11:29 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Jon Guil Don vs. Anton Tejero (aired 4/18/76)
Jon Guil Don vs. Tomas Trujillo (aired 6/13/76)

Jon Guil Don was a martial arts expert. He was billed as South Korean but was actually a wrestler from El Salvador. His gimmick was similar to the Irishman, Eddie Hamill, who starred as The Amazing Kung Fu in British rings. In fact, the pair tagged together in the UK, and it looks like Jon Guil Don picked up a few of Hamill's tricks. Guil Don wore a gi and performed with a nunchaku before his matches. His signature spots were karate kicks with his finisher being a karate kick from the top rope. They paired him with South Americans due to the language barrier, I suppose. It took me FOREVER to decipher Trujillo's name. The Trujillo match was better since it was longer and Jon Guil Don bled, but on the whole if you've seen Hamill's matches, or Sayama's work in the UK as Sammy Lee, Jon Guil Don wasn't a major departure from that. His kicks were better perhaps, but I've read people say that Jon Guil Don was one of the best workers to tour the UK. That seems like nostalgia to me. Maybe he had some amazing throw downs in UK halls but not here. He worked in Mexico a bit, apparently. 

I came across a poster recently for the Guil Don/Kung Fu tag team

[David Mantell]

5 hours ago, Indikator said:

Mile Zrno was trained by Michael Ujevic

Try telling that to the late Orig Williams,See his comment at 1:22 of this: 

 

[Matt D]

Orig Williams is the last person I’d try to tell anything.

[David Mantell]

9 hours ago, Matt D said:

Orig Williams is the last person I’d try to tell anything.

Haha you could get a few important older people in British wrestling upset by slagging off dear old Orig! 

But anyway, that's the first place I ever heard the name Charlie Verhulst (pronounced Veruce) mentioned.

[David Mantell]

Bob Plantin has started up a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188513425037928 

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want other people posting stuff on there and refuses to accept that French wrestling carried on after 1985 (although the group is titled CATCHEURS FRANCAIS 1950 / 1995)

 

 

[David Mantell]

Before there was Kim Chee there was Madame M'boba

 

[David Mantell]

Transmitted 11th March 1979, filmed 5 months earlier:

[Phil Lions]

With WWE's upcoming PLE in France POST Wrestling just published an article on the history of wrestling and WWE in France that I thought was pretty good. I thought I would share it here:

https://www.postwrestling.com/2024/05/01/nearly-twenty-years-of-french-wrestling-history-surrounds-backlash-france/

 

[ingridguerci94]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:10 PM, David Mantell said:

Transmitted 11th March 1979, filmed 5 months earlier:

Watch more: Katainaka ni Totsui de Kita Russia Musume on https://phimhentaiz.net/

It is fascinating to witness Richard and Angelito joining forces. Back in 1971, each of them had at least one remarkable fight that left a lasting impression. Their collaboration now promises to bring the same level of excitement and skill that marked their individual battles in the past.

[David Mantell]

On 5/2/2024 at 1:29 PM, ingridguerci94 said:

Very interesting to see Richard and Angelito teaming up together... Both had (at least) one great fight in 1971

 

 

The one where Angelito got so fed up of Richard he sel-unmasked mid match.

They were still going at it nearly two decades later:

 

[David Mantell]

On 3/23/2020 at 9:59 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

L'Ange Blanc vs. Paul Villars (aired 1/9/59)

Watching this match was surreal. It was a bit like having footage of the original El Santo. Up until now we've only had clips of L'Ange Blanc just like we only have footage of Santo from his movies. Because of that, he hasn't really been on my catch radar. I've been aware of his existence but my catch journey has been in pursuit of more matches like Cesca vs. Catanzaro. The idea behind L'Ange Blanc was that he was an avenger against the hoard of French villains. Couderc claims that he came up with the gimmick and the costume design. Like all masked men, his identity remained shrouded in mystery. He was billed as South American but rumours had it he was the son of a French diplomat. In reality, he was a wrestler from Madrid who really did get his start in South America. In fact, I believe he moved to France after the Venezuelan coup in 1958 but that information is loosely scraped together. In any event, he took off in 1959. I'm not sure if this is his debut match or not. Legend has it that his debut drew a crowd of 15,000 to the Palais des Sports and that the TV station's phones rang off the hook. He grew so popular that he was part of the 1959 Tour de France, wrestling a match each night at the stopover towns. He also had imitators throughout the country on a nightly basis. It was a similar story to other superhero success stories in wrestling. The same mythos of good vs. evil that resonated strongly to a post-war generation, articulated by the passionate cries of Roger Couderc. Despite the fact that he looked like a luchador, the French venues, and the artwork for the bills he appeared on, almost gave it a gothic or expressionist feel to me. As for his wrestling, it's important to remember that he was a heavyweight and a welterweight or middleweight like the great workers of the day, but if this is your number one babyface you could do worse. He wasn't a master technician but he was definitely a decent one. He put Villars to sleep at the end of the match then revived him after the bout much to the crowd's delight. It's impossible to say enough about Paul Villars' moustache. Possibly the greatest moustache in wrestling history. Definitely the most villainous. He cut a promo with Couderc before the bout, which was something I hadn't seen before. This was definitely an important piece of footage. We only have one more match with L'Ange Blanc in the mask and nothing from his legendary feud with Le Bourreau de Bethune, which was considered to be the McManus vs. Pallo of French catch. The rest of the footage is after he unmasked. So an important document, for sure. And a whole new chapter in the narrative that we're trying to piece together.  

The finish of this, with Villars counted out to 10 on the mat, is one of those Knockout finishes I was telling yo all about in the '"Why is America assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread.

 

 

[David Mantell]

 

 

Jim Cornette seemed impressed recently with the enthusiastic chanting French audiences at Backlash France. I sent him a potted history of French fan chants. We'll see if he and Brian read it out.

Quote

 

• Hi Jim

   

  I enjoyed your discussion on how you approved of the French fans chanting at Backlash.  As a fan of old time French "Catch" (the closest relative of the old time British Wrestling on World Of Sport I grew up with) I thought you might be interested to know a few more chants the French used to do (and sometimes revive) at their  local pro wrestling shows:

   

  * AUX CHIOTTES L'ARBITRE (pronounced "oh shot larbitre"  The referee to the shithouse!). The referee has made a dubious or otherwise unpopular decision.

  From about the late 1970s onwards, referees like former lightweight champion Michel Saulnier were seen as dodgy corrupt quasi heel figures whom it was okay for Les Bons (the babyfaces) to beat up on. An exception to this rule was Roger Delaporte promoter and former super Mechant (heel) turned enforcer referee like Gorilla Monsoon in late 70s WWWF, who stood up to the Mechants and often beat them up.

  In 1988 French WWF fans chanted this at (IIRC) Tim White during the Demolition/British Bulldogs match from Paris on Superstars, leaving Gorilla and Bobby nonplussed.

   

  * ARBITRE SALAUD. LA PEUPLE AURA TA PEAU (pronounced "arbitre saloh, la purple ora ta poh"-  Referee , You Bastard! The people will have your skin!). More extreme version of the above, more commonly associated with industrial disputes and political demonstrations, but occasionally used at refs who upset the crowd. Saulnier once went BERSERK when a crowd chanted this at him on a TV match in about 1981.

   

  * AHHHHHH .... OUI!!!  AHHHHHH .... OUI!!!  AHHHHHH .... OUI!!! (pronounced "Ah Wee Ah Wee Ah Wee" - Ooh yeah, Ooh yeah Ooh yeah)  Chanted by fans as the Bon lifts up the Mechant in - typically - a bodyscissors ("AAAH"). then drops him on his backside  ("OUI") over and over again

   

  *. HEH HEH LA CAGOULE (pronounced: "he he la kagool". Hey hey the mask!) The fans want the Bon to unmask the Masked Mechant. Often the Bon will succeed only for the unmasked masked man to crouch down in the middle of the ring and refuse to budge until the referee puts the mask back on him, triggering more chants of AUX CHIOTTES L'ARBITRE. 

  Not to be confused with chants of HEH HEH PAPPADOUX (pronounced "hey hey pappadoo" ) which fans would chant to cheer on wrestler Claude Roca whose nickname this was.

   

  Also ALLEZ LES BLEUS which you mentioned in the show can be adapted to other colours of football or wrestling attire such as Les Rouges, Les Noirs, Les Blancs or Les Verts.  Fans would cheer on  Les Celts, Jean Corne and Michel Falempin, a Bon team from Breton (Brittany in North France where they speak Breton, a language related to Welsh) who wore matching green trunks.

   

  Hope you found this interesting.  For further information, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_wrestling_in_France . 

  If this has really whetted your appetite, check out these playlists:

  1970-1987: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ811z1HQb3mVjMNSAv9ffhNaInRd83O0

  1965-1969 :https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ811z1HQb3mv9GYvCe5o8a4ATgEImFqF 

  There are some earlier playlists on that channel but the further back, the more an acquired taste (familiarity with old British wrestling probably helps)

   

  Regards

   

  David

 

[David Mantell]

On 5/1/2024 at 4:20 PM, Phil Lions said:

With WWE's upcoming PLE in France POST Wrestling just published an article on the history of wrestling and WWE in France that I thought was pretty good. I thought I would share it here:

https://www.postwrestling.com/2024/05/01/nearly-twenty-years-of-french-wrestling-history-surrounds-backlash-france/

 

Sounds like the author has been reading the Wikipedia article - and possibly this thread.

Quote

All the while at a time when French professional wrestling was perhaps at an all-time low – reduced to shady promotional tactics, like booking topless female bouts to attract customers, as seen in the 1982 documentary People are Mean.

I've noticed the French do seem to have a different attitude about female toplessness than other nations. (eg on beaches). Even Orig Williams never dared breach this taboo on Reslo while he was giving many UK lady wrestlers their only TV exposure on S4C. However the audience watching the bout in Les Gens Sont Mechants don't seem like a bunchy of dirty old Vieux Pontoufles - they just look like the same mixed- society audience that sit at ringside on French TV cheering les Bons and booing Les Mechants.

Generally in Britain the likes of  Mitzi Mueller and Klondyke Kate fought long and hard to throw off the sexploitation tag and be the equivalent kind of heroines and villainesses that their male counterparts played to equally respectable audiences . The same can be said of the French female matches that made it to TV in the late 70s and 80s. (Kate made it to France with Eurosport and got to battle Gaby Laillie in front of the cameras in 1989.

Quote

By 1985, when WWE came into play, wrestling could only be seen very sporadically and very late on French TV’s third national channel and would disappear by 1987, aside from some failed attempts over the years. In some ways, French pro-wrestling followed the same trajectory as British pro-wrestling whose main televised outlet – World of Sport – stopped in 1985 on UK’s ITV.

I agree with the last part, the two territories underwent similar developments in the last two decades of the C20th. However similar myths seem to have grown up in both countries about the fate of local wrestling in these past 40 years.

As we have already seen on here, the migration from A2 to FR3 took place in August 1985 and there were broadcasts a week apart either side of the jump.  Also as with Britain in 1988, it was TV coverage of wrestling that ended in late 1987, (or rather 1988 taking into account the TF1  preview episodes of New Catch) not French Wrestling itself which demonstrably carried on. 

It is wrong - and a blatant malicious lie - to suggest that there was a situation like with WCW in 2001 where Jamie Kellner pulling the plug immediately killed stone dead the promotion - and with it, decades of Southern US Rasslin' culture. British wrestling survived Greg Dyke's big song and dance cancellation of ITV wrestling and French wrestling survived the quieter shuffling off of it from A2 to FR3 to TF1 to Eurosport to whatever platform Eurostars broadcasts on.

It also wasn't on that late either, 10:30pm is the same as ITVs midweek wrestling slot up to the mid 70s and quite often with a main news bulletin straight afterwards. There also seems to have been some sort of Sunday 5pm slot (we know this from the speaking clock tracks on some INA tapes) which explains the child audiences on some bouts.

Quote

Nathan Maingneur, now a documentarian, dedicated his final study in European history to the importance of pro-wrestling in the early days of French TV, by digging through the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) in 2022. “I first got the idea to seek and examine these archives after seeing some GIFs of it on my Twitter feed”, he explains.  “American pro-wrestling fans were marveling at the athleticism of French wrestlers back then while French fans never even seemed to know or care to know about that time period”. 

This sounds VERY much like he's been on here!

I think the writer confuses what is held in the INA with what was actually broadcast.  The INA was set up in 1975. Prior to that it holds RTF's stock of b/w overseas sales films 1955-1974 (plus one lucky surviving colour transmission tape from January 1969.)  From 1975 onwards a sample of broadcasts were recorded off air by INA (probably on U-Matic and later on VHS/Beta). We have matches in better quality with no INA stamp and some where no INA copy exists but another source eg Bob ALPRA does. Also some INA recordings cut in or cut out mid broadcast.  So clearly more was screened than the INA holds.

Quote

However, failing to renew their approach, French pro-wrestlers and promoters have to share the guilt for the long dark age that followed. Sturry, who begrudges qualifying himself a “French influencer” with almost 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and 31,000 on Twitch, still recounts that kind of dusty atmosphere when he debuted in the ring in 2000, first as a referee and then as a full-blown wrestler. “At the time, the wrestling scene was still under the influence of the old guard, former wrestlers or their trainees standing by the old-fashioned ways of teaching and thinking pro-wrestling. Whereas, the up-and-comers like me were primarily fans of American or Japanese pro-wrestling, through Canal+ or the Internet, and were looking to freshen things up”. 

This Sturry guy sounds like an Alex Shane or Fin Martin out to kill off the "antiquated" unsmart Old School by diverting new talent away to  an Americanised New School (generic American indie wrestling relocated to Europe). They didn't succeed in the UK and I doubt they will in France either.

Here in Britain, you only have to look at the DVD of 2006 ROH/1PW/FOH "supershow" Frontier of Honour 2 where the main feature is dwarfed not only for quality but for audience size and class of venue - by an Easter Egg of a clean match pitting Nigel McGuinness Vs Johnny Kidd on a show at Worthing Pier Pavilion by oldest school of old school promotions Premier! Come to that, the average 2024 showing by Rumble on their YouTube channel makes FOH2 look puny by comparison. I imagine the same is true of ICWA in France and it's attempts to destroy WS and FFCP.

***************

At some stage I will get on that page and leave some comments of a similar nature to the above.

[David Mantell]

On 12/27/2023 at 11:17 AM, David Mantell said:

Add Gilmour - here are the Barons together on both sides of La Manche/The English Channel :

 

 

Funny moment at 20:30  of the Barons' French bout against Corne and Falempin.

Blonde female film actress is guest commentator, admits on air that it's her first ever live wrestling show! 

Just like Cathy Lee Crosby at WrestleMania 2 in 1986!!! LOL. #cestmonpremierfois

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't see any evidence that Catch aired continuously from 1985 to 1987. If that were the case, they'd be more surviving footage. But even if our perception of the era is skewered by what's available in the INA, it's clear from watching the footage that Catch was in a terminal decline. Just as it's clear from watching the last few years of ITV wrestling that the overall product is poor. The wrestling scene didn't die off in either country when they lost TV, and I can imagine how annoying that line of thinking is for someone who was still following the live scene. However, for the lay fan, if you compare mid-60s Catch to mid-80s Catch, there's no comparison. The lay fan is attracted to boom periods. It's hard to find anything worthwhile about 80s catch other than the fact that Flesh Gordon was a far better worker than we ever imagined. 

[David Mantell]

On 6/11/2024 at 10:21 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

If that were the case, they'd be more surviving footage 

Why would the INA have taped it every time it was on?

We know there was at least some more because (1) we have some other dates (2) some INA tapes join in progress and one or two cut out suddenly in progress. We also know it was on consecutive weeks either side of the jump from Antenne 2 to FR3 in August 1985.

10:30pm really wasn't that bad a timeslot. Earlier than SNME in America (and that was hardly a weekly occurrence either)and equal to the ITV midweek show by the mid 70s. We know from some clips there was a big news broadcast straight afterwards without an advert break in-between (just like the football results straight after the wrestling slot on World of Sport)

On 6/11/2024 at 10:21 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

 it's clear from watching the footage that Catch was in a terminal decline. Just as it's clear from watching the last few years of ITV wrestling that the overall product is poor. 

They both had their blights (Big Daddy in Britain and the overall cartoonish gimmick-ridden culture in France) but it's clear a lot of good stuff was still going on in both. We need to know more about Eurostars and its TV platform but it was clearly doing good business to be able to do a TV taping in FYR Macedonia before a packed house much of it being young kids. I don't think promotions in a tailspin would spend money on fripperies for gimmicks like Mambo Le Primitiv either - entire troupes of chanting dancing bongo-bashing "natives" clearly don't come cheap. 

I think the production values on Mike Archer era ITV were pretty good.  As good as ITV and BBC boxing in the 80s/90s and far in advance of studio wrestling in most US territories. The footage even looks better filmed and lit than most 1980s WWF arena broadcasts (on Prism, MSG Network etc) particularly when you compare them to early 1979s broadcasts and see how little they advanced. Only the WWF PPVs and SNME are clearly better looking than Mike Archer era ITV.

Quote

. The wrestling scene didn't die off in either country when they lost TV, 

Indeed not, both-  plus Germany/Austria - are still alive in 2024, 23.25 years after the last US territory other than New York (and Puerto Rico if you must) sputted out.

[David Mantell]

But as far as that blog post goes, this guy seems to have latched on to that wretched Seins Nus match like it was Roger Delaporte 's most infamous "achievement". Leaving aside the different social mores in France, and the fact that by the late 70s Antenne 2 - unlike ITV ever but like S4C and Eurosport - had no qualms about putting women's wrestling on TV, it was hardly a big deal even within the context of FFCP in the early 80s. If he'd complained instead about the somewhat ludicrous characters like Mambo and his posse, Les Piranhas and Les Maniaks - and that this aspect remains a central element of both major promotions  of Catch Francais 35-40 years later-he might have had a case.

[ohtani's jacket]

Forget about the INA, why wasn't anyone taping it? Unless there's some giant haul of French Catch tucked away on SECAM. Not sure if more Mambo matches would make a difference, though. There's a clear difference between the importance of Catch in the 50s and 60s and the footage that's available from the 80s.. I appreciate how you beat the drum for post-prime European wrestling but it doesn't pass the eye test for me. 

[Jetlag]

I have the faint hope that there may be more French stuff that the INA has taped but not uploaded to their archive.

[David Mantell]

On 6/13/2024 at 11:44 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Forget about the INA, why wasn't anyone taping it? Unless there's some giant haul of French Catch tucked away on SECAM. 

I expect people did  tape it (as they did in Britain) and tape traded too and there are possibly pockets of stuff here and there. PAL seems to have been a barrier to British wrestling (and unofficial copies of the IBV/CWA taper releases) reaching a wide audience among American tape readers.  French fandom does seem a lot slower off the mark than even British fandom was in getting themselves organised online (it doesn't help that Bob Plantin won't let other people post videos/photos or widen topics of discussion on his FB page).

There are definitely some matches out there not in the INA's collection - these on Bob ALPRA's channel for instance:

as well as this of the young Marc Mercier on the FFCP YouTube channel (and missing as far as I can see from @Matt D's 1970-1987 playlist, you might like to add it, Matt!):

(Update: it seems to be in there now. Perhaps my Find In Page searcher wasn't picking it up, in which case please accept my apologies Matt.)

And of course there is this previously posted bout footage, for the existence of which no one has a satisfactory explanation: it's clearly not the EWF who did New Catch and it looks a lot like FR3 matches from 1987:

 

Incidentally there are quite a few British bouts no one seems to have (except maybe ITV under lock and key) even though they were well into the 1980s. I've been wanting to watch the Masked Marauders Vs Colin Bennett and Eddie Riley from 1983 since I was 9 (Dad dragged us out swimming that Saturday) but no one seems to have a copy for some reason.

There are probably quite a lot of resources in peoples cupboards and drawers over there- match results (possibly shared by correspondence/newsletter) as well as private records of transmission details/TV results etc. Perhaps there is some French @JNLister out there who could upload their TV info to a website or has access to a media library with a collection of Tele Guide.

There 's also one important point we're missing about FR3 who transmitted Aug 1985-Nov 1987 - the R stood for Regions, it was a network of 15 regional TV stations, not unlike ITV albeit state owned. A lot of programming was not syndicated fully across the network and it would have been difficult for the INA to catch much of it if it was patchily syndicated - on such and such local FR3s at so-and-so different times. (A similar issue exists with the 1990 ITV tapings from Scotland which were shown on Grampian and STV in a late evening slot and then some time later in an early hours graveyard slot by Granada, but no other ITV regions.)

 

[David Mantell]

11 hours ago, David Mantell said:

There are definitely some matches out there not in the INA's collection - these on Bob ALPRA's channel for instance:

And another one:

Presumably also out there is the beginning of that Fred Magnier/Bob Plantin bout as well as the rest of that promising-looking Antonio Pelera Vs Jean Claude Bardot match we see starting at the end of the clip.

[David Mantell]

By the way, here is a clip of Flesh Gordon Vs Scott Ryder from the late Noughties Take a look at the crowd at the start  It's ENORMOUS!!!!  More like an American WWE tour than an old school European show in the C21st

If the video won't embed, here is the link:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8opv0

 

 

[David Mantell]

Apparently this show in Tours 2011 with Gordon Vs Bad Mask drew 2000 and looks it!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ghmd4

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

Quote

Reading this article I have to wonder whose cause you are in hock to here - the WWE whose mission is to extend ihe monopoly on major league American Wrestling it built 1983-2001 to the rest of the known universe, or the American style New School promotions in France whose aim is to eradicate the "antiquated" traditional French Wrestling style and replace it with"modern" generic American indie wrestling, just as their British counterparts have tried long and  hard to wipe out the surviving Traditional British Wrestling scene. Either way. you seem keen to perpetuate quite a few false narratives relating to all three "stronghold" traditional European wrestling territories - Britain, France and Germany/Austria particularly the myth of these cultures hanging "died out" or being in a moribund condition.

One thing you do get right is the parallels between the two Old School scenes in the UK and France - the two nationally televised traditional scenes in Europe (Germany/Austria relied on an astonishingly early programme of home video releases) and both of whose TV berths during the years 1955-1985 any American territory of the time would have been GREEN WITH ENVY over (that also being the 30 year gap between the closure of the Du Mont network and the launch of Saturday Night's Main Event).  

One crucial detail both scenes have in common is that - unlike, say WCW at the tender mercies of Jamie Kellner - they SURVIVED the loss of television, both the Big publicity stunt of Greg Dyke announcing the pulling of ITV Saturday Wrestling at a TV trade fair press conference In Switzerland or the quieter shuffling-off of French TV wrestling from its Randomday Night's Main Event slots on Antenne 2 in 1985 to a similar place on FR3 thenn from FR3 to its old home on TF1 (the former channel 1) with the preview New Catch episodes in 1988 then on to Eurosport with New Catch proper the launch of Astra in 1989 then onto the TV coverage of Eurostars later in the 1990s and running into the 2000s.

  All Star, Rumble and Premier in Britain and Wrestling Stars and FFCP in France are still going to this day in 2024.  (As also is CWP formerly EWP, the successor to Otto Wanz's old CWA.)   Not necessarily at stadium filling level but certainly in better condition than all the old American territories (except New York which lives on as WWE) and in generally better condition than most of the New School Americanised promotions which have come and gone, proclaimed themselves the Great Revival of wrestling in their respective country and then fallen flat on their face.

You've latched on to the Seins Nus aspect of that female match in the documentary as proof of the supposed degredation of French wrestling in the 1980s while ignoring how the French have different mores anyway about female toplessness (as every British school kid who has come gleefully back with strip pens and other lewd souvenirs from a day trip to France can tell you) and that this was positively tame compared to the sexploitation of the WWE Attitude Era.  You talk about this as if it overshadows all Delaporte's many decades as a heel wrestler, tough referee and dominant promoter.  

A fairer critique of 1980s French Wrestling would focus on the heavy use of cartoonish gimmicks which still remains a prominent feature of the scene - lead babyface superhero Flesh Gordon, wrestling "ape" Mambo Le Primitiv and his posse of African drummers, outlandish masked heel tag teams like Les Piranhas and Les Maniaks, 'cowboy' Jesse Texas, "Scotsman" Scott Ryder, veteran Jacky Richard as le Marquis with even more extreme gimmicks to come in subsequent decades (Travesti Man, Monsieur Jacky) all f which conspired to make French wrestling the Memphis wrestling of Europe. 

  Much of this which Delaporte introduced was the French equivalent of Daddy and Haystacks, but like Stax and Daddy, there were other much better things going on in the scene.  Just like in Britain with a young generation of stars like Danny Collins, Kid McCoy, Ritchie Brooks, Robbie Brookside, Steve Regal, Pete Bainbridge, Doc Dean etc, so France had better things going on in the scene at the time and one of the best was the young Gordon and his tag team with veteran Walter Bordes (succeeding Bordes's earlier tag partnerships with Claude Rocas and Rene Ben Chemouel before him.)  Although he later moved up the weights and genuinely became the French Big Daddy in his older, stouter blad moustachioed incarnation in the 2000s, at this stage Flesh was actually a skilled agile lighter weight wrestler..

French wrestling in the mid 1980s was on TV rather more often than "occasionally" (and more often than the country's INA taped it for their archive collection.) and the 10:30pm slot was hardly a graveyard slot.  Midweek wrestling in Britain up to the mid 70s was on in a similar slot and it was an hour earlier than a typical Saturday Night's Main Event in America (11:30pm until 1 or 2am).  We also know that the 11pm evening news bulletin was often shown directly after the wrestling on A2 without so much as an advert break (like the results straight after the last match on World Of Sport. ) Some matches were also rescreened on a more family friendly slot on Sundays at 5pm, which accounts for the sizable child contingent at many French TV matches in the 1980s.  

Andre as Jean Ferre  was very much a celebrity in France during his original run back home as evidenced by a TV documentary about him in 1971.  He was enough of an attraction to frequently return to France and Germany in the 1980s including a pursuit of Otto Wanz's CWA title running parallel with his pursuit of Hulk Hogan's WWF title (the last Andre-Wanz world title match was in December 1987, weeks after the first Survivor Series and lest than two months before his win over Hogan in The Main Event.

As with the new school UK likes of AWAcademy, UWA, FWA, IPW:UK, WOSW, WCPW etc etc so Americanised promotions like the ICWA in France fell by the wayside while the Old School Wrestling Stars and FFCP continued to draw some pretty big houses as evidenced by 1990s/2000s footage of Flesh Gordon's matches on YouTube and Dailymotion confirm (some footage looking almost like arena footage by a visit US promotion).  In the late 90s Flesh, Jacky, Scott Ryder and Prince Zefy (my favourite french wrestler of the past 40 years and still going now) drew a pretty decent crowd for a Eurostars TV taping in FYR Macedonia in front of an audience which seems to have mostly comprised of the WWF's target teenage audience.

The French Old School scenes is undoubtedly badly hobbled by the ridiculously personal enmity between FFCP and WS when they should be focussing on the real enemies - ICWA and the other Americanised promotions as well as WWE continuing to pursue Vnce's imperialis mission.  But like All Star, Rumble and Premier, in Britain, it carries on and can still fill out TV sized venues.  Trying to bury it I a futile exercise.  In Britain In the years since TV  new generations of fans have fallen in love with classic World of Sport and have helped regenerate the traditional promotions - wrestlers like James Mason, Dean Allmark, Tony Spitfire , Robbie Dynamite, Mike Whiplash and more recently Jordan Breaks and Nino Bryant.  If it hasn't happened yet, hopefully more young French wrestlers will connect to their country's wrestling heritage also if that is not already happening.

Okay, I've posted a response to their forum Hopefully it will show on their blog page.