French catch

[PeteF3]

Jeff Lynch had 30-odd-hours of '80s British wrestling in his tape lists years before the Wrestling Channel was a thing. It wasn't much compared to what would come, but it's way more than anything we got out of '80s France (Lynch did have the 1992 EWF stuff as well). I think it also says something that Plantin doesn't touch this era hardly at all either on Facebook or on his ALPRA blog. When he does, it's matches involving guys in the '60s and '70s in their twilight years.

Were promoters spending money on gimmicks like Mambo because they were awash in cash or because they were desperate?

[David Mantell]

https://www.youtube.com/@nicoh6481/videos

The above YouTube channel contains a number of 1988 TF1 editions of New Catch, the final French Wrestling on unscrambled French terrestrial television before New Catch was relocated to Eurosport, the equivalent moment in French Wrestling of ITV cancelling its Saturday wrestling slot.

The episodes don't look like the Gordon/Zefy Vs Jesse Texas/Marquis Jacky match with the dark green mat. Red ropes and white long turnbuckle covers. They look all light blue like later Eurosport episodes. Episode 2 is presumably the Flesh's bare breasted lady friends" episode, to be honest they look more feral than sexploited, like punk band the Slits on the cover of their album Cut.

,

[PeteF3]

Yeah, that's some of the stuff I was talking about, it was a mix of '88 and '92 now that I look over my lists again.

And it's been on Youtube for 10 years and most of it's got a fraction of the views that a bunch of Matt's '50s and '60s stuff has.

[Phil Lions]

Earlier today there was a bit of discussion over on Twitter about the decline of catch in France and that reminded me of something, which I don't think I've mentioned here before. Earlier on in this topic I had talked about the formation of the FFLP. Later on I found out about its end, but I haven't shared this here so here it goes.

I'll start from the beginning. FFLP (Fédération Française de Lutte Professionnelle) was formed way back in 1922. This wasn't a wrestling promotion (though ironically later on there was a promotion by that name). This FFLP was a country-wide governing body for pro wrestling in France. FFLP was to pro wrestling what the French (Amateur) Wrestling Federation was to amateur wrestling, and FFLP was kind of an offshoot of the amateur federation, in fact. All of the rules and regulations for pro wrestling in France came down from FFLP and more importantly in order for a wrestler to wrestle professionally in France the wrestler needed to get a licence through FFLP. At one point in later years for rookies this meant having to pass an exam to get your licence. And if you did something more radical during a match that FFLP didn't approve of, they could take your licence too, which effectively banned you from wrestling in France. I'm not sure if this was the case earlier on too, but I know in the late 1930s wrestlers who wanted to teach catch (pro style) had to get a teacher's diploma through FFLP. FFLP also had a wrestler relief fund, where money would accumulate and go toward helping injured wrestlers. All the championship belts in France? Sanctioned by FFLP, which explains why in France there weren't multiple title claimants of the same title at the same time like there were in other countries. In short, FFLP was as legit a governing body as you could get in pro wrestling. And on top of that, like I've mentioned in the past, in 1928 a French pro wrestlers union was also formed to watch out for the rights and interests of the French pro wrestlers. FFLP was very much in control of things from the 1920s through the 1940s. They still were in the 1950s, but it seems things were beginning to loosen a bit and then in the early 1960s the French amateur federation decided to close down FFLP as a governing body and pro wrestling in France was left to its own devices, without any direct oversight like it had had for close to 40 years by that point.

According to Bob Plantin, the FFLP closure happened in 1960, but I haven't been able to confirm that. Bob points to this as one of the major reasons for the eventual decline of catch. I'm paraphrasing here, but in his words now that wrestling was no longer as regulated as it had been in the past and wrestlers didn't require a FFLP licence anymore, any schmuck could become a pro wrestler and more incompetent promoters entered the business, which eventually led to a decline in both the quality of the workers and of the shows overall. And then as television evolved and other sports became easier to televise, those sports became more of a priority so catch lost its prominence on TV too. Obviously, this is just one veteran wrestler's opinion and there may be some "back in my day" bias too, but it all sounds very plausible to me and so I think we can add the closure of FFLP to the list of reasons for the eventual decline of catch. You take away the regulation from a business that's used to being regulated and chaos is bound to happen with all sorts of people, both old and new, trying to grab a piece of the pie. The loss of FFLP probably didn't help the TV situation either.

[Phil Lions]

On an unrelated note, I recently got my hands on some French books about catch:
 

On the left we have "The Confessions of a Wrestler" from 1960. The author Gilles Calou had a very brief pro wrestling career. In wrestling he went by Strangler Jew and Masque d'Or (Golden Mask). Then he went ahead and wrote this book, right when L'Ange Blanc and company were super popular in France. The book got a good deal of publicity back then too as it promised to expose the inner workings of catch. I had known about this book for a few years now, but finally gave in and got it the other week. I haven't looked through it properly yet, but it seems to be more so about training and how the matches were worked than anything else. On the right we have a book by Frédéric Loyer from 2009. It examines the history of pro wrestling in France and how it connects with amateur wrestling. A friend of mine sent me a copy just the other day so I have yet to go through it in detail, but it looks like a well-researched book, although more on the sporting side of things than on the business side of wrestling. And finally, in the middle we have the one I'm most excited about. "The Truth About Wrestling" by Jean Corne. Written in 1974. I only learned about this one yesterday and it's on its way to me now. My point in all of this being, once I eventually go through these books if anything interesting pops up, I will let you guys know. And I also thought I'd mention them in case anyone else might be interested in them.

While on the subject of French catch books, "The Golden Age" one from 2016 is a favorite of mine. Information-wise it's pretty weak, but in terms of photos this is one of the best pro wrestling books you will find. It's just a beautiful book and features a lot of high quality wrestler and poster photos. If you like wrestling coffee table books, this one is an easy recommendation (even if you don't know any French).

And finally, I see that wrestler-turned-promoter Marc Mercier's upcoming book is scheduled to come out in October this year. Should be an interesting read that hopefully reveals some new details about French catch.

[ohtani's jacket]

Great stuff, Phil.

I've always felt that the decline of Catch began in the 60s, and I think a lot of older British fans felt the same way about British wrestling. The French decline happened much faster, however. Do we know the dates when each promoter quit?  The promotions whittling away seems like a big factor. There was a serious reduction in the amount of foreign talent available as well, similar to the situation that Japan faced in the late 80s-early 90s where they were forced to create their own native stars. 

[Matt D]

36 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Great stuff, Phil.

I've always felt that the decline of Catch began in the 60s, and I think a lot of older British fans felt the same way about British wrestling. The French decline happened much faster, however. Do we know the dates when each promoter quit?  The promotions whittling away seems like a big factor. There was a serious reduction in the amount of foreign talent available as well, similar to the situation that Japan faced in the late 80s-early 90s where they were forced to create their own native stars. 

Instead of a Big Daddy to be a crossover star and stem the tide, they had a Flesh Gordon instead?

[NintendoLogic]

@Phil Lions posted an interesting factoid on Twitter yesterday (apologies if this has already been brought up, but I've only been somewhat keeping up with this thread). L'Ange Blanc's TV debut in 1959 aired live on Friday night at 10:05 PM. Andre's world title win in 1968 aired on tape delay on Saturday night at 11:30 PM. It could be a situation similar to what befell Japanese promotions where they simply didn't have the TV exposure to create new stars.

[Phil Lions]

Okay, so I searched around a bit last night and it looks like there may have been some additional ups and downs in the FFLP story that I need to research more. In searching for that, however, I found a few interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share here.

An article from November 1949 referred to the Elysee Montmartre promotion (Henri Chausson's promotion) as "Fédération Sportive Française". The article also mentioned a "Fédération Nationale de Lutte Professionnelle" based out of Clisson Palace, and I've never heard about that one before. And there was also a mention of "Fédération Française de Lutte" being active in the provinces.

In November 1950 Karel Istaz (the future Karl Gotch) and six other Belgian wrestlers were provisionally suspended by the Belgian Pro Wrestling Federation. And because the Belgian federation and FFLP had a working agreement, it was announced that these wrestlers could not wrestle in France either.

A September 1952 article mentioned an interesting rule when it comes to title matches. Back in November 1946 the Ministry of Education had issued an order to authorize FFLP to sanction French, European and World Championship matches. Calling back to this old order, in September 1952 FFLP made a decision about the number of title matches that would be allowed. The article doesn't go into details so it's hard to say whether the original 1946 order had something in it about the number of matches or it was just a general ruling. Anyway, the point is that in September 1952 FFLP ruled that each French Championship could only be competed for four times per season, with European Championships it was three times per season and with the World Championships it was two times per season. It's not clear whether this meant in Paris only or France as a whole. The Paris season was typically from early fall through late spring or early summer. I also do have to mention that looking at my notes I see that earlier in the year in 1952 Frank Sexton defended his World Heavyweight Championship claim in Paris three times and now this makes me wonder whether the September 1952 decision was somehow related to that.
 

On 6/18/2024 at 12:29 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Great stuff, Phil.

I've always felt that the decline of Catch began in the 60s, and I think a lot of older British fans felt the same way about British wrestling. The French decline happened much faster, however. Do we know the dates when each promoter quit?  The promotions whittling away seems like a big factor. There was a serious reduction in the amount of foreign talent available as well, similar to the situation that Japan faced in the late 80s-early 90s where they were forced to create their own native stars. 

I don't know. My best guess is that by the end of the 1960s most, if not all, of the old Paris promoters were out of the game. We know for a fact that Chausson was out, because Delaporte took over Elysee Montmarte at some point in the 1960s. Lack of foreign talent was definitely an issue. If you compare the 1970s cards with the 1950s and 1960s cards, it's obvious straight away how reduced the number of foreign wrestlers is compared to the previous two decades. And you no longer get big foreign names passing through France like some had done in the past.
 

On 6/18/2024 at 1:14 AM, NintendoLogic said:

@Phil Lions posted an interesting factoid on Twitter yesterday (apologies if this has already been brought up, but I've only been somewhat keeping up with this thread). L'Ange Blanc's TV debut in 1959 aired live on Friday night at 10:05 PM. Andre's world title win in 1968 aired on tape delay on Saturday night at 11:30 PM. It could be a situation similar to what befell Japanese promotions where they simply didn't have the TV exposure to create new stars.

And it aired not only on delay, but on 12-day delay. Lack of TV exposure was certainly a factor. It's not impossible, but it's definitely much harder to make new stars when you're airing late on Saturday nights. More importantly though, the time slot tells me how far wrestling had fallen off in terms of priorities for the network.

Also, one small clarification. L'Ange Blanc's debut match aired 10:05 on Friday. His actual TV debut was a prime time interview the day before, which according to the French press back then was watched by 4 million viewers (which was a lot for 1959 France).
 

[Jetlag]

On 6/17/2024 at 10:38 PM, Phil Lions said:

On an unrelated note, I recently got my hands on some French books about catch:
 

On the left we have "The Confessions of a Wrestler" from 1960. The author Gilles Calou had a very brief pro wrestling career. In wrestling he went by Strangler Jew and Masque d'Or (Golden Mask). Then he went ahead and wrote this book, right when L'Ange Blanc and company were super popular in France. The book got a good deal of publicity back then too as it promised to expose the inner workings of catch. I had known about this book for a few years now, but finally gave in and got it the other week. I haven't looked through it properly yet, but it seems to be more so about training and how the matches were worked than anything else. On the right we have a book by Frédéric Loyer from 2009. It examines the history of pro wrestling in France and how it connects with amateur wrestling. A friend of mine sent me a copy just the other day so I have yet to go through it in detail, but it looks like a well-researched book, although more on the sporting side of things than on the business side of wrestling. And finally, in the middle we have the one I'm most excited about. "The Truth About Wrestling" by Jean Corne. Written in 1974. I only learned about this one yesterday and it's on its way to me now. My point in all of this being, once I eventually go through these books if anything interesting pops up, I will let you guys know. And I also thought I'd mention them in case anyone else might be interested in them.

I'd like to know more about their training.

[David Mantell]

On 6/17/2024 at 9:38 PM, Phil Lions said:

And finally, in the middle we have the one I'm most excited about. "The Truth About Wrestling" by Jean Corne. Written in 1974. I only learned about this one yesterday and it's on its way to me now. 

Jean Corne talks about this in the Les Gens Sont Mechants docu. It's very much a defence of kayfabe from what I can make out of what he says.

[David Mantell]

On 6/17/2024 at 10:29 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Great stuff, Phil.

I've always felt that the decline of Catch began in the 60s, and I think a lot of older British fans felt the same way about British wrestling. The French decline happened much faster, however. Do we know the dates when each promoter quit?  The promotions whittling away seems like a big factor. There was a serious reduction in the amount of foreign talent available as well, similar to the situation that Japan faced in the late 80s-early 90s where they were forced to create their own native stars. 

It's complex but yes,  the sixties was the last point at which everyone agrees the good times were still rolling. The early 70s is seen as a period of dull booking under Tug Holton which the Big Daddy boom cured, but at a cost.

Having said that, there are people like me who have happy positive memories of being a fan during that period just like there are people who have happy positive memories of Jim Herd era WCW and the rise to power of Sting, Lex, Simmons and the Steiners.  There are probably people in France who feel the same way about 80s catch.

[David Mantell]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:34 PM, PeteF3 said:

Were promoters spending money on gimmicks like Mambo because they were awash in cash or because they were desperate?

Mambo is an odd case because the gimmick required a supporting cast of drumming chanting tribesmen, each one of whom presumably had to be paid a wage.

A promotion doesn't have to be going through a creative good patch to be going through an economic good patch. Brian Dixon went through financial upswings with the Power Rangers gimmick in the mid 1990s and the UK Undertaker/Big Red Machine tag team headlining in the early 00s. Copyright lawyers out paid to the former and pressure to up All Star's game from the falling out with TWA promoter Scott Conway resulted in the phasing out of tribute acts and a focus on young talent like Dean Allmark and Robbie The Body Dynamite.  Most British wrestlers who served time on the full blown Tribute shows organised by Orig Wiliams, Shane Stevens etc remember that as a good patch where they were kept nice and busy and the money was rolling in.

[David Mantell]

On 6/17/2024 at 11:06 PM, Matt D said:

Instead of a Big Daddy to be a crossover star and stem the tide, they had a Flesh Gordon instead?

It was wider than Gordon, it was the entire cast and crew of characters and it became an endemic part of French wrestling - Scott Ryder. Bad Mask, Cybernic Machine - even present day talent like Hugo Perez El General (Latin American guerilla heel- see video a few pages back.)

Older veterans got into the game - Jacky Richard replaced Eduardo as Le Marquis circa 1985 complete with butler Paul Butard and later became Travesti Man (with Butard becoming "Best Boy" Jean Claude Blanchard) while his old enemy Angelito adopted the persona of a policeman with a Doberman Pincher pet (which looked dangerously like it wanted to legitimately maul JCB's pet Chihuahua.)

Flesh didn't become a Big Daddy figure until the Noughties or at the earliest the late 90s. In the 80s, despite the lucha-inspired Superman schtick, although he was clearly top babyface/blue-eye/bon,  he was a serious lighter weight wrestler noted for his tag team with Bordes. In the 90s he had moved up to heavyweight but was still a credible competitor.

Delaporte was the French Max Crabtree (and arguably the French Mick McManus too) but the role of Big Daddy was shared out more finely among the roster.

[David Mantell]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:34 PM, PeteF3 said:

Jeff Lynch had 30-odd-hours of '80s British wrestling in his tape lists years before the Wrestling Channel was a thing. It wasn't much compared to what would come, but it's way more than anything we got out of '80s France (Lynch did have the 1992 EWF stuff as well). I think it also says something that Plantin doesn't touch this era hardly at all either on Facebook or on his ALPRA blog. When he does, it's matches involving guys in the '60s and '70s in their twilight years

Bob Plantin is VERY awkward about anyone mentioning stuff from after 1985 just as he won't let other people post videos or photos. He doesn't give a coherent explanation why 1985is his cut off date.

[David Mantell]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:34 PM, PeteF3 said:

Jeff Lynch had 30-odd-hours of '80s British wrestling in his tape lists years before the Wrestling Channel was a thing. It wasn't much compared to what would come, but it's way more than anything we got out of '80s France (Lynch did have the 1992 EWF stuff as well). 

Clearly both the language barrier and the TV format barrier prevent French Jeff Lynches from getting their wares out to a wider audience. That Lynch has New Catch after the launch of Eurosport is unsurprising - anyone with an Astra satellite who could pick up Sky's WWF coverage could get Eurosport too.

[David Mantell]

4 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

And it aired not only on delay, but on 12-day delay

This is nothing compared to the sometime months of delay for ITV footage.  What should have been Dynamite Kid's world TV debut in 1976 against Alan Dennison, inspiring the Strongman to turn over a new leaf, instead went out as his second bout. Kendo going heel midway through his 1978 bout from Bedworth Vs Pete Roberts would make more sense if the bout against Rex Strong had aired first.

[David Mantell]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:44 PM, PeteF3 said:

And it's been on Youtube for 10 years and most of it's got a fraction of the views that a bunch of Matt's '50s and '60s stuff has.

An interesting question for @Matt D is whether the INA held any of the 1988 New Catch preview run on TF1 (the tail end of the run of Le Catch on French terrestrial TV. taking things close to The Final Bell on ITV in England. Was TF1 no longer part of the INA's remit after privatisation in 1987? For French viewers with no satellite TV, New Catch popping up on TF1 must have felt like just another channel move like the Antenne 2 to FR3 move two and a half years earlier.

The next jump after that was to Eurosport and then to whatever platform Bernard Van Damme's Eurostars promotion had for TV exposure.

[David Mantell]

On 6/17/2024 at 9:38 PM, Phil Lions said:

And finally, I see that wrestler-turned-promoter Marc Mercier's upcoming book is scheduled to come out in October this year. Should be an interesting read that hopefully reveals some new details about French catch.

I did suggest to him some time back on Facebook doing an English edition.  He said maybe.

[David Mantell]

On 6/17/2024 at 11:14 PM, NintendoLogic said:

L'Ange Blanc's TV debut in 1959 aired live on Friday night at 10:05 PM. Andre's world title win in 1968 aired on tape delay on Saturday night at 11:30 PM. It could be a situation similar to what befell Japanese promotions where they simply didn't have the TV exposure to create new stars.

Still not bad a timeslot compared to

(1) SNME

(2) ITV midweek wrestling up to the mid 70s

(3) ITV boxing coverage of the Eubank/Benn/Watson "last golden era."

[David Mantell]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:37 PM, David Mantell said:

https://www.youtube.com/@nicoh6481/videos

The above YouTube channel contains a number of 1988 TF1 editions of New Catch, the final French Wrestling on unscrambled French terrestrial television before New Catch was relocated to Eurosport, the equivalent moment in French Wrestling of ITV cancelling its Saturday wrestling slot.

The episodes don't look like the Gordon/Zefy Vs Jesse Texas/Marquis Jacky match with the dark green mat. Red ropes and white long turnbuckle covers. They look all light blue like later Eurosport episodes. Episode 2 is presumably the Flesh's bare breasted lady friends" episode, to be honest they look more feral than sexploited, like punk band the Slits on the cover of their album Cut.

,

 

On 6/16/2024 at 11:44 PM, PeteF3 said:

Yeah, that's some of the stuff I was talking about, it was a mix of '88 and '92 now that I look over my lists again.

And it's been on Youtube for 10 years and most of it's got a fraction of the views that a bunch of Matt's '50s and '60s stuff has.

Question - at what point does that playlist move from TF1 to Eurosport? I am watching episode 8 and the opening match is Steve Regal Vs Drew MC Donald who has had time to grow back his hair to collar length (about the same as on Reslo in 1991) from having it shaved off in spring 1988 after Drew and Rasputin lost to Daddy and Kashmir Singh and subsequently showing up still bald to a battle royal and another Daddy tag. I'm guessing this was an early 90s episode then- it has the Eurosport logo across the ring. The first five episodes look different, the ring sports a sponsorship logo for Maxi Cuisine.

It's possible Youtuber Nico H made up the episode numbering and there were more than those few 1988 episodes on TF1.

Episode 5 is a reminder that there were still Bright young kids coming into the game in France in 1988- Yann Caradec and Patrice Martineau were French version of Kid McCoy, Ritchie Brooks and Pete Bainbridge.  Of course this was also the period when Prince Zefy comes into bloom and an earlier UK whizzkids Danny Collins makes a name for himself on the continent defending his European Welterweight title on Delaporte/ FFCP shows in France and Northern Spain.

Their opponents are veteran Spanish masked team the Golden Falcons, as seen on A2 in the early 70s and early 80s and possibly progenitors to Les Piranhas and Les Maniaks.

 

 

[PeteF3]

6 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Still not bad a timeslot compared to

(1) SNME

(2) ITV midweek wrestling up to the mid 70s

(3) ITV boxing coverage of the Eubank/Benn/Watson "last golden era."

11:30-1 a.m. Saturday on NBC is a TV institution in the U.S. going back to Saturday Night Live's debut, which was a cultural phenomenon in the '70s, in a down period in 1985 (think New Generation WWF), and then would become one again with another cast makeover in the late '80s, and has had ups and downs since but is ultimately still on the air 50 years later. It's not the same as a prime timeslot but people know of it and it's been "event television" for a chunk of its run.

I'm not sure how this was in Europe and I can't fully explain it myself, but Saturday nights in the U.S. actually used to be good TV nights. Huge shows like M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, and others aired on Saturdays either for part of their run or all of it. I've never quite gotten a good explanation of how this changed other than maybe the rise of the VCR and houses getting multiple TVs made it easier to set a timer and go out and watch it later instead of still getting a captive audience even on a night when people go out. But in 1985 it still hadn't gone to all newsmagazine shows and college football yet.

[David Mantell]

10:30-11:30 pm was a respectable timeslot in the UK, the last edge of prime time. On a weekday it was straight after News At 10, probably with a trailer just before the news. At the weekend it was the slot for some big time chatshow or fun adult comedy like Saturday Stay back by the former Tiswas team.

We know in France that straight after some wrestling shows was a major news bulletin without even an advert break so- as with ITV viewers tuning in for the WOS football results (and therefore pools results) - viewers who tuned in just a minute or so early got the main event finish and could be hooked that way.

We also don't know enough about the Sunday 5pm slot just as we don't know much about what platform Eurostars was on in the Nineties/Noughties.

[David Mantell]

The vlogger El P posted some time back got his claws in to the 1987 TF1 run

 

[SirEdger]

On more recent news, I see that Aigle Blanc got his first booking overseas as he's booked for a special event in Quebec City on July 14. Really curious to see if all the hype around him is warranted. I think he had a solid match with Mustafa Ali in one of Ali's first indy booking so really excited to see what he can do.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Zai49RAlg/