French catch

[David Mantell]

@Matt D's Video says September 8th 1980 but Bob Plantin just posted a poster on his FB group saying Jan 24th. I know it was not unknown for French or British TV to leave matches in the can for months before airing them but eight months is quite a gap. Or was 24th Jan an earlier TV match INA didn't record?  (If so, it was the same venue, Cazal says it's the Cirque d'Hiver early on.)

[David Mantell]

Jacky Richard's hair is cropped short in that bout - had he lost a hair Vs hair match recently?

[David Mantell]

On 7/27/2024 at 6:06 PM, David Mantell said:

Okay, I've been a good boy long enough, time for some Eurosport New Catch! 

Featuring a survivor of the days before INA opened its doors in 1975 and started taping matches in colour off air, plus a future WWF superstar with a glittering Gold future ahead of him.

Audience seems pretty darn good for a supposedly dying territory, interesting to see the use of coloured light on the crowd, a thing WWE goes in for nowadays.  Nice reminder from Franz Van Buyten at just past six minutes when he does that most Catch Francais of reversals, the Scisseaux Volees takedown in response to an armbar. Brits would just use a simple roll on the mat to untwist an armbar - or maybe a cartwheel for real showoffs like Dynamite Kid or Danny Boy Collins, (who was a BIG favourite with  French crowds at this time as there is New Catch footage to prove, just a pity we don't have some Old Catch 1986/1987 FR3 footage of him defending his European Welterweight title on Delaporte shows.)

Double trouble are no more scientific than most roided Americans of the period but looks impressive. Somewhere out there Max Crabtree was watching on a Sky Astra box or a naughty VHS copy, licking his chops at the idea of booking these two for Ring Wrestling Stars and letting Big Daddy loose on them. By contrast Flesh (bulkier than his high flying whippersnapper days with Walter "Pappa Doux" Bordes but not yet the tubby bald moustachioed Flesh of the Noughties/Tenties) is prepared to sell for Double Trouble and take some bumps unlike Daddy. There's a hint of Aux Chiottes L'Arbitre from the crowd when he gets a yellow card and also of his latterday DQ losses when he and Franz are counted out, although rather than beat up Double Trouble, the ref and anyone else in sight, F and F crouch down and wail about their loss like a pair of bluesmen.

Actually just discovered that there was a set up match for this tag pitting Van Buyten against (B)rick Crawford, cut short after a few minutes by a run in (you can tell it's the 90s from that alone) by the future Quebecer Pierre, leading to a street clothes clad Flesh Gordon coming to the ring to rescue Franz and make the challenge for the previous posted match.

 

 

[David Mantell]

On 3/27/2020 at 4:06 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Andre Bollet vs. Franz van Buyten (aired 1/1/69)

Catch was getting all experimental at this stage. This had the commentary broadcast throughout the area. The bout featured a lot of cheap shots from Bollet and angry responses from van Buyten. I'm not a fan of this type of wrestling, and personally I think it's a waste of van Buyten's talents, but I did enjoy Bollet's bag of tricks. 

This happened sometimes in Britain, particularly at holiday camp shows where a redcoat or somebody would give the audience (casual holidaymakers rather than more serious wrestling fans from the Town Shows) a running commentary and basically get them to mark out properly. This has continued into the C21st and ended in tears a few years back when an Israeli Arab wrestler playing an Arab heel (as is traditional in Israeli pro wrestling) ended up getting called "the Muslim" by a redcoat, causing an offended holidaymaker to write to complain to the Guardian newspaper about Butlins promoting Islamophobia!  The end result saw Butlins and All Star amicably part company after decades with All Star getting a replacement deal with rival  holiday camp company Pontins while Butlins signed with some new school promotion - an arrangement that was meant to last until the smoke blew over but seems to have endured.

There was also an amusing camcorder clip from 1986 of Robbie Brookside versus a heel Chic Cullen where Cullen was using a closed fist punch and the Redcoat encouraged the kids in the audience to alert the referee by shouting "FIST!" which, as one wag put it,  resembled a disturbing juvenile version of the infamous Mineshaft nightclub.

Actually the finish is quite similar to something from post 1980s Catch with a controversial DQ defeat for Le Bon and a post match brawl which would have caused the ITA (later the IBA) in Britain to have KITTENS but seems to have been OK for De Gaulle era France.

 

The Bollet family would still have an oar in the water by the time of Eurosport New Catch, as although Andre B's career ended when he was hit by a car in 1971, brother Charley was still a referee into the satellite TV early 90s.

[David Mantell]

On 3/28/2020 at 7:01 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Vassilios Mantopoulos vs. Jack Rouxel (aired 6/29/67)

This was a catchweight contest. It was a bit ho-hum in the beginning. Mantopoulous danced around a lot while Rouxel appeared to be one of the least talented guys in the footage to date. But little by little the action improved and I began to appreciate the effort Rouxel was making to bump and sell for the smaller star. In the end, it was a decent contest. The finish was fun. Rouxel was locked in the George Kidd ball, and for a big man he sold it extremely well. 

Mantopolous as Jerry to Rouxel's Tom.  Commentator somewhat risks undermining Rouxel's heat by mentioning he has 2 kids, the younger being a 9 month boy (57 now  I guess.).  First several minutes are fairly scientific until Rouxel finally gets fed up and starts stomping Mantopolous on the mat.  VM uses the ball like George Kidd did against Jack Mulligan in 1975 on ITV, briefly sticking out a twitching limb to cat fish the opponent into making a grab before withdrawing until eventually the opponent makes a mistake and is thrown and cross pressed for a pin attempt. VM also employs a Rick Steamboat slingshot back into the ring.  The winning submission comes with VM tying Rouxel up in knots (a cliche come true) although if Rouxel had just let go of his feet, he could have escaped.

Interesting venue too, very light and spacey, possibly natural daylight coming in from somewhere if it's the summer. Would have loved to see this place in colour (channel 2 went colour 4 months later.)

 

[Phil Lions]

I managed to find a copy of "Tele Magazine" from the end of April 1961, which is when catch first got taken off TV. There's some very interesting stuff in there. It was Maurice Herzog (the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports) who put pressure on the network to do so but ultimately the final decision to take catch off TV was Raymond Janot's (the Assistant Director-General of RTF). Right on the heels of this decision the magazine has an interview with commentator Claude Darget and also with promoter Maurice Durand. The Durand interview continues in the next edition of the magazine and in the previous edition there had been an interview with Durand's chief rival Alex Goldstein, but sadly I don't have access to either of those (I am working on getting my hands on another interesting set of interviews though so stay tuned). Anyway, here are some highlights from the two interviews. Some I'll summarize, others I'll quote directly.

Claude Darget:

When asked if catch was a sport or spectacle Darget said he didn't consider catch a sport, because in sports there are rules to follow and in catch there were none. Also, catch clearly wasn't a real competition because the TV bouts would end before the end of the broadcast. He compared the job of the wrestlers to that of circus acrobats and trapeze artists - a very difficult job that requires high skill, but it's not a sport. He also gave props to the wrestlers because they had to wrestle five, six, seven, sometimes even up to eight matches per week and said this would be impossible for any footballer, rugby player or even a tennis player.

Darget said the most important thing in catch was knowing how to not hurt yourself or your opponent, and the profession also required great stamina and endurance. Not everyone was cut out for it. He also pointed out that some wrestlers were quite intelligent, despite what people may think (Cheri Bibi, Roger Delaporte and Eddy Wiecz are some of the examples he mentioned).

Apparently, Delaporte and Bollet used to work as garbage collectors at one point.

"Roger Delaporte is a special case. He is a born comedian who can excite the audience even before the match has started. He is extraordinary. His way of walking to the ring, addressing his opponent, beating his chest while saying 'Rah, rah' is amazing."

This was his response when asked if catch was fixed: "To say that matches are prearranged would be a bit much, but I will still say that things are prepared. However, it is certain that if someone is going to win, he wins."

Darget was asked about the long-standing rumor that the results of the matches are reported to the police in advance and said he didn't think it's true - the police don't care about match results, they only care that there are no accidents or fights during the shows.

According to Darget the top 10 wrestlers in France were earning as much as 200,000 to 300,000 francs per month, the next 40 between 100,000 and 200,000, and the rest around 80,000 francs. He said at the time there were around 400 pro wrestlers in France.

Darget said that as long as the audience found the catch matches funny, entertaining and the audience could blow off some steam by supporting the good guys and yelling at the bad guys, he was in favor of catch and not against it at all.

When asked if he would commentate catch again Darget said no unless he was given matches that he'd like - anything with Delaporte in particular. He also said the wrestlers used to like his commentary, but the promoters did not. The promoters thought he wasn't taking wrestling seriously. He said he was just passing on the impressions he got from watching the matches - impressions of laughter, amusement, spectacle.

Darget said to him the biggest problem when it comes to catch on TV was that the promoters had started trying to dictate to the network how things should be - what days the broadcasts should be on, what matches should air, who should commentate, etc. And to him this was wrong - the network was paying for these shows so these decisions should be the network's and the promoters should have no say in them. Either do what the network wants and take their money or say no, but don't agree to the network's wants and then start making demands. That said though, he was in favor of catch being on TV.

------------

Maurice Durand:

Durand proudly proclaimed that he had the best roster in all of Europe and these were the names he mentioned: Josef Kovacs, James Brown, OSS 117, Quasimodo, Gilbert Leduc, Jose Tarres, Prince Kumali, Bourreau de Bethune, Blousons Noirs, the German stranglers, les Miserables, Andre Bollet and Roger Delaporte.

He didn't disagree with the decision to take catch off TV. "I think Mr. Janot's reasons are of an educated nature. It must be recognized that excessive brutality in a match or the presentation of a wrestler playing a homosexual can distort the mind and compromise the family education of children. From this point of view I can only agree with Mr. Janot's decision."

That said, Durand was not in favor of completely removing catch from the TV. He said they should be more careful about the quality of the shows and thought that airing catch once per month was ideal. "Airing catch on TV every week was catastrophic for the provincial promoters. TV broadcasts demolish the attendance of other shows going on that night."

Durand stated that in the past the network had been favoring other promoters over him. When possible, Raymond Marcillac (the head of sports at the network) would choose to air another promoter's show over Durand's. Durand would get one TV broadcast while his competitors would get a dozen. Durand claimed this was due to the other promoters influencing Marcillac to do so and they were trying to run Durand out of business. Also, it seems like Durand actually complained to a minister about this (I would assume Maurice Herzog).

It reads like Durand wasn't a fan of Roger Couderc. He did like Claude Darget and Leon Zitrone, however. "Darget was another class. He didn't hold back from shooting arrows at us, but he had a quiver full of humor."

RTF was paying the promoters 200,000 francs per broadcast, which Durand thought was ridiculous and nowhere near enough as 100,000 of that would go to paying various taxes. He also complained that sometimes they'd give them only half an hour of broadcast time, and because of this sometimes the show would go off the air before the match had finished as typically matches were longer than that. He said he preferred to get an hour and not be paid than to be paid this little and get only half an hour.

He also had an interesting claim that for the Karl von Chenok & Robert Gastel vs. Claude Montourcy & Gilbert Leduc match (May 23, 1959) he had only been given 35 minutes of broadcast time, but "the match was so prodigious that no one wanted to take the responsibility of stopping the broadcast and the match lasted 1 hour and 5 minutes! A match that all of France talked about!"

Another Durand claim was that sometimes the network would let him know that they want to broadcast his show only with three days' notice.

He was very opposed to the idea of catch being broadcast from a studio. "No, that's heresy! Wrestlers need the atmosphere of the room, the commotion, the shouts of the audience. No atmosphere, no catch! The audience is the first actor in catch."

He said that he wasn't in favor of comedic wrestling and pointed out that since joining his promotion Delaporte and Bollet had changed their style to be more serious in the ring.

He was happy that L'Ange Blanc had unmasked the month before and talked about how all the masked gimmicks showed a lack of imagination by his competitors, called these gimmicks "grotesque attractions" and said he was glad the masked wrestler craze was fading away.

[ohtani's jacket]

Fascinating stuff. I had seen this referenced before but never in this much detail. Regardless of what happened afterwards, Catch was never the same to me post-61. 

[David Mantell]

12 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

When asked if catch was a sport or spectacle Darget said he didn't consider catch a sport, because in sports there are rules to follow and in catch there were none. Also, catch clearly wasn't a real competition because the TV bouts would end before the end of the broadcast.

Reading this guy's views makes me all the more glad we had Kent Walton on our side of the English Channel.  With friends like Darget, the industry hardly needed e nemies.

Have added some info about the cancellation to Wikipedia. Will add the magazine as a citation.

[David Mantell]

I'm wondering if this episode is why there was no Greg Dyke figure in the French wrestling story.

French wrestling on unscrambled analogue terrestrial TV came to an end in France with the last New Catch episodes before the 1988-1989 jump from TF1 to Eurosport, possibly mere weeks before The Final Bell on ITV in December 1988.  Two months after The Final Bell, New Catch relocates from TF1 to Eurosport making it - and all the visiting British wrestlers therein - accessible to any UK TV Set capable of receiving Sky's WWF overage. In effect, New Catch on Eurosport replaces Old Catch (ITV in the UK, channels 1, 2 and 3 in France) in BOTH Countries.

But while Greg Dyke makes a big song and dance about it, holds a special Press Conference at a TV industry convention in Switzerland to announce it to the media - The End Of Wrestling On TV! Hooray More Yuppie Friendly Shows That Big American Car Companies Are Happier To Advertise On - in France, it all gets rather downplayed - just another move of channel, the third in just over three years, Antenne 2 > FR3 > TF1 > Eurosport.

I suggest that the bad experience trying to get wrestling off French TV in 1961 was the real reason. When the permanent chop came (notwithstanding TF1's 1991 run of New Catch, the French equivalent of the October 1990 Grampian/STV shows) the French TV execs played their cards VERY carefully. None of Greg Dyke's waving it all about that he was finally ridding his network of Yuppie-unfriendly Pleb Sport.  Just a quiet shuffling off like when the Premier League of English Football moved to Sky years later.  Nothing to get excited about, just get an Astra box like Les Anglais are doing and life will go on.

[David Mantell]

On 4/11/2020 at 2:28 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Le Petit Prince & Francis Louis vs. Jacky Richard & Daniel Noced (aired 2/22/71)

I think I've been underselling Noced. He was amazing in this. We got to see more of him offensively than in other bouts and he had some fantastic exchanges with both Louis and the Prince. This started off as a really amazing lucha style tag and then it got wild. The heels started working Prince over, and the Prince can sell a beating like a mofo. The crowd were spitting tacks. They did the outside brawling spot that we've seen numerous times but the spectators got involved and a fight broke out. The dude looked Le Hippie du Ring so maybe it was worked but it had me pumped. It looked like Prince bladed but it's hard to tell with grainy black and white footage. If you've watched a lot of the 70s footage that was released before this collection was available, you'll be excited to see a young Jacky Richard. I actually think 70s catch may be the peak of the tag scene. There are cards where there is nothing happening in the main events but there's always that one good tag match. This was a must-see and I think it will go down as one of the favorite matches from the collection.

 

Before Albert Sanniez turned heel in 1977, Noced was Le Petit Prince's main heel nemesis. Francis Louis doesn't tag match. It's mostly LPP selling for heels and making his comeback.  That was quite some crowd riot- I bet Les Gendarmes had a LOT of fun doing their best Big Boss Man impersonating back at the station. (For those who don't know, les Flics are a notoriously right wing violent mob, specifically chosen for their low IQs and protected by a police union heavily inflicted by the former FN. or RN as it now is.).

It's hard to see what happened to Louis and Richard.  Louis seems to be bundled away by the police and Richard, the future Monsieur Jacky/Travesti Man/Marquis MK2, suddenly turns up unconscious after the riot and is rolled out of the ring. Great tragic finish with Petit Prince on the rampage before suddenly collapsing on the mat like Steve Austin at WM13 or even Pillman in the WW91 War Games where Pillman is bashed unconscious by Sid.   A Sadder And A wiser Fan You'll Wake The Follow Morn.

That towel at the end robbed us of a knockout finish (and the chances of finding out what a knockout is called in French.

[David Mantell]

On 4/11/2020 at 2:28 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Mammoth Siki vs. L'Homme Masque (aired 8/21/71)

Mammoth Siki was another of the black bodybuilders involved in the French scene. He was a massive dude. L'Homme Masque was a big guy too. This was pretty dull. They tried to work holds but it wasn't interesting. This was what I was expecting from Drapp, to be honest. One of the lesser matches I've seen so far. 

Mammoth was kind of a French version of Junkyard Dog. This was less a scientific wrestling match, more a struggle to get LHM's mask off. You may not like it but you'll have the chant MA-MOUTH! LA-KA-GOUL! in your head for weeks afterwards.  MC leads the fans in said chant, like Laetitia getting the kiddies at an All Star show to shout Cheat Cheat Cheat when a heel does so. The mask does come off but LHM stays crouching down until his mask is put back on. 

 

[Phil Lions]

Was looking for something else and randomly found a TV listing for Kader Hassouni/Petit Prince vs. Anton Tejero/Bob Remy 1/7/77. According to the TV schedule for that day, the match was to air live on TF1 on January 8, not January 7.


Emir Mansour vs Janek/Jean Fryziuk/Frisuk 4/18/76 was the only advertised match for that broadcast (Juan Guil Don vs Anton Tejero also aired) and it wasn't a live broadcast.

[David Mantell]

 

 The second one I think we've talked about in the past on here about both bouts.  mansour was one of two brothers who were lead babyfaces in Lebanon, a former post-WW1 French protectorate that probably developed a local scene from imported French Catch kinescopes. 

Hassouni was just a few months short of his trip to Britain and unsuccessful shot at Johnny Saint's World Lightweight title screened on 1977 FA Cup Day WOS.

[David Mantell]

4 hours ago, David Mantell said:

 

Weird finish to the first fall.  Hassouni is thrown out of the ring and knocked unconscious. 

Normally the ref should give a Knockout (countout) count - which would either give Tejero and Remy the win in a 1KO tag or  if it was a 2KO tag one fall plus Hassouni eliminated leaving Le Petit Prince to face Les Mechants under handicap tag rules for the remaining two falls. (A French fan who grew up with French Catch could confirm which was generally used - in Britain both were used and it would be noted which system was in force during the MC's instructions. 2KO became more prevalent in the 80s.)

But instead of any Knockout count, Le Petit Prince and a second submit on Hassouni's behalf then carry him back to the corner around the outside of the ring. where they freshen him up and send him out to fight fall 2.  Les Bons are thus able to continue the match with both team members!

By the way, some French Vocabulary - "Le Cushion De Protection" = The Corner Pad.

[David Mantell]

Quote

 

Been rewatching this one and noticed something about the ring.  I think it's actually an old school Catch ring as seen on earlier TV with a nice new white ring apron and matching Cushions De Protection covering over the old red strappy CDPs

Bernard Marionnaud (as named on the ring aprons) was a Fermnch perfumer. That's his company's emblem on the CDPs. Interesting choice of sponsor for a "vulgar" "plebian" sport, but there you go.

[ohtani's jacket]

Did Gorilla Monsoon ever wrestle in France? I was watching a Rockers vs. Rougeau Brothers match from the WWF tour of Europe in 1989 where Lord Alfred Hayes talks about the pair of them wrestling in Paris twenty years prior, and Gorilla brings up a shady promoter who Hayes names as Alex Goldstein. Lord Alfred mentions Édouard Carpentier, whom Gorilla claimed to have wrestled many times. Then they joke about some area of Paris that Lord Alfred lived in, and some dodgy stuff he got up to that I couldn't really understand. I don't think I've come across any results of Gorilla in France so I'm assuming it's BS. 

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Interesting choice of sponsor for a "vulgar" "plebian" sport, but there you go.

(I'm looking for that wonderful word Francochard or whatever that El-P used earlier in the thread, but not having much luck.)

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Did Gorilla Monsoon ever wrestle in France? I was watching a Rockers vs. Rougeau Brothers match from the WWF tour of Europe in 1989 where Lord Alfred Hayes talks about the pair of them wrestling in Paris twenty years prior and Gorilla brings up a shady promoter who Hayes names as Alex Goldstein. Lord Alfred brings up Édouard Carpentier, whom Gorilla claimed to have wrestled many times, then they do a joke about some area of Paris where Lord Alfred was living in and some dodgy stuff he got up to that I couldn't really understand. I don't think I've come across any results of Gorilla in France so I'm assuming it's BS. 

I'll dig out my VHS copy of World Tour 1990 and have a listen myself and let you know exactly what Gorilla said.

[Phil Lions]

2 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Did Gorilla Monsoon ever wrestle in France? I was watching a Rockers vs. Rougeau Brothers match from the WWF tour of Europe in 1989 where Lord Alfred Hayes talks about the pair of them wrestling in Paris twenty years prior and Gorilla brings up a shady promoter who Hayes names as Alex Goldstein. Lord Alfred brings up Édouard Carpentier, whom Gorilla claimed to have wrestled many times, then they do a joke about some area of Paris where Lord Alfred was living in and some dodgy stuff he got up to that I couldn't really understand. I don't think I've come across any results of Gorilla in France so I'm assuming it's BS. 

I don't think Monsoon ever worked in France. At least I'm not aware of him doing so, but anything's possible, I guess. Interesting Goldstein call-out though. Hayes did work for Goldstein on and off for years.

[David Mantell]

2 hours ago, David Mantell said:

I'll dig out my VHS copy of World Tour 1990 and have a listen myself and let you know exactly what Gorilla said.

Dug around in cupboard under stairs. No luck. Checked YouTube. Match not on there. Dug some more in cupboard. Found it. VHS player still working. Zipped through Snuka matches, checked out Hart/Bravo from the first ever WWF show, zipped through HH promoting NHB in Brussels.  Stopped at Hayes in front of a greenscreened Eiffel Tower.

Hayes says he's going to tell us about Paris and some of his old haunts and the stories about Paris he CAN tell us (as opposed to the ones he can't because Rebel Ray Hunter is not under a Legends contract and neither are Delaporte and Bollet ...) Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Notre Dame etc.  Quasimodo gets a mention so that's one catcher namechecked. Similar guide to London - Buck House, the same Parliament stock footage used for Summerslam 92. The Axeman from the Pallos 1991 video gets a mention.

Goes into a profile of Jimmy Hart. FFWD ... Ah here we go.  People who complain about Flesh Gordon and his Dolly Birds, at least FG's DBs don't wear Silly Wigs like Vince's ones do. (Although given what we now know about Vince, a Silly Wig or two might be useful for keeping their hair clean.) Silly Wig girls carry placards. Raymond looks like Finlay with that tache and mullet.  Even . Gorilla mentions the wigs. A year earlier Akeem 's Silly Wig girl had a placard with his slave name One Man Gang on it.

Hayes reckons there are 30K in Bercy.   Hayes says the Frnch people know their wrestling, they "haven't changed since WE used to wrestle there 20 years ago" (1969 was the year Gorilla turned babyface and aligned with Bruno in the WWF.  Not sure if Hayes was in America by then.)   Hayes mentions the Palais de Sport (sic) which sounds like a mashup of the Cirque d'Hiver and the Elysée Montmartre.  Gorilla says the promoter at PDS was a bit dodgy. Alex Goldstein Phil has already vouched for.  Name checking Edouard Carpentier was as natural for Gorilla as name checking the Bulldogs, Regal, Adams etc was natural for Americans a few decades younger challengesd to name British wrestlers.  The one(s) who made it in America. Lazy really. Some vague mention of Les Flics.

Generic play by play..Heel heat, false tag, hot tag to Marty. Jimmy interference, Rockers win, back to the studio to introduce DiBiase's first match with Blade RunnerRock in nearly 4 years.

Okay, thanks for giving me an excuse for checking the VHS player still works.

[David Mantell]

Anyway, that was October 1989.  Getting away with talking Old School French Catch. A few months either side of Roger Delaporte retiring from promoting with all his old talent on New Catch and accessible to any UK TV Set capable of getting the WWF on Sky.

They did have to put on All Star versus WWF Jobbers as dark match or two on the same British shows. Pity they didn't have similar employment laws in France to get Flesh, Jacky, Jessy, Zefy etc some work at the Bercy. Clearly Guy Mercier didn't think of that when he got the Catcheurs intermittent worker status and all their other rights.

[David Mantell]

On 6/15/2024 at 7:38 AM, David Mantell said:

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

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

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

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

Bump - check those audiences out. Pretty big for a "dead" scene. I'd still love to know what TV outlets Eurostars had even in France/Belgium to start with, (let alone FYR Macedonia)

[Phil Lions]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Bump - check those audiences out. Pretty big for a "dead" scene. I'd still love to know what TV outlets Eurostars had even in France/Belgium to start with, (let alone FYR Macedonia)

There's no mystery when it comes to the crowds that you've linked to above. In 2006 WWE started airing on free TV in France (NT1) and as a result WWE experienced a big surge in their popularity in France, which gave a boost to the local scene, especially those promotions targeting family audiences (Flesh Gordon's Wrestling Stars being perhaps the best example). International promotions such as Nu-Wrestling Evolution out of Italy and especially American Wrestling Rampage out of Ireland also did tours in France and were also drawing well. When AWR are drawing multiple crowds of 1,500-3,000 with Rene Dupree vs. Test as the headline attraction, you can just tell wrestling is popular in general. WWE being on free TV made wrestling more popular in France and everyone else that was competent at promoting reaped the benefits of wrestling's new-found popularity and drew good crowds as a result. It's that simple. And this went on for a few years until WWE's, and by proxy wrestling's, popularity went down again.

[David Mantell]

7 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

as a result WWE experienced a big surge in their popularity in France, which gave a boost to the local scene, especially those promotions targeting family audiences (Flesh Gordon's Wrestling Stars being perhaps the best example).

Fair enough. It makes more sense than El-P's suggestion that it's a simple case of the circus coming to town and attracting a big audience through sheer novelty. 

All Star's post TV boom in Britain was given a similar shot in the arm through the WWF/WCW boom while the still considerable popularity of Trad British wrestling in turn smoothened the way for the American boom far more effectively than the popularity of the US territories could pave the way for the WWF's original 80s WWF boom.

Now if we can just find an explanation of how Wrestling Stars or the IWSF as it then was drew that hefty looking house, mostly kids and teenagers by the looks of it, in FYR Macedonia - and what it was being filmed for ...

 

 

One clue we have is that there WAS some sort of TV show relating to IWSF's Belgian affiliate Eurostars. I know this because I remember seeing their website in the Noughties.

[David Mantell]

On 9/7/2023 at 4:58 PM, David Mantell said:

(if that embed doesn't work, the link is https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsbju5 )

 

One slight snag with the above. This also had a decent if not gigantic crowd and it's from 2003 (FFCP, starring an older Marc Mercier.)

[Phil Lions]

There are always outliers and I'm sure there must have been other good crowds here and there before 2006, but post-2006 WS was definitely on an upswing. I was sort of following the promotion back then and it was obvious. Well, following as much as you could follow it online. But I do remember seeing a good number of photos and fan-cams. This was in the 2009-2011 period when Tom La Ruffa was positioned as the top star and the roster featured plenty of workers from other European countries too.

EDIT - As luck would have it, La Ruffa just posted this on his Facebook. Which reminds me to mention that if anyone wants a good look at WS back in those years look up Tom La Ruffa's matches. He taped his own stuff so most of the available WS footage is with him.



And now that you've mentioned FFCP you've brought up a memory. I vaguely remember reading about a FFCP show back in the post-2006 years that drew either 2,000 or 4,000 (can't remember the exact number) and being very impressed/confused why it did when the biggest names on that show were Bryan Danielson and Metal Master (Chad Collyer). At least I think it was an FFCP show, but I may be misremembering. My point being that reading about that sort of thing is how I first became interested in the French scene and somewhat followed it back then. And when I say followed the scene I mean mostly WS as they seemed to have the most active schedule and the most interesting/varied roster.

AWR's run in France was also quite interesting to me back then. They did about 30 shows in a 2-year span (2008-2010), several drawing in the 3,000s and over a dozen doing in the 2,000s. And meanwhile, with the exact same roster (RVD, Sabu, Dupree, Raven, etc.) their German shows all did below 500 and that was with the added bonus of Bret Hart making a special appearance on the German shows... This just goes to show you the difference in wrestling's popularity in France and Germany at the time (late 2009). AWR also had a one-off TV broadcast in France in 2009 - I don't remember the network, but I do remember the reports being that the show did a 6% share in the ratings.

The 2005-2010 period was interesting in Europe, because WWE got good TV deals in Italy, France and Spain, which resulted in wrestling's popularity going way up in those countries for a few years and a bunch of promotions reaped the benefits of this. Particularly those promotions who relied on ex-WWE stars and/or targeted family audiences.