French catch

[David Mantell]

21 minutes ago, Phil Lions said:

The clipping is for October 18 (a Saturday), not August 18.

That said, as you mentioned, the year is handwritten so there's a chance it might be off. The only other plausible option would be 1980.

Well we don't have the match but if we did and it was on TF1, it would presumably be in b/w albeit with an interlaced video picture such as an off air video recording might have, not a film-type picture like a kinescope might have. The only colour on TF1 (and it had only started a month earlier) at this point was repeats of unsyndicated FR3 shows in the afternoon.

[Matt D]

3 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Do you mean this list?

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2014/05/la-complete-et-exacte-french-catch.html

Cos that's a very threadbare list, only half a dozen post-1969 entries.

As I've said before, what is needed is either a French @JNLister or some old time French fans who noted TV details down at the time and pooled their records to put together an entire 1952-1987 chronicle of French TV wrestling.

The one I linked in my post, Dave!

[David Mantell]

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/05/french-catch-tuesday-master-list.html?m=1

That list isn't sorted in date order and I can't find the bouts Bob posted (himself Vs Magnier, Di Santo Vs Chaisne, two lighter clean wrestlers).

[Matt D]

1 minute ago, David Mantell said:

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/05/french-catch-tuesday-master-list.html?m=1

That list isn't sorted in date order and I can't find the bouts Bob posted (himself Vs Magnier, Di Santo Vs Chaisne, two lighter clean wrestlers).

It's not clean (but it's clean-ish) but it has all the unlisted stuff on it and I wasn't sure you have seen the unlisted stuff yet. It's everything in the collection that we found on the first pass (with the tV show name primarily). Bob's got other stuff that was outside of it.

[David Mantell]

I can't see Marc Mercier Vs Albert Sanniez 1978 from the FFCP channel.

Nor this mysterious, visibly late 80s bout:

I know @sergeiSem has it labelled as EWF but it's clearly not an episode of New Catch.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, Matt D said:

I wasn't sure you have seen the unlisted stuff yet.

Which list? Do you mean @Matt D's videos that are unlisted on YouTube but accessible via Alessio's playlists?

Not sure either if the 1988 (and 1991) TF1 episodes of New Catch didn't show up on the INA's site or if you chose to exclude them from the parameters of the subject.  Does the INA's remit include TF1 after the 1987 privatisation? (Or come to that satellite channels receivable in France like Eurosport?)

[David Mantell]

A handful of Italian Catch clips. Italian Catch died out in 1965 although two brothers from Piedmont later made attempts to revive it until WWE came along.

There's not enough out there to give it its own thread so I'm posting this he like has been done with Spanish. Greek, Egyptian, Lebanese, Iraqi etc wrestling on this and the British thread. If oodles of Italian footage ever turns up - or oodles of footage of any other of the above turns up - it can have its own thread.

Primo Carnera homecoming visit to Rome:
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/697258901885771/

 

Primo Vs Felix Miquet, Rome 1957
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/531801975674517

 

1959 footage - one of these guys is an American.:

 

 

Some very old GR footage, in what is borderline recognisable as a ring:
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/681611836638435/

 

Some scenes from Italian films.  This is from 1975:
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/1560342717751864/

This is from 1966 just after the scene shut down, possibly more authentic of what the scene was like. Oddly, the film depicts TV coverage which Italy had none ever.

https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/2187361951428021

1958 film

https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/551546770038143/

Female wrestling, old B/W film:
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/1579732649490983/

https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/1579732649490983/

 

 

[David Mantell]

19 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Some scenes from Italian films.  This is from 1975:
https://www.facebook.com/IlDragoDelWrestling/videos/1560342717751864/

Getting back to French wrestling, the gorilla gimmick in that clip and the caged gorilla gimmick in a Greek movie clip I posted to the British Wrestling thread are both comparable to actual French gimmick Mambo Le Primitiv:

 

 

[David Mantell]

On 6/7/2020 at 12:57 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Mambo Le Primitif vs. Flesh Gordon (aired 9/1/85)

Finally, the match the world has been waiting for -- Mambo the Primitif vs. Flesh Gordon! In a strap match! Here we go! The past few years of catch all boil down to this.

This also looked like it was from an earlier show. I have no idea what is going on at this point. This was worked like a handler trying to tame a wild beast. I was disappointed when the beast's big transition was a nutshot. Gordon ends up taking a whipping, and when it's finally too much, he starts choking Mambo with the strap. The refs don't like that and call the whole thing off. There's nothing quite as unfulfilling as a stip match without a payoff. 

 

This seems to be a trope Flesh Gordon goes for in his matches. He wins the fight but is robbed of official victory by dubious refereeing handing him a DQ. You can see the same ending In the early 2010s tag bout I posted several pages back.

This and the Nagasaki/Myers Disco Ladder Match were the only two overt gimmick matches on European TV until Orig Williams on Reslo started to push the envelope with cage and chain matches from 1990 onwards.

[David Mantell]

On 8/21/2024 at 9:09 AM, David Mantell said:

This seems to be a trope Flesh Gordon goes for in his matches. He wins the fight but is robbed of official victory by dubious refereeing handing him a DQ. You can see the same ending In the early 2010s tag bout I posted several pages back.

Another case in point, an all Old Catch alumni match on New Catch. (Kato the Gypsy being the former Kato Bruce Lee and I *believe*  the Grim Rocker being the former Eliot Frederico Le Rocky Du Ring). Gordon and Zefy have it in the bag until Flesh fires a dropkick and Grim Rocker pulls the referee in the way and it's Flesh who gets the blame - from a posse of 3 referees including Charley Bollet, brother of Andre Bollet.

[David Mantell]

On 7/14/2020 at 3:26 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Daniel Schmid vs. Mammouth Siki (aired 8/28/78)

Schmid his best here, but Mammouth Siki sucks the life out of any match he's in. It's crazy how much time he spends in control of a bout given how shitty he is. I suppose Schmid could have sold more, but Siki is probably the worst worker in the archives. Shitty finish too. 

 

 

Siki was a kind of French version of WWF era Junkyard Dog and I'm not just saying that because they were both black but because they both drew on a similar babyface funkster street tough/street smart vibe. Babyface Iceman Parsons projected a similar vibe.  He seems to be acting quite heelishly here, choking Schmidt out on the ropes and kicking the fallen referee around, earning himself a DQ.

I have a soft spot for the sports hall used for this 1978 TV taping with its bright lighting (a line of light-tubing runs along the spine of the roof) and the big wall sized window running the entire length of the wall, swimming pool style ,opposite the hardcam, its rather thick framing giving it's age away, presumably built in the sixties.  I think I've seen a similar, possibly the same room in some 1971 bouts.

In case you're wondering what's with the bagpipes, les cornemuses are not just a Scottish thing, they are played in other areas of Europe. In this case they are Breton pipes from Brittany on the northern tip of France. They are also played in Galicia in Northwest Spain (the bit just above Portugal.)

[David Mantell]

On 8/21/2014 at 3:21 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Marc Mercier vs. Alex Sanniez (1978)

 

Mercier was a young French talent who appeared on WoS once facing Marty Jones. He had a car accident in 1989 that forced him to retire and later became a promoter reactivating the defunct FFCP promotion in 2006. Here he was a skinny second year man, and if you're familiar with Euro wrestling you'll know that skinny means skinny. This was quite a decent bout and I thought Sanniez did a great job of keeping it tight. But again there was no finish, perhaps deliberately so to only upload part of the footage.

 

 

ALBERT Sanniez was going heel at this time and turning into a Jim Breaks style Horrid Little Man. Mercier was 20 years old and still had a TBWvibe to him, his kid brother Pierre even more so There's a definite feel of Jim Breaks Vs Danny Collins here with Mercier as the spectacular young whizzkid- all scisseax Volees,  crucifix/further nelson takedowns, reverse snapmare s and other flashy tricks - and Sanniez as the increasingly stroppy dirty wrestler getting shown up by the kid.

I guess the clip you watched cuts off the same point as this does.

[David Mantell]

I gather these two had an earlier match Xmas 68. This is March 1979, the final minutes - apart from a couple of good sunset flips, hip tosses into cross press pin attempts and toupees - of what Kent Walton would call a bout becoming a hell of a fight (by which he would mean it was a brawl and not quite his cup of tea.) Any time either comes up with something good, it is done as an isolated spot in among forests of Manchettes. They go at it at ringside at one point with an elderly gentleman managing to separate them (a few months after this Iron Greek Spiros Arion triggers a riot on TV by seriously hard way juicing Colin Joynson.)

Despite this, they shake hands at the end (time limit draw). Boucard the heel is rather chummy with Couderc in his post match interview.

[David Mantell]

Swimming pool time. Jean Menard was still a Bon at this point although not long after this he turned into mean old Menard the vieux pontoufle heel, allied to Jacky Richard. Commentator Daniel Cazal tells us everything we already know about the Bollet Brothers- Charley the ref here is a lot smaller than Andre who used to tag up with Delaporte. Ramirez quickly mops up public warnings and gets DQd for knocking Bollet down, at one point it looks like he will do a sit-in protest until Zorba talks him out of it. For a moment it looks like we will get Ramirez Vs Michel DiSanto 

Zorba Le Greque does look magnificent in his blue-red satin mask and outfit even if Cazal does say so sarcastically. powerful body and I guess he's been reading magazines about Superstar Graham or Mil Mascaras. He would have made a great opponent for Flesh Gordon in the late 80s/90s/00s. Takes off his cape at poolside before boarding the dinghy to the ring.

See, the French did Knockout finishes too!  DiSanto gets counted out on the mat from a face first piledriver after several minutes being overpowered then Zorba pitches him and Bollet into the water like the nasty cruel heel he is.  DiSanto has some trouble in the water, I think he swallows some and has to be rescued and resuscitated poolside.  Not a good idea to do that to a KOd man. Zorba does his best Superstar Graham posedown and ends the night standing majestically in his dinghy as it travels back to poolside.  All he needed was his cape back and a pole and he would have looked like the perfect evil gondolier punting his way urbanely away from the scene of the crime. It's a pity we saw no more of Zorba (is that Dave "Zarak" Larsen?) as this was a good build-the-heel-up-strong exercise.

 

[David Mantell]

Apart from Prince Zefy (who was already around for the tail end of Old Catch on FR3), Yann Caradec seems to have been the other breakout star of the Eurosport New Catch era at least with regard to the French home team. From Brittany in the North (if you liked the Breton pipes at that 1978 sports hall TV taping, here are some more with Caradec's ring entry music) and unusually for the era of French Wrestling, no significant gimmick other than his regional heritage.

Legendary heel Jacky Richard in the years between Marquis Richard de Fumulo and Monsieur Jacky was doing this odd mix of Adrian Adonis, mid 70s heel Big Daddy and WWF Dusty Rhodes. The idea was to push a homophobic button but bear in mind that in WCW around this time this backfired with fans cheering for the equally colourful and upbeat Johnny B Badd until he had to be turned face. Travesti Man's baldness and blubberiness was his defence against that eventuality.  Former butler to the Marquis, Paul Butard is back as "best boy"  Jean Claude Blanchard and still allowed to stand on the ring apron for some reason.

Caradec has some great moves including the traditional French Scisseaux Volees takedown, a backwards flip and some fine dropkicks.  Richard is not the worker he was in the 70s/80s but still an effective villain. He clocks up two public warnings, the second with a low blow, before scoring a pin by applying a clawhold to Caradec's already injured crotch, out of sight of referee Charley Bollet but in sight of the audience and cameras.

Richard's in ring nemesis and outside the ring business partner Flesh Gordon provided French commentary for the broadcast under his real name Gerard Herve, although this clip has good old Orig commenting in English.

Overall. Monster heel Vs babyface who might but doesn't in the end, like Haystacks or Kirk squashing a lighter man like Steve McHoy or Tom Tyrone.

 

[Phil Lions]

Just got my hands on this special edition of "Sport Mondial" (A French sports magazine) from the summer of 1959, which is dedicated to catch. Articles, interviews, photos, illustrations and even a L'Ange Blanc/catch crossword. It's pretty neat. There's nothing particularly noteworthy in there, but there's a few interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share.

One of the articles suggested that about half of the pro wrestlers in France at the time were full-time pro wrestlers while the other half had side jobs in addition to wrestling. A few examples: Lino Di Santo - used to be a precision fitter, King Kong Taverne - was a taxi driver, Jean Wanes - taxi driver as well, Michel Allary - used to be a a cook, Jack van Dooren - a salesman (he was a full-time wrestler, but then he fractured a vertebrae during a match and that's when he got the salesman job and was no longer a full-timer).

There's an article on promoter Robert Lageat, who used to be a pro wrestler in the 1930s, and about how how he injured his foot and was then shot in the stomach by the nazis in 1940, but ultimately he managed to avoid capture and saved his life. That incident did leave him partially handicapped and ended his in-ring career. At some point after 1945 he became a promoter. The article mentioned that he was part of the Siry-Lageat-Caliez group. Caliez is a name I hadn't come across before. I looked him up. Turns out this Gaston Caliez was partners with Etienne Siry since at least 1951, if not earlier. In fact, it seems he even predated his partners as a promoter since I found him co-promoting shows at Palais de Glace in Paris in 1945. His partner at the time was someone called Dubois. The article also mentioned, and this is true (I looked it up), that at one point in 1950 FFL (or rather its president Roger CouIon) took away Lageat's promoter license so Lageat sued them for abuse of power, won, got his license back and was awarded 300,000 francs in damages. In relation to that lawsuit, and it's not outright stated, Lageat alludes to there being a "wrestling trust" and how they were against him. Another interesting fact about Lageat, and this was mentioned in Jean Corne's book too*, is that Lageat had a standing offer to give 1,000,000 francs to anyone who could prove the old rumor that the results of the wrestling matches in Paris were being reported to the police in advance.

Speaking of Lageat, the boxer-turned-wrestler Robert Charron identified Lageat and Siry as the people who recruited him to pro wrestling. Charron was broke, 1.8 million francs in debt, a drunk and was also doing drugs. He was at rock bottom, but he got clean and entered pro wrestling, which he credited as the thing that saved his life.

Another article that I found interesting was a commentary of sorts by journalist René Lehmann. It was more or less a critical take on the business and talked about how wrestling was fake and had always been fake. He talked about watching Poddubny and others wrestling as a kid in the early 1900s and even then thinking it's not real. Then in the 1930s he once wrote an article about the matches he had watched and expressed his opinion that they were fake. Raoul Paoli and Henri Deglane summoned him to watch a training session. He ended up wrestling with Deglane, who threw him around a bit, but it doesn't read like Deglane stretched him or anything like that. Still, Lehmann walked away unconvinced at the legitimacy of pro wrestling, even though Paoli and Deglane were swearing by it. He ended the article by telling a story about how recently he had been visiting with a very educated older couple and he was shocked to see them turn on the TV to watch wrestling. How could such educated people (a retired Sorbonne University professor and a former university director) like such a ridiculous thing as wrestling, he wondered. I'll quote the wife here directly as I think her response to Lehmann summed it up well: "I recognize that this wrestling is a circus attraction, but it lifts me up from my armchair both figuratively and literally. And you, you are jaded!"

* I'm pretty sure Corne used this very magazine as one of the sources for his book.

And finally, here's a few photos from the magazine.

Roger Delaporte feeding pigeons.


Lino Ventura shaking hands with Johnny Rougeau (the recognized World Heavyweight champion in France in 1959) as promoter Alex Goldstein looks on.


Robert Charron next to promoter Robert Lageat.


The brutality of wrestling.

[David Mantell]

I was hoping one of the two heels would be Ahmet Chong from South America completing another hat trick or Stronghold Euro territories for another worker. Ah well ... The heels are Mongolian but one has a Chinese name the other an Arabic name.  OK "Khan" was a title but Abdul is short for Abdullah which means slave of Allah, about as Muslim a name as you can get.  Ah well, whoever heard of a promoter doing their cultural homework? Most likely these are two Japanese wrestlers doing their overseas experience phase whom Delaporte made shave their heads and don prosthetic moustaches and goatees. Nice gowns. Commentator Michel Drocker says they wear red tights so perhaps this is in colour on Channel 2.

The TV taping is in honour of some kids' sports club and Michel Drocker has a troupe of the little brats join him on camera to show off their club T-Shirts.  Throughout the match there are shots of fans marking out (including a shot of a granny and granddaughter screaming in unison at the heels) and interview Granny where she marks out predictably over the heels' antics. Granny's husband is grinning by her side as she screams to camera about the injustice. Actually they miss the heels scoring the first fall in the process. Whoops. Still, one for the TV crew and Michel D to brag about over dinner at a posh bourgeois Paris brasserie, I guess. 

Jean Menard is a Bon still and has dark hair but already has that fringe. Does a good Jim Breaks horizontal spinout of a wrist lever. Guy Mercier taking time out from the fight for wrestlers to have itinerant entertainer's pay to do a match. He does a couple of good Toupees and a spinning headstand out of an armlock  but is basically there to dish out the Manchettes to the baddies. Menard is the styliste and Mercier the thumper. You'd hardly guess his son would in 13 years wrestle a cracker of a World title match with Marty Jones (at this point still barely out of TBW-hood.)

Les Mechants Mongolians are sadly just big brawling lunks, they might as well be Ahmet Chong in fact, it's that whole style of Mongol. Not as big and burly as Bepo, Geto and Bolo, more like twin Ming the Mercilesses.  More chops than a summer BBQ in Dusty Rhodes' back garden.  Sadly six years too early for Flesh Gordon but this pair would have fit nicely in that 80s flowering of cartoony gimmicks. They bump around quite well and I think one of them does a hint of a rollout.  One, I think Chang, gets in the ring and runs around waving his arms like a toddler on the beach for the first time. The other waves his fist round and round in circles and Michel R calls it "la Moulinete de Mongolie" the Mongolian Windmill (windmill in the Pete Townsend sense.) One uses a pressure point hold to set up a headscissor sleeper on Menard. The referee gets a break but both Mongols attack Menard on the deck (as Kent Walton would say) before pulling him upright to force break the count. Mongolian uses a forearm smash.  Michel D comes out with a crafty play on words- "Le Manchette de Mongolie, plus efficace que le Planchette Japonais" (as the French call the Monkey Climb/Hisa Gurume).

The Mongols get their aforementioned offscreen opening fall about halfway through.  Referee is worried about the base of Menards spine. Mongols get to work stomping on Menard's back, earning the team an Avertisement (it's a one knockout tag, I guess.) Mongols use tag rope as a foreign object (banned on ITV in the UK by the IBA) during heelish double team on Menard. Mercier gets chant of Ah Ouais going with his waistscissors atomic drops. He eventually makes a stand up landing but Mercier dropkicks him down.  Five minutes before the end of the clip. Menard gets the equaliser with an aeroplane spin and cross press and four minutes later gets the decider with a crucifix takedown and further nelson pin. Win for the bons. A post match brawl breaks out with the Mongols' bald heads bashed together in headlocks and a couple of forearms for good measure.

Reasonable fun goody Vs baddy tag match (if you're not too allergic to old time ethnic stereotyping.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

Quote

I was hoping one of the two heels would be Ahmet Chong from South America completing another hat trick or Stronghold Euro territories for another worker. Ah well ... 

On second thoughts:

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=10123&name=Amet+Chong

Quote

"Amet Chong

 

Also known as Chong Li Fu"

Maybe the taller skinnier Chang Li is indeed Amet Chong?

[David Mantell]

Okay I'll leave it to the rest of you to decide:

[Phil Lions]

On 7/10/2024 at 2:14 AM, Phil Lions said:

Maurice Durand vs. writer Jean Bruce:
At one point there was a wrestler in the Durand troupe who went by the name OSS 117. Durand took the name from writer Jean Bruce’s famous novels about the secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (codename OSS 117). Bruce was not happy about it so he filed a complaint and did a magazine interview blasting Durand for using the name without his permission. Corne had this amusing quote from a Durand interview where Durand sarcastically explained why he was using the name: “I thought that the author was a contemporary of Conan Doyle or at least an old man with a beard, a sort of fossil. And I thought the names Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath and OSS 117 had fallen into the public domain!”

How about that! Just found this out. The OSS 117 in question was portrayed by none other than Benny Galant from Spain. This was in the early 1960s right before Galant went to Mexico in 1962. I did not have Galant portraying a French James Bond of sorts on my bingo card, yet here we are. Cool!

[David Mantell]

Two Old Catch veterans going at it on New Catch in 1989.  By now Gerard Bouvet is an old boy and Jacky Richard is a Marquis De Fumolo in full 1700s get up.   Paul Butin Fluchard the butler does A LOT of interference for his master which is a pity because there is a LOT of good old fashioned mat technical wrestling on display too when it gets the chance.

 

[David Mantell]

Stax in France!  Accompanied by an attractive and very excited-looking female valet (did Rita Ruane know?) and doing promos in a Manc accent  while a screen caption proclaims him to be from the USA. Van B dodges the usual execution by bringing a chair into the ring and getting himself DQd.

 

[David Mantell]

Salvatore just beginning the transition to Wildman Bellomo. He's still a Bon here but sporting longer hair, a beard and some new weight, looking like a younger trimmer Lou Albano. Commando (with a name like that, he should NEVER do a match with Harry "Phantasio" Del Rios) has a similar gimmick to current WS talent Hugo Perez and is probably about as American as Giant Haystacks was in mainland Europe. The match goes about five minutes an most revolves around an out of the ring brawl involving trophies. Prior to which it was proceeding as what would have passed for a scientific match in the WWF at the time (say, Greg Valentine Vs Jimmy Snuka).

[David Mantell]

On 8/21/2024 at 5:40 AM, David Mantell said:

Getting back to French wrestling, the gorilla gimmick in that clip and the caged gorilla gimmick in a Greek movie clip I posted to the British Wrestling thread are both comparable to actual French gimmick Mambo Le Primitiv:

 

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005024;p=0

@Phil Lions Been skimming through your wrestling classics thread on Kats Eleniki. 

Was reading about Di Bestie and King Kong.  Apart from the question if one of them is in the movie clip (or the Italian Clip), do you think such "GorillaGram" gimmicks might have been a precedent for (getting back on topic! ) Mambo Le Primitiv on 1980s French TV?

P.S. WWE did finally make it on to Greek TV in 2019 https://www.wwe.com/worldwide/article/wwe-skai-partner-to-televise-raw-smackdown-in-greece

 

[David Mantell]

On 3/29/2020 at 10:35 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Jacky Montalier vs. La Bete Humaine (aired 2/8/71)

This has to be seen to be believed (or maybe not since it's not that good.)

Possibly an antecedent to all this monkey business. Commentator makes a lot of Beauty and the Beast jokes, Montallier being Beauty apparently.

Actually LBH (Willy Wesley) is a pretty decent mover.  A huracanrana near the start and two move near the end, plenty of back rolls and kip ups. This beast can go. And go berserk too., as he throws Montallier and the referee out of the ring, doing a female spectator a mischief in the process.