French catch

[Phil Lions]

Came across an article from January 1950 where several French celebrities talk about why they like catch while also commenting about whether or not the catch matches were predetermined. I thought that's quite neat so I'll share here what they said.

Albert Préjean (actor): "You can say what you want about catch, but... it's a sport. Besides, about tricks, I don't think there are as many as people say. For example, I had a friend who performed a hand-to-hand act. He was also a wrestler in his spare time. While performing his act, he never got hurt. While wrestling, he broke his nose. Breaking your nose is not a show, after all. I think the public goes to see the lightweight matches because of the spectacular appeal of these encounters, and the heavyweight matches for sadism. They always hope that one of the two wrestlers will get their head torn off..."

Milly Mathis (actress): "What I am trying to understand is how, after having wrestled for an hour on the mat, the two wrestlers manage to find all their limbs. They must be flexible, it leaves me speechless to see such big gentlemen twisting and undoing themselves like that... As for knowing whether it is fake or not, that is their business..."

Marcel Achard (author): "It's very good theater, although in my opinion they are not all rigged. I acquired a taste for catch during my stay in the United States. I saw a certain Jim Londos wrestle there, who must have been the world champion. What a guy! His great hobby was to throw his opponent over the ropes. And not in the front row. Up to the fifth or sixth. I never sat there..."

Alfred Adam (actor): "I'm not looking for the same pleasure in catch as in boxing. Boxing is a dark, dramatic thing. Sometimes dirty. Catch is the opposite. What actors these wrestlers are. What an art to portray suffering, anger, fear... For me, the audience of catch today is the one who, fifty years ago, was passionate about melodrama. I don't mean by that that catch is just bluff. I believe that in the end it's the best who wins. In any case, we would be wrong to underestimate the athletic value of the matches."

Francis Lopez (composer): "It reminds me of my job. Because between us it's great music, and well orchestrated..."

That same article mentions that they had recently done a survey asking people whether they thought the catch matches were real and according to their poll 75% of the spectators were convinced of the sincerity, if not of all the matches, at least of the most important ones.

[David Mantell]

Sounds a lot to me like all the celebrity experts the commentators would interview about the wrestling on French TV including that actress who said she'd never seen it live before, 15 years before Kathy Lee Crosby said the same at WM2.

[David Mantell]

More TV bouts not in the INA archive.

This is from 1975, So says the date scribbled on in biro.

Bear in mind: 

1) TF1 (which had been "ORTF 1er Chaine" until the start of the year) was in B/W at this point in 1975.  From September It repeated some TF3 broadcasts in colour but the channel did not go colour until  1977.   All Catch from 1975 (when the INA was launched) onwards is on colour VT so either it was only being broadcast on Antenne 2 which this clipping seems to prove otherwise) or they were only bothering to tape the colour matches on A2

2) "Monsieur" Marcel Montreal never faced Zarak on any bout we have footage of (LPP and Noced did face each other a few times in the early 70s.)

 

 

(Cutting flagrantly stolen from Bob Plantin's page.)

[David Mantell]

On 1/4/2025 at 7:45 PM, David Mantell said:

And talking of Michel Saulnier, look who he has to referee next:

 

Only Guy Mercier with whom he spent much of this time feuding. . Officially at least, Guy is facing  gypsy Jo Gonzalez.  Jo gets several good throws in.  Guy does his own throw and sends Jo into the front row on someone's lap!   He gets back and gets Guy in a side chancery and throw.for a number of 2 counts, many of them suspiciously fast. Guy tries to stand up in the hold but Jo forces him back down on the mat.  He eventually gets out by widening the angle between himself and Jo, then spins round (to confuse Jo presumably), drops down and catches Jo's leg, takes him down, lifts the leg up and jumps into a sitting leglock.  Jo tries unsuccessfully to grab a countering cross face but Guy stand and twists the leg like a spinning toehold or the start of an American Figure Four Leglock.  He jumps one last time into the sitting position leaving Jo selling the leg, limping badly and making desperately for the ropes. They start over in the middle of the ring and Guy gets the leg back with the same spin and drop motion but Jo reaches the ropes.  Guy jumps back into the down position as Jo gets up and leans on the ropes. Guy wants to go after him but Saulnier, who is counting Jo VERY slowly,  orders him to stand back. Guy edges closer but Jo grabs him in a similar leglock of his own, still holding the top rope. Guy points this out but Saulnier is more interested in trying to count down Guy's shoulders.   When Saulnier looks up, Jo releases the top rope but then grabs it again when Saulnier looks down.  Guy grabs the ropes to make his point but Saulnier takes this as a rope break request and refuses it, kicking Mercier's hands off the ropes. Gonzalez continues to hide his grabbing the top rope. Eventually he does see what is going on and forces Jo mto let go the top rope, allowing Guy to take control of the leglock.  When Jo grabs the bottom rope, Saulnier this time agrees to a break and demands Guy relinquish. A disgusted Guy WALLOPS Saulnier, sending him sprawling and gets a first Avertisement. Jo gets the leglock and forces Guy into the corner, Saulnier lets him do this despite the ropes. Jo lifts Guy up by the leg, Guy bashes him over he head with the spare foot, Jo pitches forward head first into Saulnier's stomach.  Heel and heel ref lay on the mat as Guy steps forward contemplating his next move.  He gets a Second And Final (Deuxieme et Derniere) Avertisement, despite his protests.  

The match changes tack. Mercier makes out like he is going to box Gonzalez, Jo takes a haymaker swing well wide of Guy, spins round and is taken down in a bodyscissors.  Guy does the old "Ah .. Ouais!!!" routine, slamming Gonzalez spine first into the mat. Strangely, Saulnier refuses to allow heel Jo a rope break.  The ref tries to kick Guy in the pants as he lifts Jo but Guy seems unaffected. Eventually Jo lands feet first to break the bodyscissors. He comes off the ropes and Guy flips him but he lands feet first by the opposite ropes and starts to brag about it.  Guy dropkicks him out the ring then dropkicks Saulnier too for good measure.  Gonzalez gets back in, goes down on one knee and begs for mercy from Mercier.  He gets a wrist lever then kicks Guy down before he can counter, then brags some more, flexing a bicep. Jo snapmares Guy and gets in several stomps which Saulnier lets go despite being flagrant follow downs on the mat.  Eventually Guy gets up. Jo slaps on a side headlock and Guy counters by grabbing Jo's thigh.  Jo bashes and stomps Guy back down.  Jo traps Guy's head in the ropes and bashes him in the back. Saulnier orders him off and Jo, now clearly getting the score, winks conspiratorially at the ref. Saulnier pulls the ropes apart but can't get Mercier out. He eventually puts his foot in and gets stuck while Jo is off, tying Guy up in a different set of ropes.  Jo does so and Saulnier falls down and gives Jo a first Avertisement.  Not bothered, Jo snapmares and kneedrops Guy.  He stomps him on the mat once more, chokes him on another top rope and slingshots Guy back on the mat on his back.  He ties Guy up in the ropes, chops at him and comes bouncing back from the opposite ropes to charge Mercier who escapes and dodges, allowing Gonzalez to catch his own head in the ropes!  Saulnier tries desperately to free Jo.  Guy wants to beat up the trapped Jo but Saulnier says no. So Guy drags him off and ties him in the opposite ropes the gives the ref's mose a hearty tweak before hurrying back and elbowsmashing Gonzalez out of the rope tourniquet and down to ringside. He then turns to the ref and leaves him there.  Jo staggers back, Saulnier unties himself and the two wrestlers trade Manchettes.  Gonzalez feigns being Manchette-drunk then jumps back to fire more at Guy but Mercier bashes him back down.  Guy slingshots Jo who grabs the rope to resist but Saulnier breaks the grab and Jo is slung across the ring and butter in the stomach down on the mat.  They do the Ref Breaks The Rope Grab routine once more but this time Gonzalez comes back with a surprise sunset flip for a two count.  Guy the cross buttocks and presses Jo for a pin which remarkably Saulnier counts.  Mercier has won!  Saulnier raises Guy's hand and for a moment it looks like they might shake hands but Mercier turns away and shakes the MC's hand instead.

So far that's half an hour of action in one evening of Michel Saulnier's heel ref antics. Delaporte obviously felt he was on to a winner with this as other referees started acting suspiciously but not Delaporte himself who remained a hard nosed unimpeachable Sheriff of the ring.

Was rewatching this bout. There's a word the commentator (I think it's Cazal but I didn't check) uses that sounds like "chewing gum" to describe a certain strength in Mercier.

I am loathe to tag El P on here again so does anyone else know what that word is?

[David Mantell]

On 1/25/2025 at 10:57 AM, David Mantell said:

More TV bouts not in the INA archive.

This is from 1975, So says the date scribbled on in biro.

Bear in mind: 

1) TF1 (which had been "ORTF 1er Chaine" until the start of the year) was in B/W at this point in 1975.  From September It repeated some TF3 broadcasts in colour but the channel did not go colour until  1977.   All Catch from 1975 (when the INA was launched) onwards is on colour VT so either it was only being broadcast on Antenne 2 which this clipping seems to prove otherwise) or they were only bothering to tape the colour matches on A2

2) "Monsieur" Marcel Montreal never faced Zarak on any bout we have footage of (LPP and Noced did face each other a few times in the early 70s.)

 

 

(Cutting flagrantly stolen from Bob Plantin's page.)

And more non INA matches: Go to 7m15secs in of this compilation by Bob Plantin and there is a long clip of Walter Bordes and Claude Roca Vs Anton Tejero and Albert Sanniez:

 

[El-P]

22 hours ago, David Mantell said:

I am loathe to tag El P on here again so does anyone else know what that word is?

You realize I can still read your posts, right ? 😂

Jeeez. Like you haven't exposed yourself enough by now.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

You realize I can still read your posts, right ? 😂

Jeeez. Like you haven't exposed yourself enough by now.

Sigh. 

Okay so what is that "chewing gum" word the commentator says Guy Mercier posesses?

[David Mantell]

At 5:24, the commentator sounds like he says what sounds like "C'est Le Chewing gum .." What word is that actually?

 

[El-P]

This is actually what he's saying. Speaking about the opponent's leg.

(why the hell do we hear the horloge parlante in the background ? What the hell is this ?)

[ohtani's jacket]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

This is actually what he's saying. Speaking about the opponent's leg.

(why the hell do we hear the horloge parlante in the background ? What the hell is this ?)

It happens on some of the footage. It's annoying. 

[Phil Lions]

On 1/13/2025 at 1:35 PM, Phil Lions said:

On another fun note, I haven't looked much into it, but according to this one article I saw the first ever "catch aquatique" match in France took place on May 8, 1954, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It was a women's tag team match with the ring in the middle of a big pool.

Turns out, that was wrong. INA has short highlights from a singles men's match from Bordeaux in September 1948. It's the same type of match, but in this case it's referred to as "catch nautique". Link to the footage: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1196359814810027

------

And while I'm on the topic of different types of catch, lately I've been looking into "catch amateur", which is a fascinating piece of French pro wrestling history that has been completely forgotten about. Long story short, they started doing it in the late 1940s and it quickly overtook pro wrestling (catch) as the most common type of catch in France as in by the looks of it there were more amateur catch events taking place than there were pro catch events (for example, in Paris there were typically 4 or 5 amateur catch events per week vs. 2 or 3 pro events). So what was this amateur catch? Well, it was presented as an amateur sport, an amateur version of the pro catch (with some minor rule differences), but it was 100% pro wrestling. Tons of future pro wrestlers did it. Heck, even active pro wrestlers like George Kidd and Mick McManus popped in for some amateur catch. Look no further than this video from an amateur catch match that I shared yesterday on Twitter as proof that it was pro wrestling despite not being billed as such:

Joachim la Barba vs. Rene Bouchoucha in 1952

So why present it as amateur instead of pro, which it clearly was? Because by calling it amateur they were able to save millions of francs on taxes as amateur events didn't have to pay the taxes that the pro events had to pay. And as you can imagine the French authorities eventually figured this out and lawsuits and fines followed. And that's not even half of it. Amateur catch had a big role in the first major promotional war in French pro wrestling breaking out. Anyway, I'll discuss this in more detail in my French catch timeline. French pro wrestling history in seriously fascinating. There's a lot of unique twists and turns in it that are unlike anywhere else in the world. The more I dig, the more I become fascinated by it.

[David Mantell]

On 1/27/2025 at 12:41 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

It happens on some of the footage. It's annoying. 

They did that instead of a time code on-screen. It was put on a spare audio channel.  Unfortunately modern equipment interprets the original mono audio as one side - and the speaking clock as the other side - of a stereo audio soundtrack.

On the plus side it means we know what timeslots the matches were being broadcast which also means we know about the Sunday 5pm timeslot which explains why kids turned up to matches.

Regarding the Franglais "le chewinggum" - I'd have to search for other examples but I recall commentators, going back to the 60s matches, saying things like "Il a le finesse, il a la force et il a le chewinggum."

[David Mantell]

Okay, I've reviewed some British and some American wrestling this weekend, now how about a French bout? How about ...

On 3/5/2020 at 12:05 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Billy Catanzaro vs. Vasilios Mantopolous (aired 1/29/67)

Billy Catanzaro is a bit of a mystery man. I know he was from Tunisia originally and settled in Paris. I know he had a match with Jim Breaks in 1964 that I'd give my left nut to see. And l know that there's a clip of him working a tag match on French TV, so there's more footage of him out there. I also know that he's sadly left us. 

Vasilios Mantopolous, on the other hand, was a well-known Greek light weight. He toured the UK a lot and worked against the likes of George Kidd and Jim Breaks. He was clearly the star in this match with Catanzaro playing the veteran hand. Mantopolous showed a lot of the stylistic leanings of George Kidd & Co. It was a stark contrast to the burly heavyweights we've seen so much of in the 50s footage. Light weights can be hit and miss for me as their work is often light as a feather. I'll have to watch this again but at first glance Catanzaro seemed like a solid base.

I was attracted to this bout more by Mantopolous than Catanzaro as VM seems a lightweight who can fit with both the George Kidd/Johnny Saint British school and the (pre-Arbitre Chiotte) Michel Saulnier/ Le Petit Prince French school.  This is my second Billy match, previously I reviewed a 1971 bout on here where Catanzaro sported the biggest greasiest gangsters' quiff this side of either Ronnie Kray or Steve Logan MK1 and a strutting temperament to match Steve Haggerty (actually I compared him to the other Dangerman, Colin Johnson.

To be honest, it's more Billy's kind of bout than Vasil's. VM does a bit of prancing like Ricki Starr at the start (Catanzaro gives him a real WTF glare) and takes over nicely at the end but there's less darting around than other Mantopolous bouts - his best tricks in this is to snatch for holds at the last second out of nowhere.  The main middle of the bout is mostly Billy's - big power moves and the occasional foul. There's a bit of ringside brawl involving the smashing of a table #ecw haha.

Commentator decides to buttonhole Catanzaro and ask him how he feels after Vasillious pitches him out of the ring, twice. He also goes on the pull and interviews a "pretty blonde" (we don't see her) female fan who has never actually been to matches before, knows no names of holds, giggles a lot. Commentator also does a Kent Walton and tells us about the wrestlers' hobbies - Vasil paints while Billy likes "musique moderne - or what sort? Rock?  (He mentions the Beatles). If so Billy is in for a good year with Sgt Pepper and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn out in coming months.

Vasil wins in the end with a Tombstone piledriver - appropriate as this reminds me of The Undertaker squashing someone like Koko B Ware.

[David Mantell]

On 10/3/2024 at 11:55 PM, David Mantell said:

Another New Catch match, another pair of Brits in France, another knockout finish. This was one of Rocco's last World Heavy Middleweight title defences before his sudden 1991 retirement. The two faced each other multiple times on ITV and Reslo and Rocco and Collins had been coming over to France since at least 1978 and 1985 respectively, but I don't think this particular one has been reviewed on the forum.

Collins gets his trademark things in early - the cartwheel escapes from a wristlock, the scoot through the legs, the odd missile dropkick. Otherwise this is mostly Rocco's bout with lots of moves done as individual high spots. There's an outside of the ring brawl which Collins actually wins albeit at the cost of an Avertisement. The finish sees Collins get his head trapped managed to free himself from a garotting but drops to ringside for a ten count. This is a variation on the finish of their late 80s ITV match where Collins was caught by the knee, gets himself free but Rocco slaps on a Scorpion Deathlock/Sharpshooter for the winning submission. I don't really think Collins gets protected although Rocco using the choking power of the ropes to achieve the KO would have got him a lot more heat back home. Otherwise it's not too different from the sort of knockout where someone would pick an opponent up, fling them over the ropes from the centre of the ring then let the 10 count take effect.

Two notable things outside the match itself. One is the Rocco promo, not that you can make out too much of it with Peter Wilhelm rabbiting away in German over the top of it, but you can clearly here his Manchester accent which makes the "from USA" caption a little ludicrous - and something Orig Williams picked up on for his English commentary. The other is that Rocco has been lumbered with a scantily clad Sensational Second (I'm sure he really enjoyed having to explain her to Ann Rocco) who is clearly a leftover from auditions for Flesh Gordon's similarly underdressed lady companions. Rocco shows his disdain for the whole thing by hoisting her upside down over one shoulder like heel Randy Savage in 1986 used to do to Miss Elizabeth to get heat. Orig on English commentary was in lecherous mood - "She is BLONDE and she is BEAUTIFUL!!!"

Bumping this up as I just covered their Reslo match from a year earlier on the British thread (page 41)

[Phil Lions]

On 1/13/2025 at 1:35 PM, Phil Lions said:

Earlier today the 1954 French newspapers were put online (under French copyright law 70 years since the date of publication need to have passed for the papers to be made publicly available online) and that has now allowed me to finally answer the question: when did catch first air on TV in France? As mentioned before, catch highlights started airing as part of the TV news in 1949, but the first actual broadcast was on March 22, 1954, from Palais des Sport (i.e. the Paoli-Goldstein promotion). That night Primo Carnera vs. Hermann Reiss and Francois Miquet  vs. The Great Zorro (Hans Mortier) aired live on TV at 8:45 pm. Claude Darget did the commentary. This broadcast was just a one-off, I believe. I've yet to research 1954 more thoroughly, but for now it seems like this was the only broadcast that year.

I've finished looking into 1954 and I can confirm the following. 1954 was the start of the catch broadcasts, but it appears there were only three broadcasts that year, all three by the Paoli-Goldstein promotion:

- March 22 (from Palais des Sport) - Primo Carnera vs. Hermann Reiss + Francois Miquet vs. The Great Zorro
- May 21 (from Cirque d'Hiver)
- August 5 (from Cirque d'Hiver)


INA doesn't have any of the footage. It's not clear what aired on the latter two broadcasts, but these were the cards of the live events that night (main event listed first):
- May 21: Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Claude Montourcy... Charlie Fisher vs. Roger Guettier...  Guy Laroche vs. Joachim La Barba... Roger Laroche vs. Albert Albisson... Gaby Dumas vs. Guebedjian
- August 5: Charlie Fisher vs. Jean Casi... Bolo Hakawa vs. Marcel Manuel... Roger Delaporte vs. Guy Laroche... Moise Besch vs. Paul Roche... Fred Bauer vs. Andre Mouton

It's interesting to note that the very first broadcast on March 22 happened because the creator of the popular variety TV show "36 chandelles" Jean Nohain got into a dispute with the network and as a result there ended up being a last-minute deal struck to air catch instead of the regularly scheduled "36 chandelles". A lot of the newspaper articles that I saw were very negative on catch because it replaced a beloved show, but apparently the viewing audience loved it and flooded the station with letters asking for more catch broadcasts on TV. Keep in mind though, at the time the promoters were apprehensive about having their shows air live on TV and there was fear that TV broadcasts would hurt the gates (not only of the broadcast show itself but of the other live events happening at the same time elsewhere in the territory). And that is a big reason why it took a while for the broadcasts to become more regular.

I also found this interesting. There's a 16-minute women's wrestling segment from May 1954 that was produced for TV and INA still has the footage, but according to their records it was not aired on TV. It's a swimming pool women's tag team match. Could be the one I mentioned earlier or another one with the same women. It's not produced like typical catch though. There's 6 minutes of pre-match footage of the women arriving in France via airplane, then driving about and finally doing some training. The match itself is also shot differently with a lot of close-up shots and comedy. It ends with the referee being dumped in the swimming pool.

[Phil Lions]

^ And continuing that train of thought, I just found the following clipping from "Tele Magazine" (i.e. the French equivalent of "TV Guide" back then) confirming exactly how many catch broadcasts there were between 29 September 1956 and 31 August 1957.



The point is, based on this, INA is missing 6 broadcasts from the last three months of 1956 and only 2 broadcasts from the next 8 months (we have 27, and there were 29).

It's also interesting to note the magazine had an annual reader poll where they would ask the readers what they watched on TV, what changes they would like to see, etc. And according to their 1957 poll, 80% of the voters said they watch catch.

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

The point is, based on this, INA is missing 6 broadcasts from the last three months of 1956 and only 2 broadcasts from the next 8 months (we have 27, and there were 29).

INA's stock for the period 1956-1974 are, as we have discussed quite a bit by now, overseas sales prints (plus one rare surviving colour  transmission VT from Jan 69).

From 1975, once INA was launched, the stock was updated with off air recordings which seems to be slightly patchier (as evidenced by TV listings for non surviving bouts and occasional surviving alternative footage sources such as Albert Sanniez inVs Marc Mercier 1978 and Fred Magnier Vs  Bob Plantin/Michel Di Santo Vs Michel Chaisne/(beginning of) Antonio Pedera Vs Jean Claude Bordeaux on the Bob Alpha YouTube channel.). and I'm in  may have been taped to fulfil a quota.

[WingedEagle]

Has anyone compiled a list of the 10? 25? 50? French Catch matches to watch? Apologies if its already found elsewhere in this thread.

[David Mantell]

We're probably very lucky (O)RTF was not junking prints and negatives of matches whose sales rights had expired like BBC Enterprises did with a load of BBC programming, compounding existing takes wiping and resulting in big gaps in archive holdings. Nineteen years of overseas sales kinescopes prints were there to be on boarded onto the INA when it was started up in early 1975.

[David Mantell]

18 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Has anyone compiled a list of the 10? 25? 50? French Catch matches to watch? Apologies if its already found elsewhere in this thread.

This thread still needs a French equivalent of myself on the British thread, someone who grew up with this territory, got their basic education of what Wrestling should be from Le Catch and can explain ideas and ways of doing things that are alien to American fans.

[ohtani's jacket]

On 2/12/2025 at 10:12 AM, WingedEagle said:

Has anyone compiled a list of the 10? 25? 50? French Catch matches to watch? Apologies if its already found elsewhere in this thread.

I think Jetlag has made recommendations in the past. My personal interest lays in anything from the 50s. After that, my favorite period was when there was a troupe of lighter weights putting on matches together in the early 70s. There are a few matches I like from the 60s, but there's a big shift towards tag wrestling and I'm not overly fond of European style tag wrestling. 

[Matt D]

Everything before 1980 (and some select things after) is worth watching.

Sorry.

[David Mantell]

15 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

There are a few matches I like from the 60s, but there's a big shift towards tag wrestling and I'm not overly fond of European style tag wrestling. 

France and Britain had quite different styles of tag wrestling. The 30-40 minute tag match with all 3 falls scored in the last 10 minutes is a peculiarly French thing. In Britain they were 20-25 min with the falls evenly spaced- Big Daddy tags are the most extreme manifestation of the Babyface* Hot Tag in the entire worldwide history of pro wrestling.

 

* should be blue-eye in the UK

[WingedEagle]

18 hours ago, Matt D said:

Everything before 1980 (and some select things after) is worth watching.

Sorry.

That's not what I've found from starting in the 1950s. At least not if it isn't the only thing I plan on watching in the months ahead. Hopefully can find a basis for some picking & choosing.

[ohtani's jacket]

7 minutes ago, WingedEagle said:

That's not what I've found from starting in the 1950s. At least not if it isn't the only thing I plan on watching in the months ahead. Hopefully can find a basis for some picking & choosing.

Are there any matches or workers you've enjoyed so far?