French catch

[WingedEagle]

31 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

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

Big fan of Llano Pellacani thus far. Edourd Carpentier usually hits for me. Most of what I've seen of him as Eddy Wiecz has been very good.

Gilbert Cesca vs. Billy Catanzaro from 5/2/1957 was really great. 

My biggest issue that a lot of matches feel unnecessarily long with the work slowing down to ridiculous levels with an eye towards going long rather than accentuating what the workers are actually capable of and in fact to the detriment of their capabilities. Some folks seem to appreciate a lot of the micro details and stylistic contrasts that are found in those matches but too often those longer outings aren't exactly delivering a solid ROI. 

More Pellacani. More Cheri Bibi. More work with purpose rather than running the ball to kill the clock.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's a valid criticism.

From memory, Jacky Corn was my favorite guy for pushing the pace. I would also recommend checking out the Modesto Aledo match. I can't remember which is the better of his two matches but it might be the one against Teddy Boy. 

[WingedEagle]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

It's a valid criticism.

From memory, Jacky Corn was my favorite guy for pushing the pace. I would also recommend checking out the Modesto Aledo match. I can't remember which is the better of his two matches but it might be the one against Teddy Boy. 

Thanks, will definitely keep an eye out.

[David Mantell]

12 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

My biggest issue that a lot of matches feel unnecessarily long with the work slowing down to ridiculous levels with an eye towards going long rather than accentuating what the workers are actually capable of and in fact to the detriment of their capabilities. Some folks seem to appreciate a lot of the micro details and stylistic contrasts that are found in those matches but too often those longer outings aren't exactly delivering a solid ROI. 

That was rather the point as far as the original audiences for European wrestling, especially the devout fans, were concerned. Especially with British wrestling which at its best was about, as Kent Walton said, "skill and speed combined" - lots of clever micro details coming hard and fast. Even those fans who just wanted "rough and tumble" between a good guy and a bad guy were made to feel like they OUGHT to appreciate the skilful clean bouts and that it would make them not just a better wrestling fan but a better person too to acquire the taste for more sophisticated wrestling rather than mere "vugar" crowd psychology.

With France they developed a different style, particularly in the tag matches but also among the lighter weight wrestlers like Michel Saulnier, Le Petit Prince and Vasillious Mantopolous that emphasized agility rather than technical ingenuity, although again combined with speed. "Il est tres SOUPLE" seems to have been the highest compliment the French TV commentators could pay to a wrestler.

Germany/Austria is an odd case. At the time the Home Video releases started being filmed circa 1979/1980 there appears to have been an older generation around including Axel Dieter Senior, Achim Chall, Jorg Chenok, Roland Bock etc who relied on a slow rigorous style that involved getting a hold and milking it for every last possibility of adjustment of leverage and every last drop of emotion. Mile Zrno appears to have been the youngest who worked this style. After that, there was a revolution in the German/Austrian style when Steve Wright permanently relocated to Germany and began teaching the young generation including his son Alex the British technical style.  Consequently by the mid 90s there was a blossoming wave of young technical workers like Ulf Herman. Ecki Eckstein etc similar to that in Britain a decade earlier with Danny Collins, Kid McCoy etc.

French and German/Austrian fans seem to have appreciated British-style clean technical sportsmanly bouts but it was not so much part of their staple diet as it was for British audiences.

All the European territories had tropes which tend to confuse a fan brought up on American wrestling, not least the wider pallete of finishes with, for example, a countout being called a Knockout and presented as a better and more emphatic way to win than two falls or submissions. Similarly the use of a technical knockout as a shorter alternative to the time limit draw, or the slow build towards a disqualification of a heel through acquiring three public warnings/Avertisements/yellow cards. These were NOT seen as cheap finishes, they were seen as legitimate and accepted as satisfactory by the audience.

Another example of this is much of what American fans write off as "Rest .Holds".  In Europe especially in Britain, more often than not, these are the set up stage for a clever skillful escape hold. A side headlock on the mat in Britain is not just a cover for the work coming to a stop, it is the set-up for a clever handstanding move to lever oneself out of the headlock - and often into a hold of ones own for the opponent then to escape from and continue the chain.

All three territories seem to have made a major concession to sheer commercial appeal in the 1980s - in Germany the boom in CWA title matches pitting an increasingly obese Otto Wanz against numerous visiting Americans. In France it was a more general trend towards gimmickry and cartooniness (compared to some eras of Memphis wrestling especially the early USWA) of which Flesh Gordon, despite having been a decent worker back then, has come to be seen as the embodiment.  In Britain it was the subordination of the entire Joint Promotions product to being a feeder for Big Daddy and his lopsided kiddy-friendly tag matches.

The three "extinct" territories of Mediterranean Southern Europe - Spain. Italy and Greece - each had their own styles and tropes although we have less footage of these to get our heads around the styles.