French catch

[David Mantell]

Quote

There was another brief late night TF1 run in 1991 and then the promotion aired on the sports network Eurosport for about a year 

The year long Eurosport run of New Catch was a back to back run of a repeat of the 1988 season on TF1 and the Premiere of the full season 2. The four episodes on TF1  were a sampler of the latter. (Or was it an abortive TF1 run of the full Season 2?).

A handful of Season 2 matches were aired on a Euro Special episode of Reslo on S4C.  I think the producers of New Catch had ideas about selling it to TV stations around Europe - perhaps even ITV.

 

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I recall reading here that nominally, the FEC Promoter was Jean Claude Blanchet who played the manservant Paul Butin Fluchard for Marquis Jacky Richard (and Marquis Eduardo before him).and who later became Best Boy when Richard became Travesti Man in New Catch Season 2.  Orig Williams inadvertently calls him by his real name here

Presumably Blanchet was a Jack Pfefer style front man for Flesh.

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As we've discussed in the past, Bernard Van Damme had his own post New Catch TV show Eurostars on various private TV channels.

As I think I've previously suggested, (1) Eurostars may have been screening in places like Macedonia, Switzerland etc and sowed the seed for a live invasion (2) the Macedonian/ Swiss/ etc footage could have been screened on the Eurostars show.

[Phil Lions]

4 hours ago, David Mantell said:

The year long Eurosport run of New Catch was a back to back run of a repeat of the 1988 season on TF1 and the Premiere of the full season 2. The four episodes on TF1  were a sampler of the latter. (Or was it an abortive TF1 run of the full Season 2?).

Thanks for mentioning this. I was going off of my memory when I wrote that and I had it slightly wrong. I'll correct it now. New Catch started airing on Eurosport in October 1991 and the TF1 run was three weeks later.

[David Mantell]

IMHO the Season 1 finale premier on 26/12/1988 was the equivalent moment in French Catch history to The Final Bell on ITV 17/12/1988.  Up to you if you want to mention that suggestion.