Spanish catch

[David Mantell]

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By the way, Say Hello To My Little Friend.

I bought it in Salamanca, Spain in late 1995 during the first half of M6 year abroad before I moved to Metz, France at the end of January 1996. It was printed in about the late 50s/early 60s.  It's not an exclusively pro wrestling book but it's got some interesting material I intended to scan up for this thread.

Somewhere I believe Instill have another book from a bit later circa 1964 (stamped <<España - 25 años de Paz>> - the Paz in question being the Carthaginian Paz of 25 years under Franco's rule since the end of the Civil War in 1939) which has a rather funny essay about Kayfabe which concludes that anyone who is desperate to see the boys legit injure each other must be a dreadful sadist! LOL.

I'll put in relevant scans from time to time from the Campo book and the other one too should it resurface.

For starters...

9 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Victorio Ochoa , the Navarrese lion, was born on 1919. His father, Javier Ochoa was a great amateur wrestler, and was one of the wrestlers that introduced wrestler to Mexico. Victorio was a very technical wrestler and won the World and European HW titles, but in the prime of his career, he was killed in a familiar quarrel.

9 hours ago, David Mantell said:

8 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

Javier Ochoa was no amateur - he was the most popular Spanish pro wrestler in the Greco-Roman style and was a big star in Spain. Spain was one of the top European territories for that style for a while, in the 1920s especially.

8 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Well anyway that's what that Valentin bloke wrote.  I've got some other material of the Ochoa family to post as well as another video snippet from Alessio.

Valentin praises Victorious as the first technical wizard of France and so does my other source, once I dig it out from wherever it's hiding.

[Phil Lions]

8 hours ago, David Mantell said:

By the way, Say Hello To My Little Friend.

I bought it in Salamanca, Spain in late 1995 during the first half of M6 year abroad before I moved to Metz, France at the end of January 1996. It was printed in about the late 50s/early 60s.

This book is from 1947. I have a scanned copy of it.

[David Mantell]

5 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

This book is from 1947. I have a scanned copy of it.

Ah well, I've got a REAL one! 😄

There are two sections of interest to pro wrestling fans, the biographies and "Prensas de Lucha Libre Americana (American Wrestling holds).

Plus also there's a group photo of thirties wrestlers in a ring and that shit of Javier Ochoa (although this was clearly him in later life so Spain had gone catch by then.)

[David Mantell]

On 10/20/2025 at 12:49 PM, David Mantell said:

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Victorio Ochoa , the Navarrese lion, was born on 1919. His father, Javier Ochoa was a great amateur wrestler, and was one of the wrestlers that introduced wrestler to Mexico. Victorio was a very technical wrestler and won the World and European HW titles, but in the prime of his career, he was killed in a familiar quarrel.

There are only photos of Javier in this but we get a definite taste of Victoria's style. Irish whipped to the mat, he is able to pick himself upright at arm's length, an ancestor of the British-style roll through. He gets a beautiful slide into a standing Fireman's Carry takedown on one of these whips.  He gets the pin by upturning a long press.  Later we see him get a face bar from behind a dona front somersault into a bridge to wrench on the opponent's neck.

We see more of Ochoa's proto rollout of armlever (albeit in longshot) 

 

Ochoa takes on the headbutt king.  Tarres.  Most of this is already featured in the Leones de Navarra clip. clip but looks out for Victorio doing a toupie out of headscissors well before Gilbert Leduc hit the scene.

 

More source footage for the Leones de Navarra mini docu.

 

See Ochoa neatly kip up after being forearm smashes down by his opponent. He goes for and almost gets a legdive right across the ring, corner to corner.  He rolls back from an arm at on the mat to get a ground dropkick.  He also gets an Indian Deathlock and a double leg nelson pin attempt.

 

[David Mantell]

On 10/15/2025 at 11:25 PM, David Mantell said:

Only wrestler I knew at all was Luc Bejar who MIGHT be the same one who was European Heavy Middleweight Champion in 1973 (but I wouldn't swear to it)

P.S. apparently Joe Adell was also a survivor of early 70s Spain

Bejar and Adell on a TV chat show some time in the early 90s, possibly to promote the same 90s show I posted but they also discuss the old days and the fad for American wrestling at the time.

A large vintage wrestling poster from the old days is put on display. It says "Catch" on it, by the way. (Although another one I shown which says Lucha.)The boys also say Catch A Cuatro a lot which is a literal French to Spanish translation of Catch À Quatre.

Bejar shows off what looks like blading scars.

At the end, the boys take their tops off to do some moves on each other.

[David Mantell]

4 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

At the end, the boys take their tops off to do some moves on each other.

And here they go

They also offer to try it out on the presenter but he sensibly wimps out.

 

[Phil Lions]

While on the topic of Spanish lucha libre, here's a fun stat that I just randomly came across. According to this Barcelonian article from early 1957, in 1956 there were a total of 243 shows in the Catalonia province. The most out of any Spanish province, according to the article. And keep in mind, either 36 or 37 of those shows were held at the two Barcelona bullrings (a 14,893-seater and a 19,582-seater).

[David Mantell]

4 minutes ago, Phil Lions said:

While on the topic of Spanish lucha libre, here's a fun stat that I just randomly came across. According to this Barcelonian article from early 1957, in 1956 there were a total of 243 shows in the Catalonia province. The most out of any Spanish province, according to the article. And keep in mind, either 36 or 37 of those shows were held at the two Barcelona bullrings (a 14,893-seater and a 19,582-seater).

Mercifully it's in Castilian rather than Catalan ( I expect if it was in Catalan, the Guardia Civil would have paid a visit, funny hats and drawn truncheons aplenty)

According to Wikipedia , as late as 1970 they filled out a 13K venue in Castellón de la Plana in Valencia in the East/Southeast and did pretty well in the 15K capacity Murcia down near the eastern end of Andalusia, the last time in 1975.

[David Mantell]

On 10/22/2025 at 1:53 AM, David Mantell said:

looks out for Victorio doing a toupie out of headscissors well before Gilbert Leduc hit the scene.

Talking of Gilbert, here he is in Madrid against L'Ange Blanc, Fifties French TV's favourite on a homecoming visit. I've posted this to the French thread. The commentator calls Gilbert one of the greatest technical wrestling artists around.

We see Gilbert resisting pin attempts from first a folding press by Ange then a crosspress with his arm trapped in the hammerlock position.  Ange gets an armhank and we all know what Gilbert's counter to that was. And yea verily the Madrid crown get to see a toupie - and mutter to themselves that Victorio Ochoa used to do that.  We see Ange with a headscissors and Gilbert with a side chancery on the mat. Ange rakes Gilbert down with a hammerlock. And scores with a scissor chop which apparently gets him the Knockout win to defend his title.

[David Mantell]

I'm not sure if this guy was at all related to Javier or Victorio but here we go anyway 

 

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

Just now, David Mantell said:

Mariano is the guy with the moustache at 5ge start but that's not a lot of help as most of this is in longshot.  We see a longshot of one guy (hard to tell them apart) taking some high whips very nicely and rolling through on them. One guy gets a backdrop, side headlock into hiptoss, both guys bridge up into rear snapmares. One guy gets a standing full nelson but the other breaks free and rides him tomthe mat.  One guy has an armbar and the other uses a cartwheel to untwist it the a headscissors counter but not in the French style, more like catching it as he goes over with the cartwheel.  We see one guy gets an armhank and I think a submission.

10 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

 

Again, the 'tache is our man but it's hard to pick him out. One guy does a magnificent double underhook suplex. There is a rear arm hank and a headscissors. A top wristlock into armscissors and then rolling to throw him man in the armscissors.  An attempted folding press converted into a Boston Crab attempt and a crawl out counter. A snapmare.  Two bridge ups into snapmares. A throw into an armstrtch pin.

[David Mantell]

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The matches reportedly in this footage are Mariano Garcia Ochoa vs Sepulveda Joaquin, Saludes vs Kary Kupper and Damian vs Joaquin Asensio

Broadcasted on February 3rd, 1947 in Spain.

Source : Filmoteca Espagñola (rtve.es)

Thanks to Phil Lions for finding and sharing this footage.

Joaquin seems to be a bit of a brawler, we see him roughing up Mariano including a knee to the stomach.Mariano still uses crossed bodyscissors to get out of a Boston Crab attempt.  Joaquin still gets the fall with a German suplex then a cross press.

Sadly most of the last two bouts are played too fast to judge them or even to work out who is who.

 

[David Mantell]

A couple of profiles of wrestlers from that last clip.

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The Spanish wrestlers were Joaquin Saludes "The Catalonian Tiger", 

 

[David Mantell]

On 10/22/2025 at 1:53 AM, David Mantell said:

One of Salvador Font too.

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Salvador Font nicknamed "El Oculista" (the oculist) because he used eye rakes very much