David Mantell

Some English commentary versions of videos I've already posted.

A landmark moment, August 11th 1985. The last wrestling broadcast on Antenne2 formerly 2eme Chaine after 21 years when some wrestling broadcasts were diverted to the new channel on its 1964 launch. The very next week Flesh and Bordes would be over on FR3 battling Les Maniaks in the first of three changes of channel which was what France had instead of the end of World Of Sport and the termination of ITV's subsequent standalone Wrestling show. Jessy, as mentioned, comes in on horseback led by Gaby Lailee as Tonto in about the nearest AFAIK that she ever walked down a Heel path. Then again, maybe the horse was a closet babyface. Luckily apart from one kid patting it on the nose, the crowd leave the horse alone. It's all a bit Jerry Lawler. Someone called Charles Levesque is guest commentator. Elliot is wearing a fancy red peaked hat, Richard is doing the Marquis gimmick but honestly just looks like 70s Jacky. Better lit than usual, the Tricolore ropes and grey mat make it look like a cross between World Of Sport of that point and the WWF circa 1983. Good fast paced triple tag, Paul the butler making it a seven man handicap tag, running in to break up holds and participating in four on one beatdowns. Elliot comes up with one great move early on, leaping backward as Angelito goes for a headlock then sharing his arm. Flesh is still in his young agile phase firing a backwards dropkick at Elliot. Jacky despite his new title inherited from Eduardo is still the same surly heel as earlier, there's a touch of Ron "Damn" Simmons to him. A mass ringside brawl breaks out and a blonde dolly bird in beauty pageant gear gets involved. Walter still gets the old Papa Doux Mais Mais. Jessy Texas is more of a stomper and brawler. Angelito is still the same high flyer from the 70s. Les Bons seem to be picking up Avertisements a lot from Charley Bollet. Flying Flesh gets a cross press opening pin on Eliot Frederico. Jessy pulls down a rope and Walter falls out, Jessy and Elliot give Walter quite a kicking at ringside, Flesh and a second have to help him up. Elliot is fouling Walter in the corner and Bollet hauls him off by the moustache. (Elliot I believe is the same guy as Grim Rocker on New Catch later on.). Lovely teamwork spot less than three minutes from the end, Flesh has Elliot on the mat, but the other two heels are sneaking up on Flesh from behind, Angelito then vaults Flesh to flying tackle Richard and Texas. Flesh has had to release Eliot who gets to his feet to be nailed down by a Flesh dropkick. Only 2min 40sec of clip left and the heels are still leading 1-0. Will Les Mechants get an equaliser? Nope. Elliot and Le Marquis are tied in the ropes and Paul dumped to ringside while Walter who has been recovering on his tag rope, scores a flying bodypress on Jessy Texas to make it two straight falls. @ohtani's jacket I'm guessing this was the underlying issue with your"lack of structure", the lack of a heel consolation fall. Still it's not lopsided like Bordes and RBC Vs Shadow and Arz 1970, the heels do get some good heat spots and French fans seem to have been accustomed to the falls all coming in one big rush at the end, so who are we to impose our standards on them? The dolly bird from earlier and another identically dressed one gets in the ring to celebrate with Les Bons - were they the prize? No sign of the documentary, I guess @Matt D must have trimmed it off. Typical fast paced French tag match from what had became very much a tag team territory.

German Wikipedia is pretty impressive for wrestler info: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Wrestler_(Deutschland) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Wrestler_(Österreich)

Update - Signsquad has posted a video of CCJ versus Ulf Herman so presumably Cool Cat (George) won the above match and went on to face Ulf in the next round.

Dream match: Emil Mansour Vs Josef El Arz - Lebanese Bon Vs Lebanese Mechant. They were both on French TV around the same time, beginning of 1976, so it is plausible.

Arz and Shadow team again, this time in surviving colour, yet again at the Cirque d'Hiver. Shadow in a gold ring jacket, Arz in the red/white plus Cedar Tree colours/emblem of the Lebanese flag. Robert Duranton drops in to say hello and snog the elderly male MC, dressed in black and looking every inch the movie star he was by this time. The bad guys still lose but they put on their strongest performance yet, getting an opening fall about 10 mins in. It's all too much for one old boy who attacks Shadow and gets VICIOUSLY booted for his pains. Les Bons finally catch up and get their equaliser and decider in the last few minutes. Fans chant Mama Doux Mais Mais despite the lack of Walter Bordes.

Anthony, the son of 1950s star Bob Archer O'Brien gets a surprise opening fall with a bridged folding press in round 2 and spends the next several rounds coming close to two straight falls before getting the rug pulled under him with a missed dropkick Knockout. Good scientific contest, but I'm not surprised OJ din't like the ending! Crowd are unhappy with Barnes accepting the win but he's a heel so it's to be expected.

Part of a bout from Bath Pavillion, late 90s, either All Star or Scot Conway's TWA. Kate , former British Ladies champion in the role of an evil Big Daddy, teaming with 90s heel and former British Tag Team Champion Vic Powers. Opponent is someone called Tommy plus John Harvey the fire eating conjurer bloke who tagged with Danny Colin's in early 90s New Catch (see France thread.) Kate does the dirty with the ring rope on Harvey. Powers attacks Harvey on the floor. Good guys double team Vic, use Kate as á battering ram. Harvey gets into flying tackle with Powers and Tommy dropkicks Harvey down for a pin. After more shenanigans with Kate's weight used as a weapon by both sides, she splashed Tommy for the equaliser - and there it cuts out. Fun in a Daddy tag sort of way, not a scientific classic, Kate showing she can hang with the boys. Would like to see the decider and find out how it ends, but there you go.

Are you in the video? Why was Colonel Brody standing around in the background? It's funny, I just thought "Milde Sorte" meant what it looks like it means in English, that Otto was a mild sort of guy! An ironic way for a big bull of a man like Otto to describe himself! Brody and Regal did a face to face promo once for a 1991 German tournament match. Both the match and the promo got re-scrreened on New Catch. Brody made mention of the true story of how Regal got his foot in the door of the business by taking on Brody (then still Magnificent Maurice) in Bobby Baron's carny shoot challenge booth in the Horseshoe Ballroom at Blackpool Pleasure Beach (where Regal himself later became a carny shooter). "He had a big mouth at the beginning of his career," Brody told the camera, "but tonight his career is FINISHED." Regal was kayfabe- angered by that.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Up Found this and have linked it to the CWA page on English Wikipedia.

Short clip from the same 1978 TV taping in the same sports hall with the same Breton bagpipe band as Mammouth Siki Vs Daniel Schmidt. Joined in progress, some spectators are in traditional Breton costume. Lateif is the younger guy in the white. Latif seems to be the bratty cocky young heel, the crowds side with older balding Momo in black. Some good action moves and so e Manchettes. Latif gets an Avertisement for a low blow. He wins cleanly with a suplex and cross press and the .two shake hands. Last minute or so is about the pipe band who are on some sort of charity bagpipes marathon, apparently.

Unknown date tournament match in a tent., crowd is deceptively large, wait until the camera pulls away from the ring. Helmut is a local heel, I thought I'd already posted one of his bouts but can't find it. Glaser is babyface and "American" and certainly wrestles like it. Not very remarkable heel Vs blue-eye match with the heel screwing a victory.

France and Britain Vs France and Britain. Jacky Richard as the Travesti Man you all know, no sign of Jean Claude the Best Boy (formerly Paul the butler. Patric Lopez doing his zRugby player gimmick, a surprisingly good mover well verse at British rolls out of armbars and even does toupees. Murdoch is not Duthty's old tag partner but Dick Harrison aka Ron Clarke formerly of the Lincolnshire Poachers with Bill "King Kendo" Clarke. Steve Prince. a soldier boy, is on his best behaviour as a good guy for once! Lopez gets the one fall required with a Powerslam.

Otto Wanz and Rambo on a news magazine show cutting promos on each other while Colonel Brody stands in the background minding his own business. Rambo's promo is in English with a Quebec accent.

Most of the first several minutes of this are taken up by a long boring speech in German as all eight participants get introduced. Steve Casey is Steve McHoy, son of Wild Angus, for more details see the British thread. Cool Cat Jackson, real name George Burgess, recently passed away. In the 70s he was called the Jamaica Kid, was KO'd in round 2 of his 1975 TV debut by Kendo Nagasaki (taped at the same taping as George Kidd v Jack Mulligan ), then in Feb 1976 he was brutally squashed by heel Big Daddy who was made to do this by backstage powers intent on sabotaging Daddy's face turn. By the late 80s he was back on TV as Jamaica George on Joint shows. By the early 90s he was CCJ on Reslo. Hansi Rooks we met earlier in this thread fighting King Kong Kirk in 1985 and in a 1971 B/W film clip. The guy with the sunglasses looks suspiciously like the guy who was Gabby Laillee's boyfriend from Czechoslovakia on that March 1987 episode of Old Catch on FR3, the one who formed a babyface alliance with Flesh Gordon at the end of the episode. They play Entry of the Gladiators (or as everyone in Britain knows it, the Clowns Song). and parade round the ring. Finally six minutes in, we get the match. Not sure who Billy Joe is,(possibly Crazy Dave Adams) but he knows his technical moves and he and Jackson have a decent Heavyweights Who Can Move British match. Camera zooms in on Jackson during the break between rounds. Crowd are mostly on Jackson's side after Brannigan does too many attacks on the mat but mostly they just clap and applaud fair play on both sides. Brannigan gives Jackson a shove after the bell of round 2. Didier Gapp counts Knockouts in French and the MC translates. Crowd finally gives heat when Brannigan runs Jackson's face along the ropes. Referee Gapp gets into shoving match with Brannigan then pulls back to outside the ring to allow Jackson to take over. Unfortunately the tape cuts out at that point- any chance of a follow up clip sign squad?

Each man has a wrestler seconding them - Shiro has a young Akira Nogami (a blue-eye in England) Wright has Tony StClair in a stripy pair of sweatpants(possibly in tribute to former CWAer Ed Brutus Beefcake Leslie who would have been beating and shaving Curt Hennig at Summerslam 90, 7 days after this show had not a female parasailor condemned Hennig to have long blond Goldilocks for the rest of his life. Union Flag is flying edgeways on during the National Anthem. Crowd is chanting for Mile (Zrno) for no good reason. (Or is it "StevEN" ?) I was expecting a technical bout but after one armlock, Shiro goes to work with dirty wrestling. (Funny how the Japanese are always heels in Germany - they were allies in WW2). Stomps Wright in the corner while using the rope for leverage and choking.. in round 2 Wright eventually gets a monkey flip and Shiro gets a leglock which becomes a Boston crab Wright brawls in retaliation but is kicked to the mat again by Shiro. Shiro gets an American figure 4'leglock on. various leglocks and headlocks on the mat. Shiro shoves Wright out of the ring. Back to brawling.(Apart from one Wright sunset flip attemptand one flying tackle pin attempt.). Down on the mat things start to get technical at last with a Shiro front chancery into Wright armbar. Bell goes just as Wright is trying to turn Shiro over. New round starts with armbar into cross press attempts by Wright. Shiro tries for his first scientific move, a flying headscissor, but Wright throws him off. Wright backside for a 2 count. And back to brawling for the rest of the round.. Shiro gets a GREAT backdrop but follows down too late with a pin cover so the ref won't count it. One long headlock on the mat alternating with brawling. Shiro nearly gets a backslide pin. Shiro kicks Wright out of the ring, Tony towels him down and sends him on his way. Shiro's turn to get thrown out of the ring. Steve gets an Ivan Koloff kneedrop and two legdrops, More brawling, Wright tries for 2 further nelson pins. Shiro piledriver for 2 count. Wright dropkick nearly gets a KO. Shiro is begging for mercy. Wright finally gets a pin with superplex off the corner. StClair comes in to congratulate him. Gets presented with his belt back and bouquets, poses for photos with the ref and another official. Shiro and Nogami reappear. After refusing, Shiro grudgingly shakes Wright's hand - did they have blackmail material on him? Wright wraps Union Jack. A young Alex Wright in double denim comes in to give dad a hug. Disappointing. I thought I would get a scientific match, I mostly got a brawl. OJ will probably like it though.

Finlay has a feud with Big Daddy in 1986 so no surprise that he can bump around and make Big Otto look good. What's the story with Otto's ring gear? It makes him look like a sailor! Or at any rate an obese showgirl doing a Sailor Girl routine. I've heard of "fat old men in swimming trunks" but Otto looks like a fat old woman at poolside in a holiday resort in the Mediterranean. Just to make things even weirder, so if the other videos of that day's action have a colour signal fault so Otto's "sailor girl" outfit looks Lavender! (It also makes people look green like the Incredible Hulk.)

Good guys are throwing leaflets to ringsiders at the start. Arz has a long kafiyyeh on his head. Crowd get the good guys going with papa doux he he chant. Top babyface team Bordes and RBC are completely wiping the floor with the heels. Apparently Shadow is from Washington and plays baseball. Nice surfboard on Arz. Halfway in it calms down to armlocks on the mat with only one or two flips out. Past halfway, Les Mechants start their double teaming on Rene. Both heels caught by the neck in the ropes on opposite sides of the ring. Good guys get the opening fall with a Rick Martel slingshot bodypress. This isn't the night for the heels but Shadow mocks the fans doing a mouth-sign at them with his hand. Good guys take it too far when one holds Arz's leg for the other to dive on it, ref tells them off. Fans give it the bird (a bad habit of Continental fans) and one old man waddles to ringside to complain but no Avertisement for Les Bons. Apparently Shadow was a parachuteist too, says the commentator. One bon slingshots Shadow into Arz who is trapped in a full nelson. Six minutes to go, the good guys are one up and Les Mechants have still had no significant heat. It never comes. Second straight fall with a flying bodypress. Bordes and RBC dance to what the commentator calls a "cabaret du Ring." VERY lopsided good guy win. A private warning from the ref for one double team too many is as bad as it got for Les Bons. I'm surprised @ohtani's jacket didn't complain about the lack of tag match structure.

Continuing my Black Shadow kick, rewinding 12 years to 1973 and the days before INA was set up, on which we are reliant on B/W export film prints. This bout was not reviewed on here previously although Shadow and Arz did team previously in 1973 and that has been reviewed. I'll get back to that one later. An "Arz" if you don't know, is Arabic for a pimp. (The Modern Hebrew term "Arsim" for the subculture of young working class Sephardic Jews into sportswear an hip hop culture - the Israeli equivalent of "Chavs" in the UK - was derived from this word.). J el A made quite a few French TV appearances running up to about 1976, the last of which INA made it's own colour video recordings. Josef sports a goatee, shadow an arrogant sheer worthy of the greatest Rene Lasertasse. Shadow may be a faux American, or even a real one, the commentator says he played American Football. More clean wrestling Five minutes in, Shadow is mostly clean wrestling Les Bons, taking bump landings from their wrist levers and Irish Whips. Fast paced but the audience are quiet, making them them of body on canvas stand out. Shadow pulls his head out of a headscissor but is kicked into the ropes and leg-flipped on the rebound. Tags Arz. More clean wrestling. Shadow finally gets nasty with some punches on the ring apron. Arz holds Cohen for some Shadow stomps. Bouvet does a hope spot with flying scissors/bulldog headlock combo on both Mechants. Before long Shadow is in, Arz is out but still the double team. Pithy remark from commentator "La festival d'Iregularite continue". Soon Les Bons are turning the table on Josef, camera zooms in on him selling an arm scissors. Shadow reaches in with a stomp to regain heat. Referee is an old long white haired guy. Not Delaporte, he was still in tranks and a Mechant in August 1973. Both heels take an ankle each on the fallen Cohen, causing Bouvet to come in an split leg dropkick the pair. Soon he is diving on Arz repeatedly. Later Chiottes Arbitres like Saulnier and Weizz would be handing out Avertisements by now to the naughty Bons. Shadow gets one for beating down on a cornered Cohen. Commentator is getting fed up of still being in la Premier Manchester after all this time. Cohen rolls out of a beat down and scores the hot tag to Bouvet. He gets to work dropkicking Shadow out the ring and getting a victory roll on Arz for the opener. Crowd taunts the heels "ou est, ou est?" But they are soon back double teaming Cohen. Shadow briefly gets his head in the ropes but gets back out. Cohen end up staggering at ringside, he gets in but Arz gets his in a piledriver position before switching to a bodyslam for the equaliser. Shadow doesa suitable victory strut. Yes, apparently he is an American says the commentator. Shadow forearms Cohen in the chest and Bouvet gets hot tagged in. Goes to work with dropkicks. Has both bad guys on the floor and follows them out for a four man ringside brawl. IAt this point in 1973 the IBA's predecessor the ITA would have banned this from British TV. Good guys double dropkick and whip bad guys into each other before Cohen gets the cross press on Arz for the decider. Very much a dirty wrestling fest with the heels getting their comeuppance eventually. If you like the somersault escapes of Catch Francais then this is not much for you, but if you Kong to see an American style brawling heel team, Arz and Shadow really give it some Arn and Tully.

Heel Vs heel with Zoltan as the sympathetic one, but he seems to be okay with Sid's tactics, even shaking hands a fair bit with Sid. Most of the real needle was with referee Max Ward, whom American fans with be APPALLED to note, was far more physically imposing than either wrestler. This is the opposite of Didier Gapp being a little Hitler to Taylor, Owen, Wright and StClair, this is Max as the voice of authority over two delinquent schoolboys who just want to have their dirty fight in peace. Ward dishes out a first and then a Second And VERY Final Public Warning to Cooper in rapid succession. At one point Cooper backdrops Zolly over the top of a bending Ward who straightens up and ends up doing the backdrop himself. Cooper annoys Mister Ward by cheekily calling him Max despite being no friend. It gets down to a brawl, but a bloody nosed Zolly eventually gets the one fall required with a cross press. Sid and Zolly stayed mates and brother heels however, even triple tag teaming with a recently turned Superstar Mal Sanders in 1988 on TV.

July 1985. The month of Live Aid, the first ever Great American Bash and my last day at primary school. Two months earlier SNME was launched, syndicated on NBC and the first American wrestling timeslot truly comparable to the British or French coverage since the DuMont network In 1955. In a month's time Valentine and Beefcake will capture the WWF World Tag Team Championship, On this side of The Pond meanwhile, World of Sport has two months to live and is already experimenting with lunchtime wrestling slots, All Star runs its first Fairfield Hall Croydon show and will launch its Satellite Wrestling show on Screensport in two months. And most pertinently there are just weeks to go before the migration of French Catch from Antenne 2 to FR3. One thing that definitely does suck is the venue lighting which looks dark and shadowy - keep in mind all the above historical context. It would take Eurosport to sort out the French Catch TV lighting. Also Jean Pradinas's production team are having all sorts of fun with the on screen captions, putting up stuff like BOUM!! and Ventre Saint Gris, more for their own amusement than the audience, rather like WCW era Jim Ross going on about Craig The Sound Guy or whatever. Daniel Cazal has a white meat manufactured pop star, name of Billy, riding shotgun in the grand French trading of celeb experts (either intellectuals or show us stars) being hired in as guest analysts that Vince McMahon would copy for WM2 with disastrous results (Susan StJames, Cathy Lee Crosby). Yup @ohtani's jacket that's Jacky Richard replacing Eduardo as the new Marquis, still with the same old Paul Butin Frangipan in his corner with a feather duster to hand. He's come a long way since the no nonsense heel of the 70s (and has a long way yet to go as Travesti Man and Monsieur Jacky.) Thinning on top - maybe why those two later alter egos were bald. He hasn't piled on the kilos yet and can still move and get heat. Flesh is still young and skinny and he and KH are a good fast moving Bon team. His folding press opening pin on Richard after a dazed Marquis is knocked into the ropes sparks a back and forth raising of hands to claim victory. The Bons have their own counter to Paul in the shape of some guy in a yellow/black tracksuit top, apparently their coach. Between him and Paul, there is no need for seconds so the bucket and towels guys get the night off. Black Shadow is the real revelation here, a real thug heel, like Bad News Brown trapped in Rufus R Jones's body. He was active several years either side of Bond and Kincaid's Carribbean Sunshine Boys without any issues, going back to the early 70s and the INA's b/w film print stock and I think he last showed up on New Catch. I particularly liked the splash he did off the top turnbuckle to get the pin. Hassouni, Shadow and referee Otto Weiss get into a 3 way argument about the pin count speed which ends with Hassouni stomping on Otto's hand. There's also a good spot where Gordon monkey-climbs Shadow then tries for a second one but is deposited on the corner post. Shadows truts to the middle of the ring poking his head like Buddy Rogers but Gordon fires a missile dropkick from behind. Gordon gets a neat flying tackle into cross press deciding pin on Shadow for the winner, after which Monsieur yellow jacket grabs a trophy and hands it to Les Bons which sets off Richard. Fast paced if generic Catch A Quatre Francais. Not as bad as OJ says. Except for the lighting.

Fixed your tech probs there, Jetlag Yeah, Catch Up was the show I had in mind when I said "pre 90s". Just turns out it started a little bit earlier than I thought. A contemporary of New Catch and mid period Reslo.

How the Jones/Finlay feud began. (As mentioned on the German Catch thread. We join the action in progress. Finlay seems to be the clean one trying for a chicken wing while Rigby goes for hair pulling to Walton's disappointment, but we never saw what might have provoked this, or Rigby attacking Finlay on the ropes. Finlay gets the opener in round 5 with his fireman's carry backdrop. It becomes more of a fight in the next round with forearms and the odd illegal punch. Rigby equalises with a cross press. Finlay tries for a full and then a single leg Boston Crab but Rigby keeps ,oving with him to avoid being turned into the hold. The two nearly go over the top rope together, Finlay gives Rigby the final push earning himself a public warning and no count for Rigby. Rigby gets his own public warning for stamping on his fallen opponent. Finlay tries for another fireman's carry but Rigby converts it into a crucifix and further nelson pin attempt for a two count. Finlay gets the decider. Finlay gets a suplex and cross press for the decider, the win and the title. Jones starts out making a "my pleasure" speech but changes tack, calls Finlay not a worthy winner and passes the belt to MC Brian Crabtree to do the honours. Finlay retorts with a challenge for Jones's World Mid Heavyweight Championship, something he would go on to achieve. A brawl with a few good technical moves here and there. More OJ's tipple than mine.

Not sure which specific one you mean - there was the one consolation submission in a 2-1 loss in 1983, then after that Collins had Breaks's number all the way. with a tournament final upset win, the £500 a fall challenge, the title win (off TVat the Royal Albert Hall) a first return match ending in a no contest and finally this bout where Danny puts Breaks out of title contention Accent spotting: Ken Joyce gives instructions in a Northamptonshire accent, Breaks responds in a North Yorkshire accent. We hear none of Collins' Bristol accent. Imagine WrestleWar 89 with Steamboat getting a third win over Flair. Danny pulling off quite a few clever tricks, not quite the "Young Master Of His Craft" but despite being put through hell, he clearly has Breaks' number, although the Crybaby makes him suffer along the way. Opening rounds are about Breaks softening up Collins' arm for the Breaks special and Collins bridging/rolling out of weakeners. Collins drops to the floor to avoid a posting, an old trick of referee Ken Joyce. Collins survives a Breaks special but has his arm dropped on the rope. Collins is slippery as an eel avoiding the Breaks special and setups. Breaks tries for a folding press but Collins keeps his back curved and shoulders up. Collins gets the opener by applying a victory roll on the mat then converting it into a folding press with bridge. Breaks continues the arm weakeners and Collins keeps slipping out of them neatly. Breaks switches tack going for headlocks (and hair pulling.) He gets a public warning for dropping Collins' arm on the rope. He tries a backslide but cannot get Collins' shoulders down. The headlock strategy finally gets Breaks an equalising submission. Breaks tries for a decider with more headwork. Breaks is badly bleeding from a Collins back elbow. Final decider is interesting with Danny getting as surprise pin on Breaks while he argues with the referee, like Savage on DiBiase at Survivor Series 88 while DiBiase was busy jeering at Hercules. Collins had now established his superiority over Breaks and put him out of contention. His next steps in his push would be a loss and regain with Steve Grey, then beating Jorg Chenok for the European title. Breaks would also become European champion - at lightweight, until another kid from the South West, Peter Bainbridge, came along and gave him more scares in 1987.

Was there ever an actual German/Austrian wrestling TV Show pre-1990s or was it all just little features here and there and even they got banned?