Judo Al Hayes and Rebel Ray Hunter, French TV

And of course Alfie must have liked what he saw and brought Dr Adolf Kaiser - hard not to type that name without chuckling out loud - to UK a year later, monocle and all.

At least it gave the commentator the opportunity to crack kangaroo jokes incessantly.

I could surmise, Peter, that there were so many British wrestlers in Parisian rings that they just weren't exotic. So half of them turned into Australians and things.

Yes well before my time Anglo but later he co promoted in France and on his own in Belgium, incidentally he stated that he had wrestled in Britain in 50s from memory marque Masque including Manchester but not Belle Vue.

Hayes is presented as an Australian. Bob Anthony was also presented as an Australian in France and Tommy Mann as an American. Not sure why this was necessary

Phil Lions has done some research of French newspapers from this era, and interestingly reporters were able to uncover and publish the identity of L'Ange Blanc and Le Bourreau de Béthune immediately after their debuts, but L'Homme Masque took longer and initially they had the wrong man. It is indeed Gil Voiney, who went on to have a run in the WWWF. He was a successful amateur and we have another match of him unmasked where he shows his true ability. As L'Homme Masque he would eventually unmask L'Ange Blanc.

Good stuff Sax , these were great times , a great era.

If that did go out live, I am amazed they had the fifties swirl-screen technology (42:30).

The baddies sold the baby-faces' attacks really well, great use of the ropes throughout, in ways I hadn't previously seen.

Certainly a great find and thanks for posting the link, Saxonwolf.

If you say that is Michel Laurent, BRJ, I do not doubt you. But I am intrigued to know how you can identify a wrestler who I don't believe wrestled in the UK and was surely before your time? Cool spot, though.

It's a shame the tag wasn't complete, the result is a foregone conclusion, though. They preferred the build-up to the L'Homme Masqué match, where they speculated as to his identity, ruling out that he could be French because he was a 192cm thrice-divorced Texan, 112 kg. See the cartoon trickery; and they call him "The Frankenstein of the ring", the "negative version of L'Ange Blanc". What a push - and imagine how many times the pair must have wrestled off tv after that! Delaporte had lost on tv to L'Ange Blanc a few weeks before.

Various references to L'Homme Masqué's false teeth, in the cartoon and again at 23:07, but I couldn't get what that was all about.

I loved that there were so many seconds, and the mike from above. The bout was set to start at one o'clock - it was all so important. I loved the way the loser strangled the commentator at 25:10.

For me, just a shame they belittled the great presentaion with some jokey comments and various expressions of the non-legitimacy of it all.

Just a note on the tag -- these shows were broadcast live. The show goes off the air before the end of the first fall.

Saxon good find,incidentally hat's not Jack it's the French version of Karl Von Kramer,actually a Belgian called Michel Laurent.

so who did win the tag match