Truly Great MASKED Wrestlers were few and far between!-Not many stand out and STILL
Linger in our Memories even now Today!-Even less so when it comes to Visitors from Overseas!-But there are a Handful we can Nominate!
One of my Personal Favourites had a Career spanning around 5 Years-mainly operated
in FRANCE but visited our Shores from time to time and subsequently lost his MASK here
in the end!-This was the Exotic FRENCH WHITE ANGEL or L'ANGE BLANC!
One of the Top 4 Wrestlers on the Continent at this time-He was a Massive Draw and VERY Popular! A few of his Bouts are still on You Tube-and he was a Tough and very Skilful Athlete!
He is still talked about in Wrestling Circles in and around PARIS nowadays with Great Respect by ex-Wrestlers and Fans alike!
I never got the chance to see him Wrestle Live-4/5 Years before my Time but he was a Giant
in the Annals of Career MASKED Wrestlers and fully deserves his Place in my Personal Top
Ten Greatest MASKED Wrestlers of ALL TIME!
So this is my Tribute to the 'FRENCH' WHITE ANGEL-even though he was SPANISH actually!
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It could be Phil, he has the look, can't tell his height from that.
Gill Voiney would also fit the bill, I would need to look at the Youtube footage again, here is his version of L'Homme Masque.
That is great, really interesting stuff Phil.
In your pictures, in the article, who is it under the mask in the picture of L'Homme Masque?
That is the man I saw recently on one of the youtube matches and is an incredible physical specimen, who wouldn't look out of place in current WWE.
Sorry for the bump, but I figure some of the posters here might be interested in this. For the past few weeks I had been doing some new research on Paris with the idea to do a big article on L'Ange Blanc. I've just posted the article over on Wrestling Classics. Here's the link: click here. The article talks about how the Paris pro wrestling scene was set up back then, how television figured into everything, Francisco Pino's run as the masked hero L'Ange Blanc, his biggest rival L'Homme Masque, Le Bourreau de Bethune, the interesting role Karl Gotch had in relation to L'Ange Blanc and more. Give it a read, if the topic interests you.
Yeah nice info Phil, great to see you posting on here.
Great stuff, Phil. There was an interview with Couderc where he claimed to have invented the L'Ange Blanc gimmick and designed the costume, but I wonder how true that is given Pino had wrestled in Mexico and South America and been exposed to lucha.
Just found a June 1956 interview in the Barcelona press with Francisco Pino (the future L'Ange Blanc). Notes from the interview: = The interview confirmed that the Pino who wrestled in Barcelona in 1953 and went undefeated was indeed Francisco Pino [I had assumed this was the case, but this interview confirmed it.]
= Pino was from Valencia, 25 years old, 90 kilos and 1.80 metres. = At the time of the interview Pino was wrestling in Caracas, Venezuela, under the name Mister España. He had a contact to wrestle there for the rest of the year. = Prior to Venezuela he wrestled in Brazil, which is where he first started using the name Mister España. He spent an entire year there and wrestled the likes of Tatu, Pasariro, Mesnick, etc. = After Brazil he went to Peru for half a year. There he wrestled Yanky Ciclon, Fantomas, Jacobo, etc. = After Peru he went to Mexico where he says he had the most success. He wrestled El Santo and El Medico Asesino while there. = After Mexico he says that he wrestled in the United States. Among his opponents were Baron Michele Leone, Leon Kirilenko, Edmund Francis and Frank Salas. After the States he came to Venezuela. = He hasn't had any serious injuries in his career so far. = He claims to have made a lot of money wrestling overseas. Enough to retire if he wanted to, he says. He plans to buy a house when he returns home to Valencia.
@Phil Lions It seems that footage is from news reports. I wonder how many times he was on the TV show. It's worth noting that the two matches we have in full (against Villars and Bollet) were both used for retrospectives in the 70s. I suspect those were the only times he was on TV before unmasking.
We have L'Ange Blanc arriving in France from Venezuela in 1956 and proving an instant hit.
He seemed quite cool with being unmasked - off tv it probably didn't do much harm. Maybe he even hoodwinked unknowing promoters into paying him extra for this "exclusive."
He kept on wrestling in a mask through most of the sixties, so his masked run does extend beyond ten years, if not undefeated.
Just came across this topic and since I've been doing some research on France I thought I'd add some context.
The masked L'Ange Blanc (Francisco Pino Farina) made his debut in France either in late 1958 or right at the beginning of 1959. He was very popular in France indeed, but his run as a masked wrestler wasn't long. He lost his mask to L'Homme Masque (Gil Voiney) in March 1961. He continued wrestling unmasked in France after that and was still a headliner. On and off he worked in France until maybe the mid 70s.
It's also worth pointing out that when L'Ange Blanc first appeared on the scene the big Paris events were held at Velodrome d'Hiver, which had a capacity of about 18,000, and therefore for the first few months of his run he performed in front of some pretty big crowds. He also headlined what may have been the final wrestling show at the venue in May 1959 against L'Homme Masque. Velodrome d'Hiver was damaged by a fire and then demolished in 1959. From 1960 onward the big Paris shows moved to the newly-built Dome de Paris, which had/has a capacity of about 4,600. Both venues were also known as Palais des Sports.
In addition to my Paris research, lately I've also been doing some research on Barcelona, Spain, and a wrestler by the name of Pino from Valencia showed up in the Barcelona results in 1953. Given that Francisco Pino Farina was also from Valencia, the Pino in Barcelona in 1953 was probably him so that gives us somewhat of an idea when his career first got started. At the time he was just a midcarder, but he worked on some big shows at Pabellon del Deporte. In the summer months during the first part of the 50s there would be weekly shows at Pabellon del Deporte (which was for about 10,000 people), Plaza de toros de las Arenas (15,000) and Plaza de toros Monumental (20,000). A number of Brits worked on those shows too. Among them: Al Hayes, Bert Royal, Black Kwango, Butcher Johnson, Tommy Mann, etc.
I remember reading ages ago, that indeed Bob Kirkwood had been a white angel. Would of liked to have seen Bob in tag team action dishing out the punishment!
Jim Hussey was also a White Angel in the UK.
Gil Voiney
L'Homme Masqué was Gil Voiney.
Ten years ago we were in touch with his son, very reverentially as always.
Junior didn't seem to appreciate our praise or perhaps probing ....
I think he was unmasked one Friday night at the Cirque d'Hiver by L' Homme Masqué (who may in a reincarnation have been the Bourreau) in the early to middle 1960s. I believe there was even a report of the match in the Daily Telegraph which reported women weeping that their hero had been defeated. But there again memory plays tricks.
On Posters all over the Land-Topping the Bill everywhere!
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