TWO TOMMY MANN BOUTS ON YOU TUBE....VIVA LA FRANCE! Sorry it’s no use asking me to provide a link I struggle getting into Wrestling Heritage. Two to appear so recently is amazing. I had never seen a Tommy Mann bout before. But the french have provided us with a Al Hayes bout, as well as a very early Bert Royal bout and one with him tag teaming with his dad. Tommy is interviewed looks at a bar before his first bout and he appears fluent in French. I was very excited about these Tommy Mann bouts, my knowledge of him is shaky I had only ever seen a few photos of him but I knew he was a top name from the nineteen fifties well into the nineteen sixties., was a British champion too! so it’s wonderful to see him in action. Whilst he is defeated in both bouts, this is a France, and he is against local favourites probably would have been a different verdict in the UK, But still it’s great to see one of the greats of the past and it gives me hope! Maybe thanks to french tv we might get to see George Kidd, Jack Dempsey, Alan Colbeck, Billy Joyce etc that would be awesome. Anyone any idea of the time of these Mann bouts are they late nineteen fifties?
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Good point, Peter.
I suggest it was the French commentator continually treated it all as a joke, unreal.
Kent Walton persisted with his AI AI AIs and never ever indicated it was anything but a legitimate sport. This confirmed it all to those who wanted to believe and at least made the non-believers come back scratching their heads for another look.
These French matches were of a consistently high standard cannot understand why regular broadcasts did not continue into the 1960s
Thanks Ron. Once again a Brit presented as an American and the commentator went along with it. Love the French version of The Duchess ringside. Theirs is someone dressed up as a robot. Sighted this before in another youtube bout.
Many thanks I will check it out
The main venues for these matches were the Elysee Montmartre near the Anvers metro station in Paris and not far from the Basillique Sacre Coeur. Also the Cirque d Hiver (Winter Circus) also in Paris. Occasionally broadcasts came from the Parisian suburbs with venues in St Denis and Aubervilles.
The unlisted matches can be found at Segunda Caida blogspot under the sub heating French Catch
These matches were posted on You Tube earlier this year but were previously unlisted which meant only readers of the Segunda Caida blogspot could view them.It is part of a project to post matches from French TV called Catch Tuesday. New matches are posted every week but the guy that posts them is based in Los Angeles so in fact it is usually Wednesday morning in the UK that they appear. The Tommy Mann matches are from 1957/1958 but the earliest match is from 1956.At present we have reached 1960.
He is not that fluent in French but was understandable in the short interview shown