I just came across this topic so I thought I'd chime in and set the record straight on Le Bourreau de Bethune. The original Le Bourreau de Bethune was Jacques Ducrez. There's no question about it. This was exposed in the French press the day of Le Bourreau's TV debut (5 February 1959 versus Gilbert Leduc, which was actually Le Bourreau's only TV match in France ever, as far as I'm aware). Le Bourreau's identity has also been confirmed publicly by a number of colleagues of his (Bob Plantin and Jean Corne to name a couple). Le Bourreau being Decrez is also confirmed in French historian/promoter Michel Bezy's archives (show results and correspondence). I'm attaching a photo from the French magazine "Sport & Vie" (April 1959) where you can clearly see Ducrez being identified as Le Bourreau. Le Bourreau's identity, much like L'Ange Blanc's, was never really secret in France. They both were exposed in the press very early on. It is true that Freddy Robert also performed as Le Bourreau de Bethune in France. Decrez was seriously injured in early 1961 and was out of action for a number of months so Robert took over the gimmick. Ducrez was back under the hood later in the year. This is all documented in the Michel Bezy files. I don't recall exactly off the top of my head, but I think Robert performed as Le Bourreau for a while later on as well. I've also seen a note by Bezy that Yvar Martinson and "King Kong" Paul Taverne also worked as Le Bourreau de Bethune - I would guess this was on smaller independent live events (i.e. events not affiliated with any of the four main French booking offices). I wouldn't put much stock into what contemporary French articles say, even if an obituary. French's pro wrestling history has long been forgotten and what often happens is the same anecdotes get repeated over and over, despite some of them not being true. Case in point: you'll always read how Le Bourreau de Bethune was L'Ange Blanc's big rival during the height of L'Ange's popularity, and that's just not true. His big masked rival was L'Homme Masque (Jacob Grobbe). L'Ange and Le Bourreau worked for rival groups during that time and never wrestled each other. It wasn't until September 1961 when L'Ange switched sides that they started wrestling each other. By that point L'Ange was already unmasked and, while still very popular, was past his peak in terms of popularity. I guess this is as good a time as any for me to mention that if you're interested in learning more about French pro wrestling history, check out this series that I put out recently: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005766.

Not Barcelona, but here's a couple of additional title matches with British wrestlers in Murcia: September 3, 1966, at Plaza de Toros de Murcia: Steve Clements (c) vs. Modesto Aledo for the European Middleweight Title [result unknown] August 22, 1974, at Plaza de Toros de Murcia: Mel Stuart & Johnny Yearsley (c) vs. Jose Marques & Antonio Montoro for the European Light Heavyweight Tag Team Titles [result unknown]

Definitely not Bauer. He was in North America in 1876. Also, there were three masked wrestlers in Paris in 1867 (the original L'Homme Masque, another L'Homme Masque at a rival arena, and a red mask). In terms of being the original L'Homme Masque Bauer was just one of several suspects and the only reason why he's in the conversion is because Bauer himself claimed to have been the masked wrestler. However, given how much of a carny Bauer was I don't know if I would believe anything he ever said. A while back I wrote an article about 19th century French pro wrestling. Here's what I had to say about the original L'Homme Masque there: "So, who were all these masked wrestlers in Paris in 1867-68? Which wrestlers were under the hoods? Unfortunately, there's no way to know for certain. There have been a number of names suggested over the years, but we'll never know for sure who it really was. Marseille Jr., Falcet, Folliet, Alfred Perrier, ​​​Professor Deligne, Andre Christol and Theobaud Bauer are some of the suspected names, but the main suspect seems to be a guy by the name of Charavay. Even contemporary 1867 French newspapers from several days after the first appearance of L'Homme Masque mention him as potentially being the person behind the mask and say that he was a photographer by trade who was friends with the directors of the arena. According to Professor Edmond Desbonnet, however, the matches at the Athletic Arena were actually under the direction of Charavay (i.e. Charavay was doing the matchmaking). Desbonnet then says that the masked wrestler was a masseur named Charvet, but I think this was likely a mistake. Sometimes Charavay's name would be mistakenly spelled as Charavet (even as early as September 1867) and I'm guessing Desbonnet made a similar mistake. But setting the contemporary 1867 press and Desbonnet's claims aside, another source also identified Charavay as the original masked man of Paris. In an April 1877 story on the famous wrestler Faouet in "Le Petit Journal" newspaper it's stated that L'Homme Masque was sometimes the photographer Charavay, and sometimes Marseille Jr. Reportedly, the source of this information was Faouet himself, who wrestled the original L'Homme Masque back in 1867. We'll never know for sure who the original masked wrestler in 1867 was, nor the other two masked men after him, but Charavay is the best suspect." Sidenote: There's also this myth going around that L'Homme Masque in 1867 was the first masked wrestler in pro wrestling history. Not true. I've seen mentions of masked wrestlers in France as early as 1848. The original L'Homme Masque was just the most famous one.

This is not a real clipping. This is a screenshot from the Dan Koloff movie, where they had put together a bunch of made-up headlines/articles to insert in the movie. This particular headline is not factually wrong (it says that Koloff defeated Deglane in Paris, which he did, twice), but it's just not a real article published in a real Bulgarian newspaper back in the day.

No. He was supposed to wrestle Pojello on one occasion in Montreal in 1929, but on the day of the show Pojello was substituted with another wrestler. Then in 1937 in France Pojello was issuing challenges to Koloff, Deglane and other top stars, but at that point Pojello was an outsider (i.e. he wasn't working for the main French promotion) so the challenges went nowhere.

Koloff never wrestled in the UK. On a couple of occasions in the mid to late 1930s the Bulgarian press reported Koloff was in talks and planning on wrestling in the UK, but he never did. To the best of my knowledge he was in the UK only on one occasion (January 1936), but he was just passing through on his way back to Europe. He landed at Plymouth and from there traveled to the mainland. Koloff and Sherry wrestled each other in the U.S. on a couple of occasions, including a supposed 3-hour draw in Reno in 1920. I say supposed because Sherry referenced the match in a couple of different U.S. interviews back then and reportedly even showed the reporter a clipping about the match, but I haven't been able to verify that match definitely took place. I've also come across an unverified claim that Koloff and Sherry once had a private gym match, a shoot, where Koloff made short work of Sherry. This would have been in the U.S. in the 1920s. But again, this is not confirmed.

Here's a few photos of Cowboy Cassidy from the 1954 Spanish press.

Good discussion so far. I enjoyed reading through all of that. Here's some of my thoughts on the topic. Martinson wasn't the European Heavyweight champion in 1959. And for the record, Miquet wasn't either. They were both former champions, but as best as I can tell they hadn't held the title for a number of years at that point. And just to clarify, I'm talking about the French version of the championship, i.e. the most established version of it in continental Europe. That version was also recognized in Switzerland for a good while. I've pieced together a history of that championship here: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005411. It's not a full history by any means, but it's the best I've got. The only two Brits that I know for sure held the European Heavyweight Title (French version) were Bert Assirati in 1948-49 and Roy Bull Davis in 1965. It's possible there may have been a separate Belgian version of the European Heavyweight Title, but Belgium is extremely under researched so I have very little information as to what was happening there. For what it's worth I've seen no mentions of a Shirley Crabtree working there and I just did a quick search through a couple of Belgian newspaper archives, albeit very limited archives, and his name doesn't bring up any results. I've done a lot of research on Spain, France and Greece in particular and I haven't come across Shirley working any matches in those three countries. That's not to say he didn't wrestle in say France, for example, but I've seen no proof of it so far. I've posted a lot of the 1950s Palais des Sports Paris cards here: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005238. No Shirley Crabtree on any of the ones I have. That arena was damaged by a fire in May 1959 and was then demolished. A new Palais des Sports (better known today as Dome de Paris) opened doors the following year. My information on the shows there is more limited, but again - I've seen no mentions of Shirley wrestling at that venue either.

You are correct, John. That was indeed Len Britton. The match took place at Sala Gran Price in Barcelona. Here's Britton's record there: July 1, 1949: Len Britton def. Brossati (13:41 minutes) July 8, 1949: Len Britton def. Marcel Manuel via disqualification July 15, 1949 (main event): Jose Tarres def. Len Britton (14:30 minutes) via knockout

@poolstead1 Just saw your post, and I believe the researcher you're referring to is me. I thought I'd pop in and add a quick link to my Spanish research in case anyone might be interested in checking it out. You can find my Spanish research at the link below, along with other European pro wrestling research that I've done over the years: https://bit.ly/3gpwEar (link to the WrestlingClassics message board)

Unrelated to the shows above, there were three shows at the Istanbul Sports and Exhibition Hall in September 1968 and based on the photo below Les Thornton and John Lees were among the wrestlers who worked on those shows. Also, a Turkish article from August 1970 says that a group of English pro wrestlers were going to be touring Turkey soon. No names mentioned.

Quick update. I found a Turkish article talking about one of the first shows and it doesn't mention Dale as one of the wrestlers who worked the show. However, the report says that Ernie Riley did.

In my opinion, the guy in my photo/the guy in the footage you're referring to is Georges Kasbarian. The French press back then was reporting that it was The Great Zorro (Hans Mortier), but comparing footage and photos of Zorro with that version L'Homme Masque has convinced me that it wasn't him. Kasbarian on the other hand fits the height and body frame. At least in my opinion.

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.

On the left is Gordienko earlier on in his career.

The Ost, thank you posting that photo of Billy. Okay, now let's put these two photos together. I definitely see a strong resemblance here. And here's this for comparison's sake as well. On the left is Al Hayes as he appeared on French TV in February 1960.

I'm reasonably sure the two group photos of the Scot trio were taken in Barcelona. Whenever a photo was taken by one of the local photographers he would be credited in the Barcelona paper as the one who took it. Such was the case with these two photos. The headshots were probably stock photos. The photo of the other trio is an interesting one. The photo was published in the paper on July 29 to promote the trio's matches on July 31, which ended up being the only time all three wrestled on the same Barcelona card. The same Spanish photographer mentioned above is credited as having taken the photo, which means that if he did indeed do so that must have happened on the previous Barcelona show (July 28). The report for that July 28 show doesn't mention them making an appearance on it, but the Spanish reports weren't very detailed so it's possible the trio did make an appearance that just went unreported in the paper. The Robinson photo popped up several times in the paper. Always listed as Bill Robinson (sometimes also spelled Robynson), the fine stylist from England. Having said all of that, I should point out that generally speaking Mundo Deportivo (the newspaper all these photos come from) was pretty good at listing the correct names on their wrestling photos. Pretty good, but not perfect. For example, during the course of a couple of years on a number of occasions they posted a photo of Al Hayes and identified it as Eric Husberg. I didn't catch this myself either until it was pointed out to me. The Hayes photos below are circa 1953. Also, SaxonWolf, Jose Arroyo is definitely not pictured anywhere in the photos above. He had a very distinctive head. He'd be easy to spot, if it was him.

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.

@ohtani's jacket Just did another search through the archive and stumbled upon something interesting. A match listed as April 11, 1961, in Mulhouse. L'Ange Blanc vs. L'Homme Masque. 1:30 minutes of footage. Blanc wrestles the match with the mask on and at the end of the match he unmasks himself, much like he had in Paris a month earlier. The next available footage of L'Ange Blanc is listed as March 5, 1962, in Strasbourg and it's Blanc vs. Le Bourreau de Bethune. Blanc is wrestling without a mask. Bethune unmasks after the match.

@ohtani's jacket Yes, I've seen it. He does remove the mask.