While the French wrestling legend L’Ange Blanc is one of Europe’s most famous masked wrestler, his unmasking happened in a very curious place – Leeds!
Yes, Frances superhero, their masked avenger in the battle against wrestling’s villains, was forced to unmask in front of a rabid Yorkshire crowd in 1962.
While you may not have heard of him, L’Ange Blanc was a huge star. He is seen as a bigger star in France than Andre The Giant was, which shows you just how popular he was.
This is partly because Andre’s career was mostly spent in the US while Blanc wrestled during arguably the peak of Franch wrestling, but that peak was largrly down to the man himself.
He was billed in France as being South American, but the man behind the maks was actually a Spaniard. Francisco Pino Farina. With his all-white outfit, including boots, trunks and his trademark mask, he was a striking site during a rather monotone era of professional wrestling.
Inside the ring, he was an enigma. Mixing some exciting aerial moves which were seldom used in those days with big power moves like the Powerbomb made him an incredible athlete to watch.
Despite wrestling in a bygone era, there is still a decent amount of footage of L’Ange Blanc available to watch on YouTube, including the match below!
He was so impressive that people could not help but watch. As well as selling out venues on a regular basis, families would gather round the television set to see him in action on French TV.
Wrestling historian Phil Lions, the leading expert on French wrestling, revealed that an audience of four milliom people saw L’Ange Blanc’s debut match on TV in on January 9th, 1959. For context, there were only around one million TV sets back then, so there were around four people per set watching his bouncing around the ring!
His matches were an event and L’Ange Blanc was the French equivilent to El Santo or Hulk Hogan in the United States. Despite nobody knowing who this man was, he was treated as a huge star straight from the off.
The day before his debut, L’Ange Blanc was interviewed on national TV, promoting his match the following day. Wrestling had been on TV for years by that point but the actual wrestlers never got the chance to be interviewed. It was a huge deal and showed how much the promoters were banking on Blanc to become a huge star.
While masked wrestlers went back to 1848 in France with L’Homme Masque, L’Ange Blanc was something else completely. He was a superhero come to life and was the first time a masked wrestler had been a hero and not an evil villain.
L’Ange Blanc Unmasked In Leeds In 1962
The site of L’Ange Blanc’s unmasking was in a curious place as it was not in France, but Leeds in England.
In the early 1960s, Blanc had come to Britain to continue his wrestling career. He was instantly pushed as a main eventer, battling masked and unmasked villains alike to the delight of the crowd.
Just like in France, masked wrestlers had usually been villains. There were exceptions like Count Bartelli, but as a general rule, if they couldn’t see your face, you got booed. That was not the case for L’Ange Blanc, who retained his rabid support all over the UK.
However, for reasons unknown, he lost the mask in 1962. Whether he didn’t want to wear it anymore or if he was forced to remove it by a promoter is unknown. What we do know is that he was locked in a feud with fellow masked man “The Black Mask” that would only end in one way – an unmasking.
On 29th January, 1962, The Mask and L’Ange Blanc clashed at the Queens Hall in Leeds. In England at that time, there was a rule for masked wrestlers that if they lost a match then they’d be forced to unmask. This is why the likes of Count Bartelli and Kendo Nagasaki had such long winning streaks, often totalling into the thousands.
L’Ange Blanc would not be so lucky. He suffered defeat to The Black Mask in Leeds and was forced to remove his mask and reveal his face and identity to the Yorkshire crowd.
Whilw this unmasking would be the end of L’Ange Blanc in the UK, the gimmick itself would continue, albeit angelicsed.
The White Angel went on to become one of Britain’s most successful masked wrestlers, with WWE legend Lord Alfred Hayes under the mask.
Meanwhile, the original went to work in the United States as Pancho Pino, but he redonned the hood when working in Mexico in 1967. There was already Angel Blanco then, so he instead took on the name El Ángel Exterminador (“The Destroying Angel”).
This eventually led to an Luchas de Apuestas match with Angel Blanco, which saw L’Ange Blanc remove his mask once again. He retired some time after losing his mask in Mexico, although records of his final match are hard to come by.
