Marc Mercier

Marc Mercier was born on 11 April 1958 in Bourg-la-Reine. He was the son of Guy Mercier, a European catch champion who had been removed from France's 1956 Olympic wrestling plans at the last minute, and he grew up with the family story of an uncle, also named Marc, who served in the French Resistance and died in August 1944. After amateur wrestling in Villejuif, Val-de-Marne, he entered Roger Delaporte's professional stable in April 1977.

Mercier's formal schooling is not the focus of published biographies. His decisive training was in the ring: Guy Mercier coached him and his brother Pierre, and the Villejuif wrestling club preceded his April 1977 entry into Delaporte's Elysee Montmartre professional troupe.

Debuting in September 1977 for the Association francaise de catch professionnel, Mercier rose quickly. He held the French championship from 1979 to 1981, the European title from 1981 to 1985, and the world title from 1985 to 1989. A notable international date was 4 May 1988 at Walthamstow against Marty Jones for the World Mid-Heavyweight Championship, later aired on ITV. In March 1989 an ankle fracture suffered in competition abroad interrupted that peak run. He returned in 2002 with Wrestling Stars, worked other French groups, and joined the International Catch Wrestling Alliance in 2005 before retiring from matches on 30 December 2008 after 31 years.

In 2006 Mercier reactivated French professional catch under the Federation Francaise de Catch Professionnel and was elected president. He founded the Catch Academy in Wissous to train new talent and publicly urged young wrestlers to avoid especially dangerous moves. He criticised French wrestling federation leadership in 2013 after the IOC dropped wrestling from the Olympic programme. He briefly resigned as FFCP president on 16 February 2014, then resumed the role when Artemis Ortygie left. The promotion ceased activity around 2023, and in February 2024 he announced his exit from the industry after 49 years, later publishing the book Catcheur.

Mercier took small acting roles in French series including Les Cordier, juge et flic and Une femme d'honneur. As a stuntman and double he worked on Ronin (1998), Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1998), where he stood in for Gerard Depardieu after Depardieu was hurt in a car accident during filming, The Nest (2002) and District B13 (2004). He formed friendships with Gerard and Guillaume Depardieu.

Mercier met his wife as a teenager. Their son Hugo was born in 1992 and later built a public profile as a sleep-technology entrepreneur; Hugo announced his father's death on social media and described Marc as fighting to the end without complaint.

Mercier argued publicly that Olympic wrestling leadership had failed to modernise when the sport lost Olympic status in 2013. At Catch Academy he stressed that professional catch moves are dangerous and that young trainees needed discipline.

French catch historians treat Mercier as a bridge between the television era of Delaporte's Elysee Montmartre and the independent promotional scene of the 2000s and 2010s. As FFCP president and Catch Academy founder he kept a training pipeline alive when national TV exposure faded. International fans still circulate his 1988 ITV match with Marty Jones and early colour footage against Albert Sanniez.

Beyond match footage, Mercier appeared on French television entertainment and news programmes, including archive clips later shared by the FFCP such as a 1983 France 3 news segment and an appearance with Cauet on TF1. His stunt and double work linked catch athleticism to 1990s and 2000s French film production.

In May 2026 Mercier spoke publicly about a serious illness later reported as oesophageal cancer. He died on 7 September 2026 at age 68. Hugo Mercier said his father died peacefully in his sleep during the night of 7 to 8 September. Catch-Newz, VoxCatch, PWMania and Wrestling Headlines carried tributes the following day.