Wednesday Night Digging in the Crates- Verne Gagne v. Red Bastien

Verne Gagne v. Red Bastien early 1950s



PAS: Totally awesome match from the Chicago Film Archives haul. Bastien is the plucky youngster trying to test the grizzled veteran, with Verne being a great grumpy Fuchi/Negro Navarro punishing mat wrestler. Loved all of the little fast counters Bastien pulled out, and how Verne would get more and more irritated and increase the torque on his headlock or armlock. He busts Bastien's nose at one point with a takedown, and would rake it or forearm it, if the kid got a little feisty.  The finish was great as Gagne wastes him with a dropkick, and pins him with a cradle, that dropkick felt like an exclamation point.

ER: This stuff is cool in a similar yet totally different way as the French 50s stuff that popped up earlier this year. With that stuff we have no idea what exists and who any of those people were. This stuff is all people we've read about, and really only know about them from their written reputation. We've all seen many of these guys decades removed from their reputations' peak so it's incredibly satisfying to complete the visual puzzle with some of them. Bastien is a guy I had seen before from some ESPN Classics stuff, but he was older, more barrel chested and with a big bushy mustache. Here he's a slender guy getting made a man by Verne Gagne. Gagne looks almost exactly like late period Greg Gagne (which is funny since Verne was in his mid 20s here) but I've never seen Greg work this intensely. Verne goes right after Bastien and looks angry the whole time. I really dug all this, but probably my favorite part was the opening headscissors work by Verne. Bastien looked like he couldn't get out if he tried, and holy shit did it look like he was legitimately trying. This whole contest seemed to be Verne showing various ways that he could impose his will on Bastien. Holding cradles impossibly tight, locking holds in and not letting go. His expression the entire time makes it seem entirely probable that he was muttering under his breath the whole time "come on Red, get out of this one, come on." But those early headscissors were the nastiest. They also looked entirely plausible, which is a tough thing to pull off. But damn the first time Bastien tried to kip up from under it and looked like he almost hanged himself. Three of these damn headscissors and every time it looked like Verne could've popped Bastien's head off with his legs. And then most awesomely and unexpectedly, Bastien lures Verne over to the ropes and ducks when Verne goes for another, sending Verne sprawling over the top to the floor. Just an awesome sequence to start a killer little match.