New Footage Friday: French Catch, Rollerball Rocco, Marty Jones, Choshu, Saito, Inoki

Kader Hassouni/Claude Rocca vs. Bernard Caclard/Albert Sanniez French Catch 3/20/76

MD: There's so much here that I'm not sure how you can talk about it except for as anything but generalities. It honestly reminds me a little of when I was trying to get into lucha and I'd watch one of those long, straightforward trios form the 80s where you'd get so dazzled by the exchanges and the tricked out matwork and the rote spots and the comedy and how they shifted gear that there's no way you could find the forest for the trees. I wish we had a hundred of these matches, not just because they're so spectacular, but beacuse it'd make patterns easier to find. I do think that's the best sort of comparison. I've seen our pal Jetlag harken this to some other athletic peaks of pro wrestling, and I can see that, but to me there's just an undertone of ritual and craft here and that's what stands out the most. I just haven't worked out all of the ritual yet. It's remarkable how they're able to shift from acrobatics to comedy to pummelling one another on a dime.

Some stuff is universal though. It just takes a little bit to get there. When they finally start registering what's going on (and they take their time to do so, but that's fine in such a long match with the ability to tag frequently). All of the reversals feel so fluid and natural while being complex; all it takes is just one touch, one grasp, one connection between one body and another to create a flip or a twist or a throw, but due to the speed, the way they throw themselves into it, the lack of hesitation and the immediate follow up, it feels like it's exactly how reality should be. Once things begin to settle, the heels start to play into some great repetition and oneupsmanship spots (two powerbomb like flips only to get back body dropped on the third, a face giving a body part to clown the heel only to have the heel try it and again get clowned).

Finally, things settled down even further as the heels take over with frustrated hairpulling and roughousing and doubleteaming. The faces come back with a big ring-rope shaking spot and a big miss dived, and start a whole new section with them using creative double teaming out of the corner (mainly trips) until they get a fall. The rudos comeback with tight offense out of their corner for the second fall. Then, with some miscommunication, it goes into a big rousing comeback including table bumps, brawling on the outside, crazy rope running, and more clowning. You know the old adage that a wrestling card should be like a circus? That it should have a little of everything. This match had a lot of everything.

PAS: This was pretty incredible, a lot of the French Catch stuff I have seen has had incredible exchanges, but doesn't build to a coherent finish. This is really a spectacular match which works as a standard tag match. It is pretty crazy that INA just puts up a random show on youtube and the match is of this quality. Calcard and Sanniez look like an all time tag team, nasty forearms and kicks, incredible basing for all of the tricked out takedowns and headscissors, killer bumping and stooging (there was a spot where Sanniez just dives off the rope and belly flops right on the mat), we even get an angle with Calcard shoving Roger Delaporte the promoter and getting clocked and thrown into the ring. I really liked Rocco throwing these cross armed chops to the throat and Hasssouni had some really fun WOS style mat reversals. As always with French Catch there was a dozen crazy flips and take downs which look like they are from 20 years in the future not 40 years in the past. I can just imagine the quality of the stuff sitting in their archives, hopefully it keeps dribbling out.


Rollerball Rocco vs. Marty Jones WOS 12/30/80

MD: We get the last few rounds of this. Jones is, of course, the ultimate opponent for Rocco. Rocco's over the top, stooging, complaining, endlessly abrupt and endlessly dangerous. Jones is the most "solid" wrestler in history, maybe, endlessly sounded, a stable presence in all of our lives, dynamic but never garish, a true hero of Brittania. While not rising to the level of some of the other footage we have of them, this actually dodged a lot of my major Rocco criticism, which is that he's so go-go-go that nothing ever sets in or has meaning, that he only ever pauses to sell meaning instead of stopping to do so. Here, he was really leaning into the post-exchange stalling and then letting it transition forward to him getting an advantage. This is good stuff, but it'd obviously be better served if we had the feeling out from the early rounds. It's almost all the payoff here. As always, I love how suddenly a fall can end in this style, that sort of sport over cinematic story feel. Rocco's menacing presence on the ropes is absolutely iconic (and hey, he hits a grounded double axe-handle which is always good to see in a world of people getting their feet up every single time), and Jones' missile dropkick is one of the best moves in the world in 1980. The ring falls apart as they're careening towards the brawl, so they just stay on their knees and punch one another, which is a perfectly fine way to end a wrestling match.

PAS: This was a juniors sprint, without much selling but it was a pretty dope one. If you are going to do a match full of spots, have them be cool spots. Rocco is the guy with the rep as a before his time spot guy, but I thought Jones had cooler shit. He was decapitating Rocco with dropkicks, they looked like Gaea Girls level, it wouldn't have shocked me to see Rocco spitting out teeth. Jones also hit an absolutely flattening flip senton, he landed full force on Rocco's ribs. I loved the finish, as the ring starts to break apart because of the force of Rocco's bumps, so they just wail away on each other, with punches and short forearms, great way to finish off a time limit draw. We miss the opening rounds, so this may have been more of a meal in complete, but it was a hell of a snack.

ER: Man I thought Rocco ruled here. I know we're supposed to act like he's British Kurt Angle, but that's starting to feel like pretty reductive criticism the more matches like this we see. Rocco feels like the perfect opponent for Jones, and I don't think Angle was a perfect opponent for anyone. I think Jones looked great here, but I don't think the match would have been nearly as interesting without Rocco leaning in to every single thing Jones threw at him, while coming back every single time with cheapshots. And Rocco's cheapshots were all nasty strikes, a headbutt to the gut, a close range shoulderblock to the collarbone, and all those awesome short rushing punches. I loved all of it. There's no way Angle would have made those dropkicks or huge senton mean as much as Rocco did here, leaning chin first into a running dropkick and stooging for all the fans at ringside after getting spatchcocked by that brutal senton. Amusingly, their end run was nearly identical to a 1978 Jones/Rocco match I watched earlier today, Rocco trying to run Jones into the turnbuckle from the apron, getting punched instead, getting nailed with a Jones missile dropkick, and then getting thrown vertically into the turnbuckle (I love that vertical hands free corner bump of Rocco's so damn much). The ring literally falls apart which robbed us of a decent ending, and we already missed the first part of this one, but damn was what we got killer.

Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masa Saito/Riki Choshu NJPW 8/2/83

MD: This felt big and epic, all the way from the Inoki chants as he was coming out to the post match lariats. It was full of grit and struggle. I really liked how Saito and Choshu worked together. They were constantly driving their opponent back into their corner. They had some fun tandem moves. Everything looked good. Everything looked dangerous, from the backbreaker/second rope shot to something as simple as Saito coming in to stomp Inoki so that Choshu could turn him into the Scorpion Deathlock.

Basically, every momentum shift in their favor was thought out and meaningful. The first few in Inoki/Fujinami's favor were fickle. Saito would hit his suplex, get a two count, and Fujinami would be up first to dropkick him twice in the face before making the tag. It was a great dropkick, and there's the ever-present sense of toughness in refusing to stay down, but man do they just wilfully refuse to tap into the everpresent emotion existant in tag team wrestling by not building to actual comebacks.

The counter argument is that when Inoki finally gets to fight back, he gets a little build. A sunset flip gives him the space to hit the back brain kick out of nowhere, then he has to reverse a posting on the outside (immediately thereafter) before hitting another one for the win. I don't think that moment was made any larger for it being the first meaningful comeback in the match though. I get that you just have to accept it as part of the style and appreciate the good (and there was plenty of that) but they always leave such good stuff on the table when there's no reason they can't have their cake and eat it too.

PAS: I liked how uncooperative the early grappling looked, no one was letting anyone grab anything, ever throw or grip was contested. Choshu and Saito were really rough and rugged throwing hard punishing chops and stomps, and some pretty cool double teams. I am an Inoki and Fujinami fan, but I had some issues with them in this match. Fujinami popping up after the Saito suplexes was pretty bad, Saito has amazing suplexes and Fujinami basically no-selling them was bush league it felt like indy wrestling shit. Inoki did his thing where he just decides to end a match. Saito beats on him and stretches him and Inoki just decides to hit a couple of enzigiris and get the pin. Choshu and Saito are a hell of a heel tag team, and it is cool to see them in a big star tag, and there were some real moments here, just don't think it totally came together.

ER: This was one of those cool as hell tag matches where it looked like the file was sped up, everybody moving at 1.5x asskicking speed. I dug everyone in this to some degree, but especially loved the viciousness of Saito and Choshu. Saito especially was so spry, so quick, and looking at all times as if he'd be able to lift and throw all three men in the match at once. He had a couple suplexes here that looked like we should be able to gif him throwing Inoki and Fujinami out of the building. I loved Saito and Choshu picking apart Fujinami, hanging him upside down in the corner and kicking at him, suplexing him, and I liked how they treated Inoki with total disregard. But yeah, gotta concur with everyone, seeing Fujinami pop up after one of those vicious Saito suplexes made me want to see Saito just suplex him over and over and over until he couldn't hit a dropkick.