Tuesday is French Catch Day: Di Santo, van Dooren, Corne, El Gayo

We have unearthed possibly the greatest find in the history of wrestling footage scrounging. 300+ French Catch matches from the 50s-80s. Every Tuesday from now until we all die, we are going to be digging in and reviewing the motherload. We are bringing on Euro wrestling footage king Sebastian R. (aka Jetlag) to help us dig through this all, along with Matt, Eric, Phil and maybe Tomk.


Lino Di Santo vs. Jack van Dooren 1/11/57

SR: JIP with about 12 minutes shown. This kind of bout probably won‘t stand out in the long run of French watching, but it‘s really cool to check out. Both guys did some neat stuff. Di Santo had some Billy Robinson esque offense, nasty neckbreaker and the big backbreaker. I think of Billy Robinson as someone who had pretty advanced offense for 1970s AJPW, so seeing a guy bust out that kind of offense in 1957 is pretty wild. Both guys took some nasty bumps, especially Di Santo flying into the ropes trying a pin. Both guys had some cool ways to work around the greco roman knucklelock pin, Di Santo bridging out of the with van Dooren on top was pretty freaky. This is our first time seeing van Dooren and he looked good, busting out a cool luchaesque pin and uncorking some nasty looking headbutts that got a big reaction inicluding one from a full running charge, and Di Santo fires back with straight elbow smashes. Pretty cool to see how evolved this style was in 1957 already. Van Dooren keeps finding ways to reverse Di Santos counter attempt, and the finish sticks with this time. Nice stuff.

PAS: I agree that this probably won't stand out with all we have to watch, but this was still really good. Short arm scissors spots and knucklelock spots are two of my favorite time filler spots in wrestling, and they had some really cool variations on both, especially the knucklelock. This had a progression which seems pretty standard in these matches where we start with grappling and lead to big nasty strikes. van Dooren's headbutts looked great, and I loved his running in ring tope. The elbow smashes were pretty nasty, and looked more like a fight then a lot of the tired elbow exchanges in todays wrestling.

MD:  This is JIP and we're still getting our bearings to a degree (though less so Sebastian who can run circles around us in this specific area), but this was still a very complete experience. There are a lot of counters, both in and of themselves, and counters to counters, or counters that are attempted but blocked. There's never a sense of cooperativeness though, even with hammerlock go-behinds or complex double knucklelock or full nelson spots that should come off as more cooperative. Some of that is the setting and the effort that they put into it, but some, I think, is that because all of this is so new to me, you never know exactly what's going to happen.

Eventually the match settles into a really satisfying pattern. Van Doreen holds a slight grappling advantage. Di Santo will try a counter, get blocked. Di Santo will then get something to work, be it a back elbow or a hammering clothesline out of a hold; then he'll try it again only for Van Doreen to expect it and crush him. Whenever he gets frustrated and leans towards fisticuffs, Van Doreen shuts him down immediately with a headbutt and the crowd goes nuts. The match shifts towards the finish after Van Doreen goes for two running, leaping headbutts in a row and Di Santo's able to reverse the second. From there it's more back and forth and plenty exciting, with both strikes leading to more of that headbutting and Di Santo hitting an awesome 1950s frankensteiner. Every lateral press feels like a possible finish here but what we ultimately get of a really snug reversal sunset flip is satisfying.


Jacky Corne vs. Luis El Gayo 1/11/57

SR: A 23 minute contest in 2/3 falls. Luis El Gayo may also be „El Gayo“ or „El Gallo“ (it would fit his hair) or El Galio since the announcer keeps calling him something like that. One of the cool aspects to the old French footage is that there are a ton of Spanish wrestlers featured, so getting to a glimpse at that is really something special and something I never would have hoped to see, since the Spanish scene ended in the 1970s with a few later revival attempts failing. Jacky Corne is someone who shows up in matches all the way to the 1970s and 1980s, so it‘ll be cool to watch him for a nearly 30 year period.

This was the 60s lutte libre style that we saw in Cesca/Cantanzarro, both guys working holds while mixing in cool arm whips and headscissors. It wasn‘t quite at the transcendent level of Cesca/Catanzarro, as they didn‘t seem to have some things fully worked out, but they knew not to expose the business when a spot wasn‘t hit perfectly. El Gayo was right there working the French style, he had some graceful escapes, a cool headwringing snapmare and he did these awesome BattlARTS style 8 count near KOs when Corne started dropping the bombs on him. He also launched Corne to the outside with a cool throw from the ground in a nasty moment, then later took a big bump himself flying over the rope. Both guys were moving fast and really making their hip tosses and body slams look good. The first fall was going nice until Corne caught El Gayo with an awesomely timed powerbomb and then took him to town dropping him with some more before El Gayo would seemingly come back only to be caught. The second fall gets chippy with both guys really cracking each others jaws with thudding european uppercuts and elbows, the high quality audio and video that the French preserved really adding to each exchange. One of the cool things El Gayo does is he will move in like a Greco wrestler, grab a hammerlock behind the other guys back and use that to set up a move, in one case he uses it to drill Corne with a nasty tombstone piledriver which was pretty mindblowing even by 1957 French standards, unfortunately Corne didn‘t go to the Spanish school of selling and just kind of moved on in the match. I liked the feel that El Gayo was pushed to the limit and had to resort to making things chippy. After Corne threw him to the outside in a heated moment that lead to several cigarette smoking fans helping El Gayo back in the ring, both guys shook hands only for El Gayo to start throwing elbows and knees the next moment. Seconds later the Spanish wrestler had to resort to throwing a punch to the mid section, seemingly apologizing to the audience and being frustrated with himself for having to resort to such tactics. Once again, I really liked the rope running sequences and the finishes were good although I was hoping for the match to go a little deeper, I thought El Gayo was done a little dirty here although he did a great job telling the story of the match. Still, good shit and a treat to see.

MD: There's so much to digest in every single one of these matches, especially as, in most cases, this is the first time we're seeing these wrestlers. It reminds me of when I was trying to work out lucha to a good degree, though the narratives are a little more of what we're used to here. It's just being dropped into a strange land with a different language, different wrestlers, a different crowd, and the trappings of a different era all at once. That said, you can tell just how good all of this is easily. I love the amount of positioning. They'll do a complicated flip or twist or throw just to set up a second move. They create openings and they also take any repositioning or grinding by their opponent to work their way out.

Story here, as best as I can see is that Corn has a slight advantage and De Gayo keeps edging towards taking liberties, first with a bit kneelift out of a cravat, and then increasingly so. The crowd reacts accordingly. The finish of the first fall keeps it building with Corn turning a flip up rana into a powerbomb and then hitting two cradle release powerbombs. Every time, however, they defuse things with a handshake. It ultimately comes to a head in the second fall with De Gayo launching Corn between the ropes and out of the ring with a tricked out flipping armbar monkey flip (sic) thing. Corn rushes back in and almost immediately pitches De Gayo over the top rope. When De Gayo comes back in, he lands a cheapshot and as the crowd boos, gives a resigned shrug and a curtsy and it's a great bit of character that's well-received.

From there, they roll into the finish, with De Gayo not looking back. He has this tendency of wrapping his opponent up like the Rainmaker, but then doing awesome things instead, be it his bearhug-Robinson backbreaker or a nasty forearm or an actual Tombstone. The selling in these matches are interesting. They're letting things sink in, but a Tombstone (or a Rude Awakening as in the Di Santo match) stagger more than keep someone down. The traded blows come quick and heavy and the cost tends to be delayed as the crowd comes unglued. That happens here as Corn comes back in a big way. They bring things back down for another minute or so with holds, before bringing them back up for another round of uppercut trading and then finally, a slip through takedown into a bridging pin from Corn. He helps de Gayo up post-match and they hug and you get the sense that all's fair and fiery in the heat of combat.

If all the matches are like these, we've got a hell of a road ahead of us.

PAS: Watching these two matches, you can see the stylistic differences between French juniors wrestling and heavyweight wrestling. This was the same juniors style we saw in Petit Prince vs. Saulnier and Cesca vs. Cantanzaro, it was a little less mindblowingly athletic then those matches but this is a really fun style to watch, and these guys have a bunch of really cool unique stuff.

De Gayo was the guy I most impressed with, his bump to the floor was really crazy, and all of the rainmaker offense was way cooler then anything Okada has ever done. Matt made a good point about the big moves, that tombstone you figure would be at least a near fall, but instead it is usually roll ups that end matches, and big forearms and uppercuts which really lay some one down. I really like uppercuts and stiff forearms though and so I am perfectly OK with that