Segunda Caida: Tuesday is French Catch Day: Billy Catanzaro, Vasilios Mantopolous, Andre Bollet, Henri Bury

Andre Bollet vs. Henri Bury 4/26/57

SR: Another night in Paris where lumpy 50s gentlemen forearm the shit out of eachother. Bury is introduced as the champion of Belgium, I guess everyone wrestling in France was a champion then. Bollet is someone who will be a recurring figure to this project. With his thinning hair and greasy look, he has the vibe of a Kurisu or sleazier WAR heavyweight. This, like most of these matches, was a cool mix of wrestling and guys really laying into eachother. Bury brought some classy wrestling, doing cool escapes and athletic bridge up spots. Soon Bollet found his opening though when Bury was on the ground and the fun began with Bollet landing a big kick to the spine. Bury was less stoic than the French workers we have seen, he had really good, decently expressive selling, sometimes barely managing to beat the 10 count from Bollets beating. When it was time to fire back he would hit big beautiful dropkicks or savate kicks which were trippy to see. It‘s also clear that Bollet can wrestle, but he would rather punch you in the kidney. This goes 30 minutes but it‘s really good, nice wrestling and when they beat on eachother, they really beat on eachother. Nice finish with a series of badass strike exchanges leading the winner almost landing a lucky shot and sinking into the pin.

MD: We have a lot of Bollet in this collection, so it's good I really like the guy. He's sluggishly over the top, but at least this early, he can back it up with a clunky sort of effectiveness. That is, he can do a lot of what is peers are doing; it just takes him twice the effort. Meanwhile, he's overselling (including bumping over the top on a dropkick) and cheating charismatically and getting clowned. In some ways he reminds me of a Buddy Rose type, the sort that will get outwrestled by the babyfaces but still catch a lucky strike and pick up a win to frustrate the fans. Unquestionably, he was a larger than life character though. I liked Bury here, and it's a shame we won't see him again. He had a great Negro Casas style spinkick and some even better escapes, like a spinning headstand or even just grinding his own knee into the ankle to escape a headscissors.

I loved the finish to the falls here. The first had Bury come back with hard shots and a sunset flip after Bollet lost his cool and really unloaded on him. The second had things escalate to a Bury bull charge only for Bollet to turn the second attempt into a back body drop out of nowhere. The third had Bollet use the momentum of a Bury headbutt to bounce off the rope with a huge forearm. I imagine we'll see plenty more of Bollet aggravating the fans with banana peel wins throughout the years and isn't that what wrestling is really about?

PAS: It is such a trip that we get single appearances from guys like Bury, clearly Europe in the 1960s was just loaded with awesome grapplers that guys could show, rule and disappear. I really enjoyed all of his early slick grappling and frustrating of Bollet, and Bollet flipping out and kicking him in the back was a very pro-wrestling moment. Bollet is a blast to watch, and we really get a nice cross section of heels in this project, he is a real cheap shot artist and knows how to really sell out for the technico before sneaking in one of his cheap shots. Sebastian compared him to Kurisu and Matt compared him to Buddy Rose, how awesome is a Kurisu/Buddy Rose hybrid wrestler?

Vassilios Mantopolous vs. Billy Catanzaro 1/29/67

SR: One fall match that goes about 30 minutes. The fact that Billy Catanzaro has two televised singles matches almost exactly 10 years apart is surreal. A few things change in 10 years, and in 1967, Billy Catanzaro was a thick veteran heel. You could still see his brilliance in his work, even when he was more interested here in kicking his opponent in the spine and grimacing to the crowd. Even though it was very obvious that this was gonna get chippy, there was a ton of ridiculously high end technical work here. Mantopolous was a wrestling dynamo, no kidding about it. Just a ridiculously fast moving worker with a ton of tricks in his bag. Most of this was wristlocks and armlocks, largely built around Mantopolous holding on to a hold while Catanzaro was trying to get out. Bread and butter euro stuff, but these two execute it in such a high end manner it‘s not even funny. Catanzaro is a joy to watch, as he always finds neat twists on the most basic things, such as using his foot to win a test of strength on the ground. This was getting chippy here and there, with guys throwing unexpected bitchslaps and using the face scrape, but they mostly stuck to working holds with a few blindingly fast, well timed rope running exchanges thrown in. My one issue with the match was that it could‘ve used a bit of a bigger heat section on Mantopolous – Catanzarro did go to town at one point, lacing the Greek up with gnarly kicks to the spine and nifty backbreaker variations, but Mantopolous was soon back to making a fool of Catanzaro. Guess it wasn‘t 1957 anymore. It‘ll happen to all of us. Hell of a match with a sick finish, regardless.

MD: So, let's get this out of the way now. There's a fun moment in the middle where Catanzaro takes over with some backwork. He does these cool full nelson spin-outs into side backbreakers. After he hits two and some associated backwork, Mantopolous reverses the third spectacularly, and takes back over (with just a bit of selling). This match would be unmistakably better if there was five more minutes of Catanzaro grinding down on the back. Unmistakably better.

I'm glad I got that out of my system, because this was otherwise just amazing. Obviously we looked at this because of Catanzaro, but Mantopolous made me excited to see what he'd do on every lock-up. I can't even think of another wrestler like that. You can watch a hundred Negro Casas matches and he'll do a unique thing in each match. You can see a hundred fascinating, character-driven Fujiwara escapes. There'll still be a lot of rote and familiar, and that's fine. You need that for structure and familiarity, generally. Here though, every lock up leads to some bit of unexpected magic.

That's not to sell Catanzaro short either. I don't think there were many other wrestlers in the entirety of the 20th century that could keep up and play base. Moreover, he brought a subtle sort of offended jerk mentality all his own. There's a moment a little before said backwork where he's pressed into the ropes, shoots his arms up for the clean break, and then sneaks the tiniest slap in as Mantopolous draws back. That's almost, almost as artful as some of the float overs and escapes in the match. It's stuff like that which helps the match be more than just sizzle (even if it's the best sizzle) too. Mantopolous will do a crazy flying leg-over-arm leap to escape a hold. Later on, Catanzaro tries it and doesn't escape. Mantopolous sneaks a hand behind his back to give Catanzaro a handicap, an freebie: the first time Catanzaro refuses and taps his head; the second time, he gives in, goes for it, and gets driven to the mat arm first by a snaking leg for his trouble. Just brilliant stuff, so full of character on top of all of the explosiveness and skill.

I just wish it had a little more heat in the middle, just a little more, but I'm not so much a fool not to be thankful for the match we got.

PAS: This was pretty much Cantanzaro as Psicosis to Mantopolous's Rey Jr. in their WAR match. He was basically there to make of all of Mantopolous's crazy stuff look cool. Considering how awesome Cesca's crazy stuff looked in their match a decade earlier, it is clear that Cantazaro is an all time great baser. So much wild cool shit from Mantopolous, not only wild armdrag and legdrag takeovers, but a cool El Nudo, and one of the grodier tombstones I can remember ever seeing. I agree that it would have been nice to see Billy get to break out some of his offensive bag of tricks too, but that doesn't take away from what an impressive dance partner he was.