Tuesday is French Catch Day: Tony Oliver! Cheri Bibi! Inca Peruano! Serge Gentilly!

Jo Benardo vs. Eric Wasberg 6/14/57

SR:JIP about 17 minutes in with roughly 4 minutes shown. Some cool holds and ranas before the winner takes it home by catching a rana into a folding powerbomb.

MD: Athleticism seemed a bit lacking in the few minutes we had but that didn't stop Wasberg from trying a lot of stuff, including a tiger suplex set up to a headscissors takeover and the rolling arm trap takeover off the ropes that we had seen in one of the last JIP matches. It was hard to get much of a sense of this but you had to like the finishing stretch of five or six twisting 'ranas that finally got jammed with a power bomb.

Inca Peruano vs. Cheri Bibi 6/14/57

SR:1 Fall match over roughly 25 minutes. Inca Peruano, baby. Cheri Bibi, aside from hitting like a truck, is probably one of the less interesting heels to show up on French TV. But the Inca is a joy to watch. He pretty much made this whole match watchable with his unique trips and throws, out of nowhere Santo headscissors and clinical holds. One of my favourite things they do in old euro matches is the hammerlock behind the back, which Inca Peruano uses to set up moves from the ropes in cool ways. I also really liked him really bending the fuck out of Bibis wrist while stepping on his chin. It was a really simple move compared to everything else he does, but it stood out. Cheri Bibi seemed slow to bump for the Incas moves and the finish seemed to come after a series of blown sequences, but I will alway relish in a chance to see Inca Peruano go to work.

MD: I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks and it hit most of the marks I wanted to, even if it didn't quite rise to the mean, slugfest level I was hoping for. That's not to say it wasn't mean and a slugfest, because it was both. Very non-cooperative and competitive, with Peruano having Bibi's number for most of the match. He was so good at portraying a casual, cocky excellence, able to grab a limb out of most exchanges, get a throw, and follow it up with a dropkick or a monkey flip or a hold. Bibi on the other hand, was pure, unbridled, bullying power, trying to ground Peruano with strangles, grab a headlock, or just press him against the rope to lay in shots. The problem for Bibi was that Peruano could give just as well as he could take and came back again and again so he could never hold an advantage for long. At the same time, Bibi was able to use his strength to fight out of all the holds, barely be rocked by his dropkicks, and even jam Peruano on things like Monkey Flips a few times and even managed to block a fireman's carry with a headscissors roll over. While Bibi was an interesting opponent for Peruano and the match had a gritty, believable tone, the high spots weren't quite as high as in other matches we've seen with both guys. The strike exchanges never quite went over the top. Peruano's most interesting spot was an Indian deathlock where he kept lifting Bibi back to lay in kicks. There were a couple of good nearfalls in the end (like Peruano getting a roll up off the ropes and his twist-turn pin he's won matches with before), but the ultimate finish was a little weak. I think the idea was that Peruano was supposed to catch a back elbow when going in for an attack, which allowed Bibi to put him away, but they didn't quite hit the execution. Still, this was just good gritty stuff and I'm glad we have a lot more time with both wrestlers.

PAS: One thing that really stands out from this footage is how good the execution of simple things are. Bibi has one of the best side headlocks I have ever seen, and a bunch of different ways to apply it and use it as a throw. Compare that to how time killing and weak most of the headlocks in the last thirty years have been and it really stands out. This was a bit of style clash and not nearly as smooth as these guys have been against other people, Bibi doesn't seem to know how to bump for Peruano's headscissors, and the finish seem a little off. Still the quality of the small things, the forearms, the headlock, and a Peruano's cool escapes make this worth watching.

Tony Oliver vs. Serge Gentilly 1/1/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a little bit over 30 minutes. It‘s another chance to see Tony Oliver baby. This wasn‘t an epic, super heated title match like the Bert Royal match, but still a welcome chance to see Oliver do his thing. Based on the grand total of 2 matches we have, it seems like Olivers program is reminiscent of a less cartoony Jim Breaks: Constantly brutalizing the opponent while stooging and reacting in amusing exaggerated ways. Tony Oliver really had perfect eyebrows for this role. My favourite thing that he did was the way he would grab his opponents face and try to hook him, or grab the chin when the guy was down. Then he would blast away with those unforgiving forearms and punches. Really trying to make every second of wrestling him as unpleasant as possible. Gentilly was another French technico with the charisma of a piece of wood, but the did give Oliver some fun receipts including some mean dropkicks. He had a lot of impact moves, the big Robinson backbreaker, even an inverted atomic drop, and the worlds greatest gutbuster. That‘s about enough to get on my good side, plus he really liked the catapult which gave Oliver ample opportunity to fly across the ring like a ballet dancer. The very last bump was like something Buddy Rose would do. Great to get another look at Oliver against a game opponent, who really seems like a complete package from what little we have.

PAS: Clearly our next raid needs to be the Spanish film archives, because Oliver really looks like an all timer. I just love watching him do his thing, what an all time great heel. So many little mannerism and niggling asshole moves. I love his double sledge to the back of Gentilly's neck, he comes at it from the side with a ton of force and it looks like every shot is going to send Gentilly into a dark room for four days. He also does this super nasty thing when he has Gentilly grounded, where he digs his fingers into his Adam's apple and twists, he must have just sucked to wrestle. Oliver was really great at putting over Gentilly, he has that great ability to switch from stooge to killer and back which is something that all the great heels have. Gentilly wasn't the most dynamic technico, but he was willing to land with the appropriate force on his shots (If I was wrestling Oliver I would be trying to KO him with every shot), and had some really cool moves. I loved his inverted atomic drops, and his gutbuster was really cool, he got a deep lift and really lifted him high before just driving his knee into Olivers belly.

MD: Another match with Tony Oliver. He's no longer the best heel we only have one match of. This was actually much more of a specific showcase for him, as opposed to a title match where he pulled out constant stops like we had before. Here he still did everything dirty imaginable. The difference was that, for the most part, it worked. That doesn't mean that he didn't stooge and bump and get caught out by the ref. He did, but he took a lot more of this one with a hundred cheapshots, constant face raking and ref maneuvering, and a hundred more straight up brutal blows. Gentilly had some really novel stuff that we haven't seen much: an actual bulldog (as opposed to Oliver's armbar bulldog), some nasty submissions, an inverted atomic drop/atomic drop combo on the guy most deserving to eat those in history, and this really great spinning gutbuster. Oliver's hyperactive antics had him arguing with the crowd, with the ref, complaining about anything that didn't go his way and taking every opportunity imaginable. And us? Before we could complain that we only had one match with him. Now we can complain that we only have two.

ER: Not a surprise, this was great. Tony Oliver is as must see as this French Catch gets, a total package of nasty ringwork, pratfalls, shtick, and a mean side. If he had just a couple of his excellent qualities and nothing else, he'd still be a major standout. If he was only a guy with a fantastic body vice and the best clubbing fist to the back of someone's neck, he'd be a guy we'd talk about at length. If he just had a nasty grounded punch among several other cheapshots, we'd be talking about him as a heel legend. But he has everything, and does it all so so well. I love his pratfall bumps for catapults, loved his clenched butt straight leg selling for a pair of atomic drops, loved the way he made Gentilly look like a tough guy while also beating the hell out of him. Gentilly looked super capable here, and I think would have stood out much more against a lesser opponent. His execution was so tight, from his picture perfect snapmare to the way he fought against Oliver's body vice (I loved how Oliver tightened the vice on a standing Gentilly, who slid his boots back across the mat as his body was forced downward by Oliver), loved how his flexibility made Oliver's holds look even more cruel. Now it's also possible that he looked even better *because* he was in with Oliver, who seems to be a master at both hyping and murdering opponents. But then I see what an all time great gutbuster Gentilly has and I'm pretty sure his work stands on its own. Oliver's pratfalls never had a straight comedy flair, as even when he gets knocked ass over crown and is hanging by his feet over the ropes, it doesn't come off silly. A wrestler could watch this one Tony Oliver match and find literally dozens of things worth stealing, as every single sequence is fresh and inspired by who knows who, a guy whose every bit of movement could be analyzed and ripped off without anyone knowing. And now we all get the chance to know, and we should take it.