Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! La Barba! Guy Robin! Eric Taylor!

Michel Chaisne vs. Gilbert Leduc 9/20/57

SR: About 5 minutes are shown with much of that time spent in a short arm scissor. Seems Chaisne was getting a push at this time getting to do long technical matches on a regular basis. Of course, the crowd was silent for the holds but loved it when they started throwing strikes which lead to a very quick finish.

MD: This one feels like a real shame that we're getting it JIP. This is World Lightweight Champion vs French Lightweight Champion. Much of the six or so minutes that we get here are spent with Leduc holding Chasine in a short arm scissors and Chaisne trying to lift him up and out. We've seen this particular exchange plenty of times in the footage by now and while it was really nicely put on and Chasine did a good job with his struggle and selling, it's not really what I was hoping for with these two. The finishing stretch, after his escape, however, absolutely was, and might be the best finishing stretch we've seen yet, which is saying something.

Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Joachim La Barba 9/20/57

SR: 1 Fall match going a little over 20 minutes. The first sighting of Chemoul from the footage we have (chronologically speaking). He is already the formidable champion here. I get the sense is more akin to a Vic Faulkner type wrestler rather than some intense technician, and while his technique is stellar, I wish this match had been a little more serious. You know what you are getting from this match up, La Barba rudoing it up and Rene Ben Chemoul having the edge with technique before eating some shots and then turning the match into a bump-a-ton with Joachim stooging like crazy. La Barba is great, and while did get some shots in, I would‘ve loved to see Joachim La Barba crank up the violence and give Rene all he could handle.

MD: If we could only show people one match to sum up 1957 in French Catch, this might be the one I'd pick. It wasn't the most extraordinary match of the set and didn't have the biggest stakes or the blistering heat or the most advanced technical wizardry, but it was definitive and so complete, with sleek wrestling from Ben Chemoul, consistent and nasty cheapshots from La Barba, hot babyface fire in response, comedy, imaginative spots, clever counters, interesting bumps, constant struggle, some amazing use of the ref, visuals that most people watching wrestling had no idea existed before the late 80s, and an electric finish. This match is just memorable moment after memorable moment from two wrestlers that could obviously do a little bit of everything.

PAS: I adore La Barba, he might be one my favorite guys we have discovered in this footage, and we have discovered some legends. He is announced as being from Mexico, and while he has looked like Satanico's grandfather before, in this match he felt more like he snuck in the back door of Pirata Morgan's granny's house. He was an absolutely old school stocky bump fiend in this match, getting beeled over the top rope by his ears, flying through the ropes, and an incredible bump near the end where he got bounced stomach first on the turnbuckles a bunch of times, only to get flipped over the top rope.  He also had some nasty punches and great stooging. Chemoul is considered a legend and he is a great foil for the La Barba show, finish was one of the best rana's we have seen in this footage and this is footage full of great rana. 

Guy Robin vs. Eric Tayor 10/4/57

MD: Really happy that this one's turned up. I would have been in general, as it's Guy Robin, who is one of my favorite wrestlers in the footage so far in another singles match against a explosive young wrestler from England (remember, we've seen him against Al Hayes and the Fishers), but it turns out his opponent here is Eric Taylor, Dave Taylor's dad, at age 27 and if if Wikipedia is to be believed, just a few months after Dave's birth. As best as we know, there's no other footage o him available.

And this is a really good showing for both wrestlers. Robin is not as over the top as someone like La Barba or Kaiser, and it made sense that in the Delaporte tag, he, because of his relative smallness and more understated nature, would play second fiddle to Delaporte, but he's always a joy to watch. He has this spryness, deftness, quickness. He can dance around an opponent and sneak in a rabbit punch as well as anyone I've ever seen. His bumping is big without taking you out of what's happening and he sells everything he's hit with, both the pain of it and the emotion. Case in point here is how offended he gets every time Taylor hits a huge kneelift. It's a personal affront, and it's actually after one, early on, that he really turns up the cheating. You get the sense that, in his own mind, it was entirely justified, even when he flips Taylor on a handshake a couple of minutes later.

Because Robin is so quick to use a hairpull or cheapshot, Taylor really has to work for his advantages and he gets them by bounding across the ring and by just staying on top of things. If he makes a clean break, Robin takes advantage. That leads into the finish where Taylor is trying to hold the advantage after Robin took a big bump to the outside only to get caught by a kick out of nowhere. All in all, this was very good, and we saw some things out of Taylor we haven't seen in the footage yet, including a backslide and a full on torture rack that ended with Taylor depositing Robin over the top, and Robin using this cool inverted drop where instead of using the top rope as a clothesline for the throat, he dropped Taylor onto it back of the neck first. It had looked like we had another Taylor match later on but that had been mislabeled (maybe we'll still come across it), whereas this had been mislabeled to look like someone else, so I'm really glad that it ultimately revealed itself.

SR: 1 Fall match going a little over 20 minutes. I‘ve sort of grown to see Guy Robin as the Jim Breaks/Terry Rudge type of French wrestling. That is a pretty awesome descriptor, and he really rules as short tempered nearly bald guy who will put the hurt on his opponents and bump outrageously. This wasn‘t much worse than Robin/Hayes from earlier. Taylor (Dave Taylors father) is another not super charismatic guy, but he was sharp, up to the task and knew to drop bombs on Robin. He busted out the legbreaker – not a move I would expect in 1957 – precise dropkicks, and a quite awesome torture rack. Robin wasn‘t super expressive here, but he once again looked quite great trying to make his opponents life as miserable as possible. Kidney punches, jabbing the throat, kicking him in the ribs, even sort of proto-curb stomping him into the ropes – a stealworthy spot for sure. At 20 minutes this feels like it wasn‘t enough, but the surprise pin was cool.

PAS: This was a pretty classic 50s French catch match structure. Your cheapshotting heel gets more an more dirty, until your classic babyface gets fed up and starts wailing on him.  Taylor had a bunch of big offense, that torture rack into the hot shot was cool, and he hit a great dropkick Robin was mostly dirt, but it was filthy dirt, every heel in wrestling right now should be using quarantine to watch French Catch shit to steal. That curbstomp into the ropes is ripe for bringing back. I also love how French Catch heels find cool places on the body to punch, it is just the jaw or the forehead, you are likely to get punched in the kidneys or the side of the knee or the back of the head.