Tuesday is French Catch Day: Chaisne! Labat! Drapp! Amor!

Michel Chaisne vs Jo Labat 2/27/58

PAS: This is a rematch from a 57 match between the two, and it is really cool to watch these guys match up multiple times to get a sense of what their formula is. The majority of the match is lots of really tight violent mat wrestling: Hammerlocks, short arm scissors, body locks, triangles. Each hold would be applied with vein bursting pressure, and the other guy would try to find a way to force his way out of the predicament. I especially loved Chaisne's body vice, he really felt like he was squeezing toothpaste out of tube. We get some of the best strike exchanges of the project in the last couple of minutes, with Chaisne landing hard slams and backbreakers, and Labat hitting these super cool looking shoulder strikes out of a cravate. Chaisne doesn't hit his dropkick finish as cleanly in this match which is really my only quibble. Excellent stuff, I could watch these guys match up two dozen times.

MD: This is, I think the first match-up from the 50s of any length that we've seen twice. I have to admit I wasn't paying enough attention to know if it's in front of the same crowd or not, but since both were televised, it's still notable. We've seen a lot of commonality in spots and sequences, but I was very curious to see if they would do things exactly the same or not. In this, I came off satisfied. That's the word I'd use. There's always something validating about seeing Tully Blanchard hit a double axe-handle off the second ropes onto a prone opponent or being able to justify Flair getting tossed off the top rope because he won the NWA title with a flying body press, or just seeing someone actually get a trip on a drop down. It was a similar moment here when, in the midst of the same long hammerlock exchange we saw in the earlier match, Chaisne managed the same up and over flip out of a mare position, only to follow it up with a trip and a cradle. In the other match the same idea had been punctuated with mares and a vertical press. Variation. Moreover, while they worked some of the same sort of sequences or spots (like the kip up-flip over escape on the top wristlock into a trip and deathlock) here it came at a different point of the match. All of that is revelatory in how they worked these matches. The finishing sequence was basically the same (though executed a little differently and yes, without the dropkick hitting as well), but the lead-in was more heated including maybe the best single home-run shot european uppercut we've seen in the whole project from Labat after his always cool shoulder shrug shots. Anyway, this was good, in the typical style, full of struggle and determination, both in the holds and the moves (including Chaisne's great pendulum backbeakers and Labat's straining bodyslams and the one bodyslam onto a knee) with really strong points of escalation.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 30 minutes. This was extremely similiar to their 1957 match. Which means it was good, but in a „more of the same“ way. The even did a similiar finish, but didn‘t pull it off quite as good. That being said, this had a ton of technical work that they nailed. I got thele that the purpose was to give Chaisne a rub by going even longer with Labat. Chaisne looked good, landing some athletic moves for a taller guy. Much of the match was accordingly pretty which I don‘t like as much as the matches like Sola/Labat from earlier where it‘s two guys twisting each other up in hurty lookng ways. Watching Labat, I get the feel that he‘s a good technical wrestler, but he would stand out more as a heel. He certainly has that type of charisma. The match turned heated when Chaisne decided to work over Labats back and they started hammering each other with those trademark european uppercuts. Love these kind of matches.


Andre Drapp vs Yves Amor 3/27/58

MD: This was another excellent match. 1958 is a heck of a year so far. Drapp really is tremendous. He hits hard, fights hard out of holds, believably takes back offense but doesn't completely eat up his opponents, has a charismatic connection to the crowd, has some really dynamic stuff, most especially the rapid fire dropkicks and the Shiranui finisher. Incredibly credible. This was our first look at Amor and I thought he was great too. He's bigger yet as the match went on he stooged and relied upon cheating and that leg dive out of a rope break more and more. It was, in a lot of ways, the best of both worlds, because he could bump big (even on monkey flips or out over the top), hit athletic stuff (including the up and over out of a top wristlock, for instance) as well as the small guys (so this wasn't a Taverne situation), had credible offense (some big clubbers or his really cool backbreakers) yet still had that heat-garnering visual dissonance of a big guy taking shortcuts. It also meant that he could more believably keep control when he did take over that way, so when Drapp came back it meant more than in some of the other matches with more craven heels that we've seen. He was drawing heat from the second he entered the ring and demanded that Drapp switch corners.

PAS: I am all in on Drapp, one of my absolute favorite discoveries from this project. I described him as Bruno with highspots in the last review, and he keeps that up here. We see his great Shiranui, some big dropkicks, and a bunch of nifty little moments too. I loved his grapevine leg takedown, and one spot where he hit the mat and spun around a couple of times to befuddle Amor before grabbing a leg. Amor was fun, too. He seemed really tall (probably 6'1, the French aren't a tall people), and was able to both use his size, and also show plausible ass when needed. He took some fun looking bumps over the top rope, which seemed safe but looked cool. He would fly over and catch an arm or leg in the ropes and get wrapped up. He really beat the shit out of Drapp in the final minutes of the last fall before ending up airplane spinned and pinned. Cool shit, and I am excited to dig into more Drapp, and to check out the couple of other Amor matches too.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. Andre Drapp was a wrestling machine. Watching this short guy who‘s built like a tank doing all this lightweight style wrestling sure is something. Amor was a bearded guy who looked like he could be either a professor or a mob henchman. He was that classic French heel type. He didn‘t do much fancy but look tough and was kicking Drapp hard between the shoulder blades when he was down. He had some great stomps and body shots too. Of course Drapp knows how to get surely. At one point he just lunged up and punched Amor in the mouth. Amor has some nice big backbreakers and goes along with Drapps more technical stuff really nicely aswell as bumping big and showing plenty of ass. I felt like the match felt a bit cut off at the end, like they had material for 45 minutes but ended up ending it a bit over 30. I wonder if TV constraints sometimes forced that. Anyways, the fact they went +30 and it felt like it wasn‘t enough speaks volumes to how good these guys were. Excellent heavyweight bout.