Tuesday is French Catch Day: Karl Von Kramer! Gentilly! Duranton! Boss!

Karl von Kramer vs. Serge Gentilly 4/29/58

SR: 2/3 Falls match over about 30 minutes. Karl von Kramer was playing a stereotypical, bald German with a mustache, but he was a French or Belgian worker by the name of Michel Laurent. Judging from what we see here, he was pretty awesome. This had some of the funnest technical work we‘ve seen from the French guys so far. Gentilly also looked good, but von Kramer was stealing the show with freaked out takedowns, awesome wristlock work and generally doing everything in a unique way. His shoot snapmares rule. Of course, him being a bald German with a mustache the heel shenanigans soon kicked in and after some inside shots this became a bump-a-ton from Karl. I especially liked all the pin attempts that lead to Karl taking big monkey flip bumps. The heel beatdown wasn‘t outstandingly violent and they kept dialing it back down to do some wrestling, but I really liked how Karl just out of nowhere wrapped up Gentillys head in the ropes and later got some payback getting tied up himself and eating nasty dropkicks. I‘m stoked to check more von Kramer after this.

PAS: This was great stuff. von Kramer was obviously the standout, he had everything you want from a Catch heel, the ability to rock out the mat section at the beginning, the ability to get nasty when required and the willingness to stooge and bump huge for the babyfaces big comeback. I loved how squirmy Gentilly was, Kramer would get him in tons of compromising positions and Gentilly would find a way to squirt out, driving Kramer crazier and crazier. Kramer wasn't as cartoonishly evil and Dr. Adolf Kaiser, but was a more skilled wrestler, can't wait to check them out as a tag team.

MD: This was not what I was expecting. Von Kramer goes for a nerve hold a few times in the match, but he barely ever gets it and never for long. What he does instead is a whole mishmash of other stuff including some of the most tricked out chain wrestling we've seen yet, some really athletic counters, a satisfying amount of pointing to his head and waving his finger to show his intelligence, and lots of opportunistic cheapshots. Most of all, he goes for the win. A lot. There are more pin attempts here than in most matches and it helped to give things a very competitive feel. Gentilly was able to hang with him but more than that, he was able to respond with a lot of fed up, frustrated offense. These weren't often the big sweeping blows we saw from someone like Arroyo but instead little mean shots and kicks and stomps, giving as he was getting, with Kramer often returning the favor right back. The end of the first two falls were very good, with the end of the third kind of weird but enjoyable. It all fit into the match between Kramer's pin attempts backfiring in the first, the inside work in the second, and the sudden stops and trickery in the final fall. There were big bumps and both novel moves and novel spots, with Kramer managing these neat reverse gutwrenches (the last of which Gentilly turned into a backbreaker) and one of the best and most interesting "heel stuck in the ropes" spots you'll see.


Pierre Boss vs. Robert Duranton 5/2/58

SR: This won‘t stand out among all the amazing matches in the project, but I had fun. Duranton brings something different to the table than the usual heel characters. He‘s clearly athletic and and had an arrogant swagger to him that was unique for the time. He hasn‘t gone full Exotico yet, so it was like watching the black trunks rookie version of a future megastar. Pierre Boss is balding with a single lock exactly in the Dory Funk Jr. Spot. He was much more ferocious than Dory here, thankfully and made a good counterpoint. This was long but had enough of the usual solid matwork and guys thrashing each other with forearms for me to enjoy it.

MD: This could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse too. Duranton was a handsome, muscular guy, who had a lot of presence and really thoroughly portrayed haughtiness, but just didn't seem to have the technical skill to go along with it. Boss was fine, and against a different wrestler (like a Guy Robin or a Pellacani) might have grounded things really well. Duranton seemed to me like he could have been a great 80s wrestler. He was able to flaunt his strength, hit big backbreakers, appeal to the ref and the crowd, and just ooze an effective smarminess. He walked around the ring like he owned it. When he stalled late in the match, he got lots of heat. He reminded me of Paul Orndorff, sort of. I think, if we were judging this on a different curve than 1950s France, we'd agree that he "played his role well." I honestly though he sold well, when he chose to sell (whenever Boss was going overboard with his comebacks, and not even that overboard relative to others, he'd more dust himself off and look at the ref as if he should do something about it), but a lot of the stuff that we take for granted (beales for instance), seemed lacking. Boss' strikes weren't quite up to par either, except for his headbutt, which felt more like a necessary killshot when Duranton wasn't letting smaller things register. This had some good exchanges, including the bodyscissors one, and there was an air of uncooperativeness which was welcome, but I don't think the narrative held up. When they went to the falls, they seemed to come out of nowhere with only half the escalation they needed. Duranton using backbreakers to cut off Boss during the end of the final fall would have been great if they had invented long-term bodypart selling yet, but they hadn't, at least not in France. I'm not 100% sure they ever do, to be honest. There was a female announcer with a guest here and I think they spent a lot of the match talking about other things. It was hard to blame them too much.