Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bout! Van Dooren! Montourcy! LeDuc! von Chenok! Gastel!

Jean Bout vs. Jack van Dooren 5/7/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. We get some nice graphics before the match and a strange segment that appeared to feature van Dooren between the falls. The outstanding thing about this was its discernible structure. The 1st fall is straight wrestling, wherein van Dooren gets the advantage and is able to catch his opponent in a powerbomb for the win. The 2nd fall sees Bout starting to fight dirty, throwing punches, before grabbing a surprise spinning toe hold for the tap. The 3rd fall has more dirty fighting and Bout going for takedowns with van Dooren desperately fighting off that dreadful toe hold. It was pretty close to what we have seen from US workers, plus this had the French touch where they move through the holds much faster. There wasn‘t much in terms of athleticism, but van Dooren looked like quite the tank retaliating with big headbutts and Bout adapts to working as a bastard quite well. Van Dooren liked to go for a cross choke, and Bout had a few nifty ways to work out of it, there was also another short arm scissor that was sold in a significant way. Also, that toe hold was about as deep as you can work a move like that.

MD: Van Dooren is a bit snakebitten with this footage. He was in one of the first matches we saw (vs Di Santo) but then two of the only listed matches from the archive that turned out to be not there were Van Dooren matches (vs Allary and Tarres, the latter of which probably would have been really interesting). Ah well. Maybe they turn up some day. Bout, on the other hand, is a guy that I'm liking more and more. Which means, of course, this is the last we see him. Important note: Van Dooren's day job is real estate and we get a profile skit in the middle when he tries to sell houses. Amazing stuff.

The first ten minutes of this is Bout completely eating Van Dooren alive. Van Dooren will try holds and escapes but nothing works. There's a slight mean undertone between the two of them even early. Right before the ten minute mark, Van Dooren tries an armlock and Bout just clobbers him. I really felt for the poor guy. That leads to a nice transition however, as they repeat the spot, but this time, Van Dooren ducks it and is able to put on a short arm scissors that lasts a good three minutes, in and out. Van Dooren can't capitalize on it however, and when Bout's back up, it's with some brutal shots. Van Dooren fires back with two great headbutts, and they build to rope running, a killer dropkick and more Bout mauling. He ultimately slips on a banana peel, unable to get the flip up 'rana cleanly and gets power bombed to end the first fall. The second two falls devolved repeatedly into a slugfest, with more great Van Dooren headbutts, and some awesome low kicks to the legs by Bout. The best part was when they went out to the floor and brawled like total madmen. While it wasn't his sole focus, Bout did go for the legs when he could, and ultimately took both remaining falls with a spinning toehold. Considering that Bout caught him with gut shots or kick ups during certain attempts to go low, it felt natural and opportunistic. Ultimately, yet another really good match.

Claude Montourcy/Gilbert LeDuc vs. Karl von Chenok/Robert Gastel 5/23/59

SR: 1 Fall Match going 60 minutes. Yes, you got that right, it‘s a broadway. Gotta admit, even though I know how great the wrestlers at the time were and matches going 30-40 minutes not being unusual, I was a bit skeptical whether they could pull it off. And well I‘m a damned fool, because they just do. The heat for this was insane. It seemed like a big crowd and the folks were super engaged from the beginning. It only took von Chenok & Gastel 1 cheapshot to have people threatening to jump them. The heat is a big part of why the match works, but also all 4 guys were absolutely on that night. Gastel had fully transformed into a stooging, grimacing prick heel here, and he was absolutely fantastic. He really struck me as Murdochian again, knowing exactly what to do when, having all these fantastic exaggerated bits of selling, and looking like an asskicker when it was time to crank up the violence. Von Chenok is a bit weird, as his sole intent is to nervehold guys which should normally be off-throwing, but I have no problem calling his performance here great. The man had no problem taking some insane punishment and bumping his ass off. His bump for the european uppercuts was like the 1950s version of the Rikishi clothesline bump. I also loved his Ohtani like crybaby selling when his hands got stomped. He also went absolutely savage at times, including a bit where he went straight for an eye gouge and then dished out several knees to the balls. He did go for the nerve hold a lot, but for the first half of the match, the hold was pretty much broken immediately, so when he finally got to sink it in later, it felt like a big deal. Also, undoubtedly he worked great with Gastel in cutting off the ring.

Leduc and Montourcy were fantastic as well. We‘ve seen how great Leduc can be, but Montourcy really stood out as well. He had ton of slick moves, including a great roll through into a boston crab, and something that was like a grapevine atomic drop that Hechicero should steal. Both he and Leduc also had a variety of ways to escape von Chenoks nerve hold, which kept things fresh. Of course the main job of Leduc and Montourcy was to hit explosive dropkicks, punch combos and forearms, and they do that rather well, my god. At some point in the 30 minute mark, the match just turned into a frenzy and all 4 guys were dishing out serious punishment. It wasn‘t exactly Holy Demon Army level structure (save for Leduc hitting multiple powerbombs as the time was running out) and the match may have peaked with the initial heel beatdown on Montourcy (culminating in an insane tombstone piledriver followed by some BattlARTS level near-10 counts and nerve hold nearfalls), you could tell they ran out of ideas towards the end and just kept repeating their stuff, but with a match this great I‘m not complaining. These guys just beat the shit out of each other and in between that you had shit like von Chenok stomping someone in the back of the head or Leduc trying to bite someones ear off again. Also, Gastel refusing to go down and just getting hammered towards the end was awesome, as was his bump over the top that landed him in the audience. Also loved that they only started going for pinfalls like 55 minutes into the match and before that it was all 10 counts with the crowd counting along and the wrestlers being awesome selling near Kos. I could go on and on but I will just say that everyone in this match ruled and it was really great.

PAS: I have very little interest in watching a 60 minute match these days. Give me a solid 16 and take it home. This, however, was fantastic, and in the discussion for the best 60+ minute matches ever. All four guys are great in this, with a bunch of individually awesome moments and also a weaved together structure. I loved what von Chenok brought to this. A lot of the great French Catch guys are stylistically similar, which can bring a bit of sameness to even incredible matches, having a bald weirdo just trying constantly for nerve holds was awesome. I really came away from this wanting to see a LeDuc master of the headspin versus von Chenok master of nerve hold singles match. Gastel was a total package too on the heel side, vicious mean prick, who when it came time to bump and stooge went for it. Those piledrivers were gross and he really threw then with disdain. You can tell a great French Catch match if I am sending Daniel Makabe DM's about moves to steal and that Montourcy octopus thing got the DM treatment for sure. This is standing as our 1959 MOTY and we will be truly blessed if anything outdoes it.

MD: Sebastian covered this so well that it's actually hard to add a lot, which is crazy when you think about a 60 minute broadway. Let me reiterate a few things and try to add something though. The level of difficulty on this one was extremely high. It's one thing to structure a long match, a long tag match, when you have some fall breaks to build to. Here they didn't have one single fall and more over, like he said, they didn't even really go into the pinfalls until the last ten minutes. They had the crowd (announced mid match at around 2387) into it the whole time, booing, cheering, chanting! There was a moment where Leduc was able to time the grinding of his toehold with the chants even as Von Chenok kept grabbing at his head. There were underlying themes both in general (like the heels controlling the ring with VERY quick tags and the babyfaces able to fall dramatically towards their corner for tags with bruising forearms and uppercuts to follow) and specific (such as Von Chenok going for the nerve hold, or Leduc getting justice with the catapult), and maybe they ran them a bit into the ground, but the crowd never cared and it's hard to care too. Instead of falls, they built to big moments of babyface comeback and fire. Then they brought things back down either with the heels controlling or some longer, excellent holds around the 40 minute mark.

Everyone brought something to the table: Von Chenok's begging off, cruel and desperate attacks at the eyes, selling of his hand, and the single-minded cross-choking and nerve holds; Gastel's stooging and bumping, his bullying chops and great cut-off headbutts, those tombstones, the way he'd constantly try to cheat or get frustrated with the crowd; Montourcy's jumping knee attack, his dropkicks, his backbreakers late in the game, the way he'd cheer on Leduc from the apron or pull the rope back to give extra oomph to those catapults, and yes, that Canadian maple leaf style crab and the amazingly cool stretch drop into the rolling cradle; and Leduc being Leduc, headstands and forerams, the leg nelson, those crazy power bombs at the end (the angle on one being insane), the vicious elbows to stop the nerve hold, and just both babyfaces' selling when in peril around the 35 minute mark, which is some of the best we've seen in all of the French footage.

There were times where I was wondering if this was going to hold together, but ultimately it did, driven by the constant struggle, the quick tags and heel cutting off of the ring, by the triumphant babyface comebacks and revenge punishment, by taking the crowd down and then bringing them back up, and then by escalating things towards the finish by introducing pins and bombs. Then with all of the small details that tick past along with the minutes. Truly an accomplishment of a match.