Tuesday is French Catch Day: Le Big Chief! di Santo! Zarak! Lecomte! Le Petit Prince! Sanniez!

Jose Arroyo vs. Georges Gueret 10/15/59

JIP with about 5 minutes shown. These two totally have a long awesome main even in them. This was more of a preliminary bout, but we got to see an awesome Arroyo punch combo and Gueret kicking some ass.

MD: We get about six minutes of this, JIP. It's a good showcase of Gueret who's a heel again. A long headscissors by him to start, but he works the crowd in his cutoffs in it. At one point he does that thing where you put your thumb on your nose and wiggle your fingers. Arroyo doesn't get a comeback here after this, because Gueret goes to the eyes and immediately chokes Arroyo in the ropes, tying him in them and jumping on the ring ropes from the other corner which isn't something you see often. When Arroyo comes back it's with flurries of strikes and lots of begging off by Gueret. They go back and forth for the last minute or two, with Gueret launching nice cheapshots and clubbering blows, before ultimately having his leg taken out once or twice and eating the fall on a failed bodyslam. We didn't see a ton of Arroyo here but Gueret came off as well-rounded as ever.

Lino di Santo vs. Le Big Chief 10/15/59

SR: 1 Fall match going about 25 minutes. „Le Big Chief“ has to be the greatest previously forgotten name in this entire project. He was this guy built like a tank who came in wearing a Native American head dress. I‘ve grown to expect war dances and chops from guys like that, but that was not the case for Le Big Chief. Instead Le Big Chief was this absolute violent menace. Boy oh boy. Lino Di Santo can get surely, but the Chief was beating the bricks off of him in a way few other heels in this territory or anywhere else could. Fish hooking, head stomps, nasty kicks and knees, the Chief was dishing out the kind of beating you‘d expect in a Tenryu match. After watching this I‘d say the Chief belongs with Hashimoto in the dome. The Chief had really great looking bumps for Di Santos uppercuts and dropkicks and a neat spot where he flung backwards over the top rope, plus a really amusing moment where he did a no water in the pool dive into the ring, so there was style to the madness. Di Santo gets to have some moments but mostly he is there to take an uninterrupted 20 minute asskicking and then win on a shady DQ. You know they must have had bigger things in mind for this Big Chief, but this is the last we see of him. Talk about abject and inexplicable violence.

PAS: The Big Chief is certainly in the tradition of Wahoo McDaniel as far as American Indians who will kick the piss out of you. One of the craziest things about this project is seeing guys like this, totally awesome wrestlers who feel like all time greats and just pop up once or twice. I would gleefully watch an old school 8 hour comp tape of Big Chief matches, but this is what we have. No big chops, but punches to the back of the head, fishhooks, this kind of downward eye poke strike which looks like it would dislocate retinas. Really felt like Kurisu's mom must have visited a Reservation. The no water in the pool dive was a great high spot and let to di Santo getting in some licks, and I always love the Dragon sleeper stoppage finish. French Catch can be both spectacularly smooth and violently rough, often in the same match. This was more on the gritty side, and I love gritty.

MD: I enjoyed this. Le Big Chief reminded me a lot of Iron Sheik in his prime, just from his body type and bluster. I wouldn't say his stuff looked smooth by any means. A lot of it was clunky and unfocused, but he was relentless on offense and kept things moving. He'd brutally swarm Di Santo again and again and again. It meant that instead of being back and forth, this was built towards a lot of smaller Di Santo comebacks, most of which could be quite memorable with dropkicks and forearms and plenty of revenge. Chief was more than happy to stooge huge in these moments. He'd whip Di Santo's head to the ground backwards twice, but when it was his turn to take it, he'd get whipped all the way over the top. Never giving Di Santo a moment to recover got him plenty of heat, as did the usual bevy of low blows and a fake handshake. Past the missed top rope dive attempt (which is exceptionally rare in this footage, especially for the 50s), the most interesting thing about Chief was the way he moved Di Santo around. He'd whip him off the ropes by his head, or get under him to pick him up and move him and even used a bum's rush type redirection once. He set up his dragon sleeper finish by lifting him with a choke and tossing him into the corner. Everything's so polished and trained and spot-based now that you rarely get something that feels so rough and natural. It added to things. That sleeper ended the first fall and Di Santo couldn't answer for the second. When Chief went after him anyway, he almost caused a riot. There wasn't a lot pretty about this one but it got the job done.

ER: I like Matt's Iron Sheik comparison for Le Big Chief, and I see it. I watched this and saw a Bad News Allen who actually delivered on his coolness potential. A lot of credit is rightly given to Big Chief's stiff ring work, but I came away impressed with his unique bumping and the way he would lean into all of Santo's strikes. di Santo didn't exactly need help making his strikes look good; when you elbow a man squarely on the chin, you are elbowing a man squarely on the chin. But I think we underestimate how uninteresting the fast flat back bump has made wrestling, and how that might be an actual contender for worst WWE stylistic change to make into an industry norm. di Santo brought the strikes, but I don't think they would have been anywhere near as interesting without some of Big Chief's spills. My favorite saw him take a forward bump and fall chest and shoulder across the bottom rope, but not linger on it for comedic purposes. I think that it's important he doesn't treat his bumps as comedic overexaggerated flourishes, as it's a very different vibe to take stooge bumps as stooge bumps while still treating the strikes as authentic. He pulls it off marvelously, utilizing the ropes in his bumps several times, finding neat ways to get his body to the mat after another gorgeous sky high di Santo dropkick catches him in the collarbones.    


Zarak vs. Jean-Pierre Lecomte 10/15/77

SR:1 Fall match going a bit over 10 minutes. Zarak was a British wrestler under a mask. It seems he was popular as he showed up on TV a lot, but he didn‘t quite have the same snap as the masked stars we‘ve seen in the 50s. That being said, he was a solid rudo in the vein of a Fit Finlay. Stepping on fingers and hitting a nasty piledriver. Lecomte was a balding guy with a mustache who was amazingly lithe and agile. He totally looked like dynamite cartwheeling around and running the ropes super fast. I dig any wrestler who looks like a PE teacher and is really athletic and Lecomte in this made me excited to check out his other sole appearance. At this length this was like a Nitro squash but it pushed all the right buttons for the time given.

MD: We're here for the Prince vs Sanniez match, but as a rule we watch whole shows. This is our first look at Zarak, who was a British wrestler under a mask. He's got an amazing heel swagger and strutting nature, and can base pretty well to boot. I'm not 100% sure about Lecomte but he might be the guy who played Der Henker (and maybe even Le Borreau) without a mask and as a spry, older Nick Kozak looking babyface. These guys were not small, but he launched into four or five cartwheels in the match, including one where he reversed course to dodge and grabbed a leg out of it which was really slick. There were definitely some marginal differences from what we were used to. There were more whips, maybe more ref intervention against the babyface (especially when he went for the mask), some of the armdrags felt different than what you'd see in the 50s, but the ebb and flow of Zarak getting ahead with cheapshots and Lecomte firing back big felt familiar. Pre-match, Zarak had taunted Lecomte with the universal, hands clenched up-and-down signal for the pile driver to Lecomte, and after some nice rope running (including that hip toss power slam that ends so many 50s falls), he hit a flip-up tombstone off the ropes for the win. Post match, he strutted and Lecomte got carted out on a stretcher. Wholly entertaining stuff.


Le Petit Prince vs. Albert Sanniez 10/15/77

SR: 1 Fall match going about 25 minutes. The Little Prince was 10 years into it at this point, but he could still seriously go. Sanniez was an athletic tecnico himself a few years earlier, it‘s quite interesting that he went from stellar tecnico to being a stellar rudo. This was like the worlds most athletic crowd pleasing house show main event you‘ve ever seen. It followed a predictable structure and had the old heel ref spots and what not, but the exchanges were so fast and intricate, the bumps so dedicated that you won‘t care. Sanniez was working this like Fuerza Guerrera, cheating from the get-go and coming across as pretty bumbling as he missed backhands and bumped like a maniac. He did show some glimpses of his past skillful persona and those exchanges were the highlights of the match. There was one exchange that lead into a flying short arm scissor that no one in the world now could pull off. It‘s been said before, but the speed that the Prince got on his stuff is a league of its own. Despite the mostly light hearted nature of the match the Prince ended up taking a big beating and being flung around (with a second in a blue jumpsuit who was also looking like a PE teacher and probably working the opening match that night catching him) before taking the finish in a classy fashion.

MD: Great showcase match for Prince. Sanniez was an admirable foil, quick with the cheapshots and hair pulls and bluster, able to mostly hang but always a half step behind in speed and finesse which only served to make Prince look better especially as he had to spend more than half the match working from underneath. Sanniez was able to cut him off effectively, often times having help from the ref. When it was time for Prince to get revenge, he got it big and entertaining. Lots of his flip-around go-behind up-and-over armdrags, some huge monkey flips, a tapatia, and probably my favorite spot of the match where he tied Sanniez up in the ropes and hit two charging headbutts, where on the second one, the ref who was trying to play interference got bumped dramatically over the top. Tail end of the match had some effective king of the mountain heeling by Sanniez, leading to Prince's final comeback and one of the best visual pins in a sunset flip you'll ever see as Sanniez was practically vertical. Huge spectacle with just enough substance to make it work.

PAS: This was maybe the most lucha match we have seen in this footage. We have the super athletic babyface flyer facing off with a bumping, stooging heel with a bit of Tirantes style ref worked mixed in. Prince is one of the most dynamic wrestlers of all time. He's remarkably fast and smooth with everything he does, but Sanniez is a hell of an opponent, getting huge height on all of his monkey flip bumps and eating all of the armdrags and headscissors perfectly. I really liked all of the king of the hill stuff near the end of the match, great way for the match to break down and add some nastiness to the proceedings. Cool stuff and any chance to see the Prince is a blessing.