Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Quasimodo!! Arroyo! Chaisne!

Josef Kovacs vs Gaby Calderon 10/23/59

MD: We just get a couple of minutes of this but it tells the story. Kovacs is the Butcher of Budapest, a big stalking slugger who whales on his opponents. Calderon spent six months in the Orient and came back without shoes but with chops and throws. He gets his shots in, Kovacs shrugs them off, and ultimately he falls prey to a sort of spinning Atlantida whirlybird.

SR: JIP match with 3 minutes shown. Calderon with his unorthodox style is always fun to watch. And Josef Kovacs was a shaven headed tough guy in a singlet who could kick ass, which is kind of my favourite type of European worker. He worked over the judokas mid section with body section before hoisting him up in an Argentine Backbreaker, spinning round and throwing him like a sack of potatoes for the pin and that is a finish to match. 

Gilbert Leduc vs Quasimodo 10/23/59

MD: I think we've had this one before, a few years back, but we're seeing it in context now, with better VQ and a much better understanding of LeDuc. Remember, we saw Leduc selling and crashing up against walls in Le Borreau's debut as well. Obviously this is our first look at Quasimodo who they bill from America, weirdly enough. He's a different sort of monster, one that will remind you more of Dr. Kaiser than of the behemoths we've seen lately. Skulking, clenching his hands and his face at all times, slipping in gut shots, constantly going for nerve holds and throat shots, with unique, monstrous high spots, and fully immersed interactions with the ref and the crowd. Leduc sells big, both the horror of the nerve hold and ultimately the damage done to him throughout the match. Through much of the match he's able to come back big though, either out wrestling Quasimodo or utilizing the ref's interventions to get some revenge shots in. Midway through, Quasimodo hits his biggest bomb, a draping, over the shoulder, flip of Leduc that lands him throat first onto the ropes. After that, the fight is out of him. His other odd moves are a tombstone position lift that looks strange but painful and a cool arm trap lifting backbreaker. If that pendulum throat shot was the first big turning point of the match, the second is when Leduc jams another attempt of that tombstone position lift by flipping him and hitting some tombstones of his own. That puts him back in the match and they go much more back and forth down the stretch until Quasimodo gets disqualified, presumably for repeatedly attacking, and putting the nerve hold on, before Leduc reaches his feet. It all feels a little dodgy to me, which is probably the point. Cruel, french justice for the monster. This was more of a match but maybe less of a spectacle than some of the other monstrous matches we've seen. Leduc was excellent in it and Quasimodo brought a lot to the table too. Most of all, they were both fully committed to everything that was happening.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. It‘s motherfucking Quasimodo. Quasimodo was another Spanish worker with a deformed head. He came in wearing full on hunchback get up. In the ring he was quite a monster. Short guy who hopped around the ring like a gremlin. With monster heels you usually get them big and slow, I quite like the short and aggressive approach. Leduc was on fire here once again. I think he has a serious case for being the best worker around in 1959, not that we have a huge sample. Quasimodo loved the nerve hold, but that is not a detriment when you‘re fighting Leduc as Leduc struggles so hard against that particular hold and makes it meaningful. Quasimodo, aside from all the cheap heel stuff like choking and inside shots, had quite a few wrestling moves. He had this cool slam from a Japanese strangle hold and a sick looking reverse catapult where he whipped Leduc into the ropes. At one point he even went for a reverse bearhug, really ragdolling Leduc. Leduc had his usual slick wrestling moves and when the freak took it too far he tried to bite his ear off. The 3rd fall was really intense with Quasimodo working over Leducs throws and Leduc just clobbering him with those left-right elbows and whipping out a sick piledriver. Inspiring stuff and Leduc looked dead towards the end. I came in expecting this to be more like a silly freakfight, but I thought this genuinely ended up being a really good match. It‘s telling that a guy with a fucking Quasimodo gimmick could be a convincing heel then. 

PAS: I thought this was excellent. Quasimodo was a true old school wrestling character, but also a hell of cool worker. I loved how single minded he was attacking the throat, from his nasty looking nerve holds and strangles, to his electric chair catapult into the ropes, at one point he even palm struck LeDuc in the throat. LeDuc is a hell of a foil, we get to see the master of the headspin break out his headspin a couple of times, and when it came time to dish it out, LeDuc landed big bombs. I loved his combo elbow strikes, if we are going to have to have elbow exchanges in every wrestling match now, they might as well be cool combos like that. Built to a big finish and it was something that protected both guys, I am a Nightmare Freddy fan, but Quasimodo is by far the best movie monster in wrestling history. 

Yvan Doviskoff vs Delacour (jip) 11/20/59

MD: Two and a half minutes of this. Not a lot to see. I get the sense Doviskoff might be a good cog in a tag match, but we're never going to see him again so it hardly matters.

SR:2 minutes shown. Not much here but there was a pinfall happening after a running cross chop. Love the running cross chop as a finisher. 

Jose Arroyo vs Michel Chaisne

MD: One of the best stylist vs stylist matches we've seen. The first half had a lot of the hang-on-to-a-hold sequences that we're used to, with bigger spots in between, but there were slight evolutions and bits of self-awareness here. Things that might lead to a fall, like a powerbomb counter after two 'ranas, led to another counter and things kept going. In that front half, even after long sequences, they'd just throw themselves into the next with verve and abandon.

They'd move from body part to body part, often in response to what's happened to them. After Chaisne kicked Arroyo in the back to get out of holds twice, Arroyo went after the leg for a bit. After Chasine's long headscissors (including a victory roll back into it) worked his neck, Arroyo hit two neckbreakers and a bodyslam tombstone. After Arroyo hit a backbreaker, Chaisne followed up with whacks to the back, a side backbreaker, and a catapult back onto the knees.

Chaisne's selling was excellent throughout, both little things like touching his back after hitting his own backbreaker after eating Arroyo's, the dramatic things, like the way he'd fall into the ropes and just sit there, legs splayed after getting hammered by a huge forearm, and the cumulative things, as you could absolutely feel the exhaustion and desperation with each move in the back half.

There was a slow escalation of animosity and meanness and aggression. The percentage of wrestling vs strikes flipped as the match went on and ultimately went careening towards an absolute slugfest as they hit the 30 minute broadway. Just an excellent example of a stylist match at its best.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 30 minutes. This was another clean match. I certainly prefer this kind of TV booking where its mostly face vs. heel stuff and brawls with the occasional technico vs. technico dream match thrown in instead of dream matches all the time like it is now. This was another really good match. These are two tall looking guys so when they whip out fast huracanranas and slick reversals it all looks super impressive. It was the first time we see Arroyo in a clean match and it felt like a big step up for him. He‘s looked good going hold for hold before, but his bread and butter has been retaliating against vicious heels. Here he looked really good pushing the pace against Chaisne with some big neckbreakers, a piledriver and a nasty neck hanging submission. There was another great body scissors sequence here and a series of ranas that got countered into a spinning powerbomb. It slowly disintegrates into this long series of strike exchanges that is infinitely more compelling than the long strike exchanges you see nowadays as both guys look like they are clearly trying to get more shots in than their opponents. There‘s some big bumping and really good Mantell/Lawler style exhaustion selling with both guys cracking each other hard, really looking like they want to quit after eating some of those shots but their pride won‘t let them, until the time runs out.

PAS:  This was pretty great stuff. I loved all of the neck work by Chaisne, including a rana into a side triangle choke which really should be stolen by Matt Makowski. The body vice by Arroyo had a bunch of nifty counters and moves out of it too. That piledriver by Arroyo was utterly uncalled for, the kind of thing which would be a finisher in an overloaded indy match, and is nuts that it was in a match from the 50s. Liked the big set of strike exchanges, which were so much cooler then the forearm and stare shit we get today. Just cool wrestling.