Tuesday is French Catch Day: BILLY CATANZARO! Duranton! Chaisne! Le Magorou! Mantopoulos! Louis!

 Michel Saulnier vs. Jetty Coster 06/03/60

SR: JIP match where get the last 8 minutes of a time limit draw. Jetty Coster, what a name. Saulnier was young and lean at 24 years old. Coster was bigger, but Saulnier was relentless and seemed to be tiring him out. Some quite amazing fast moving sequences here, including Saulnier backflipping and then popping up with a headbutt, and some neat pin attempts. This about served the point of being a fun scientific wrestling exhibition while folks sat there waiting to throw cigarettes at Robert Duranton.

MD: We get around 8 minutes of this. They'd already gone 22 or so. It's good action with a clever callback or two even in what we have. There's were a couple of great bursts of speed and complex spots, including Saulnier hitting a leap up to a victor roll though he had to grab the rope to do so. My favorite bit was a little later when Coster dodged another Victory roll but sort of shifting himself between the raindrops so Saulnier had nothing to hang on to. I've never quite seen that before. Otherwise, this could have used a little bit more focus. As it went towards the time-limit draw, there was a little bit of escalation with forearms but it was mostly Saulnier containing Coster by hanging onto an arm. This was our first look at Coster and he definitely hung with and based for Saulnier. We won't see him again so that's going to be my only impression of him.

Robert Duranton vs. Michel Chaisne 06/03/60

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Last time we saw Duranton he was flamboyant. Now, he has returned with a bleach blonde head, a robe and an equally arrogant male valent. I would say it feels novel compared to his earlier appearance if we hadn‘t seen a murderers row of whacky characters ranging from masked hangmen to literal Quasimodo and motherfucking Spartacus on TV in the last few months. This was another heated match with Chaisne bringing the wrestling and Duranton bringing the cheapshots and swaggering. There were some interesting moments around his valet who had a few audience members going at him and even got into the ring to get thrown around by Chaisne one time. There was also one well executed ref spots that stood out because I am used to ref spots coming across as really fakey. Really liked the backbreakers Duranton would hit followed by those nasty short kicks. Chaisne doesn‘t sell on the level to make this an epic match but we get Duranton finishing him off in a quite brutal way. France sure wasn‘t afraid of having nasty bomb throwing for a finish.

MD: We've seen this exact match up back in 58 and at that point, it was entertaining but Duranton hadn't quite worked it all out. Here, his act was complete. He now had a valet in a tuxedo that he worked into his match as a prop. He was haughty before, but it was turned up a notch or two. And maybe most important of all, the wrestling was smoother and he didn't do anything outside of his physical limits. Chaisne is just an excellent stylist: right place, right time, right moves. He also had a familiarity with Duranton and played into his opponents gimmick: escaping holds by mussing his hair, going tit for tat with revenge spots mimicking Duranton's cheapshots or backbreakers, coming back from Duranton's peppering kicks with a big face twister. This was over 25 minutes over the two falls and through a mix of familiar spots and new ones, through working in the valet and the ref, through Duranton's reactions and general meanness and Chaisne's superior prowess and perseverance, it's entertaining the whole way through. You almost can't imagine it not being so. When the valet is finally most fully involved, as Chaisne whips him into a tied-in-the-ropes Duranton, you can see the delight on the faces of the fans. Duranton gets a lucky reversal towards the end of the first fall, dumping Chaisne over the top on a third monkey flip attempt, and that's basically the match, but it was fun while it lasted.

PAS: Chaisne is a bit Vanilla but a really skilled wrestler who can deliver some pop, which really makes him the perfect opponent for over the top characters like Kaiser or Duranton. Duranton was so great in this match, he was like Adrian Street's daddy, a flamboyant prancer who could turn into a vicious killer at the drop of a bow. There was some great stooge spots, Duranton walking away from a dropkick attempt to pose, only to get dropkicked in the mush, and some really nasty stuff like Duranton sitting on Chaisne's face and smashing him with body shots. I thought the finish felt a bit flat, we have seen some vicious beatdown finishes, and while the exchanges were great the actually moves which put Chaisne down weren't at the level I expect for French Catch KO blows. Still this had a ton to love, and I am all in on Duranton. 

Billy Catanzaro/Gilbert Le Magorou vs. Vasilios Mantopoulos/Francis Louis 8/19/66

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. Billy Catanzaro, baby. Regrettably we only got about 4 more matches of the man who started the craze in the French archive, but Billy Catanzaro is really making every single one count so far. This was right on the awesome match train. It was basically the worlds greatest IWE juniors tag with a bunch of elegant arm lock throws and takeovers interspersed with guys kicking the shit out of each other. Catanzaro was already a grimacing veteran heel here and while you’d love to see him work more straight matches like the Cesca bout, he is fantastic in the Finlay role. He does about a 100 awesome things in this match. The nasty face stomps, the stiff short kicks, the unexpected bitchslaps, a super fast spinning armlock that looked like it would pop your shoulder, some nasty face grinding, the way he got his foot stuck in the ropes when he tried breaking up a pinfall... at one point he just went and punched Louis in the face to break up a pinfall, which is a sure mark of an all time great. I also loved his missed european uppercuts. Gilbert Le Magorou felt a bit like he was Catanzaros trainee, as he looked a bit younger and did similar things to Catanzaro but a bit less extravagant. That said he was extremely solid and never a let up, but this was the Catanzarro show through and through. He looked just great at both the actual wrestling as well as the stooging and bumping for his opponents. 

Mantopoulos and Louis on the other were a great pair of tecnicos. Mantopoulos is of course someone with a million tricks, but I also really liked his elegant wristlock reversals early on. That kind of opening wristlock work is is hard to make compelling when you’ve seen geeks like Zack Sabre Jr. doing it to death but it looked classy here. Mantopoulos also has some of the more esoteric moves you’ll see in this project including that awesome swinging backbreaker that Julien Morice did in a World of Sport match once and  the GIF of it became semi-famous on certain image boards. Francis Louis was the more straight forward side of the technico team and while not as flashy as his partner I really appreciated his dedication to just wrestle and throw brutal European uppercuts when it was needed. The match had a few heat sections that were extremely well done, particularly all the interference spots from Catanzaro/Le Magouru, and a great moment where Catanzaro took a fall with a tombstone piledriver, immediately going for the same move in the next fall with his opponent barely escaping. The match built to some brilliant quick rope running exchanges, and most importantly there was a ton of asskicking going on. I have no idea how these guys just clubbed each other with thudding European uppercuts straight to the jaw and nasty short kicks for +30 minutes and never slowed down but I loved every second. For a fast workrate-like match it got pretty nasty towards the end with Gilbert looking like he was about to get KO’d by Louis. I would’ve liked Louis to finish the match as he was looking like the toughest skinny lightweight on earth as he kept smashing dudes with those uppercuts. But instead he tagged in Mantopoulos and the match ended in a pretty esoteric way. That said the journey is the destination when it comes to European wrestling and this match was a 35 minute monolith of brilliant wrestling. Which begs the question, excluding BattlArts and Futen is France the greatest place for junior tag wrestling of all?

PAS: Damn did this rule. It is such a bummer we have so little of Catanzaro, with almost a decade in between appearances. He is a very different wrestler here, much more of a trick veteran than an athletic marvel, but he is tremendous in every variation we have seen him. Mantopoulos is a fancy dude, his spinning wrist lock reversals, actually looked fast and violent, and that back breaker variation Sebastian mentioned was totally dope looking. Both rudo were great at feeding for the fancy tecnico offense, and would unload when they got a chance.  I loved the different ways the heels would get tied up in the ropes,  great bit of stooging stuff and a great way to for the faces to get their revenge. We get our traditional violent uppercut exchanges, with Le Magouru especially really getting great torque with his hips before throwing them, it was like a Joe Frazier left hook. Finish was a bit silly for a match with such violence with both heels getting tied up in balls and counted out, but this was still an all timer. 

MD: Thirty-five minutes of brilliant pro wrestling. At times, this had some of the fastest, most consistent, most elaborate chained spots we've seen as the heels keep feeding for Mantopoulos and Louis' takedowns and holds. It was often so quick and creative that the camera didn't know what to follow. That sums up the match as well as anything else. The heels weren't in charge much but they made the most of it when they were. Catanzaro was such an amazing jerk, one of the greatest characters in wrestling history, dancing and prancing around with excitement, making elated faces, as he laid in forearms, kicks, and stomps (immediately to beg off if he lost the advantage). He could go from sheer brutality to getting his foot caught in the rope on a dime. Le Magorou had a slightly out of shape junior goon look to him and he made for a great whipping boy for Catanzaro whenever they get foiled or clowned. They hit enough of their cheating and double-teaming to make it all credible and to make it matter all the more when it didn't work out for them. Louis always looks good, but Mantopoulos just goes above and beyond. He possessed great physical awareness in how he ducked a forearm or spun out before a takedown. It's as if the world moved half a step slower than him, which worked not just for wild spots but for seizing a normal advantage. Honestly though, they all went so fast when it was warranted that most exchanges started with a believable little fake out attempt. They went little with the fake-outs or Catanzaro's mean mugging, but they went big too, whether it was Catanzaro hitting two full nelson spins into backbreakers only for Mantopoulos to tag in and reverse the third with a Robinson backbreaker and then hit conjuro style spinning trapping backbreakers on both guys or when they trap both heels in the ropes and hit multiple alley oop body splashes on them. The back half of the match contained more of those elaborate set pieces and the crowd loved all of it, building finally to one of the more unique finishes you'll ever see.

ER: I loved this, and how could you not!? This is just the pinnacle of athleticism and personality through pro wrestling. I genuinely don't think there is any acrobatic wrestling better than this, nothing today compares to this. There are great athletes today, but none of them can work with the unpredictability and creativity of the men here. The unpredictability is the key, as you just never have any real idea of where some of these guys are going with their material, and yet nobody ever seems lost, nobody ever seems to be waiting too long in position, nobody does anything with their face or body to indicate they know what is happening next. Their misdirection skills are incredible, nothing in sight is telegraphed. It's incredible. 

This was such a thrill, with an excellent rudo team and two incredibly fun and capable tecnicos. Catanzaro is a legend of ours at this point, and it's great we now have two matches of his, a decade apart, with such different aspects of his abilities on display. This was like a hyperdrive William Regal house show performance from him, stooging around while throwing uppercuts so hard they looked like Louis and Mantopoulos weren't leaping to sell them, instead being lifted by force. He and Gilbert Le Magorou are such an excellent team of single strap stooges, and it feels like Catanzaro is so magnetic that he kept outshining the also excellent Magorou. Magorou looked and wrestled like the best possible Oliver Platt in Ready to Rumble. He had a belly and great floppy hair and Catanzaro knew a ton of different ways to fall into the ropes. Each seemed like they had cool ways to fall on the bottom, middle, and top rope, and knew a few ways to get tangled in the ropes (two heels both tangled by their ankles in the ropes is the kind of thing I picture a John Tatum/Buddy Rose team doing). Mantopoulos is a tecnico who is impossible to take your eyes off of, with some of the most beautiful step up headscissors, hardest dropkicks, has a few of these incredible pendulum backbreakers (like Norman Smiley's pendulum bodyslam, but ending on a backbreaker), and a killer spot where he vaults off Mantopoulos's knee, kicks over his head, and lands in front of him on his back just to hit a wicked upkick. We haven't really had a disappointing batch of French Catch yet, but getting brilliance like this match is rare. 

Unsurprisingly, we are adding this tag match as the 1966 representative on our All Time MOTY List.