Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Bayle! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Strangler! Drapp! Vignal

MD: Couple of programming notes to start. First, we've been doing this for a couple of weeks more than a year now and I can't begin to tell you how great a part of my week this has been during these tough, isolated times. Thanks to everyone who has watched, commented, shared, and shown passion towards this project and this footage. We had no idea just how lucky we were going to be with it when we started. We could guess from what we already had, sure, but who knew that the week to week quality was going to be so high? That said, we're about to hit the dark period in the footage. Due to a cultural blowback, wrestling was much less frequently shown on TV between around this period and 1965. We still have a few scattered shows in 1961, then a handful of 1962 shows, just a couple of 63 ones, and only one for 64. It starts back up pretty steadily after that, and we've jumped ahead a couple of times to see that while different, everything's absolutely worth watching. That said, you can't help to be a little sad for what simply wasn't shown on TV for those missing years. Still, let's enjoy what we do have, including some really good ones this week.


Jacky Corne vs. Remy Bayle 4/14/61

MD: We get a good 25 minutes of this before it cuts out abruptly but it's well worth watching. This was right after Gagarin went into space and the announcer starts by referencing that which adds just a little bit of historical pinpointing to all of it. Just excellent stylist vs stylist stuff here, with Bayle younger and hungry. This had some of the best, most aggressive chain wrestling we've seen in a match like this, with each wrestler constantly trying to jock for position and escape holds and more effort than usual in the attempts to prevent escape (and there's usually a lot of effort so that's saying something). They even started with lockups instead of the usual double knucklelock/test of strength hand to hand entry points, which we haven't seen a ton of. Bayle went to the uppercuts first but Corn shut him down almost immediately with the leg nelson. They worked back up to more striking and Bayle followed with bodyscissors. They worked the intermission escape on that and then right back into it, then spent the rest of the match going between holds interspersed with spots and striking. It's a shape it cut off because if we had a finish on this, I could see it ranking pretty high for 1961. We get spatterings of Bayle all the way through the 80s, so it'll be interesting to see how he develops.

Jacques Bernieres vs. Jean Martin 4/21/61

MD: We get the last four minutes of this and it was pretty spirited. The announcer got confused which guy was which at the beginning, which messed me up too, but I'm pretty sure we come with Bernieres getting some revenge on Martin, who bumps and stooges big. The most memorable bit of this is Martin eating a back body drop over the top by the ref and after some good slugging and spots, Bernieres goes to the shoulder throw well one too many times and Martin hits him with a knee trembler. Post match, someone throws something (I think candy?) at Martin and he catches it and eats it, which is just brilliant stuff.

Andre Drapp/Bernard Vignal vs. Rocco Lambam/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 4/21/61

MD: Another week, another great tag. This is our first look at Kaiser in a while and I think our last look at him in general. Here he was spry and coy, emanating an air of gingerness that drew heat, even as he consistently worked to trap his opponent into his corner to lay in punishment. Lamban is, of course, El Strangulator. He has a dozen ways to strangle you (chinlock, cobra clutch, his finishing dragon sleeper, the very cool horizontal lift finger-into-throat when the ref can't see). Drapp and Vignal are a pretty perfectly paired tag team, with Vignal a little older but capable and fiery and Drapp one of those guys like Corn who have a real "ace" feel to them. Both can control on the mat, portray vulnerability, and come back strong. They took a huge chunk of this to start, but when you're wrestling two guys with strangleholds who can turn the match on a dime and then keep it turned due to chicanery and cutting off the ring, it more or less worked out.

PAS: The good doctor returns! Kaiser is one of my favorite characters in French Catch, and I love to see him sleaze around the ring. Cheapshotting, begging off, back jumping, all with that prim aristocratic affect. You can just see him walking into the farmhouse and drinking the fresh glass of milk. I love a strangler, and Rocco finds so many different ways to choke and torture, that lifting choke thing Matt mentioned was awesome. They are such a despicable pair. These weren't amazing babyface performance opposite them, but they did the job, delivered a beating when it was called for, added their own bag of tricks and were sympathetic victims. Match just kind of ended, without a big moment or two, which would have elevated it, but I wish we had another two dozen matches from Dr. Adolf and El Strangulator.  

SR: 2/3 Falls match over 30 minutes. The seemingly last appearance of the nefarious Dr. Adolf Kaiser. His partner here was Rocco Lamban, said to be a Spaniard. Lamban was another guy with a massive upper body and spindly arms and leopard trunks. If there‘s one thing to learn from old pro wrestling it‘s that guys in leopard trunks are likely douches. Lamban also knew how to finish people off with chokeholds. And that is what made this match really fun, as Dr. Kaiser & Lamban were constantly looking for a strangle hold, with Drapp & Vignal doing a lot of fun wrestling to squirm out of potential submissions. The animalistic behaviour of Dr. Kaiser is always highly entertaining, too. This developed into a quite intense beatdown on the faces. I‘ve been wondering whether the deal with Dr. Kaiser is similiar to the British deal that they wouldn‘t show his most violent matches on TV, but he and Lamban were surely and kicking ass full on here. I thought the match ended a little abruptly as it seemed to hint at the faces administering an epic counter-asskicking, but as it was it was a really fun romp.