Tuesday is French Catch Day:Les Copains! Blousons Noir! Said! Kader! Bernaert! Double Dip of Manneveau!

MD: As promised, let's talk quickly about 1963 and 1964, and really, why we have so little from 61 on. Over at PWO, Phil Lions stopped by and told us the following:

"How come there were so few shows in 1961, you may ask? Well, in April of 1961 Maurice Herzog (the French Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports at the time) put pressure on the network not to air catch anymore, because he considered it a "degrading spectacle" and wanted them to focus on other "more noble" sports such as athletics, boxing, skiing, volleyball, and basketball. Despite catch being one of its most viewed sports broadcasts, the network could no longer air it regularly so they'd only do a handful of broadcasts per year. So that explains why there's so little footage from 1961 and onward."

So we're suffering here, 60 years later, from a cultural backlash. Phil also looked through French newspapers in 1964 and found about ten TV listings for Catch, including a couple of Rikki Starr matches (including one vs Gastel), but we don't seem to have those from the archives. Hope springs eternal that they might one day show up.

If you haven't already seen Phil's article on L'Ange Blanc, go check it out. It's phenomenal: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=005393

Le Grand Vladimir vs. Bernard Vignal 5/16/64

MD: We'll take whatever we can get in 64, obviously, but this might not have been my first choice. It's 9 minutes JIP and fine. Vladimir is a guy who we have British footage of decades later but seeing him young is new. He hits hard (including slaps/chops at the neck), had the sort of chokes and nerve holds you'd expect, some nice throat-based offense using the ropes, and an interesting entry into a cobra clutch off the ropes I haven't seen before. Vignal is someone we've seen before, an older scrapper with the fans behind him, but this never really escalates into the slugfest you'd want it to, and it ends on a pretty lame low kick DQ. Certainly ok stuff, and we're beggers and not choosers for this year but nothing high end.

Les Copains (Dan Aubriot/Bob Plantin) vs. Blousons Noirs (Manuel Manneveau/Claude Gessat) 5/16/64

MD: If we're only going to have one full match from 64, this isn't a bad one to have. Manneveau and Gessat are such a great unit and I'm glad we get at least a few more matches with them upcoming. They are such a well-oiled machine, constantly drawing heat, constantly cheating, constantly looking for an advantage or a double team, and when it's time, feeding and stooging. We know how good Aubriot was and he lived up to that here, with flashy offense, sympathetic selling during the long FIP stretches, and fiery comebacks when he had the chance (though always cut off in the back half due to the backwork; even after he snuck the fall on a bridge, he couldn't get out of the bridge without Plantin's help). Plantin showed a lot of fire here, especially being great on the apron. After the super fast, tricked out opening exchanges and some great hold exchanges, the rest of the match was heat and more heat, with some southern tag tricks, that heavy back focus on Aubriot, and some hot tags. Finish could use just a little more weight to it, but at that point, you got the sense that the Copains were just worn down from the constant assault.

SR:2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. The French love their tag matches. This started out as a fantastically athletic match, with guys busting out sick looking kip ups and working holds with fantastic resistance. Then it turned into a total asskicking. That was due to Manneveau and Gessat, who cut off the ring and beat their opponents like they owed them money. Aubriot and Plantin fired back like any French babyface would, with massive european uppercuts and throwing their opponents around the ring with blindingly fast headscissors. The Blousons ruled the show though, with those nasty short kicks, stomps, kneedrops to the face, and throwing hands. While Aubriot and Plantin were supposed to bring the spectacular, the Blousons had some big moves of their own, including probably the highlight of the match, a crazy headscissor counter into a huge backbreaker. The 3rd fall was just a house of fire with Aubriot and Plantin having enough and just stomping their opponents on their face. It‘s not hard to see from performances like this that the Blousons Noirs act is up there with the Anderson Bros, Misioneros de la Muerte, Ikeda and Ono etc. as an incredible heel unit.

PAS: This was killer stuff, a fine 1964 MOTY representative, even if we only have one match. Noirs have shown signs of it in the other stuff we have, but man was this a master class of showing out for the babyfaces and when given a turn just unleashing a bruising. The opening section was really fast and elaborate, reminding me of a great opening Caida in a lucha match. When it got down and dirty in got down and dirty with the babyface landing big shots and being matched with even bigger stuff Manneveau almost leaps into his uppercuts spinning the babyfaces around with them when they land. He also hit almost a springboard jumping roll up for the for the second fall. The third fall was furious stuff ending with an assault with Manneveau stomping and punching Plantin right on the throat,  he landed a disgusting knee which looked like it crushed his windpipe. The final big bodyslam almost felt like a respite. 

Arabet Said/Abdel Kader vs. Pierre Bernaert/Marcel Manneveau 1/10/65

MD: This was extremely heel-in-peril, with very few periods of extended heat, despite Bernaert and Manneveau sure trying their best and taking every opportunity. In some ways, that's a shame, because you could tell from the get go, this was a really game crowd and they would have near-rioted if there was any actual heat. At one point, some lady swipes Manneveau's leg from the outside and he barely even deserved it at that point. That's a lie. He always deserves it. What a pest. He's almost like a combination of Delaporte's mustache and smugness and willingness to show ass with Bollet's manic energy. He threw himself into everything, including bumping out of the ring repeatedly and hitting a crazy fast spinning and twisting sunset flip to win the first fall. Bernaert was more than happy to play along. He's always a great slugger and so good at being smarmy with the ref and his opponent. Said looked great here, with one extended short arm scissors bit where he kept getting each guy into it and a lot of legitimately funny stuff worked around his hard head. Kader could garner sympathy and had solid striking but he was in there to lose the advantage so Said could get it back. They built to some fun and elaborate heel miscommunication spots late. Bernaert's come a long way and Manneveau is just one of the most entertaining guys in all of the footage.

SR:2/3 falls match going about 38 minutes. This was another good match although slightly overshadowed by the above tag. Bernaert and Manneveau, the heel team, didn‘t fully let loose like the Blousons did above. There was still plenty of asskicking going on, with Arabet Said doing some fun hard head work, and we got treated to some quality wrestling from the faces including some great short arm scissors work. There was a genius moment where Mannevau from the apron tripped somebody up, who fell perfectly into a Bernaert front headlock and set him up for Manneveau to come in with several flying stomps. That is high end heel work just thrown out casually in a match that is basically a fun house show main event by the standards of this stuff.

PAS: Fun match and a look at a slightly different shade of Mannevau. He was much more of a goof here, getting caught in the ropes, spun around by armdrags, stooging for Said hard head. We never got to see him unleash the brutality he showed in the previous match, but he was great in a more overtly comedic role, as was Bernaert who just got angrier and angrier the more he got flummoxed. Love a hard skull gimmick and Said did it well, including Baernert basically breaking his arm trying to forearm him. Great week with two different but hyper enjoyable tag matches.