Tuesday is French Catch Day: Fake Pat! Vachon ! Togo! Delaporte! Bollet! Valois! Wiecz! Universe!

Pat O‘Connor vs. Paul Vachon 5/23/65

MD: We get a solid 15 minutes of this, enough to learn a thing or two. It's Paul Vachon vs the fake Pat O'Connor. I'm even more sure now that they tried to pull the wool over the crowd that he was the real Pat O'Connor. The commentating calls him a former world champion and while they throw out titles all the time, it just fits here. As before, he's a charismatic pot bellied folk hero styled babyface, working for the crowd with big shots. Vachon's interesting, billed as a lumberjack, but more savvy than wild, apt to hiding in the ropes to get an advantage. I'm pretty certain this is the first time I've seen (chronologically) a heel play "hide the object" in the footage, this time being a string attached to his ring gear apparently that he used to work over the wrist and choke. I wouldn't say the holds here were super compelling but they did work them and struggle in a grinding heavyweight sort of manner. If you're looking for trends, I think we're seeing more whips into the corner in the mid-60s than we have in previous years too. What got the biggest pop was O'Connor tossing him around by his beard, including out of the ring, which was your finish.

SR: JIP. We get about 12 minutes. It‘s Paul Vachon, baby. This was largely two big burly men beating on each other and perfectly solid. I especially liked when Not Pat O‘Connor popped him in the mouth. Big burly Paul Vachon flies over the 3rd rope for the finish.

Tosh Togo vs. Roger Delaporte 5/23/65

SR:1 fall match going under 20 minutes. Harold Sakata enjoyed a nice popularity surge thanks to his appearance in Goldfinger. His popularity was so great that there was even a minor scandal in Germany at the time, as Togo was wrestling as Oddjob, and another promoter had a fake Oddjob main event his own event the same night. This match was mostly Togo being the aggressor in typical carny Japanese fashion with nerve holds, toe kicks and chops. It was nice to see Delaporte in the role of a noble guy taking a beating and in turn kicking the shit out of his opponent. The match felt like two guys who were absolutely not familiar with each other just doing the most simple stuff and really wasn‘t all that great outside of the novelty of seeing Mr. Oddjob. At least we got Bollet having a go at Oddjob after the match.

MD: When the crowd's chanting "Roger" ten minutes into a Delaporte match, you know that they either did something very right or something very wrong. Here it was right. Togo is, of course, Harold Sakata, and he comes out with the full Oddjob gear and the commentary talking about Goldfinger. I think Delaporte booked himself against anyone even vaguely interesting who came through Paris whether it made sense or not. You can't really blame him too much. Here, Togo ambushed Delaporte right from the get go and didn't look back, throwing kicks, chops, and choking on the ropes. Roger's usual tactics of cowering and hiding in the corner didn't work at all, because Togo just didn't care about the rules. He couldn't pick off a leg or get in a cheapshot because Togo was simply relentless. Finally, however, he made it out of the ring, got a breather, and started to fire back. He trapped Togo's leg in the ropes and hammered and pulled at it and the fans loved it. They'd rather their villain tha n this savage interloper dressed in false finery. It was fairly back and forth from there, with big shots and big brawling (and one chinlock, which still got a huge ovation for Delaporte and another chant when he got out of it and started hammering again) until Togo hit a KO shot to end it. Post-match, Bollet saved his partner, and Togo threatened to throw his at at him, so good stuff all around. Nothing fancy here and barely a hold past some stomach claws and that chinlock, but it was fairly rollicking stuff with a foreign attraction and de facto babyface Delaporte getting honest sympathy even without doing anything to change up his act.


Andre Bollet/Frank Valois vs. Eddie Wiecz/Mr. Universe 6/6/65 pt 1, pt 2

MD Weicz/Carpentier is pretty interesting to watch. He absolutely has star power. He has this great way of organically working his athleticism (the flips and cartwheels) into what he's doing. He works these big set pieces into his matches, like fighting out of the corner and backflipping off the ropes, or the four man submission here that worked the ref in as well, but a lot of what he does seems to serve himself as much as the match, especially relative to other guys we've seen. If I'm in this crowd the images that will stick with me would be those big set pieces would be the heels cheating against the far more muscular Mr. Universe and Weicz constantly trying to get justice by getting in, and the end, where he does a great skin the cat headscissors while his partner is getting pinned. He was definitely a guy who knew how to get over. Universe had some charisma, a good look, and some big shots where he put his whole body into it, but at times you got the sense he had no idea what he was doing, too. Valois was a very good partner for Bollet and they stooged and cheated well. This had the most "ref distraction," we've seen so far and the balance between the babyface comebacks and the heels retaking the advantage by double teaming worked out pretty well. Universe wasn't great but given the nature of the match, he didn't have to do a ton but take offense and be a key player during some of the big set pieces either.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. Valois looks like a bigger, fatter, more bald version of Bollet. This was fun when it was just lumpy gentlemen beating on each other. Both Bollet and Valois had some amazing bumps, and Valois threw these cool punches to guys ears. That said this was really long and had too much of guys running in and out of the ring disrupting the action with no real structure. The fans had a blast, though.