Tuesday is French Catch: Khan! Gasparini! Voinet! Kasbarian!Straub! Gugliementi!

Iska Khan vs. Jean Gasparini 7/11/65

MD: We haven't seen Gasparini since 57, when he was thoroughly trounced by Hayes. He's still the game guy, a complete Italian stereotype (the commentator was talking about the crowd throwing tomatoes at him that he'd use for sauce later post match). He reminds me of Jason Schwartzman from the most recent season of Fargo. That makes him a better foil for Khan than Hayes, probably, and this was fun for what it was. Khan's quasi Charlie Chan act, with lots of bowing and chopping and clever foot usage to get out of holds, was definitely over. He also always has a bit more of an edge than you'd expect. At one point, after Gasparini was working nerve holds in and out of the ropes (including recoiling Khan neck first off of them in that old French way that's no longer used now), Khan repositioned to send him sailing out and then charged after him with some brawling on the floor. Gasparini had to resort to cheapshots and stalling for the most part, but he was good at it. Khan's got mad at the end as Gasparini tried to keep him out of the ring and fired back with chops and a final sequence which apparently used secret ancient marital arts to completely paralyze his opponent. He had to undo it after the match. Entertaining stuff with just a bit of an edge.

SR: 1 fall match going about 15 minutes. Gasparini is a rugged looking heel with a mustache who likes to hit shots to the body. This started as a fun tour of Khans spots before Gasparini decided to crank up the violence, even brawling Khan on the floor and swinging the ring steps at him. In turn, Khan started busting out the chops. Felt a little short (Gasparini went down pretty fast) but I enjoyed it.

PAS: I really enjoy watching Khan, he has a bunch of fun chops and eye pokes. Gasparini is a fun pasta and red sauce stereotype Italian, I just wish he hit a little hard. He was throwing body shots and I wanted a little more marinara on them. It did end up getting pretty heated at the end with Khan and Gasparini throwing bigger shots before Khan dropped him for good. I dug this, love Khan, but it was pretty unremarkable overall

Gil Voinet vs. Georges Kasbarian 7/11/65

SR:1 fall match going about 15 minutes. These are two guys with excellent build. Match-wise there was nothing outstanding they grappled a little and Kasbarian started cheapshotting and Voinet fired back and then they took it home. It felt like a match between two body guys.

MD: Like what we often see, but bigger. Both of these guys were definitely heavyweights and they still worked things with holds and escapes. Everything just had more oomph behind it, more shoulder blocks, more slams. Kasparian was quick to go to shortcuts and quick to complain when legitimate escapes got cut off. When Voiney ultimately got mad, his fiery blows were massive and the crowd well knew it. The technical bits weren't as smooth (even when Voiney would do something really impressive like cartwheel out or when Kasparian would try a huge flying headscissors out of an armbar only to get jammed and shrugged off) but they still absolutely worked. Voiney won with an airplane spin but his fireman's carry gutbuster was probably the most impressive single thing in the match.

Vasilios Mantopolous vs. Daniel Noced 7/16/65

SR: About 3 minutes are shown. This was an episode were the pre match on paper looked more exciting than the main event, but it seems these guys weren‘t that familiar with each other to produce a match similiar to Noced/Prince. They hit some hard uppercuts and fast rope running and I enjoyed that.

MD: This is kind of a weird few minutes. It had a few good spots and an ok energy, and maybe it's just because we didn't get the majority of the match, but at times they seemed to match up oddly. There were some starts and stops and some of the acrobatics (like Noced trying to land on his feet out of a monkey flip) weren't at all hit clean. I imagine if we had the longer holds earlier in the match, this would have still been pretty good though.

Luc Straub vs. Giacomo Gugliemetti 7/16/65

SR: 1 fall match going 30 minutes. Matt was wary about this going in, but I thought it was decent catch. They worked simple holds, with enough resistance and intensity that I got into the match. I dug Guguliemetti here, liked how he worked a chinlock, liked how he sold Straubs first chop as if his eardrum was shattered, really liked how he clutched his own arm after hitting Straub to put over how hard he was hitting. Straub didn‘t do any goofy stuff, no judo either though. Bit long match and needed more escalation but I enjoyed myself.

MD: I have to admit, I was sort of dreading this one, and that's before I knew it was going to be a draw. I did know it went around 30 minutes and I knew that Straub's been pretty tough to watch in tags lately. The judo thing only takes you so far, especially in tags where there's a lot of shtick and comedy. This was wrestled straight, though, and it was solid. I'm not sure I needed thirty minutes of it, but it was solid. They would build to blows (with Guguliemetti losing his cool) and then take it back down. It never really boiled over, though, as Straub would fire back but then want a handshake and reset into holds again. What worked was the struggle of the holds, the selling in the moment and immediately thereafter, and the variety that Straub, especially, brought to the table. They didn't really do long working in and out of holds, but instead used a wide variety: a rolling leg nelson, cobra clutch, a short arm scissors, the Mascaras headscissors (which we now know predates him), a body scissors, hammerlocks, Gugulimetti's arm-switch stranglehold, etc. With a couple of fun escapes and dropkicks by Straub here and there and the strike exchanges fun even if, like I said, it never boiled over. If we were beggars and not choosers with this footage, we'd probably rank this fairly high. As it is, it's a half hour of very competent wrestling that never quite feels great.