Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Wiecz! Rene Ben! Cesca! Lagache! N'boa!
Andre Bollet vs. Eddy Wiecz 9/21/65
MD: This is the finals of the Salon Cup, or at least it's for the cup, and it's primal and personal and violent and fun. There's a certain familiarity here that we don't usually get in the footage. It almost feels like a big blowoff match in a feud as opposed to the sporting match of the week, which is how it usually goes. There's a little bit of wrestling to start, with Wiecz able to hang on to holds or go right back into them and Bollet, as always, able to stooge his way right out of small, skillful victories in the most entertaining fashion possible. When it starts to pick up (with Bollet throwing the first blow), it never really settles back down. They're constantly abusing the ref whenever he tries to intervene and while he gives public warnings, he's suitably bullied by them and likely afraid to throw the whole thing out considering the importance of the match. Bollet will choke and grind and hammer, but then Wiecz will come back with just huge shots mixed in with a little bit of his athleticism, like the backflip off the top, or fun moments like catching Bollet's foot in the ropes and then tying the ref up too when he tried to stop him. They do a very good job of selling the attrition as the match goes on, with Wiecz flopping on shaky legs and Bollet needing to lean on his seconds or hang on to the ref. Ultimately it spills onto the floor and they have a last thundering exchange before Wiecz is to put him away definitively in the center of the ring. Just a real classic slugfest. If you told me this was the most watched and remembered French match-up of the 60s, I'd believe you.
Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Pierre Lagache/N'boa Le Congalais 10/3/65
MD: What to even do with this tire fire? N'boa was Bob Elandon who we saw not too long ago as a real heatseeker. Now he's a savage from the Congo with a handler (a woman dubbed Franziska Von Biesen dressed like Kim Chee without the mask and with a whip). Elsewhere, he'd come out as N'boa the Snakeman with a giant python. So, basically Kamala, right? Most of us can watch Kamala matches, no problem. What makes this one different? It's the crowd. I don't think I've ever quite seen a French crowd like this, not with Bollet and Delaporte, not with Quasimodo, not with Von Kramer or Kaiser, not even with Elandon the last time we saw him. Likewise, as good as Cesca and Ben Chemoul were (and they're just a really great team), I've never seen the crowd so behind them, not against Bibi and Bernaert or the Black Diamonds or the Teddy Boys. While the commentator was going on about how, if N'boa lost, he'd be sent back to the jungle to live in his trees, this crowd wanted their countrymen to put the savage in his place more than I've ever seen them want anything. We're ten years in now, have seen so much, and it's the comparative view that damns this so thoroughly. What else to even say? The wrestling was very good?
Labels: Andre Bollet, Bob Elandon, Edouard Carpentier, French Catch, Gilbert Cesca, Pierre Legache, Rene Ben Chemoul
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