Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gueret! Teddy Boy! Chaisne! Corne! Bollet! Wiecz!

George Gueret/Teddy Boy vs. Michel Chaisne/Jacky Corne 7/30/56

MD: Hell of a tag here. Just hard hitting, constant motion and attitude and fire. Guerret and Teddy Boy made for a great team, which Guerret really a proto Harley Race in a lot of ways (even shaved), between his ruggedness and his willingness to bump and stooge. He's just missing the suplexes. Teddy Boy is just a manic creep, constantly getting involved, constantly swiping at his opponents like a bulldog, full of attitude, endlessly dangerous in the corner, a heatseeking machine, but also completely willing to run into a bull charge "Ole" type spot between falls. He'd get tossed out of the ring and immediately run around to try to grab a leg from the outside. Guerret and Teddy Boy absolutely controlled the ring well, pressing their opponents to the corner at every opportunity. Chaisne had the height (which gave him good slams relatively) and could do everything you'd expect a stylist to be able to do, able to go up and over backwards to get out of a hammerlock or hit dropkicks in rope running segments. There was one point where he kept throwing Guerret across the ring and did these pounce-like shoulder blocks again and again. Really, though it's Corn who stands out, like always. He's the best slugfest machine that we have in this footage, and these bad guys deserved to eat forearms. I feel like we haven't seen the spinning toehold much and Corn broke it out here, as well as a sort of Indian Deathlock (the Gagnelock style, with the foot pressing against the knee), and Chasine and Corn locking in tandem leg nelsons whacking their opponents' faces into the mat repeatedly at the same time. Finish was a little confusing to me. Guerret tended to break up falls more than most we've seen and it's possible he might have gotten DQed for doing it too often, but the last image of the match was Teddy Boy bumping hard over the top, so the ref might have just called it after that. The fans didn't care. It ended on a triumphant note with the creep going splat. Just good, fundamentally sound mid 60s French tag wrestling.

PAS: We are really getting a ton of great tags in this period, it almost feels like 60s France was an 80s Crockett level of a tag promotion.  All four of the guys in this match were great, but man alive was Teddy Boy incredible, he really reminded me of Jerry Estrada in both the frequency and insanity of his bumps and the sleaziness of his aura. He just seemed like such a scum bag in the best wrestling way. Corn was also great, he is a super hard hitter along with being skilled and the pop of the exchanges in this match was one of the things that really stood out, all four guys were bringing the heat. I also had no idea what was going on with that finish, but it didn't really dim my enjoyment of the match or anything. Looking forward for more from all of these guys.

Eddy Wiecz vs. Andre Bollet 9/20/65

MD: Battle between two wrestlers that are about as iconic as you can get in this footage. I've seen hints at it before, but I'm really sure of it now: Wiecz/Carpentier just gets it. He gets it on a level that every other stylist just hadn't figured out. They're all out there having brilliant Catch bouts and he's canny enough to play like a star. He's got his big spots (like the back flip off the top) and he works them in. He milks it before doing them. He'll take a lot of offense but be stoic about it, coming off as tough. Most of all, though, he'll build towards a big moment of comeback, here, a telegraphed block and a comeback punch, that's much more definitive than the ebb and flow we get from almost everyone else. Even a guy like Corn will just fire back but this was set up for the people in the back row and the folks at home. He's also going to break norms; Bollet kept picking him up at 2 to punish him more, so during the comeback, Wiecz would do the same. It's a bit of elaboration you didn't really get as often as you'd expect in the footage so far. Bollet, of course, worked not just for the people in the back row, but for the birds flying above the building, emoting so big that surely they could see him through the roof. When it's time for him to takeover, he's just the meanest swarming striker. When it's time to stooge again, he gets caught in the ropes or lobbed to the floor or trapped in a hold and his face contorts in every shape imaginable. He's good enough to land a great escape, but almost every time he gets immediate comeuppance; he'll then come back by being twice as nasty with chokes or cheapshots though. He's the very best at what he did. The match had a few holds that went a little too long and maybe Wiecz took a little too much of it, but people knew what to expect coming in and I doubt anyone except for fans with the most particular standards would come out of it disappointed.