Tuesday is French Catch Day: Blousons Noir! Aubriot! Bayle! LeMao! Kocheski!

 Dan Aubriot/Remy Bayle vs. Le Blousons Noirs (Manuel Manneveau/Claude Gessat) 4/9/66

MD: Excellent tag, but there's no reason to expect less from Les Blousons Noirs. By this point they have the balance down perfect, especially relative to their peers, losing even, fair (but quick and stylish) exchanges, but going quick to the cheating and double teaming and controlling most of the match by controlling the ring. The comebacks were big and spectacular. The match was full of big spots like Manneveau launching Bayle out of the ring with a belly to belly or Aubriot doing this amazing sequence of hitting a handspring, headbutting one guy off the apron and then putting the other into a tapitia or the finish to the first fall where they invert the revenge spot of tying a heel up in the ropes. Once the tide turned in the second fall, it was all but over which is the big issue with some of these: long first fall, much smaller second, and tiny third, but it was still pretty satisfying. Manneveau is an all time stooge and Gessat is an absolute pitbull but they can both go and give and take it equally well. Good stuff all around.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 25 minutes. A nice mix of Aubriot and Bayle doing some pretty outstanding wrestling and the Blousons being vicious pricks. Licked the opening tumbling a lot. Marcel Manneveau looked great as usual. Mostly because he is an absolute fucker, but also because he really knows how to pick his spots. He attacked the fingers and wrist, suplexed people over the ropes, and did about everything a ghastly French heel needs to do. This didn't turn into some brilliant frenzy like the best French tags but there was plenty of violence, plenty of quick exchanges and it was pretty lean at only about 25 minutes.

PAS: Blousons are just incredibly entertaining, vicious killers, big bumpers, goofy stooges, everything you would want from a heel team. I loved the nastiest of their arm work stomping on the elbow in a over hand wristlocks, kicking faces, landing uppercuts. Aubriot and Bayle had some really slick shit too, the Aubriot finishing run to the first fall is the kind of thing which should be giffed and sent around the internet. The bar for French Catch tags is impossibly high, but this was a real treat even if it wasn't the super high end. 

Henri LeMao vs Zadi Kocheski 4/17/66

MD: Another look at the great Henri LeMao. If the world was just we'd have another dozen of his matches. We don't. He was a wizard and with excellent takedowns, holds, counters, striking. Kochecki was a loudmouth and while it was fun to watch him get more and more frustrated as the match went on, he never came across as particularly dangerous except for the very end when he tossed LeMao out and was playing King of the Mountain.  My favorite bit was an exchange where LeMao got Kocheski caught in the ropes only to graciously let him go; Kocheski immediately followed suit by trapping LeMao in the ropes and hammering him; so, of course, LeMao got revenge by trapping him again and hitting the charging headbutts to the crowd's delight. All in all, it felt a little like a fairly equal Zoltan Boscik vs poor man's Jim Breaks. It's not that I didn't like Kocheski; he was emotive and engaged and active and really got under the crowd's skin but I think I would have rather seen both of these guys against different opponents, LeMao against someone who could hang more and Kocheski against someone who was more of a scrapper like Jacky Corn.

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. This was like the prototypical face/heel match. LeMao is a balding gentleman and a brilliant technician. And Kocheski was pretty much throwing inside shots from the go. LeMao had some great technical moves and escapes and Kocheski kicked the shit out of him. The crowd got really heated, LeMao fired back in kind and a good time was had. That's about all I have to say here, but both guys looked really good.

PAS: I was into this. Really fun to watch LeMao have an answer for everything Kocheski threw at him, before Kocheski lost his temper. I especially loved LeMao's headscissors into a neck crank cool vicious twist on a spot we have seen a lot. We get a solid slugfest finish with big uppercuts and LeMao dropkicks right to Kocheski's face. Not as good as the previous LeMao match, but I am glad we got another look at him, really fun talent.