Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mercier! Montourcy! Yokouchi! Kiyomigawa! Masque! Drapp!

 Guy Mercier/Claude Montourcy vs. Chati Yokouchi/Kiyomigawa 2/20/66

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. Mercier and Montourcy looked like dynamite here. The Japanese guys, not so much. Kiyomigawa has these fun swinging chops and they both cheat, but that‘s it. Mercier and Montourcy have lots of great throws and technical moves. Merciers backbreakers ruled. They looked like they required zero cooperation, and he was ragdolling Yokouchi. Dug the pretty arm throws and his deadlift belly to belly, too. Bit long for a match where one side added very little, but by the end Montourcy and Kiyomigawa were busted open and some fun chops vs. forearms battles occurred.

MD: On paper, this one sounds pretty good. Our chance to see Chati Yokuchi, another look at Kiyomigawa. Legitimately good stylists in Mercier, who we haven't seen in ages, and Montourcy. Some fire, a little bit of blood, an engaged crowd. And it's ok, but it doesn't live up to a lot of the tags we've been seeing. The Japanese were dogged and persistent and mean, but mainly chopped, chinlocked (often with a face rake) and snuck in chokes. They tagged in and out quickly, played up the chops well, and fed though. Mercier and Montourcy were a lot of fun, fighting back from underneath and with plenty of "stuff," Mercier's triple variation backbreakers (one-armed, bearhug, waistlock) and Montourcy's submissions (a twist out of a sunset flip type position and a literal leg nelson where he got the legs behind the head). Mercier fighting out of the corner with forearms or clearing house after a tag was more than solid. The problem? The faces were able to come back a little too much so while the heels drove things, it was never sustained. It was a rare two fall match, with the faces taking both and the second one being very short. Maybe a little too much on the choking and chopping from the heels. Even the blood from the chops was more of a tease than anything else. The action was okay but this one needed a little more drama relative to the excellent tags we've been seeing week in and week out. Speaking of week in and week out, we have a sense of the different arenas now: The Winter Circus, The arena named after Leo Legrange, and this was at the Wagram Room, and someone more attentive than me might be able to speak to the different crowds at each but I loved that they interviewed some regulars here between falls and they said that they came every Thursday because they lived in the neighborhood and knew all the wrestlers by their first name.

L‘Homme Masque vs. Andre Drapp 3/4/66

SR:1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. This started out fun with both guys going hold for hold before Drapp decides to light the Masked Man up with some tough looking punches. It got pretty meandering after that, though. Lots of time killing working over a guy in the ropes and corner. Drapp starts hitting some fun jumping headbutts before L‘Homme connects him with a foreign object for an easy 3 count. Not very exciting match sadly given the talent in it.

MD: Drapp's an old friend we haven't seen for a bit, the valiant Lion of Lorraine. The last time we saw L'Homme, he was sans mask. He has it again here and is unmistakable either way, a towering behemoth who Couderc claims is a mix between the Phantom and Superman. I liked this as a heavyweight slugfest with a lot of character. Drapp carried himself like a main eventer, never backing down despite L'Homme's size. They started out with an almost shoot-like competitiveness, but as the match went on, there was a lot of stooging, that sort of dissonance of a giant needing to (or wanting to) cheat despite his size. He would go from tossing Drapp all around the ring to rolling this way and that as he was getting his comeuppance. Probably the most enjoyable bit here was when L'Homme got stuck in the ropes and Drapp arranged the mask so that he couldn't see and then just dropkicked him like he was in a shooting gallery. The bit at the end where L'Homme loaded his mask with a coin was a pretty distinct bit as well, as was Drapp getting the coin himself and running him off with a loaded punch. There was a bit after the mask twisting and L'Homme tossing Drapp out so he could restore his mask where Drapp's foot got stuck on the way in and L'Homme turned to target it that I wish, by 66, had turned into more consequential selling, but in general, this, while hardly technically smooth, was a perfectly fine heavyweight outing.