Tuesday is French Catch Day: Petit Prince! Bibi! Husberg! Falempin!James Brown! Corne!

 Le Petit Prince vs. Michel Falempin 5/27/66

MD: Seeing d'Ericourt twice in such close succession definitely exposes him a bit at this very early stage in his career. While it wasn't the same match as the Genele one, a lot of the biggest spots were move-for-move repeats of that match. It was a different arena and the fans ate them up, but even more than that, with a different opponent, it was a different match with the spots layered in different places. While Falempin bullied him, more of this was about him containing Prince with hammerlocks and armbar sequences, and that was probably for good reason. The sheer momentum that he had on with his float overs and back flips had him crashing into the ropes in pretty dangerous ways. He overshot about half of what he was going for here recklessly, but that energy and enthusiasm was just electric. No one was going to look away. Certainly, he made it worth it when he battled back and got to get some revenge. This, more than anything else, shows me his progression into a complete, contained, controlled, wrestler in the years that would follow, as he learned to channel his acrobatics and intensity into a far more honed and polished act. At this point, though, he was like lightning bursting onto the scene.

PAS: I am not holding having signature spots against the Prince, he is electric to watch, and just because Santo does his senton tope in every match, doesn't mean I don't want to see that over and over again. I liked Falempin here too, he really wrenched in the hammerlocks and armbars, and made the fancy flipping counters really count. There definitely is a progression later, and the difference between Prince then and Prince in a couple of years is like 93 Rey Jr. and 97 Rey Jr. Still 93 Rey Jr. is fucking awesome as is 1966 Petit Prince. I liked that some of his stuff threw him into the ropes in weird ways, it added to the level of difficulty of the stuff, it was almost like Olympic diving where the flawed dives are as compelling as the perfect ones. 

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. The Prince is clearly becoming a TV mainstay. No surprise. This was another beautiful match. Smooth exchanges beyond belief. Falempin seemed a bit nondescript, but he was a great dance partner for the Prince. Look at how fast he moves behind the  Prince when he goes for a hammerlock, or the way both guys would bump. The devil is in the details, and they had them down pat. Falempin found himself outshone and decided to lay some brutal stomps into the Princes head. He took a big bump, too. Seems he would go on to be a technico later but it was a nice solid non descript rudo performance from him here. And they pulled the more beautiful stuff of like magic.

Cheri Bibi/Eric Husberg vs. James Brown/Jean Corne 6/16/66

MD: Fun tag that goes maybe a bit too long at 40 minutes. Bibi and Husberg were a well oiled machine and much better at controlling the ring but save for a moment at the end of the first fall, it never felt like Brown and Corne couldn't just come back at any moment. Of course, Bibi could also retake control at any moment since he was such a bruiser. I liked the organic transition out of that, by the way. Corne had just eaten a fall after being double-teamed for a while and he had to start the second fall since those were the rules. He's trapped in the corner again but escapes when a fan grabs Husberg's leg. It wasn't quite as smooth as that but it was a nice bit of presence that you'd never see happen today. They built to some of those big triumphant babyface moments, my favorite of which was Corne helping Brown get both guys in leg locks simultaneously before running right over them repeatedly. Someone needs to steal it. I really like Brown in these matches. Yes, he has the headbutt like you'd expect, but he can also slug it out and he's very crisp with most things he does and has some big power moves like a one-armed back breaker and the torture rack lift up out of a chinlock and the airplane spin on Bibi (no small feat) that he finally ended things with.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. Nothing much to see or say here. I'm always happy to see James Brown since his style is a bit different from the regular French guys. He had some nice Fujiwara Armbars here. Other than that this was a house show ish effort. The match hinged on the heel act of Bibi and Husberg and didn't really bring the violence in a big way like in their better matches. Okay stuff but skippable.