Tuesday is French Catch Day: Wiecz! de Zarzecki! Saturski! Wentzel! Bibi! Cesca!

Eddie Wiecz/Warnia de Zarzecki vs Rudi Saturski/Harry Wentzel 8/29/66

MD: The idea that Carpentier isn't fascinating to watch in 60s France is just insane to me. There's no one we've seen in this footage, including guys who were both owners and incredibly protected on finishes like Delaporte, who knew how to get over and how to stay over. It's like watching Dusty Rhodes or Ultimo Guerrero or Triple H. Our pal OJ said that he wouldn't be surprised if tag matches like these didn't contribute to the decline of popularity of French Catch mainly because of the gaga, but I think that notion is sort of nuts too, as we're watching this stuff week in and week out and the gaga is entertaining and the fans are completely into it. I refuse to believe that 1960s French audiences didn't like to be entertained and were frustrated that they weren't getting seven-minute hammerlock exchanges instead (even if those seven-minute hammerlock exchanges tend to be awesome too). There was enough heat and substance here to make it all feel balanced. I'd be willing to entertain a notion that Wiecz being so dominant might have turned off audiences over time, but at this point, he's so athletic, creative, and flashy about it that it just seems doubtful too. If you're going to eat guys up and win every strike exchange, punctuating things with headstand and flip sentons or the corner punch backflip seems the way to do it. There really is a sense that in manipulating the crowd and ensuring he gets so many of the big memorable moments that everyone would be talking about on their way home, he was playing chess and everyone else was playing checkers, though.

Anyway, this was definitely enjoyable. Saturski and Wentzel are Germans and I think what other footage exists of them is from Chicago where they were babyfaces as the Bavarian Boys. Saturski was an amazing stooge who started with square Ronnie Garvin hair that got more and more disheveled as he got more and more out of sorts as the match went on. I loved their control section, which raised stakes in a way you don't always see in these matches, as it centered around a kneeling neckbreaker submission that they kept switching off on, which finally lead to a flip over and the big transition of the match. Lots of fun celebratory and comedic spots with the heels stooging and the ref getting involved before and after the neckbreaker stretches. They did the double leglock/run over your opponents spot which was the highlight of the Corne/Brown tag from a week or two ago, and it's always fun to see a new spot repeated a couple of matches later. That validates the chronological approach we're taking. Here, Weicz milked it even more with double stomps as well. The finish was basically all Weicz as he out punched, out slicked, and ultimately hit a barrage of his flipping and headstand sentons before a tricked out bridge for the win.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 33 minutes. Amazingly enough, this is not the only footage we have of the Germans. There is also a US tag of them from 1963. They were working as heels in this though. It‘s their only French TV appearance we have right now, but apparently they did some pretty despicable things because the crowd was really hot for them getting the shit kicked out of them. We have lots of footage of workers pretending to be German, so seeing some actual Germans from this time period is a welcome change. This was a stooge-a-ton from the Germans, pretty much them going for shenanigans right out the gate and then just flying all over the ring for 30 minutes. Very reminiscent of the tags we‘ve seen from Germany and Austria with the comedic undertones and comical amounts of referee abusing. I imagine they ran this match with the roles reversed back in the German tournaments. Saturski & Wenzel briefly cranked up the intensity when they started using a nasty hanging neck crank on the faces. That was one of like 3 or 4 bits of offense they got in and they used it as well as they could. Carpentier is just flashy enough to be really fun in this kind match and there were some great receipt spots including one of the Polish guys using the Germans as a trampoline. Not a lot of depth but extremely entertaining and gives you a good idea of the atmosphere for these kind of crowd pleasing affairs.

Cheri Bibi vs. Gilbert Cesca 9/2/66

MD: This one was out there before but I don't think we ever covered it on the blog. Ten years of footage in, if there's any wrestler we're familiar with, it's got to be Cheri Bibi. You know how it's going to go with him. He'll start out congenial and jolly, as jolly as he gets at least, with handshakes and clean breaks and pats on the shoulder. He'll show some fine wrestling, maybe even with a float over to escape a hold (not here though), and some good counters leveraging his strength in a fair way to keep his opponent down. Then he'll get outwrestled one too many times and it'll flip like a switch and the battering and mauling will begin. He'll come in with high, low, high combos and headbutts and inside moves, chokes and rabbit punches and shots in the ropes and knees in the corner, and it'll escalate until the stylist is able to fire back. It was like clockwork here, with the biggest wrinkles being Cesca's creativity in his comeback and containment (spin kicks, pressing his feet off the ropes for a headlock takedown, bounding up to the ropes for a missile dropkick, turning Bibi around with a hammerlock to toss him into the corner) and the use of the large, former wrestler Mr. Marshall as a comedically countering force and oversized prop for comedy spots. There was a real sense that it was Cesca's cleverness and speed that let him get anything on Bibi at all, and even to damage the tank as the match went on. It'd take Bibi one grab of a leg or one cheapshot out of a break to take back over, very little in the grand scheme of things, and Cesca had to do a half dozen things to bruise him, but he didn't quit and he used every moment of advantage he could, and Marshall facing off against Bibi gave him a couple of extra. Bibi, as always, portrayed his small but deep range of emotion well, appealing to the crowd after a particularly nasty (but successful) shot and getting more and more frustrated and blatant as Cesca refused to stay down for a pin until he went too far and was DQed. Cesca wasn't satisfied by that and there was rousing post match violence where Cesca used a towel as an equalizer and then was swiping in every direction as he wanted blood on the floor. This was as straightforward as could be structurally but Bibi is a unique figure in pro wrestling history and Cesca was creative and fiery enough to make his consistency interesting.

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. This was an interesting pairing. Skill vs. brute force. Bibi played nice initially, allowing Cesca to show off his wrestling a bit, but this quickly turned into an absolute slugfest. Cesca did a fair amount of technical stuff, but also wasn't afraid to hit back hard, even punching Bibi in the face and busting out savate kicks. It was basically his way of bringing the heat without his partner Ben Chemoul doing it for him, and he looked pretty great doing it. Dug his punch combos in the corner. The match needed a bit more structure but the slugging it out was quite great. Bibi escalated things when he bitch slapped Cesca in the corner and then started throwing him over the top rope. It seemed to set up a dramatic finish but then Bibi got DQd. Cesca beat Bibis ass after the match, even choking him with a towel, and I wonder if this lead to a no holds barred match or something. Some great slugging in this match, anyways.

PAS: This was a fun style clash with Cesca working a Bibi match more than Bibi trying to hang with Cesca. I am into a fist fight and that is really what this was. Love Bibi getting shown up a bit at the beginning by Cesca's flash and just cutting him off with a barfight headbutt. Cesca to his credit is perfectly willing to wallow in Bib'i's mud, and gives as good as he gets with stiff shots. It did feel like a TV bout setting up a bigger arena match, as nothing was settled and you needed to see them run it back.