Tuesday is French Catch Day: Drapp! Dula! Genele! Renault! Saulnier! Cabera!

Andre Drapp vs. Jimmy Dula 4/26/71

MD: Mean, chippy fight where both sides used up their public warnings. It feels like the first 30 minute draw we've seen in a while. We also haven't seen much of either Drapp or Dula lately. Dula, especially, seems to have come a long way in ten years. He was a unique bruiser before who would appeal to the crowd after every move. Here, there was very little of that and more aggression as he was always moving to the next attack. They were really going from the get go, just great lock ups and jockeying for position with very little given, all the way throughout. As the match went on, Dula would cheat more and more but Drapp would then get admonished as well as he'd bend the rules while getting his revenge. It was definitely impressive that they kept it at the level that they did for so long.

Bobby Genele/Guy Renault vs. Michel Saulnier/Pedro Cabrera 5/7/71

MD: Exceptional juniors tag. I'd say the 20 minutes of the first fall was one of the best single falls we've seen in the entirety of the footage. They started by wrestling clean and fast, with Saulnier's low center of gravity giving him an extra bit of torque on every mare, Cabera showing off with the cartwheels, Renault basing like a champ, and Genele adding a bit of spice with his reactions. There was a buzz every time he came into the ring, and it wouldn't become apparent until later on just why. From there, they settled down into well worked holds and counter attempts for a bit until Genele started with the inside shots. It'd still be another round of holds before Renault really joined him. At that point, Genele shone with that sort of chip on his shoulder attitude and mean forearms and stomps that justified the reaction he had been getting. They took over on Cabrera's arm, creating an actual, genuine tag heat segment where they cut the ring in half, had hope spots and cut offs, and built to a big hot tag and Saulnier clearing house with faster and faster exchanges as they escalated to a finish. The rest of the match was still good, as Genele and Renault worked in another heat segment using holds, where the individual escape attempts felt more like hope spots than in almost any match we've seen. It's French tag wrestling so the second and third falls were far shorter and to the point, but the last one was celebratory and the fans got sent home happy like usual. I focused so much on the narrative that I was underselling how good any single individual exchange was. This was the high end junior style of the time. People will be able to make gifs of Cabrera going up and over and around to lock in a short arm scissors or some of the super fast rope running exchanges. It was just grounded in a structure that let the crowd really care about what was happening and that made the big moments resonate more than usual.

PAS: This was great stuff. Both tecnicos really threw some fun stuff, Cabrera especially was just flying around the ring. GIF makers can definitely get some shit to tweet at Jim Cornette. Genele is a real shithead and while I think the focus will be on all of the fast cool shit the babyfaces did, lots of credit to heels for making it look good and adding some real nastiness to the process.