Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Richard! Peruano! Dumez!

Jacky Richard vs. Angelito 6/29/71

MD: This was our first look at Angelito who was billed as the son of L'Ange Blanc. It was another look at Richard who was a great base that could be really mean when called upon. Maybe what made the match most interesting however, was the debut of Babette Carole as the "First woman referee in France." The match was structured with Richard digging in with holds and Angelito working a number of escapes. You got the sense that Richard was probably directing traffic and setting up the spots. He could definitely go, even if the commentator seemed to doubt the shape he was in for the weight class. Angelito seemed a bit unsure at times, but had some very slick escapes, including an extended leg springboard to escape a hammerlock and a pretty nice rolling leg pick at one point. The match built to a couple of big moments, the first being Richard, who had cheated more and more as the match went on, getting Angelito's mask off only to fire Angelito up leading to a number of dropkicks. The second, which really got the crowd going, was Carole having enough of Richard and launching him with an arm drag. Gimmick stuff between the debut of Angelito and the female ref getting so much focus, but the underlying wrestling was pretty solid.

L'Ange Blanc vs. Robert Duranton (JIP) 7/5/71

MD: This was attached to the Van Buyten vs Gastel match that we had covered ages ago. We had around five minutes of this. It's worth noting L'Ange Blanc's connection to the crowd and how he'd bask in a moment before hitting a shot; Duranton's absolutely amazing jabs which I don't remember being a big part of his act previously and dropped L'Ange again and again, including one right to the eye; and the fact that Duranton actually got a relatively clean win here which felt surprising. Post-match, they interviewed Delaporte who basically indicated he was retired but had all of the promoting to look after.

Inca Peruano vs. Maurice Dumez 7/24/71

MD: This one had been mislabeled but it's definitely Dumez vs an aging Peruano. This isn't the Peruano of the late 50s, but he was still very good. Remember, we're in 71 now, only five years until he'd be wrestling on WWWF shows as enhancement talent Rocky Tomayo. Dumez apparently was 25 and had a greco-roman background but you wouldn't really know it from this. He had some interesting stuff based around headlocks, and stepovers into armdrags and what not, and a really nice entry point takedown into the rolling leg nelson in the end. He also spent the first two thirds of the match coming back and scrapping no matter what Peruano did, maybe too much. Peruano didn't hit his hanging headscissors takeodwn but he had a great rana and did that body splash onto the shoulders of a sitting opponent that's so good. Dumez returned favor later on with some elbow smashes down onto the back of the neck as Peruano was sitting. At that two-thirds mark, however, Peruano had enough and started a long sequence of choking him with his palm and his foot pretty brazenly. Then he tossed him out repeatedly. Even into his WWWF run and 1980, Peruano wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring so he didn't ask Dumez to do anything he wouldn't do but given how close the chairs were to the ring it was a good visual. While Dumez kept coming back down the stretch after that, he seemed a half step behind due to the damage. Some of that late rope running came off as a little sluggish but that could be selling. It was believable enough when Dumez got a lucky body press for the win.

Peruano is such a fascinating figure throughout this footage. I think we came in looking to learn more about a figure we knew of, a Gory Guerrero or Santo, and we have gotten some of that, with Lasartesse and Van Buyten and Carpentier and Kiyomigawa and certain British wrestlers like Hayes, but Peruano was someone that was hiding in plain sight that we had no idea about. You can watch a Rocky Tomayo match from Hawaii against Sam Steamboat or at MSG vs Larry Zbyszko or even into the 80s in Puerto Rico against Gino Della Serra. Maybe someday we'll get some of his early 70s AJPW work as Joe Soto. Even in those late matches when he was broken down and didn't do much, he had such great timing and personality and crowd interaction. He was always on just like he was always on in 1957, even if he wasn't interspersing those moments of character with unique and innovative spots. Definitely one of my favorite wrestlers to have come out of this project.