Tuesday is French Catch Day: Aubriot! La Bête Humaine! Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Tejero! Montoro!

La Bete Humaine vs. Dan Aubriot 9/3/71

MD: In general, this went better than the last Bete Humaine match. I'd say there were specific periods of it which were actually quite good, most especially the first five minutes or so when Aubriot was trying to contain him in holds and was using every wrestling trick he had to stay in it. There was real and compelling struggle there. And of course, what La Bete could do here was considerably impressive. His cartwheels were impressive. How he jumped to the top rope (not to actually do anything, but...) was impressive. His flips back up and over Aubriot, including out of a hammerlock, definitely impressive. And some amazing dropkicks. Throughout the back two-thirds of the match he just didn't sell anything and with that in mind, it probably went on too long. The big spots where the ref jumped on when La Bete had Aubriot up in a fireman's carry and where both of them got dumped over the top were big crowd-pleasers. In general, La Bete was incredibly athletic and portrayed a wild monster well, and Aubriot held up his end in getting him over, but we have two matches of build and no payoff in the footage against someone who could stand to him so he'll end up as little more than a bizarre footnote of French Catch.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Anton Tejero/Antonio Montoro 9/20/71

MD: Ben Chemoul and Bordes vs Tejero/Anyone has been a pretty wonderful formula so far. Here, though, Montoro was very impressive. Tejero had put on some more weight but could still bump around and had big hammering shots and really a great look, but Montoro came off like an all timer. He could not only keep up with Bordes (whose stuff was more and more tricked out each time we see him) but managed an actual handspring off the ropes during one fast exchange (a gif of which went pro wrestling twitter viral over the weekend actually, thanks Allan and Emil). He had some cool stuff too including a conjuro (arm hooked spinning backbreaker) and really, just his ins and outs with Bordes had a lot of satisfying wrinkles and counters. Ben Chemoul and Bordes debuted a sweeping headlock series on top of their repeated headscissors and dropkick spots down the stretch. Tejero and Montoro bumped and stooged all over the ring and out of it and Bordes had one amazing bump over the top on a catapult. Structurally, they started fast and leaned into holds before picking things back up in the long first fall. The second was mostly heat, cutting off the ring and quick exchanges by the heels until the faces made the comeback, and then things were pretty celebratory in the last fall. Nothing groundbreaking but the fans loved every second of it and the action was good throughout with Montoro doing everything you could possibly want him to.