Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Hassoni! Bernaert! Calcard! Prince! Noced!

Albert Sanniez/Kader Hassouni vs Bernard Caclard/Pierre Bernaert 2/15/73

MD: Another swimming pool match. We've seen some of these that were fairly weak but the last one we saw was pretty funny (though Catanzaro being in it stacked the deck) and this one had some great action, but then again, it had Sanniez who is one of the best juniors we've seen out of France. Bernaert, by this point, was an incredibly experienced tag team worker, a great stooge, and here, actually wrestled a bit more than we'd seen him in a while since much of the action was kept to the center of the ring given the water surrounding them. That said, and while Bernaert took most of the bumps into the pool throughout the match (Calcard's saved for the post match own goal), I'd say it was Caclard who created much of the motion on the heel side, as he was able to base and keep up for Hassouni and Sanniez's quickness. Calcard had a great front chancery suplex throw too. Sanniez' reverse bridging headscissors escape remains amazing to watch and he did it twice here. When it came time for the heels to take over (after Sanniez went flying through the ropes on a tope to nowhere due to a missed move), they were sufficiently vicious as you'd expect. Honestly, the pool didn't limit the action much at all, even when the ring was bobbing violently towards the end given how fast and hard they were going. Maybe this would have been slightly better as a conventional match but it was still very good overall.

Petit Prince vs Daniel Noced 3/16/73

MD: Every Petit Prince match we haven't covered is a treasure and this is no difference. I wouldn't call it the most impressive or spectacular match we've seen, but it's one of my favorite performances of his. He seemed more mature as a wrestler when it came to selling a limb, to squaring up to build anticipation for a move, in knowing when to go all out with speed and when to milk something for the crowd. Noced was exceptional too, both as a base, and as a stooging, bullying jerk, a real contrast to the Prince. There was just a little more stalling out of him than we've seen lately, a little more of that focus on his nose towards the end of the match when you'd expect things to be picking up, but it worked because the fans were emotionally invested and because the Prince played a long, one way to take them down one last time before the finish.

After some quick chain wrestling to start, they settled into around fifteen minutes of holds here, Noced controlling to start, first with a wristlock and then a hammerlock before the Prince took over with a short arm scissors. All of it was brilliant. What people will ultimately know about this match will probably come from the gifs of the escapes and escape attempts, and there'll be yuking it up about how wrestlers are spot monkeys or whatever else, but it's the set ups that make all of this really resonate. It's like chess, with each attempt at an escape built up with three bits of motion to even create that opening, and then multiple escape attempts being necessary before slipping out can occur, and then it's usually right back in so that they can take it back down and build it back up again. Without having two or three minutes to work the hold and slowly escalate upwards, the ultimate bursts of motion and acrobatics wouldn't mean nearly as much. Taken as a total whole, it creates the illusion of believable counters on top of counters, with Noced often not sure which way the Prince will go next and trying to adapt during and after the fact. Looked at as just a gif in isolation, it's going to be an amazing spot, but taken as a whole, there's an underlying struggle that creates the environment for which it can exist. But please, gif this stuff anyway; people should see it. And if it takes them back to the source, all the better.  But without the long dedication to a hold, the ultimate flash would feel far, far more empty.