Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Corne! Mitchell! Noced! Richard! Renault! Mercier! Menard! Fake Mongolians?

Guy Mercier/Jean Menard vs. Abdul Khan/Chang Li 1/5/74

MD: French heroes vs probably fake Mongolians here. Chang Li was taller and thinner and could have passed for a fake Russian a few years later. Mercier is very good at what he does and had been for decades at this point. Menard we've seen once and we'll see again (but as a heel, I think) and he had the crowd behind him, especially the young ladies. They had a bit of Ben Chemoul/Bordes vibe as one was sort of a younger version of the other. Mercier used all the old tricks, the cross-footed Mascaras twist, the bearhug into a backbreaker, the repeated bodyscissors butt crash followed by atomic drops and Menard was game. He especially did well as face in peril building to an actual hot tag, as the ref had missed a tag and Chang Li and Abdul Khan did well cutting off the ring. They were mostly chop and nerve hold based with a decent amount of chinlocks and cheating. Abdul Khan brought the over the top character flourishes, looking like he was all but electrocuted as he reacated at times and Chang Li's strikes looked pretty good for what they were as he went high low high or low high low. After the big comeback in the second fall, it never quite felt like the Mercier and Menard were in much danger but by that point the crowd wanted to see the Mongolians get what was coming to them anyway. Fun stuff if you're in the mood for fake Mongolians, certainly.

Petit Prince/Jean Corne/Alain Mitchell vs. Daniel Noced/Jacky Richard/Guy Renault 2/9/74

MD: Due to a preliminary match (where the heels cheated) Alan Mitchell can't participate in this match for the first fifteen minutes, so it's three on two. For the first ten minutes, that doesn't really come into play as Petit Prince (and to a lesser but still meaningful extent) Jean Corne run circles around the heels and clown them repeatedly, because they're just that good. The heels base well and take everything, with Noced's reactions especially good. Eventually though, Noced has a very mean control on Prince (drawing a public warning and making it worth it) and he knocks Corne off the apron. That means when Prince makes it to the corner, there's no one to tag. By the time he's back the heels distract enough so that the ref misses a hot tag. They really cracked the code on how to get heat, southern tag style, somewhere in the early 70s and here we really see it bear fruit. That means a huge press slam into a gutbuster by Noced gets them the first fall.

Perfectly timed for the end of Mitchell's penalty period is Prince's comeback however, and the fans go nuts for the tag. The rest of the second fall was full of Mitchell showing off some nice matwork tricks, a bit of heat where the heels try to keep things in the corner, but ultimately a lot of big clowning spots, including all of the heels trapped in the face corner with Prince standing on them, and miscommunication spots, before Mitchell lands a pretty unique sunset flip variation. The third fall was more of the same, with plenty of elaborate spots, lightning quick one after the next like an old lucha match's tercera where much of the drama had passed and now it was time for the crowd to celebrate the prowess of their heroes. All in all, this was a great showcase, maybe one of the best, especially given that they were able to successfully milk the drama of the penalty period.

PAS: This was really great stuff. I agree with Matt about how this is one of the first tags we have seen with the more traditional cutting off the ring stuff which is what we expect from tag wrestling. Prince is a perfect babyface for that role, and a perfect babyface for the later section where he just dazzles around turning the heels into stooges and goofs. All the heels were really cool as foils and I liked the idea of a penalty box in a six man tag. So crazy that Le Petit Prince was basically unknown five years ago, and now we have so many chances to see him dazzle us.