Tuesday is French Catch Day: Don! Tejero! Mansour! Fryziuk! Bordes! Doukhan! Viracocha! Trujillo!

Juan Guil Don vs Anton Tejero 4/18/76

MD: Personally, I feel that some of the weaker matches in the set so far were those from around the turn of the 60s with the judoka guys: Calderon and Straub. There were a couple that overall worked and specific spots that worked, but it just didn't click. By the mid 70s though, things were a bit looser and maybe more allowing of entertainment, and Don was leaning hard into the Karate trend, like Sammy Lee or Ironfist Clive Myers (the real answer is very much like Eddie Hammel, who he teamed with in the UK, as opposed to let's say Kung Fu Jimmy Valiant) and this was a lot of fun.

Here, he had a thousand monkey flip variations, spin kicks, bounds through legs, handsprings; all sorts of fun stuff, plus all of this unique positioning and footwork bits and some ridiculous moments of tying Tejero up so he could whack him in the face with his foot. He also had maybe the first tope suicida we've seen? Plus he had that crazy twisting flying mare that we've only seen once or twice in all of wrestling history, I think. Tejero was as game as could be, such an amazing stooge and base, taking all of this stuff, occasionally plucking him out of mid-air into a backbreaker or laying in things when it was time to get some heat, but mostly just flying around the ring and feeding for his opponent. At times he'd mock the karate stance, and it'd be pretty funny given his look and mannerisms but then he'd walk right into a jumping double knee for his trouble. And he somehow managed to do the spot where he catches his throat in the ropes, but also had his foot caught as well. Pretty advanced stuff. Great base and a fun match even if it was entirely a showcase. People should check it out for something different though.

SR: Jon Guil Don was pretty unique. Wearing a gi, moving like a luchador and hitting spin kicks. He even hit what may have been the earliest suicide dive on film in this. This kind of made you feel like nobody would have given a shit about Tiger Mask if he was just a south american guy in a gi. The match was a Guil Don tour de force with Tejero bumping his ass off, getting almost no offense. Guil Don had enough fun, unique and highly athletic spots to make it work. Even winning the match with a martial arts kick off the top rope. There is something impressive about Don just having 10 minutes worth of stuff to run through, all smoothly. Modern wrestlers don‘t have that much. And Tejero bumped like a pro.

Emir Mansour vs Janek/Jean Fryziuk/Frisuk 4/18/76

MD: Daniel Schmid came in to see the crowd before this one with a ton of stitches on his head. Let's not focus too much on that as this was remarkable. I've never seen a wrestler quite as flexible as Manour. The things he did here were just remarkable. The first time you really see it is with a double handspring and some bridges, but it's his crazy pop ups out of strike exchanges or his matrix style dodges that are downright breathtaking. With his mustache and amiable attitude, he comes off like the promise of Leaping Lanny Poffo fulfilled. He also had a bunch of the old trips in keeping a hold or switching from one to another and even brought out the rolling leg nelson. He'd have some of Petit Prince's stepover armdrags and things too (and a rare 'rana and straight up German Suplex for the finish), but it was the rubber man ups and downs that will make you look twice, no matter how much wrestling you've seen.

Fryziuk was old and grizzled by now though a sportsman, and you can watch him get more and more frustrated. You keep hoping for it to really boil over but it's almost impossible to with Mansour popping up midway through the exchange to clobber Fryziuk. It left him looking around bewildered. He was such a game vet to take all of this and play straight man to what was going on, occasionally mean or vicious but ultimately clowned and in over his head. It was always with a twinkle though, like when he ate a dropkick out of the ring in sat in the front row or had enough and started with the ref only to get back body dropped by him. Just a fascinating piece of pro wrestling that should launch a dozen gifs. Between this and the match that proceeded it, the fans certainly got some real stylized action on this night.

PAS: Yeah this wasn't an all time great match, but it is one of those cool spectacles that French Catch delivers as well, like the Spaceman match. Mansour should become a twitter gif favorite after this match, he is really wild. I loved the spot where he just powered up to a standing position after a full bridge, and he has one of the coolest kip ups I have ever seen. Weird is cool, and he is totally unique

SR: We‘ve seen Frisuk since the 50s, so that‘s actually cool. He was a lot older and lumpier here, but he could still pretty good bumping around and working holds, considering how old and lumpy he looked. Emir was the star of this with his freaky bridge spots. The guy was built like Jerry Lawler but lord those bridge ups and weird rubber kip ups were spectacular. He didn‘t always land perfectly but he a lot of things up his sleeve. Plenty of good hold for hold work in this. Add some fun European uppercuts and a good finish and you have yourself a crackin heavyweight bout.

Gass Doukhan & Walter Bordes vs Inca Viracocha and Tomas Trujillo 5/15/76

MD: I love the notion of introducing old wrestlers before matches. Here we got Jacky Corn. More importantly, we had Bordes' amazing robe, now in color. In this post Ben Chemoul era, he's trying out different partners and Doukhan is a solid choice, playing a bit more of a trickster than usual (he also threw what I thought might be the first spear I've ever seen in this footage, but I think it was more of a spearing headbutt to the gut, which is both common in the 70s and something that needs to be used more today). This was our first look at Trujillo and he spent a lot of the time bumping and stooging about, but also had some cool stuff like step up armdrags and backbreaker out of a reverse headlock

Bordes and Viracocha matched up so well in this one, both in an initial exchange where Bordes escaped headlocks again and again and then, later on, in some great rope running, and even later Bordes threw a number of huge flying headlock takeovers. In general, he seemed to have more wild energy than I'm used to, almost to the point where he got ahead of himself sometimes. When it was time for the match to shift gears, Viracocha started whipping Bordes around by his arm with these huge sweeping throws and then the heels took over in the corner on Doukhan. Unfortunately the big comeback moment in the second fall had Bordes a bit too over-exuberant and throw a catapult too soon. Still, the fans were happy for the comeback and Bordes destroying everyone and really for all of the subsequent clowning of the bad guys as they were tossed into one another over and over. Yet another crowd pleasing tag match as part of what seems like an endless list of them.