Tuesday is French Catch Day: Asquini! Trujillo! Mercier! Gonzalez! Momo! Latif! Siki! Schmid!

Bruno Asquini vs Tomas Trujillo 8/21/87 

MD: We get the last eight or so of this. Trujillo is the Peruvian we've seen the last, but he's very good. He's got interesting angles to come at with his offense, plays to the crowd well, bumps big, can handle complex rope running sequences, and has the big swooping climb up armdrag, which would be better on a babyface, but still stands out. He matched up here with Asquini, who by this point was relatively old, but still worked hard and had a sort of twinkle in his eye in how he wrestled. Saulnier as ref got just a bit too involved here. The put upon, furious tiny terror gimmick has its moments but I was more interested in seeing these two match up. Trujillo actually gets the win after catching Asquino off the ropes with a quick pin. I feel like outside of a monster like Henker, we haven't seen heels win almost at all in the last decade.

Jose Gonzalez vs Guy Mercier 8/21/78

MD: I love how clean this match was narratively. Twenty minutes. Entertaining. Well worked and competitive. Ebbs and flows. Saulnier (the ref) being a bit annoying but getting plenty of comeuppance and he can't outstooge Gonzalez who was just one of the best. Mercier grounding everything like the old pro he was.

I don't do this often but let me run you through how the match was set up as it was as clean as anything I've come across in the footage match. They have a feeling out exchange where Gonzalez gets an early advantage with multiple mares and armdrags and biels but where Mercier gives him comeuppance and sends him to the outside with a reversal. Then we get an extended cravat sequence where Gonzales hangs on through multiple escape attempts as Mercier tries to escape. After he finally shrugs him off, Mercier does his spin out legpick and starts with a toehold, peppering in legdrops onto the leg and changing position. This is probably the most extended portion of the match save for the actual heat later on, as Gonzalez manages to reverse it in the ropes and then uses the ropes for leverage as Saulnier keeps missing it. We've seen tag partners work together but less of one person really using the ropes like this. Mercier is able to take back advantage with more of the same, with Saulnier getting chopped for his trouble. Gonzalez gets another shot at it, in the corner, grinding the leg over his shoulder, but Mercier konks him in the top of the head with his foot and Gonzalez bumps forward into Saulnier (second public warning on Mercier).

They reset into a go behind reversal by Mercier, who drops Gonzalez into a bodyscissors sequence, with him thudding Gonzalez down repeatedly. Eventually, he gets out, eats a monkey flip to land on his feet, poses, and Mercier dropkicks him out (and then dropkicks Saulnier twice for good measure). Gonzles sneaks back in, gets a cheapshot and starts the real heat, a lot of stomps, headlocks with punches, and bicep poses to the crowd. Eventually he ties Mercier in the ropes and they run a spot where Saulnier gets his foot stuck trying to get him out, which the crowd loves. The transition is Gonzalez missing a charge and choking himself in the ropes. That leads to Mercier tying Saulnier up in the ropes too so he can whack Gonzalez on the top of the head, sending him tumbling and stooging on the outside.

The finish is some back and forth forearms, with a Mercier advantage, Saulnier preventing Gonzalez from holding the rope to avoid a whip, a nice bit where Mercier hits a gut shot the first time and gets sunset flipped the second for a nearfall, and a third whip where he hits the armdrag slam (really nicely as he'd been looking away until a split second before) for 3. This was one of the cleanest matches I've seen narratively. It only went seventeen or so, which helped, had clear characters, and they worked nicely segmented sequences (feeling out, stylist hold advantage, heel hold advantage, stylist overcoming to regain hold advantage, stylist presses advantage into clowning, heel comes back and gets heat, stylist comes back as they go to finish), but I do sort of wonder if it's just me living in this footage for a couple of years now.

Jean-Pierre Momo vs Salah Latif 8/28/78

MD: We get the last five or six of this. It went around twenty before we got here. There's a Breton folk group in the crowd dressed up. It feels like a smaller venue. Latif had a lot of headbutt related offense, despite not looking like a guy who would. I'm not sure if the ring was slightly smaller or usual or what but there were some spots where the positioning was off and dropkicks didn't quite unravel like they should. It felt like they were working towards a draw but Latif kept going for a double underhook in the end and finally hit a sort of floatover suplex with it to score a win with a couple of minutes to go. They hit hard enough but it wasn't the smoothest match in the footage.

Mammoth Siki vs Daniel Schmid 8/29/78

MD: I expected Siki to be the face here and Schmid the heel out of previous matches, because Siki had a good reaction coming out, and because the commentary talked him up as a good guy, a former accountant, a bouncer, etc. Plus Schmid is a natural heel, a Buddy Rose analogue. He's a few years older here and I know they brought him out the last time we saw him after a injury that was either real or fake, but seemed pretty severe. Since we're up to 78, Portland could have brought him into run an angle as Buddy's cousin and it would have been the best thing in wrestling that year. He could do kip ups and rope running quite like Buddy after all. This had a lot of him working from underneath in armbars or nerve holds. Not the most exciting stuff, but he was working hard and the crowd was behind him. The Breton folk group started playing music to support him and that's exactly when he timed his comeback, which is how wrestling is supposed to work when you're not working to specific quarter hours on TV. We're at least ten years into when I started noticing the trend, but this was the clearest I've ever heard the "Bonuses", which, in this case, was when people in the crowd or local businesses rewarded things that happened by offering donations to the wrestlers, 120 francs for Schmid and less for Siki by the end, and someone even gave the ref 10. It's a uniquely French thing as I've never encountered it anywhere else, but quite common throughout the 70s. Sadly, this ended with said ref getting crushed off the ropes in a mishap and then Siki stomped him which led to the DQ. It was an ok novelty but shouldn't be the top of anyone's list to watch.