Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Boucard! Calderon! Siki! Bordes! Bouvet! Viracocha! Shadow!

Georges Cohen vs Daniel Boucard (JIP) 3/3/79 

MD: Last eight and a half minutes of a thirty minute draw here and it's good stuff and our loss that we don't have more. Cohen, is, of course, as good as anyone really. Boucard we've seen a bit more lately and he was an hard-hitting, agile, imaginative heel, able to do a Tajiri style handspring off the ropes, but also sporting an amazing one-two European Uppercut/gut shot. They worked some fun spots using more of those armdrag-into-a-slam that ended so many falls and matches on the set but here having a kickout cause the person who hit the move to crash onto the ref. They also went to the floor to brawl at one point only to have a fan try to intervene. Things built to one of those 1950s style of draw finishes where they just threw fists until the bell. Talented wrestlers, good action. Unfortunately, less than ten minutes of it.

Gaby Calderon vs Mammoth Siki 3/3/79

MD: I was kind of dreading this one. Calderon is very hit or miss throughout the footage, which isn't entirely fair to him because he's only there a few times and our first look at him was twenty years before this, but it is what it is. The judo gimmick he worked depended on the opponent. I hadn't liked Siki much at all in the last match against Schmid so this one had me worried.

I was mistaken. It was actually quite good as they worked every hold about as hard as it could be worked. Siki didn't do much fancy, but he was strong and could grind someone down. Calderon was smart working from underneath and pretty nasty when locking in holds of his own. This became a fight of strength vs skill, of precise judo vs bursting power and well-placed headbutts. It only went around twenty and there were signs in the back half that they weren't quite as sharp as they started, but in general, it was just good, solid wrestling that played to both men's strengths instead of falling into a messy contrast.

Walter Bordes & Gerard Bouvet vs Inca Viracocha & Black Shadow 3/3/79 (possibly 6/79?)

MD: Thirty minute tag that gets two falls, with some drama in the middle but a fairly celebratory last ten minutes. Bouvet is a guy who has looked great in the late 70s, one of the slickest and smoothest wrestlers we've seen in the footage, but we just don't quite have enough of him. Bordes, on the other hand, we have as much of as anyone, and he was such a complete ace by this point, a real star who could do almost everything. He might not have been quite as slick as Bouvet in his holds, but he was slick enough and here we got to see him slug and have imaginative spots, and work the apron, and play the crowd. Shadow was with Viracocha which made for a bit of an odd couple as Viracocha was usually with the Peruvians or the Spaniards and Shadow with Josef el Arz, but they worked well together, both in feeding and stooging (and Shadow bumping to the floor, a specialty) and in bullying when it was time to take over. Viracocha was such an expert in sneaking is foot in from the corner to stop a comeback attempt. This is typical for the time period in France, so there was just a bit too much heat on the ref (not wildly so, just a bit), but you could slug him and just draw a public warning and not a DQ, which Bouvet did after taking the hot tag from Bordes. Some very imaginative tandem spots at the end. Another good tag in the almost endless string of them.