Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Gordon! KBL! Frederico! Cohen! Doukhan! Shadow!

Angelito/Flesh Gordon vs Kato Bruce Lee/Eliot Frederico 7/28/85

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pZGPE7J7QQ&ab_channel=MattD

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL2SebLfXGQ&ab_channel=MattD

MD: This was a very good match with a very bad finish. It's a shame because even if this had a typical last fall/finish, it would have been one of the best matches we have from France in the 80s. Frederico is a guy that I wish had come along twenty years earlier. They gave him a big entrance here with a motorcycle and the full leatherman gimmick (with Kato playing along). He's one of the absolute best punchers we've seen in the footage but also a pretty great base in taking Angelito and Gordon's stuff, and some of Angelito's stuff was pretty complex and out there. Kato Bruce Lee is more of a goof. He did more fake karate here, but he was mainly a punch/kick kind of guy who could hold his own on exchanges and stooge well. Part of what made this work was that it had a slightly different structure, with the early even exchanges/stylist showcase giving way to heat after Frederico opened up with the fists and Angelito missed a senton bomb. They took the first fall which is usually a good sign for these matches. Then, they survived a pretty robust comeback to take over with a lot of cheating and misdirection to force a second bit of heat before a second comeback and the end to the second fall. If the last fall had been celebratory and full of heel miscommunication and flashy ref comeuppance spots, everything would have been fine. They only did a bit of that before the ref got fed up with Angelito and Gordon's clowning of the heels and DQed them after Angelito went down to count a pin of Gordon's. The heels took the trophies and no one left satisfied. Otherwise, it was a good one with plenty of slick individual moments though. 

Georges Cohen/Gass Doukhan vs Black Shadow/Kato Bruce Lee 8/10/85

MD: Another skilled tag from some aging heroes and villains. Well, and Kato Bruce Lee, who is most likely younger and coming into his own, a real over the top shitheel. You get kind of an undercard mid 80s WWF guy feel from him, like an Iron Mike Sharpe, but he's really throwing his all into it, bellowing and putting on a fit when things don't go his way but more than happy get bumped over the top too. Black Shadow, up in years now, was more likely to get knocked out between the top two ropes, or, occasionally, dive to nowhere during a rope running sequence.

If absolutely pressed, I'd probably tell you that the French tags would have been more enjoyable total packages if they became one-fall matches in the 60s like the singles matches did. We'd probably lose some nice long mat sequences, but there's a very good first fall in here and then some additional stuff which isn't bad on its own, that's quite good on its own really, but that might have been better served packed into that first fall. The exchanges were good. The cheating was fine (thought he heel-leaning ref was a bit much in this one, especially as he never got his comeuppance). We've been watching Cohen for twenty years and he's a great face-in-peril, especially here when they were beating him around the crowd, right in front of a bunch of kids. Doukhan was more of a Ben Chemoul sort, unique in appearance, stylized in movement, now greying in the hair but still able to go. They were true pros. Again, the first fall had the usual ten minutes of exchanges and ten minutes of heat and a proper quick comeback. But they went back to the cheating for the second fall, had another quick comeback in the third. It was spirited with the heels run around the ring, but it all could have been a tighter one-fall package. It's far too late in the game to be complaining about structure. I've learned to live with it and learned to love it. It's been three decades and hundreds of tags like this. They never conformed into what I wanted but I learned to find the joy in it regardless.