Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Richard!

Petit Prince vs Jacky Richard 11/6/66

MD: Both wrestlers were young here, Prince at 23 and Richard at 22. As much as I like the really slick Saulnier matches, my favorite Prince stuff is always him matched up against a bully and Richard is quite the bully here. There's just much more of a sense of build and payoff in those matches and contrast really does make the world go round. 

Here this meant that Richard really ground down Prince. He had five minutes early on where he just tore apart the leg. Prince would try to reverse it, and sometimes would even come up with a reversal attempt (the most memorable had each going for a crab at the same time) but Richard's superior side would combine with the damage already done to keep him down. The crowd was increasingly incensed as Richard used the ropes and really just because Prince was being contained. And the legwork was mostly to punish and contain because when he did come back, he hit one of his amazing flurries of move after move, incredibly dynamic stuff. 

Richard stayed on him however. and really started beating him with stomps and kicks. He'd toss Prince out and when Prince tried to get back in, would knock him not just off the apron but into the third row (where he was caught by a woman who gave Richard the what for). When he tried to get back up again he ended up in the third row again. They moved into another comeback shortly thereafter and you half got the sense it was to avoid a riot. Richard ended up tied up tight in the ropes as Prince hit him with shot after shot after shot. The finish played into all those extracurriculars on the floor as Richard went to knock him off again only for Prince to catch him. The act was still developing but this was still primal, spectacular stuff.

SR:  I think this is the youngest we have seen Jacky Richard, which is kind of nice. Now we know he wasn't always crusty and old. This felt almost like a very mat-based match for the Prince. I mean, the first 5 minutes only had a cool backflip from him, otherwise they were working a modified headlock and step over toe hold. The Prince did get on a few tears with his beautiful athletic offense, but it wasn't all out like we had seen in other matches. The match was more about Richard garnering heat by being a bastard. He really tore up the Prince's leg. It didn't stop the Prince from hitting his stuff but it looked nasty. At one point he kept throwing the Prince into the crowd over and over with folks looking really upset and throwing trash in the ring, so it was a good night of work for Jacky Richard. He also had a great looking lift into a gutbuster. The Prince's comeback was more about beating the shit out of Richard and less about hitting his spots, which was pretty cool to see. A fairly typical French TV match for the time, upgraded with the Prince's cool agility, and Jacky Richard looking like a particularily nasty bastard. Would've blown a few minds if it were the first French match we had seen, still a pretty decent addition to the collection.