Tuesday is French Catch Day: Borne! Dewerdt!

Brigitte Borne vs Leo Dewerdt 8/11/84

MD: A swimming pool match where no one actually ends up in the water. This was actually more of a river match or a lake match. It's probably identifiable but there was a train going by at times which added to the ambiance. I got so many annoying comments begging for more such matches the last time I put a Borne match as public that I don't think I'll do that here. You guys can see it because you check the blog. This was clipped. They call a twenty minute mark at the 10:43 point, give or take, but you do get enough of this to make sense of it. They cut in to the studio and Delaporte commenting to cover the breaks. 

And hey, it's pretty good for what we get. They wrestle for the first ten minutes or so, do one spot where they tease the ref going over (a pretty smooth one actually where Borne navigates Dewerdt to be tied up in the ropes quite well), and then move in to more wrestling, a short beatdown, and the finish. De Werdt was Belgian apparently, mother of three, and a bit of a bruiser. Borne did quite a bit well, including how she engaged the crowd. She was excellent at that. There was a nice rolling armscissors in here.

There was also a spot I'm not going to clip where Dewerdt had her legs split, did a headbutt to her butt, and then tried it again and got caught in headscissors. Some things can stay in 1984 maybe? They cut to Delaporte to talk about it because of course they did. I imagine this was part of a broader card where people did end up in the drink, but this was a little anticlimactic without that I suppose?  

SR: The prayers have been answered - it's another Brigitte Borne match. Oh, and it's a swimming pool match, of course. And it seems to be part of Le Dernier Manchette, so they are interviewing Roger Delaporte, pretending to watch the match at a studio even though this was clearly filmed outdoors. As far as the match goes, it was good. Definitely proved their salt once again. They mostly worked holds. Tight simple stuff, with a few cool escapes and moments. I thought the match would end early when Borne already went for the body checks in the ropes at the 9 minute mark, but they went back and wrestled a bit more. A very young Didier Gapp was the referee here (later the referee at EWP in Hannover) and he was great at teasing himself being thrown over the ropes and landing in the water. Leo Dewerdt was billed as the champion of Belgium. She did some heel stuff like going for the eyes and not too much. Nothing outstanding from her but solid wrestling skill was displayed here. It's not a revelation like the other Brigitte Borne match we saw but it's a fun time and I'm glad I watched it.