Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten! Verhaugue! Firmin! Raspoutine! Peducci! Goude!

Franz Van Buyten vs Luc Verhaugue 10/2/82

MD: Van Buyten is just amazing. This was a joy to watch. He's one of the greatest babyfaces of all time. I watched this and I was more sure of it than ever. Certainly one of the best sellers. This went around twenty and was for a European title. They mentioned how Van Buyten was a former world champion. Verhaugue was French but I don't know a ton else about him. Part of the crowd was for him just because he was France but his actions turned most of the rest (along with Van Buyten's selling and the early exchanges).

Verhaugue was the aggressor from the get go with the initial holds, but Van Buyten, after working his way through them, had technical reversals and answers, be it a monkey flip or an up and over headscissors. That frustrated Verhaugue and he went dirty, never really looking back. Van Buyten sold and sold and sold until he finally tried to get up on the ropes to escape. The ref (apparently a work football ref who was going to become more and more of a mess as the night went on) had admonished Verhaugue up to this point with warnings but he hadn't done quite enough and here he tried to get Van Buyten off the ropes. That infuriated the crowd and some of them started to yell at the ref at ringside. That actually distracted the ref allowing for more cheating by Verhaugue which is something I've never seen before.

Van Buyten was finally able to use one of his trademark transitions, pulling Verhaugue over the top while he had him in a hold and started firing back. When the ref got in his way, he made him join in on it, getting both in the corner and doing his running charge to set up a ten punch. The ref stayed on him and he pulled the ref's shirt off and got DQed. But overall it was a great babyface performance by Van Buyten with Verhaugue doing his part as the aggravated aggressor.  

SR: I'm used to seeing Van Buyten wrestling against monsters, so it's almost odd to see him wrestling someone who looks like a regular person. Verhague was tall, but other than that looked like a regular guy. This was bread and butter Van Buyten stuff - some simple, tight wrestling, before Verhague quickly starts working him over. If you've seen your share of van Buyten matches you can probably guess exactly what happens along the way. Verhague looked good clubbering someone with basic blows but didn't have a very deep skillset. When you are fighting who sells as good as van Buyten you don't really need much more. It worked on the crowd, as once again a big woman got mad at the heel ref and wanted to have a go at him, with only a much skinnier side referee there to hold her back. Van Buyten ends up making his signature comeback and then beats up the ref for the DQ. We get an angry Van Buyten yelling into a mic after the match. Feels odd regular of an occurance this was for Van Buyten. You really get the sense he probably had this exact match with 500 different local bad guys, and everytime it ended with a big woman getting out of her chair and a referee having his shirt torn. 

Raspoutine/Firmin vs Johnny Goude/Rino Peducci 10/2/82

MD: Second match on the show. It was a lot. Exhausting in the amount of stuff here. Very fun to see Firmin (the butler) in this role. He was acknowledged for who he was and he did ok really. Obviously we knew he could bump but he was a good underhanded heel. This version of a Rasputin was a light heavyweight and could move and bump as well. Lots of cheating in the corner with the tag rope too. That sort of thing. and lots and lots of help from the ref who now was totally out to get the crowd and the stylists. 

It was a bit much because Goude (a Belgian) and Peducci (Italian) seemed quite skilled and part of me did, in fact, want to see them in a more conventional match. But it was hard to fault just how entertaining this was for almost every second, even if so much of the heat was on the ref. They'd do bits where they tied up the heels and charged at them in the ropes and he'd get in the way on the third attempt and do a little strut in his purple jacket (for his shirt had been destroyed). Some other really fun comedy bits like grabbing both Firmin's mustache and Raspoutine's beard and then having the partner come off the top with a double stomp on them. Goude even did some dives. It got pretty wild overall with the fans furious at the ref and them doing spot after spot after spot. At one point Raspoutine took ten headscissor takeovers in a minute span and then sold like he was dead and the ref had to bring him back to life. It's the most "spot monkeys" clip outside of luna catch and I don't think I can ever let anyone see it. This ended more or less like you'd expect with all the heels and the ref piled up on each other as the stylists counted and then with them getting the actual win but the ref throwing it out only to end up as a battering ram to be used on the heels. The last image is the stylists whacking everyone with the victory flowers. Madcap and worth watching once but I'm glad not every match in the footage was like this. 

SR: Firmin, is it the same guy who was with Robert Duranton like 20 years earlier? How odd to see a noble valet tagging with the rugged Rasputin. Looking at the guys in this, you'd think it might turn out to be some local shitshow because who on earth has ever heard of the likes of Johnny Goude, Rino Peducci and the French version of Rasputin? But somehow French TV never disappoints and this is another really good match. Someone must've done a remarkable job to keep enforcing the quality even way into the 80s, because these guys did complicated, athletic, fast paced exchanges as well as pretty much anyone else we have seen so far. In, fact things veered outside of the standard stuff and into interesting territory here and there. Such as the way Goude would use the leapfrog to set up a dropkick over the ropes, or Firmins slick body scissor counter to a slingshot splash of all things. Goude even ended up hitting a plancha to the outside. And Peducci, for his pasty look, had a no-hands kip up that was as good as anyones. So they start with a bunch of fun wrestling, and then things veered into the usual heatseeking to pad the time to 30 minutes. Heels weren't mindblowing but good enough. Once again the ref is evil, and he has this goofy disco shirt and would do a Fargo strut everytime he foiled something the babyfaces tried. It was just goofy enough to be entertaining as usual. At one point Goude hit like 10 huracanranas to Raspoutine, who sold this as a KO. It seems Raspoutine is counted out but they revive him and the match continues for more simple crowd pleasing stuff. Johnny Goude, whereever you are, you convinced me with your one TV appearance that you were a fine fine wrestler. This was a lot of fun, although it played out in the usual. You notice that these euro guys always did the same crowd pleasing spots and rarely ventured into new territory. Maybe it's because this show was a touring act, maybe they just didn't think to try new things, but it is noticable that they would do some of the same spots that you'd see 10 years earlier.