Tuesday is French Catch Day: Lilliputians!

Hassan Bambini vs. El Puma Negro 5/17/86

MD: This one ALMOST slipped through the cracks and that would have been a shame as it was great fun. Bambini at least seems more of a native than Tiny Tom or Cowboy Lang (they were noted as part of Flesh Gordon's stable of wrestlers) and that gave all of this a very different feel while hitting some of the same familiar marks (albeit, sometimes in different ways). Puma Negro was entirely the straight man, basing and occasionally becoming an obstactle for the Hassan Bambini act.

And what an act it was. He was an over the top creature of chaos, more Puck than Lord Littlebrook. He spent the entire match completely and utterly "on", just one entertaining bit after the next while being as over the top as possible, menacing his opponent and the ref to the crowd's delight. There was a combination of spots you'd expect, things I've never seen before, and bits of acrobatics like huge press up monkey flips or catapults where Puma ended up contorted in between the top and middle turnbuckles. 

All of it had the sort of 80s French whimsy you'd expect. My favorite bit might have been Bambini getting frustrated at the ref not counting how he wanted, so he kept going down on his knees and counting in French. When the ref finally got down to show his count pacing, of course Bambini stomped on the ref's fingers. On paper, not much, but the vocal "un doux trois" went a long way. The ref was a good sport overall and took maybe the best comedic bump of the match, kicked off on a hold escape to be lodged into the ropes. And of course, once there, Bambini slammed Puma's head into his gut a few times then tried to blame it all on Puma. Eventually, he dramatically DQed Bambini and gave the match to Puma, doing it as theatrically as possible. Somehow after that he ended up covered in silly string, which is exactly how this thing should have ended. Look, I wouldn't want to spend all my time in this part of French Catch but as a one time visit, it really was a lot of fun.  

ER: I don't know that I've watched much European mighty midgets wrestling and certainly not any from the 80s. Matt mentioned Cowboy Lang, and Lang was living in the Bay Area in the late 90s so I learned American Midget style watching a 50 year old Lang wrestle at fairs and other area Indies, going through the same beats of the same match. I thought it was funny and surprising that these 80s French minis have more in common with American Mighty Midgets style as I just kind of assumed it would have been more like French Catch But Done By Midgets. Instead of seeing smaller wrestlers with exaggerated athleticism like in lucha minis style, it's them doing slightly different Euro Disney variations on classic American midget wrestling. Lucha minis hinge on the basing of the rudos, classic American minis was more about prankster babyface making things difficult for the poor referee tasked with maintaining decorum. That's what we got here. 

Instead of elaborate armdrags it was "will he bite the referee's butt like in American midget wrestling style? Oh, in France they kick the ref in the butt instead, I see." There's more humor placed on the referee humorously covering his crotch with his hands, on how well he utilizes comedic hand cupping. He wasn't the hop around yelping kind of ref. Older. How would he handle the Tossing spots? Once I saw they were a brother of American style, I expected more tossing. I didn't think the kickout into the ref's arms would be done identically. I expected a different punchline. Good to know that's a universal language of the style, but I was holding out for that different punchline delivery. However, I really enjoyed the tease into thinking we were getting a tossing spot, the ref picking up a crying, picked on Bambini in his arms, and instead cradling and rocking him, comforting him. Feeling pity for his playfully menacing antagonist. The ref got caught in the ropes and stuck in a convincing way that worked best at his age/size. He was a ref in his 50s who looked like a less late night TV handsome Tom Snyder and fell back into and hung up in the ropes, great at selling being stuck in the ropes while also trying to hold onto that position for fear of taking a worse bump. The counting pace routine was really great, the referee standing up for his slower measured count and keeping his cool during Bambini's "un doux trois" bullying. Stomping fingers is a spot only used by heels in American wrestling and it takes French comedy style for crowds to laugh at stomped fingers. The acrobatics were saved for the late match run, drawing out the physical routines for a long time before getting to actually replicating combat. By the time Bambini was pulling out his armdrag variations and monkey flip it had been long enough that they could have segued out of a wrestling match entirely and into some other kind of physical performance beyond. 

And it perhaps it did become that, because even being placed in the middle of 1986, nobody would have expected the silly string.