Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Bernaert! Di Santo! Zarpa!

Andre Bollet/Pierre Bernaert vs Lino Di Santo/Armand Zarpa Intervilles 8/27/64

MD: Disclaimer up front. This isn't exactly a match per se, but it does involve some of the names we've seen the most and it gives us a different cultural look at things and maybe a bit more about how Catch fit into the national consciousness by the mid 60s. If you didn't see the clips on Twitter that Phil Lions posted a couple of weeks back, go watch the video first and then come back and read this. This is sixty years old and a historical relic and like everything else, we will treat it as such.

Intervilles was a competition show where they pitted two different towns against each other. It had a cow/bull theme. They had four of the best wrestling on a mat in a field of sorts against each other in a tag with each representing one of the two towns. I always get the impression Bollet was a bit of a break out star but his movie appearances don't really kick off until 65. The Bollet/Delaporte album was 63 though. Regardless, he's not treated as more of a star here than the other three. In the early introductions, Di Santo has a very deep voice. Good to know.

We just get a few minutes of action before everything breaks down but it is interesting. They didn't have a lot of room to work with and whenever Zarpa and Di Santo got too close to the heels, they'd liberally throw shots without tagging and get yelled at by the ref. Even just a few minutes of this is worth watching to see what they do without ropes, when they just have a few feet this way or that to move in, what holds and throws they choose to do. I wouldn't want it to be someone's introduction to French Catch but it makes you wonder if they trained or practiced with a mat like this, etc. 

And of course, a few minutes in, it all comes to naught as they release the bull. The wrestlers retreat to the walls. The bull gets distracted by the rodeo clown (or what not). The wrestlers go back and wrestle a bit more. The bull comes back. The wrestlers retreat. It's treated as great comedy by the production even as the host basically calls the whole thing off.

Then he asks the wrestlers to help wrangle the bull and if you know anything about these four, you know that Andre Bollet is going to bump at least once for the bull, and after playing matador with some cloth or another, he does just that. Meanwhile, Bernaert (who had a close call himself) pulls the bull's tail. Anyway, they can't get the bull down despite their best effort and everything just disintegrates from there. So not a lot of actual wrestling to talk about but as we have more matches to come, it was worth sharing and spending a few minutes on. We do have another episode of Intervilles later (a swimming pool match), but YouTube isn't letting me share that so I did clip some of it on Twitter. 

SR: Well, they decide to put a mat in bullfighting arena and hold a wrestling match there. I didn't know France had bullfighting. They actually wrestle normally for about 2 minutes with things looking good as usual and then they let an actual bull in the arena and it all goes haywire because everyone's running for safety. They keep trying to restart the match and the bull keeps interrupting. At one point Bernaert gets tackled by the bull and the referee also narrowly dodges a charging bull while they wrestlers have to abandon the hold they were working. Eventually the seconds (people more experienced with bullfighting I assume) get into wrestling the bull with a few guys getting run over. Eventually they all try teaming up on the bull, with Bernaert pulling his tail and kicking, probably trying to pin him to the mat but they don't succeed. Well this was certainly the most animal cruelty I've probably seen in a wrestling match outside of Japan.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mantopoulous! Zarpa! Bernaert! N'Boa! Gastel! Delaporte! Zarecki! Guguliemetti

Vasilios Mantopoulos/Armand Zarpa vs Pierre Bernaert/N'Boa Le Congolais 4/5/69

MD: Super enjoyable tag, endlessly entertaining. Bob Elandon was in the (yes, super racist) gimmick of N'Boa for at least four years now and there's much more of a sense that he's in on the joke now than in earlier matches we've seen. He seems to turn it on and off as the situation calls for, doesn't have his German handler with him, and spends a chunk of this looking surly as can be. When he turns it on, the crowd goes absolutely nuts, though, both with the blatant biting and getting outsmarted and outquicked and turned around by Zarpa and Mantopolous. They didn't start with the biting either. They really build to it as Elandon could bump and stooge and work technical spots as well. This one's very creative, with a lot of the double team comedy bits we've seen up til now and some we haven't. They even have the ref miss a hot tag, though they haven't quite worked out the value of actually paying it off with a tag that is hot yet. Zarpa's good, but Mantopolous is one of the best. There's a bit in here where he blocks a bodyslam with his leg that I don't think I've ever seen before and his turtling exchange with both heels popped the crowd huge. Bernaert and N'boa had a great act here. Bernaert was used to working with oddball characters as he spent a chunk of years teaming with Bibi. There's a moment half way where Mantopolis dropkicks N'boa to the floor and dives after him and they fight on top of the crowd more than in it and that represents the wild energy and imagination of this tag in a nutshell.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes.This was the usual fun junior tag. Fast exchanges and bumping tour the force to start, heels cheat and faces get increasingly enraged. As usual with Mantopolous, it seemed there was never a real extended heat section, so the whole thing felt light hearted. I mean, there was still some really impressive stuff going on. Bernaert looked age, but he still looked like an expert stooge and he and N'Boa (Embaba? M'Baba?) bumped extremely well for Mantopolous magic. There was also a crazy bit where Mantopolous jumped on one of the guys when he was outside the ring. Overall, it was a good bout.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. Mantopolous is such a wizard at turning people inside out, and both N'Boa and Bernaert are great at getting flustered. I loved Mantopolous flummoxing N'Boa by curling up into a ball, and his half monkey flip where he drops his opponent on his belly is a very cool spot. We also get the first dive of the footage as Mantopolous jumps off the ring apron onto N'Boa. So much fun to watch a trickster play tricks. 

Robert Gastel/Roger Delaporte vs Warnia de Zarecki/Giacomo Guguliemetti 4/19/69

MD: We come in somewhat JIP here. I doubt it's too much so but we lose some of the early feeling out process. We have that 1961 tag between Delaporte/Bollet and Leduc/Gastel which was some sort of interpromotional battle. I'm not sure how Delaporte and Gastel ended up here together, but I'm happy for it. They make a pretty perfect pair. Most of the first fall is spent with the stylists in control with holds and Delaporte menacing from the outside, doing everything he can to interfere and just blatantly come in. Eventually, they catch on and do a blind switch while the ref is distracted by him. It's all pretty entertaining stuff where Gastel didn't have to do a lot from underneath since Delaporte was creating all of the interest  and excitement. Gastel might have been the best at all time of getting a single leg from a kneeling position, that old mainstay of 50s French bad guys. It wasn't enough here as Zarzecki managed a slick escape from a full nelson into a pin. The second fall was Gastel and Delaporte at their offensive best, as they trapped Guguliemetti in their corner and just mauled him: big, massive forearms and uppercuts from Delaporte and clubbering blasts from Gastel. As much as these two were mugging stooges, they could absolutely crush someone with their strikes. The third fall was pretty academic with Zarzecki and Guguliemetti pinballing Delaporte around the ring with harsh shots to the fans' delight, until Gastel was able to get a shot in out of nowhere as he was getting whipped back and forth across the ring to sneak out the infuriating (for the crowd) win. Constantly entertaining with two absolute master villains and a couple of game good guys. As we've already covered the Van Buyten match and the Williams/Barreto match which are chronologically after this one, I think that's it for us and Gastel, and I'll miss the flat-faced, grisly, clubbering lout. He was a real discovery of this footage.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. Am I seeing things, or was Delaportes mustache shaved for this!? This is joined in progress about 15 minutes in. The first fall still had some impressively quick worked sequences. I also really liked Zarzecki beating the shit out of Gastel in the corner with fast european uppercuts. This was the stuff as all these tags, fun back and forth in the first fall, then the heels turn up the intensity, in this case by beating the shit out of the faces in the corner. Eventually the faces make their big comeback and all hell breaks lose. I'd say this executed the formula in a fun way, the energy was good and the heat was big. I liked the part where they stuck a mic in Gastels face after he got thrown over the rope.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Saulnier! Rabut! Manneveau! Bernaert! Zarpa! Straub!

Michel Saulnier vs. Jean Rabut 6/20/65

SR: 1 fall match going a bit under 30 minutes. There was some blindingly fast wrestling in this match. The kind of French Catch you can show to someone who has never seen French Catch before and just watch their jaw drop. There was a nice hard-fought feeling to it too thanks to both guys never letting their guard down and struggling fierce over the holds. Both guys getting upset and shoving each other around made the match, but they kept it clean and we even got a finish. Depending where you stand those animosities not boiling over into a full scale war may or may not have detracted from the match. One thing is for certain: these two put on a high end technical match which we haven‘t seen in a while.

MD: A real masterpiece of a juniors match. The announcer starts by calling them "Lilliputian," when comparing their heights, but there's not a single person in the crowd that holds that against them as the match moves forward. Rabut was pushing 40 here and Saulnier maybe around eight years younger and that played into the match, both for the chip on Saulnier's shoulder and, as the announcer speculated late into the match, the idea that Rabut might be tiring out first. The holds were very much what we've been used to in these settings, but faster, sharper, full of more oomph, with an additional twist or two at the end, one more escape reversal than we would have gotten a couple of years earlier, one sure tight reversal cut off and reversed itself. As the match went on, they got more mileage out of the casual shoulder slap to signify a release of a rope break than any match in history. It started congenial, but built to one or the other returning the favor and, generally, Saulnier getting hot over it. They ran parallel spots around it. At one point, Saulnier annoyed Rabut, who immediately put him down with a headbutt to the gut off the ropes (one of the first actual shots in the match) only for Saulnier throw one back the first chance he had. 

There was an excellent extended headlock sequence mid-match which felt driven by Rabut wanting to cool off Saulnier whose shoulder chip was becoming a fiery chasm. Later on, when Saulnier took it a little too far and Rabut was unleashing stuff on him, he too went for a headlock to try to cool things back down, driven by a sense that maybe he took it all too far. It never quite went over the top. They'd throw uppercuts and forearms and unleash knee crusher, but they always took it back down to holds or to the side for rope running and pin exchanges. The close-up work was brilliant throughout, little manual repositionings of one's foot in order to get leverage to escape a hold, a fake up high to set up a rolling leg pick (when Saulnier got really hot towards the end he outright swiped at Rabut's head to drop down for the leg), Rabut's tendency to slap away a hand to get the advantage on a lock up. They worked every hold, constantly looking for an escape or some way to keep it on. I imagine by the twenty-minute mark, the crowd envisioned a 45 minute draw with the two swiping at each other or going for fast pin attempts as the bell rang, but around 30, Rabut missed his opportunity to get a pin off the ropes and Saulnier came back with a deep (and deeply worked) jackknife pin for the win. Post match, despite the emotions that flared throughout the match, Rabut seemed pretty pleased with what they accomplished. As wrestling-as-sport goes, this was top notch, believable, emotional stuff. We'll see Saulnier switch roles over the next few years and Petit Prince enters the equation, but he was excellent here as the fiery upstart, with Rabut the skilled journeyman steering the ship.

PAS: This was really skilled impressive stuff. What really struck me watching it was the speed in which they would get up on their feet after taking ranas and armdrags, it was like watching a glitch in the Matrix. The actual grappling was also really class, with both guys doing minor tweaks and adjustments to holds which were a couple of degrees off from what you are used to watching in pro-wrestling. I kept waiting for this to break down into rough and tumble violence, and the uppercuts which were thrown here had really meat behind them, it never really got there though and thus didn't have the escalation of the truly tip top catch matches. That keeps it out of 1965 MOTY for me, although it was really breathtaking high end stuff for sure.

ER: I do think the greatest strength of this match is that it makes a really great primer for new French Catch fans. I think we've covered plenty of French Catch matches that could be described similarly, but this is the French style that might pop out more to a casual viewer due to its speed and pace. The French Catch style is one that rewards all levels of audience engagement, and this is one that has enough eye popping moments to catch the attention of someone focused more on their phone than the match, but also has enough micro-aggression build leading to bigger stuff that will pay off for a more focused viewer. It didn't escalate as violently as the great Catch, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a banging juniors match. The speed was really the highlight for me, as it's one of those French matches where you think you're watching something in an entirely different framerate, defying physics with oddly timed kip ups and headscissors and the type of Catch armdrags that wind up in a different direction than the one you expected. The grappling was strong and had several cool leverage moments, and the match also had several bizarre moments. I've said since we started reviewing Catch that there is always at least one thing that stands out as original in every match, and the moment that jumped out most to me was Saulnier faceplanting (intentionally?) himself into the mat after swiping at Rabut, just swinging himself face first into the mat, only to grab an ankle pick while he was down there. I genuinely have no idea if that was the plan, or the cover up for the failed plan, but I love that Catch is always making me ask questions like that. 

Armand Zarpa/ Luc Straub vs. Marcel Manneveau/Pierre Bernaert 7/2/65

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. This was your typical French tag with lots of rudos beating on faces and faces making a fool of rudos. Manneveau was quite the vicious bastard here, and Bernaert did his thing. I thought the match needed better tecnicos. Straub, the judoka, didn‘t even do any judo moves and instead did a bunch of foot attack bullshit and Zarpa was technically competent but not very charismatic. As a result the match felt a bit dragging und unspectacular, although the crowd was hollering. Bernaert and Manneveau were pretty violent, but that‘s nothing outstanding.

MD: This isn't my favorite tag that we've seen, but it had some things working for it. First and foremost, there was a throughstory of Manneveau being afraid of Straub. He'd refuse to be in the ring with him at any point, would refuse to tag in if he was there, etc. Manneveau is such a wormy, emotive stooge that he absolutely made it work, and thankfully, mercifully even, they made it pay off in the final fall when, upon being tagged in, Straub immediately knocks Bernaert off the apron so Manneveau can't tag out. He then gets thoroughly trounced in a satisfying manner for a couple of minutes. Past that, Zafar, while not being spectacular, was solid, technical and fiery when needed. The judo guys are probably my least favorite French stylists and Straub may be my least favorite of all of them. I swear this match had the most chinlocks we've seen too, which is a trend for 65 maybe? Chinlocks can be great if the crowd knows how to get behind a babyface in them, but that wasn't the case yet here. The second fall also ended with the old "face puts his head down for a back body drop and gets kicked" spot, which I don't remember seeing in this footage so far, no matter how rote a cut off/transition it is for us in 2021. There were two great tag spots, the first being Manneveau charging in to interfere only to accidentally put Bernaert in a headlock, and the second being Straub and Zarpa hitting simultaneous armdrag slams as the heels rushed them, but the match probably needed a few more given its length. There was nothing technically wrong about this, and the underlying story was fun, but we've seen a lot of more compelling tags.

ER: I liked this more than the other guys, even if it didn't reach the levels of our best tags. This had a great heel performance from Marcel Manneveau, a posturing buffoon who only wanted to avoid Luc Straub, a story that lasted 30 minutes and was paid off in the final minute. Manneveau carries himself like a French David Young, and cheats from the apron the entire match. I love a good apron cheat, and Manneveau was always quick to run in with an eye rake or the most blatant chokes (I'm not sure how much control the ref had over this match), and him flexing at Straub after the second fall was my favorite part of this. Bernaert often was left to pay for Manneveau's cheating, but I also loved all of Bernaert's attacks on Zarpa. Bernaert's knees had a homing device aimed squarely at Zarpa's forehead, and I loved how he made them connect. I thought Straub was fun, a large guy who perhaps worked a bit too small (felt like he was always working as undersized against the smaller Bernaert) but had some unique attacks and kept them moving. I didn't get the same slow down vibes, I thought he was smart at moving from a chinlock to something new, my favorite being the way he locked Bernaert's arm behind his back before hooking Bernaert's arm in his knee crook, moving him into an excellent pin. He did a couple things I haven't seen, like getting out of a headscissors by running in place on Bernaert's chest. The finish payoff of Straub finally getting his hands on Manneveau, elbowing Bernaert off the apron to prevent a tag, doing a kind of kappo kick after tying Manneveau in the ropes, all of it was great. The only crime this tag committed was maybe being a bit too long and then kind of rushing through the three falls, but I liked all of the work we got. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bernaert! Zarpa! Bayle! Montreal! Bibi! Husberg!

Joachim La Barba vs Dan Aubriot 4/11/65

MD: Our last little look at La Barba. About five minutes. It's great for what we get. They're able to go at a high speed, full of hard hitting shots and tons of character. They'll go from a quick roll up/armbar exchange, to a double stomp, to uppercuts and forearms, to big tosses out of (and back into) the ring, right into the antics. At one point, La Barba fast counted himself on a pin, left the ring, and put his robe back on, only for Aubriot to pull him back in and trounce him. Great stuff. The finish was 1965 nuts with a really close up missile dropkick (more of just a missile kick) and then top rope splash from La Barba. What a shame we didn't have more La Barba in the footage. Ah well.

Pierre Bernaert vs Armand Zarpa 4/11/65

MD: Other than the cross body finish and slight elaboration in some of the in-and-out hold sequences, this could have been six or seven years earlier. There's nothing wrong with that but it felt like a bit of a throwback to the classic stylist vs mechant stuff we've seen a ton of so far. Bernaert is, of course a pro at this. Zarpa was either Armenia or Greek (here billed as Armenian) and he could hang. Some of the sequences looked a little off but they were all worked so competitively that things being off ended up additive anyway. Sometimes Zarpa, despite being the stylist, went to a kick or a shot to get out and the fans seemed unsure about that early. Halfway through the match, though, Bernaert got mean and they were behind Zarpa when he fired back. There probably wasn't quite enough of that and maybe a bit too much of taking the crowd back down with holds. There was a relatively late headscissors which probably wasn't the crowd needed in that moment, for instance. In general, though, it was good, baseline stuff.

Remy Bayle/Mr Montreal vs Cheri Bibi/Eric Husberg 4/25/65

MD: We've seen our share of Bibi and Bernaert but this was our first look at Bibi and Husberg and it was great. Maybe with Bernaert there was more heel chicanery, but while Pierre's hard hitting, Husberg seems to be more of a relentless, dogged, and varied striker with a craven stooging streak and interesting combos. Add in Bibi's brutal shots and tendency to be able to cut off an opponent believably at a moment's notice and they were a high bar to defeat. The more I see Montreal, the more I like him. He had a body gimmick for a babyface, but he hit hard and threw great slams and sold well, just really having a deep connection to the crowd. He was lead babyface material and a fiery hot tag or mauling worker from underneath. It helped that Bibi leaned into his every shot. You got the sense he really liked to work with Montreal, which is quite the claim for me to be making from watching a few matches, but I call it like I see it. Bayle was able to work in these cool little karate chops giving his combos some welcome variety. This was fairly back and forth, with some standout sequences like a progressive (for the time) and well worked arm control bit on Bibi that ended with Bibi rolling to Husberg and Husberg mocking his opponents for losing control only to get almost immediately blasted for his trouble. There was also a great moment where Montreal held the ropes open as Bibi went to bound off them for an illegal double team so that he just went sailing. At times they got big heat (with trash being thrown in and Husberg kicking it out) and the fans were up for all the comebacks. The finish, while not satisfying, was at least amusing and both teams could realistically claim some form of victory. It made me want to see them go at it again.

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