Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Noced! Batman! Klondyke! Montreal! Le Comte! Calcard! Magnier!

Petit Prince vs Daniel Noced 6/6/74

MD: This is the cliff notes version of the touring 74 Petit Prince match, so it's not unlike things we've seen befoe, but it's such a great show. I love the contrast with Noced, who's just a mean jerk. He can feed into and base for all of Prince's stuff, but his own offense is just slamming his head into the mat in a hammerlock or lifting him to the top rope and hammering him. He's a mean bullying bastard and that makes it all the better when Prince runs circles around him. You get all of the big marks: the headlock go behind takedowns, the cartwheels, the back flip off the top, the amazing entry into the short arm scissors, but also just enough selling on the outside during a king of the mountain and a big spirited comeback and a clever stunning move to win. This was less than 8 minutes from bell to bell and it feels like something that can stand up with the best Rey Jr. TV matches along those lines. French Catch is so much more than just the quick exchanges, but this feels like the perfect tiny dose of Petit Prince to show someone reluctant to dig in just how special he personally was.

Klondyke Bill vs Batman 6/6/74

MD: This was a great piece of business. This is the UK Klondyke Bill, though he was billed from Canada. The rep he had was that he was a more athletic (though still massive) predecessor to the giants that would come a few years later in the UK, a guy who could go 30 (or 6 rounds) even if he never made it to the biggest stage at home. You get a real look at that here. Great use of the girth in general, with Batman just bouncing off of him, and earning every shot he got. He'd pry fingers away only to get pressed into the ropes and tossed. Bill would toss these belly bumps at Batman and he'd just bump halfway across the ring for them as the fans went nuts. He'd certainly antagonize the ref, shooting him across the ring as well. He had some gnarly holds too including a sort of a stump puller where he put all of his weight on Batman or just a toehold that looked nasty due to his size. He wasn't afraid to bump big off things you wouldn't expect either though, but he did it on the back half of the match after the tide had turned. Likewise, he'd go to cheating when he lost an advantage. Ultimately he'd get DQed for abusing the ref but the fact this went a smooth twenty with a number of different beats and holds and sections was a testament to how he was a step above his super heavyweight peers.

Jean Pierre Le Comte & Mr. Montreal vs Bernard Caclard & Fred Magnier (JIP) 7/11/74

MD: Nice to see some different guys in this one. We get the last two falls, as the stylists had taken the first one. It felt like one of those AJPW tags where you have one wrestler like Hansen or Spivey who can really assert themselves and know how to handle things and then another foreigner who doesn't quite get it and gets eaten up, so it becomes a tale of two matches. Or Harley Race. Have you guys ever seen Harley Race in an AJPW tag? He manages to be in the ring for about twenty seconds before losing the offense to literally anyone he's wrestling. Anyway, that was Le Compte here. He had the look of a poor man's Van Buyten and had some pretty good stuff when he got to show it: a nice cartwheel, a flurry of dropkicks, some hard shots, but he spent most of the match, when he was in getting destroyed.

And when Montreal was in, he was completely unbeatable. He looked more like Lou Ferrigno than ever here. Early on he did the strength spots, just overpowering every top wristlock and front facelock attempt. When he came in later it was about slamming and bearhugging and bodyscissoring his frustrated opponents. Le Compte took his beating well and sympathetically at least, and Magnier and Caclard were game. Magnier (the Mercenary of the Ring) has that sort of doughy bruiser bodytype that reminds you of Dick Murdoch (or Robert Gastel) and he can really lay it in with high/low shots, knees and stomps. Caclard was slimier and haughtier and more the little dog to Magnier's big dog. When Le Compte was in they controlled the ring and kept him in the corner and on the rocks. So there was some drama on whether or not Montreal could get back in and what sort of revenge he'd get when he did, but I still wouldn't call this a balanced match, even if the crowd did enjoy it.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Swimming Pool Matches! Lamarre! Montreal! Mantopolous? Hassouni! Mystery Wrestlers!

3/22/74 (All Matches) - Thanks to the community for helping us identify some of the wrestlers here.

Pierre Bernaert vs Gilbert Wherle

MD: I have to admit, I'm not sure who we're looking at here. If this is a card with three matches televised (even over multiple shows) then this is third from the top which seems to be something we rarely see? There's no announcer. This is a draw with 9 minutes left when we come in. The heel kind of reminds me of Bernaert with his hair and cheating and confidence in movements, but he's a little bit too short (Edit: It was!). Hopefully we can crowdsource some answers. Anyway, they were working towards a draw here, in this swimming pool match, so it was very back and forth. The crowd seemed younger (teenagers and twenty-somethings) than what we usually see. The heel would get mean shots in, the face would come back with some revenge shots of his own. There was a pretty good chinlock in here and the face had great arm-wrenching holds, including something akin to the first cross armbreaker we've seen. The heel's attempts to cheat varied from nefarious to absurd (repeatedly grabbing the ropes on a pin as the ref kicked it off). We've seen in draws that the ref will just decide for someone, generally the face, and when that happened here, the heel complained to the point where the ref just pushed him off of the apron into the water. Any ideas on who these two are?

Ted Lamarre vs Mr. Montreal

MD: This got a decent amount of time, but was overall quite good, especially for a swimming pool match. Lamarre, in some ways, mainly the mustache and the tactics, comes off as a less whinging Delaporte, and I do think this was Delaporte's promotion since last time we saw Montreal, he was up against him. But it was a solid act, especially for this crowd. Montreal controlled with his strength early. It wasn't just tossing Lamarre around either. H

e used the strength to make the holds look great and to counter every escape attempt definitively. They were able to move in and out of things well. When Lamarre took over, it was with a lot of cheating and cheap shots, especially draping Montreal's neck over the top and pulling the rope back. Montreal would try to hammer back at times but Lamarre was quick to get the next bit of cheating in. When Montreal did come back, he often took things too far and the warnings started to pile up. Everything came to a head in the celebratory last five minutes when Lamarre (who had skinned the cat once or twice) finally hit the pool on a huge back body drop. At first Montreal wouldn't let him back in. Then he tied him up in the ropes and kept running into him head first. On the third one, the ref got in the way and ultimately, really got in the way and Montreal picked him up to almost drop him in the pool as well. All this lead to a DQ win for Lamarre but the fans hardly cared. Past the ref getting soaked, they got pretty much everything they wanted out of this one.

Kader Hassouni/Vasilious Mantopolous? vs Bernard Caclard/Albert Sanniez

MD: I wish I could do better on this one. I did a little cross checking. One of the heels is an Elisha Cook Jr. looking guy who I'm sure I've seen before. The other one has a goatee and a buzzcut and I'd believe could be either eastern European or Le Vicomte Joel de Norbreuil by looks alone. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually look like him but he looks like someone he could be NAMED him, monocle and all. If I had time, I'd go back through some more matches to cross-check but hopefully you guys can come through. One of the stylists is definitely Kader Hassouni. The other wrestles like Mantopolous, with the hand behind the back feints and spin kicks and a great roll up at the end, and that confidence that was despite his size but I never get a good enough look to be 100% sure.

The match itself is good though. We come in during the second fall, I think, and the heels manage to do a great job cutting off the ring in between fast exchanges. Someone asked me the other day if the quality of the footage has dropped off yet and I said no, but that it was different. One element of that is that they got better at getting heat in tag matches in a more "southern" style. It didn't always pay off well but it was better than just giving up tags whenever. I wouldn't say we had a lot of long holds here either but all of the ins and outs were good, and when things really picked up in the third fall, there were some great pool bumps that the fans absolutely loved, first Hassouni launching a tope suicida right in and then the heels ending up one after the next, ending with the ref. They did a ton of these shows and the fans really did seem to love them.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Hassoni! Bernaert! Calcard! Prince! Noced!

Albert Sanniez/Kader Hassouni vs Bernard Caclard/Pierre Bernaert 2/15/73

MD: Another swimming pool match. We've seen some of these that were fairly weak but the last one we saw was pretty funny (though Catanzaro being in it stacked the deck) and this one had some great action, but then again, it had Sanniez who is one of the best juniors we've seen out of France. Bernaert, by this point, was an incredibly experienced tag team worker, a great stooge, and here, actually wrestled a bit more than we'd seen him in a while since much of the action was kept to the center of the ring given the water surrounding them. That said, and while Bernaert took most of the bumps into the pool throughout the match (Calcard's saved for the post match own goal), I'd say it was Caclard who created much of the motion on the heel side, as he was able to base and keep up for Hassouni and Sanniez's quickness. Calcard had a great front chancery suplex throw too. Sanniez' reverse bridging headscissors escape remains amazing to watch and he did it twice here. When it came time for the heels to take over (after Sanniez went flying through the ropes on a tope to nowhere due to a missed move), they were sufficiently vicious as you'd expect. Honestly, the pool didn't limit the action much at all, even when the ring was bobbing violently towards the end given how fast and hard they were going. Maybe this would have been slightly better as a conventional match but it was still very good overall.

Petit Prince vs Daniel Noced 3/16/73

MD: Every Petit Prince match we haven't covered is a treasure and this is no difference. I wouldn't call it the most impressive or spectacular match we've seen, but it's one of my favorite performances of his. He seemed more mature as a wrestler when it came to selling a limb, to squaring up to build anticipation for a move, in knowing when to go all out with speed and when to milk something for the crowd. Noced was exceptional too, both as a base, and as a stooging, bullying jerk, a real contrast to the Prince. There was just a little more stalling out of him than we've seen lately, a little more of that focus on his nose towards the end of the match when you'd expect things to be picking up, but it worked because the fans were emotionally invested and because the Prince played a long, one way to take them down one last time before the finish.

After some quick chain wrestling to start, they settled into around fifteen minutes of holds here, Noced controlling to start, first with a wristlock and then a hammerlock before the Prince took over with a short arm scissors. All of it was brilliant. What people will ultimately know about this match will probably come from the gifs of the escapes and escape attempts, and there'll be yuking it up about how wrestlers are spot monkeys or whatever else, but it's the set ups that make all of this really resonate. It's like chess, with each attempt at an escape built up with three bits of motion to even create that opening, and then multiple escape attempts being necessary before slipping out can occur, and then it's usually right back in so that they can take it back down and build it back up again. Without having two or three minutes to work the hold and slowly escalate upwards, the ultimate bursts of motion and acrobatics wouldn't mean nearly as much. Taken as a total whole, it creates the illusion of believable counters on top of counters, with Noced often not sure which way the Prince will go next and trying to adapt during and after the fact. Looked at as just a gif in isolation, it's going to be an amazing spot, but taken as a whole, there's an underlying struggle that creates the environment for which it can exist. But please, gif this stuff anyway; people should see it. And if it takes them back to the source, all the better.  But without the long dedication to a hold, the ultimate flash would feel far, far more empty.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Weicz! Cabrera! Sanniez! Martino! Caclard!

Jack de Lasartesse vs Bernard Vignal 8/24/68

MD: Just two minutes here and a chunk is taken up talking in the crowd. A shame as Vignal probably matched up well against Lasartesse. He's doing well here until he misses a drop kick. Anyway, we don't get to see much before the bombs away and Lasartesse tying him up for shots in the corner until he shoves the ref in the most casual, irritating way possible to draw the DQ.

Andre Bollet vs Jacky Weicz 8/24/68

MD: The last six or seven minutes of this were really good. Bollet was laying it in, leading to Weicz coming back big. It all built to a perfect block of a punch and Weicz firing out of the corner and getting satisfying revenge by tying Bollet up in the corner. Bollet's a crafy one though and things ended with him getting legs up and hitting a big flip senton and slam. Unfortunately, the twenty+ minutes before that went on a bit too long. Weicz wasn't his uncle ("uncle?") who was apparently back in America at this point, but he was a capable enough stylist. Bollet's expressions while being choked were spot on, and his reactions after eating something as simple as an armdrag are all-time-great, but this just didn't have the manic energy and vileness I've come to expect out of him. It picked up now and again but for too long it was them trading holds, with Bollet using whacks and hairpulls to keep Weicz down and Weicz coming up with solid and sometimes creative counters. Either chalk this up as a perfectly fine match with some diminishing returns on a personal level or trust me that if you chipped ten minutes off of this in bits and pieces, it'd be a really great one. Still, if you're going to spend a solid 30 minutes with someone, Bollet, with his expressions, isn't at all the worst pick.

Pedro Cabrera/Albert Sanniez vs Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard 8/31/68

MD: This was more of a slugfest than the last Martino/Caclard vs Sanniez/Partner match we saw. Just a ton of great shots all around. That said, this had both less energy and less heat. The heels were excellent here but they just had too much of a tendency to knock Sanniez and Cabrera into the wrong corner, leading to all-too-easy tags and comebacks before any real heat could register. There were a lot of great individual exchanges, spots, and performances though. Caclard had a great headlock suplex and was a good base and stooge all around and we'll see him again. This is our second and last look at Martino who was just a tremendous cruiserweight bully and one of those guys we unfortunately only get two looks at like Tony Oliver. He must have bumped to the floor six times and had an interesting bodyslam variation which went up and over differently. So good action but kind of goofy structure. Caclard and Martino got heat whenever they tried to cut off the ring or especially drag someone back to their corner because you're not supposed to touch a guy before he gets up, but ultimately, they got clowned a lot, and the third fall was really all comedy where they'd get a spot or two but have it reversed in a big way on the repeated attempt and crowd-pleasing miscommunication, especially after a giant swing. Sanniez feels like an all-timer with amazing bridges and crazy handsprings and big spots and big shots and we'll see him again. Cabrera was young but hung well for the most part. The match would have been better served with them really beating on him for a while though.

SR: 2/3 Falls contest over a little over 30 minutes. The elusive Tony Martino shows up again! His presence in this match, along with Sanniez also being there and Sanniez & Caclard later becoming a heel team themselves, it makes me wonder whether Tony Martino was their maestro. His and Caclards tendency to not outright cheat and instead proving their wrestling ability without the typical overt cheating certainly stands out. This was in the same style as the fantastic Martino/Caclard vs. Sanniez/Sullivan match from years earlier. The first fall of this had some beautiful, beautiful work. I loved the basic throws Martino whips out and  there were some awesome flexibility spots. Of course, there were some beautiful ranas and dropkicks as well. The match soon became european uppercut city though and turned into the fiery hot mix of hard hitting blows, heel roughhouse tactics and athletic babyface moves that was clearly these guys speciality. Martino is so clearly an awesome worker that it‘s hard not to be sour over his lack of tape appearances. He basically turns into a more nimble Terry Rudge with a boxing stance when he puts on those hammerlocks and starts clubbing away. Cabrera is said to be another Spaniard, and while he is cleary less interesting than Sanniez he does fine in this. He certainly ate a lot of stiff looking uppercuts which made me think a bit that he was paying young boy dues here, but who knows. Another great match that falls just slightly short of being classic due to the finishes coming a bit abrupt, but I‘m not complaining. Any chance to see these guys go to work is awesome and the fact that they probably had dozens of matches with this kind of workrate is amazing.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Sullivan! Martino! Caclard! Noirs! LeDuc! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!

Albert Sanniez/Francis Sullivan vs. Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard 10/21/67

MD: At some point in this one, you just need to stop and sit back and relax and watch the thing. We've seen some very, very good middleweight tags over the last few months and this is where I wonder if they didn't go just a little too far, well on their way to the trampoline space catch match where you know they got too far. This was full of absolutely spectacular and amazing spots, spots that we hadn't seen yet in the footage chronologically, as best as I can tell. Sanniez had a way of contorting himself upside down and back to his feet that he used to high effect. Sullivan, past his great headbutts, was a tiny burst of terror able to fly around. Martino and Calcard kept up, certainly, and based and stooged and whatever else. At times, I think it felt too cooperative which is not something I've felt about almost any match too far, though everything had oomph behind it. They were countering counters, cartwheeling, headcissoring, rana'ing and blocking 'ranas. While the fans were appreciative throughout, everything shifted somewhat around the fifteen minute mark when the heels started to act that way. Martino especially was nasty. Now, the comebacks felt more earned and the big spots felt like they were worth something. There was a bit too much of the ref asserting himself (which made things feel almost like a midget match towards the end) but the moments of triumph came to feel triumphant. This match was at its best when it felt like a match instead of an exhibition, but at least the exhibition that we got for the first half was absolutely spectacular.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. This was one of my absolute favourite French matches when I first saw it, and even so much more French catch being unearthed, it still stands out head and shoulders as one of the absolute top tier tags. What made this stand out among the dozens of French face vs. Heel tags was the technical skillset of Martino and Caclard. The opening minutes were just some beautiful wrestling, just basic throws and holds executed with a unique touch, such as the guys being dragged all the way over the back on snapmares as if they were judo throws, or guys being prevented from making headscissor escapes. Martino and Caclard largely stood their ground, and the first fall was basically 20 minutes of edge of your seat lightweight wrestling with a serious competitive streak. Eventually Caclard and Martino wanted to start roughing their opponents up and tried cutting off the ring, but Sullivan and Sanniez wouldn‘t let it happen. Eventually they just let loose and start beating the shit out of their opponents. 

Sullivan was awesome, like a mini Tenryu who could also do acrobatic moves, and during the heat segments he would just explode kicking the shit out of opponents with nasty kicks to the mid section, punches and those explosive dropkicks. Caclard looked snotnosed but was quite the fucker too, and you get the sense the heels were really trying to bruise up the faces kidneys. I also really dug the use of the hammerlocks and chickenwing. So the 2nd fall has the rudos evening the score through rough methods and the 3rd fall was all out with the faces having to step up to those foul moves. The athleticism in the match was just amazing, even by the standards of French wrestling. I think both Sanniez and Sullivan had an acrobatics background and it showed as they both busted out beautiful athletic counters, dropkicks and ranas left and right. They weren‘t afraid to throw hard shots too, and so the match just became a frenzy of beautifully executed and timed sequences and brutal strike exchanges. At one point Sanniez was bouncing around hitting like a dozen dropkicks to the left and right, something that would even make most athletes throw up. They went about all this in such an elegant and seamless way as if doing this kind of match was natural for them. Total classic, and still a stone cold contender for the best of all the French tags which would pretty much make it a contender for the greatest tag of all time. Just 30 minutes of the most beautiful and violent pro wrestling ever filmed.

PAS: Wild stuff. The match was worked at a incredible pace throughout, but there were spots when they would amp it up to 11, which were some of the fastest things I have ever seen in a wrestling match. Sanniez especially could flip out of anything and land on his feet. I also really liked how it broke down into something more violent at the end, with some really sharp and nasty punches and kicks. That ability to get down and fist fight was something that really separated the magnificent French Catch lightweights with those that followed them. They were brilliant acrobats, but it wasn't just acrobatics wrestling needs that grit to really make it work. 

Gilbert Leduc/Batman vs. Blousons Noirs 12/1/67

MD: Our first hair match and maybe the most iconic Blousons match possible, with some interesting structural flourishes we just haven't seen much of. After a bit of even wrestling and babyface shine (with some unforced errors as the stylists miss a kneedrop here or there), the Blousons undo the corner protection and toss Leduc in to start the heat that'll extend past the surprisingly short first fall into the second. Just amazing tag work here as they cut off the ring and make sure to follow up every kick out or but of hope with a nasty kick to the back. As always, Manneveau is the stooge, constantly grabbing from outside and mugging and cheapshotting and Gessat is the meanest guy in the world with his shots. By taking the early fall, it means that the next twenty or so minutes has Leduc and Batman at risk of losing their hair. Ultimately, though, Leduc is able to counter an attempt at a double team and we get one of the hottest tags we've seen in all the footage. 

The second fall is very long, with Batman and Leduc having to come back from a severe disadvantage due to the beating in the first one. They'll get one up on the Blousons but then fall to cheating and double teaming until something ultimately backfires again. Here, Leduc gets to do all of his headstand spots and Batman gets to get in plenty of cartwheeling, but they almost always end up in the wrong corner and have to fight back from underneath once more. Ultimately, after the third big spot where they knock both guys out of the ring, they are able to tie up Manneveau which allows for the pin. After that, the third fall is academic and the only question is eliminating the other Blouson so the pin can actually happen. Therefore, the crowd goes nuts when Leduc runs around the ring to grab Gessat's legs from the outside preventing him from coming into break up the pin and leading to Manneveau getting shaved. There were a few moments in the second fall where it dragged just a little and they didn't quite press hard enough into the peril of the faces losing their hair, but in general, this was excellent, just an amazing, classic heel tag team performance by Manneveau and Gessat with the good guys more than holding up their end. There was more thought put into this one than normal too and it showed.

PAS: So cool to see an apuestas match from this time and this country, wager matches are one of my favorite things in wrestling history, and it is cool to see how the concept is adjusted in France. Fun dynamic with the Noirs being this killer heel tag team, nasty cheapshotters and hard hitters who have a bozo side as well. Both Batman and Leduc are escape artists, and much of the match was the Noirs trying to corral them, only to see Leduc and Batman slip out. I am a mark for LeDuc's master of the headspin spots, and he has some cool ones here, Batman is a bigger guy and he also has some very cool escapes along with some great looking dropkicks. I am used to hair matches in Mexico building to a violent climax, and this had a much more standard French Catch tag ending, with Gessat getting tripped up an Manneveau getting cradled. I would have liked to see it break down a bit more, but the work we got was very cool. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday: French Catch, Rollerball Rocco, Marty Jones, Choshu, Saito, Inoki

Kader Hassouni/Claude Rocca vs. Bernard Caclard/Albert Sanniez French Catch 3/20/76

MD: There's so much here that I'm not sure how you can talk about it except for as anything but generalities. It honestly reminds me a little of when I was trying to get into lucha and I'd watch one of those long, straightforward trios form the 80s where you'd get so dazzled by the exchanges and the tricked out matwork and the rote spots and the comedy and how they shifted gear that there's no way you could find the forest for the trees. I wish we had a hundred of these matches, not just because they're so spectacular, but beacuse it'd make patterns easier to find. I do think that's the best sort of comparison. I've seen our pal Jetlag harken this to some other athletic peaks of pro wrestling, and I can see that, but to me there's just an undertone of ritual and craft here and that's what stands out the most. I just haven't worked out all of the ritual yet. It's remarkable how they're able to shift from acrobatics to comedy to pummelling one another on a dime.

Some stuff is universal though. It just takes a little bit to get there. When they finally start registering what's going on (and they take their time to do so, but that's fine in such a long match with the ability to tag frequently). All of the reversals feel so fluid and natural while being complex; all it takes is just one touch, one grasp, one connection between one body and another to create a flip or a twist or a throw, but due to the speed, the way they throw themselves into it, the lack of hesitation and the immediate follow up, it feels like it's exactly how reality should be. Once things begin to settle, the heels start to play into some great repetition and oneupsmanship spots (two powerbomb like flips only to get back body dropped on the third, a face giving a body part to clown the heel only to have the heel try it and again get clowned).

Finally, things settled down even further as the heels take over with frustrated hairpulling and roughousing and doubleteaming. The faces come back with a big ring-rope shaking spot and a big miss dived, and start a whole new section with them using creative double teaming out of the corner (mainly trips) until they get a fall. The rudos comeback with tight offense out of their corner for the second fall. Then, with some miscommunication, it goes into a big rousing comeback including table bumps, brawling on the outside, crazy rope running, and more clowning. You know the old adage that a wrestling card should be like a circus? That it should have a little of everything. This match had a lot of everything.

PAS: This was pretty incredible, a lot of the French Catch stuff I have seen has had incredible exchanges, but doesn't build to a coherent finish. This is really a spectacular match which works as a standard tag match. It is pretty crazy that INA just puts up a random show on youtube and the match is of this quality. Calcard and Sanniez look like an all time tag team, nasty forearms and kicks, incredible basing for all of the tricked out takedowns and headscissors, killer bumping and stooging (there was a spot where Sanniez just dives off the rope and belly flops right on the mat), we even get an angle with Calcard shoving Roger Delaporte the promoter and getting clocked and thrown into the ring. I really liked Rocco throwing these cross armed chops to the throat and Hasssouni had some really fun WOS style mat reversals. As always with French Catch there was a dozen crazy flips and take downs which look like they are from 20 years in the future not 40 years in the past. I can just imagine the quality of the stuff sitting in their archives, hopefully it keeps dribbling out.


Rollerball Rocco vs. Marty Jones WOS 12/30/80

MD: We get the last few rounds of this. Jones is, of course, the ultimate opponent for Rocco. Rocco's over the top, stooging, complaining, endlessly abrupt and endlessly dangerous. Jones is the most "solid" wrestler in history, maybe, endlessly sounded, a stable presence in all of our lives, dynamic but never garish, a true hero of Brittania. While not rising to the level of some of the other footage we have of them, this actually dodged a lot of my major Rocco criticism, which is that he's so go-go-go that nothing ever sets in or has meaning, that he only ever pauses to sell meaning instead of stopping to do so. Here, he was really leaning into the post-exchange stalling and then letting it transition forward to him getting an advantage. This is good stuff, but it'd obviously be better served if we had the feeling out from the early rounds. It's almost all the payoff here. As always, I love how suddenly a fall can end in this style, that sort of sport over cinematic story feel. Rocco's menacing presence on the ropes is absolutely iconic (and hey, he hits a grounded double axe-handle which is always good to see in a world of people getting their feet up every single time), and Jones' missile dropkick is one of the best moves in the world in 1980. The ring falls apart as they're careening towards the brawl, so they just stay on their knees and punch one another, which is a perfectly fine way to end a wrestling match.

PAS: This was a juniors sprint, without much selling but it was a pretty dope one. If you are going to do a match full of spots, have them be cool spots. Rocco is the guy with the rep as a before his time spot guy, but I thought Jones had cooler shit. He was decapitating Rocco with dropkicks, they looked like Gaea Girls level, it wouldn't have shocked me to see Rocco spitting out teeth. Jones also hit an absolutely flattening flip senton, he landed full force on Rocco's ribs. I loved the finish, as the ring starts to break apart because of the force of Rocco's bumps, so they just wail away on each other, with punches and short forearms, great way to finish off a time limit draw. We miss the opening rounds, so this may have been more of a meal in complete, but it was a hell of a snack.

ER: Man I thought Rocco ruled here. I know we're supposed to act like he's British Kurt Angle, but that's starting to feel like pretty reductive criticism the more matches like this we see. Rocco feels like the perfect opponent for Jones, and I don't think Angle was a perfect opponent for anyone. I think Jones looked great here, but I don't think the match would have been nearly as interesting without Rocco leaning in to every single thing Jones threw at him, while coming back every single time with cheapshots. And Rocco's cheapshots were all nasty strikes, a headbutt to the gut, a close range shoulderblock to the collarbone, and all those awesome short rushing punches. I loved all of it. There's no way Angle would have made those dropkicks or huge senton mean as much as Rocco did here, leaning chin first into a running dropkick and stooging for all the fans at ringside after getting spatchcocked by that brutal senton. Amusingly, their end run was nearly identical to a 1978 Jones/Rocco match I watched earlier today, Rocco trying to run Jones into the turnbuckle from the apron, getting punched instead, getting nailed with a Jones missile dropkick, and then getting thrown vertically into the turnbuckle (I love that vertical hands free corner bump of Rocco's so damn much). The ring literally falls apart which robbed us of a decent ending, and we already missed the first part of this one, but damn was what we got killer.

Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masa Saito/Riki Choshu NJPW 8/2/83

MD: This felt big and epic, all the way from the Inoki chants as he was coming out to the post match lariats. It was full of grit and struggle. I really liked how Saito and Choshu worked together. They were constantly driving their opponent back into their corner. They had some fun tandem moves. Everything looked good. Everything looked dangerous, from the backbreaker/second rope shot to something as simple as Saito coming in to stomp Inoki so that Choshu could turn him into the Scorpion Deathlock.

Basically, every momentum shift in their favor was thought out and meaningful. The first few in Inoki/Fujinami's favor were fickle. Saito would hit his suplex, get a two count, and Fujinami would be up first to dropkick him twice in the face before making the tag. It was a great dropkick, and there's the ever-present sense of toughness in refusing to stay down, but man do they just wilfully refuse to tap into the everpresent emotion existant in tag team wrestling by not building to actual comebacks.

The counter argument is that when Inoki finally gets to fight back, he gets a little build. A sunset flip gives him the space to hit the back brain kick out of nowhere, then he has to reverse a posting on the outside (immediately thereafter) before hitting another one for the win. I don't think that moment was made any larger for it being the first meaningful comeback in the match though. I get that you just have to accept it as part of the style and appreciate the good (and there was plenty of that) but they always leave such good stuff on the table when there's no reason they can't have their cake and eat it too.

PAS: I liked how uncooperative the early grappling looked, no one was letting anyone grab anything, ever throw or grip was contested. Choshu and Saito were really rough and rugged throwing hard punishing chops and stomps, and some pretty cool double teams. I am an Inoki and Fujinami fan, but I had some issues with them in this match. Fujinami popping up after the Saito suplexes was pretty bad, Saito has amazing suplexes and Fujinami basically no-selling them was bush league it felt like indy wrestling shit. Inoki did his thing where he just decides to end a match. Saito beats on him and stretches him and Inoki just decides to hit a couple of enzigiris and get the pin. Choshu and Saito are a hell of a heel tag team, and it is cool to see them in a big star tag, and there were some real moments here, just don't think it totally came together.

ER: This was one of those cool as hell tag matches where it looked like the file was sped up, everybody moving at 1.5x asskicking speed. I dug everyone in this to some degree, but especially loved the viciousness of Saito and Choshu. Saito especially was so spry, so quick, and looking at all times as if he'd be able to lift and throw all three men in the match at once. He had a couple suplexes here that looked like we should be able to gif him throwing Inoki and Fujinami out of the building. I loved Saito and Choshu picking apart Fujinami, hanging him upside down in the corner and kicking at him, suplexing him, and I liked how they treated Inoki with total disregard. But yeah, gotta concur with everyone, seeing Fujinami pop up after one of those vicious Saito suplexes made me want to see Saito just suplex him over and over and over until he couldn't hit a dropkick. 

Read more!