Found Footage Friday: 1982~! OLYMPIC~! AUDITORIUM~! LUCHA~!

 

Azteca Promotions, Lucha Libre, Olympic Auditorium, October 16, 1982

Super Astro vs. Capitan de Oro

MD: Super Astro was young here and though he'd always look small, he looked especially so in this one. This went a worked ten minutes (not quite) for a draw, and never really got out of first gear, but it was a very fun first gear. Lots of takeovers, lots of Astro having to use every big of lucha libre physics to get Oro over. What was most striking was how direct a lot of the landings were. Less rolling and flowing and more thudding than I'd expect. I'm not sure if it was the ring or the experience level or the locale or what, but the points of impact felt harsher than what I was used to. It never really opened up though, just one takeover after another even though some were novel relative to what we see today.

Black Shadow (last match), Santo de Oro, Huracan Ramirez vs. Sergio el Hermoso, Bello Greco, El Medico

MD: Interesting that Black Shadow would have his last match against a couple of exoticos. If there was anything else behind it other than them being a hot act, I don't know it. Though this is second on the tape, I'm pretty sure it's the main event of the evening. Sergio is great in the introductions, just leaning his cheek on the top rope as if to sully the integrity of the proceedings. Despite losing his match to Santo decades earlier, Shadow got to wear it out and then take it off before the match. 

I enjoyed this a lot. For the primera, after Sergio screwed around a bit early calling Santo out, they landed on pairings. Greco and Shadow worked well, very smooth. Sergio did all of his comedy bits with Santo, including where he keeps falling back into a body scissors. I saw him do that in 89 NJPW too. Then things sort of broke down and we got rudo miscommunication with an exotico twist spot after spot, bit after bit, just endless riffing as the rudos got more and more angry at one another. It was delightful how far they took it before the tecnicos won the caida. Second caida started the same way but then got pretty grisly as they tore at Santo's mask and started the woundwork. Tecnico comeback in the tercera was Ramirez having enough and shoving the ref down. And the finish, I suppose protected the rudos for some reason, as Ramirez, after Santo's dive, hit a low blow foul to save Shadow giving the rudos the DQ win. Entertaining stuff, with enough blood (Medico ended up with his masked ripped and bleeding too) to give it some substance even if maybe it didn't have quite the weight you'd expect.

Sonia Orellana vs. Marlene

MD: This was a good amount of fun. It went a worked 15 in two falls. Marlene would press an advantage and Orellana would come back, and it got pretty tricked out at times. In the first fall, Orellana came back in the end with a number of tumbling takeovers including one where she jammed her knee right in the crook of Marlene's hip in a way that looked nasty. She won that with a slam and a big splash. Second fall had Marlene try to grind her down but Sonia fire back. She hit some sort of diving takeover off the top that we couldn't really see and missed a splash from the top that went pretty far across the ring. The time expired (for hook or crook) while Marlene had her in a bodyscissors and they called it a draw. Solid stuff.

Tony Rocco y Gallo Tapado vs. El Cobarde y Muralla Del Ring

MD: All of this stuff has been really good, honestly, and it makes me wish that this was just on LA TV and we end up with a ton of it some day. I haven't seen Rocco since the 80s lucha set and he was very good. All of these guys were in their own way. I expected Cobarde to stand out more and while he had good strikes and occasionally played the coward well as you'd expect, Muralla was probably more dynamic. I loved the early exchange with Rocco where Rocco did his step over armdrag twice and then jammed Muralla when he tried to do it. Gallo had more high flying stuff, all a lot of fun. The beatdown was lengthy but they switched it up with some tandem slingshots and a lot of brutal shots. Eventually Gallo was able to lean into some rudo miscommunication for a quick second fall win, but the rudos came right back.They undid his mask so Rocco had to fight them off two on one, but he managed it until Gallo could even the odds. Finish had them tear off Gallo's mask. The ref went so far as to pull his own shirt off to cover the face, which was a great bit. 

Mando Lopez y Kato Fu Mask vs. Migra Primero y Tony Curiel

MD: We don't spend a ton of time on this one so it's a little hard to get a sense of things, but if I have everyone right here, I liked Curiel's reactions and Kato Fu Mask's bumping. After a little bit of clowning early (on Curiel, I think) by Lopez, the rudos took over and they did a good job controlling the ring and keeping the beatdown on. We only get the primera here. And then the rest of the tape are random Gagne vs Larry Z AWA and Skip Young vs Al Perez matches. Weird things to keep alongside this.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Shadow!

Georges Cohen vs Black Shadow 7/16/83

MD: This is part of a show with a Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Eliot Fredrico/Kato Bruce Lee match from the previous week too and I kept that because the version we had before and covered here. This doesn't have the audio timecode issue though so it's an improvement. The Cohen vs Shadow match is new to us.

SR: Cohen has had one of the best singles matches of all the French matches that we've seen in 1968. 15 years later, he sure is aged, but still quite on top of the game. By 1983 these matches had approximated the rhythm closer to a lucha match. Less extensive working of holds, more complicated rope running and snappy armdrags with a rudo bumping a lot. It's a fascinating evolution. Cohen showed he was definitely not coasting by his old skillset. He could do all that. And Black Shadow was an excellent bumper. There may be an argument that the guys working France may have been better rudos than the Mexicans. I mean, Black Shadow had no problem bumping around for Cohen for like 10 minutes straight here, flinging himself into armdrags and outside of the ring. They would work some holds for a bit, and then go back the bumping and stooging. It's really fun to watch. Shadow actually ends up taking up the match working over Cohen with some mean stomps and punches. Nothing mindblowing, it does the job. Shadow actually put up a bit of a fight here but ended up falling to Cohens skill anyways. Perhaps they were a bit long in the tooth here going 20 minutes with the rudo beatdown being a bit much but it was a good match.

MD: Cohen sure was good. The first ten minute had him totally in control and some of his stuff was so slick. He'd torque the arm and then vault over for the headscissors takeover or bump himself with a front flip to set up the bridging headcissors roll over. The rope running was very good. The fans were into it. Shadow did a great job of feeding and running into it all, really bumping all over the place for Cohen. Very entertaining stuff and like I said, slick, just slick. There were two bits of heel control here. Both were quite similar, with a lot of stomps and punches, slamming the head into the turnbuckle, and tossing Cohen out. In the first, Cohen was able to mount a comeback because the ref was getting in the way of Shadow. Cohen went too big on his comeback an the ref got in his way though, letting Shadow take back over. The second, which got over big, had Shadow toss him out one too many times and Cohen yank him out from the floor. Cohen was able to catapult him into the ref too, satisfying everyone. You had the sense (and the footage might justify having this sense) that these two had worked together for years. It showed here. It's late in the game for the French Catch footage, but from a skill standpoint alone, this really does stand up to almost anything in the world in 1983.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Marquis! Shadow! Motta! Angelito! Lailee! Acesnsy! Gordon! Frederico!

Marquis Richard/Black Shadow vs. Marcello Motta/Angelito 8/25/85

MD: We're leaning on INA's youtube site for this one. It's next on the list as it is, and I might have skipped it (especially because we covered it for NFF back in 2019; look at how little we knew!) but this is the second to last week so... well, let's lean on them outright. Anyway, this stands on a strong foundation. Most of these 80s tags do. There were all the elements. Angelito was the heir to Le Petit Prince and he was flashy as could be, with things I've rarely ever seen like a body press into an armdrag or using the ropes to slingshot up and over on a hammerlock escape. He was a special talent and should be thought of as much. There are the other hits. Black Shadow still likes to get tossed out of the ring. Richard had the valet and he got heat (more on that later). The heel-leaning ref was annoying but in a way that got the job done. Motta was fiery and had the crowd behind him. They ran holds and sequences for the first two thirds, with a little bit of heat, broken up, in the middle. Then they leaned hard into it, due to the valet turning the tide, with endless stomps and clubbering, everything looking credible, Angelito selling huge. And finally, there was the comeback, probably one of the best actual comebacks we've seen in quite a while, with Richard tossing Angelito into the ropes, likely so the valet could sneak in another shot, only for Angelito to turn it into a massive, high octane dropkick, knocking the valet off the apron. The finish was sloppy but the fans didn't care. Hell, there was even a Martian type mascot on the outside, a dog named Alberic. I know this isn't the tight work of the 60s, but there was still a lot to enjoy in this faded reflection of grander times. And look at the difference between our 2019 review and this one. We had no idea what wonders were ahead of us!

Gaby Lailee vs. Acensy Del Oro 3/8/87

MD: Ok, so, welcome to 1987. We're just about done here. Here's what you need to know. The program opening has the wrestlers come out with synth music in the background and someone playing a trumpet. It's the whole promotion including Flesh in his 1987 singlet with one strap look and some guy with a K themed mask/outfit with a cape that we'll probably never learn about. Gaby has a Native American gimmick with a headdress she was gifted after she came back from the states. She came out with a huge guy with an Ivan Drago/Terminator type thing who was "the champion of Yugoslavia" and being trained by Flesh Gordon. Acensy is "a former champion of Spain" like every other Spanish wrestler we've ever seen in France. This was the worst of combinations to start: openly collaborative and sloppy all at once; Acensy was pretty clearly basing and helping Gaby do thing cartwheels and they badly blew a sunset flip. Once things got a little more heated and they went away from the wrestling, things settled dow a bit, but outside of one heated moment where Gaby chased her out into the crowd, it wasn't particualrly memorable. Definitely a far cry from what we saw with Lola Garcia at the end of the 70s.

Eliot Frederico vs. Flesh Gordon 3/8/87

MD: This entire episode feels like an attempt to force a revival in 87 to me. They talk on commentary about L'Ange Blanc and Le Borreau and Duranton and Firmin. They say that Flesh Gordon is the hope to lead them into the future. He's bill as a star all around the world. And, it's a last gasp, right? I don't think this match was bad. It was a fine sprint but it had none of the real art or flair. I think it would have matched well to a Prime Time Wrestling match from 87, but it also doesn't seem quite as distinct from that. Gordon didn't do any of his tribute spots. No headstand, no up and over, not even his flying flipping armdrag finish. You know what he did? Three matches before I'm done with this whole project? The first ever clothesline I've seen in French Catch. If that's not symbolic that the end has come, I don't know what is. Frederico remains a solid heel who hits hard and Gordon even hit hard at times too but this wasn't even a reflection, or if it was, it was maybe a reflection of something else that was happening across the Atlantic.

 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Gordon! KBL! Frederico! Cohen! Doukhan! Shadow!

Angelito/Flesh Gordon vs Kato Bruce Lee/Eliot Frederico 7/28/85

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pZGPE7J7QQ&ab_channel=MattD

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL2SebLfXGQ&ab_channel=MattD

MD: This was a very good match with a very bad finish. It's a shame because even if this had a typical last fall/finish, it would have been one of the best matches we have from France in the 80s. Frederico is a guy that I wish had come along twenty years earlier. They gave him a big entrance here with a motorcycle and the full leatherman gimmick (with Kato playing along). He's one of the absolute best punchers we've seen in the footage but also a pretty great base in taking Angelito and Gordon's stuff, and some of Angelito's stuff was pretty complex and out there. Kato Bruce Lee is more of a goof. He did more fake karate here, but he was mainly a punch/kick kind of guy who could hold his own on exchanges and stooge well. Part of what made this work was that it had a slightly different structure, with the early even exchanges/stylist showcase giving way to heat after Frederico opened up with the fists and Angelito missed a senton bomb. They took the first fall which is usually a good sign for these matches. Then, they survived a pretty robust comeback to take over with a lot of cheating and misdirection to force a second bit of heat before a second comeback and the end to the second fall. If the last fall had been celebratory and full of heel miscommunication and flashy ref comeuppance spots, everything would have been fine. They only did a bit of that before the ref got fed up with Angelito and Gordon's clowning of the heels and DQed them after Angelito went down to count a pin of Gordon's. The heels took the trophies and no one left satisfied. Otherwise, it was a good one with plenty of slick individual moments though. 

Georges Cohen/Gass Doukhan vs Black Shadow/Kato Bruce Lee 8/10/85

MD: Another skilled tag from some aging heroes and villains. Well, and Kato Bruce Lee, who is most likely younger and coming into his own, a real over the top shitheel. You get kind of an undercard mid 80s WWF guy feel from him, like an Iron Mike Sharpe, but he's really throwing his all into it, bellowing and putting on a fit when things don't go his way but more than happy get bumped over the top too. Black Shadow, up in years now, was more likely to get knocked out between the top two ropes, or, occasionally, dive to nowhere during a rope running sequence.

If absolutely pressed, I'd probably tell you that the French tags would have been more enjoyable total packages if they became one-fall matches in the 60s like the singles matches did. We'd probably lose some nice long mat sequences, but there's a very good first fall in here and then some additional stuff which isn't bad on its own, that's quite good on its own really, but that might have been better served packed into that first fall. The exchanges were good. The cheating was fine (thought he heel-leaning ref was a bit much in this one, especially as he never got his comeuppance). We've been watching Cohen for twenty years and he's a great face-in-peril, especially here when they were beating him around the crowd, right in front of a bunch of kids. Doukhan was more of a Ben Chemoul sort, unique in appearance, stylized in movement, now greying in the hair but still able to go. They were true pros. Again, the first fall had the usual ten minutes of exchanges and ten minutes of heat and a proper quick comeback. But they went back to the cheating for the second fall, had another quick comeback in the third. It was spirited with the heels run around the ring, but it all could have been a tighter one-fall package. It's far too late in the game to be complaining about structure. I've learned to live with it and learned to love it. It's been three decades and hundreds of tags like this. They never conformed into what I wanted but I learned to find the joy in it regardless.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gordon! Hassouni! Marquis! Shadow! Primitiv! Jessy Texas? Cohen! Tejero! Lagache!

Flesh Gordon/Kader Hassouni vs Marquis Richard Fumolo de la Rossignolette/Black Shadow 7/14/85

MD: I'd call this one surprisingly good, pretty well put together. By this point, the good Marquis (now mentioned as Richard instead of Edouard) had figured out a better balance for the act. It was still getting a lot of heat on the valet (a Paul Butin-Fluchard; your guess is as good as mine), which involved him having to stand on the apron and go all the way to the center of the ring at every opportunity and contrived ref distraction, but he was better at knowing when to bump and feed and work rope running spots and when to slow things down and pose and preen. They were all moving pretty well in there actually, surprising for Richard since he'd been more of a lump recently and for Black Shadow because he took so many big bumps and dives to nowhere. I thought Gordon looked quite good; Hassouni probably hit things cleaner and moved faster but Gordon had more of a star's sense when to appeal to the crowd and really milk something. This followed the old structure with exchanegs and stylist dominance in the first fall, cheating leading to a straight up beating in the second, and all of the celebratory bits of comeback and humiliation in the third, including the valet getting what was coming to him. The ref leaned heel which was kind of necessary for the valet act to work but made it all a bit much but the fans were into it, the action was good save for a few flubs, and the production team certainly had a lot of fun putting quasi-blasphemous phrases up on the screen to highlight the Marquis' antics. We're deep into 1985 now and while Flash Gordon isn't Jacky Corn or Petit Prince or Gilbert LeDuc, and while he'd turn into whatever he would turn into in the years to come, you do get the sense from the footage we do have that he did do a fairly admirable job helping to anchor things in the 80-85 period.

Mambo Le Primitif vs Jessy Texas 7/21/85

MD: I have no idea who Jessy Texas is but he's around off and on through the end of he footage and after. Mambo has his drummers back. It's crazy that we have more Mambo matches than L'Ange Blanc matches, right? And over the span of a few years here. his was fairly spirited, I guess. Ol' Jessy (billed from America and with a fun shirt with his name on the back) had a lot of the tricks (dropkicks, the up and over top wristlock reversal, monkey flips, a very nice heaving back body drop type throw), and Mambo bumped all over the place, including his signature chest first miss off the ropes splaach bump. Eventually, he got biting and clubbering and despite a fiery comeback from a bloody Jessy, one big shot to the gut ended his hopes. Mambo finally more or less figued out how to do the Alabama Jam too, so good for him. This didn't have he spectacle of the handicap match or the strap match but it was probably the best darn Mambo Le Primitif match I've ever seen. Oh and since everyone needs to know this, pop star "Billy" was there for the last match and singer Francois Deguelt (who represented Monaco at Eurovision!) was sitting on commentary for this one. Important stuff.

Georges Cohen & Kader Hassouni vs Anton Tejero & Pierre Lagache 7/21/85

MD: I'm going to miss these sequences. Up and over into headscissorss. Amrdrags where they hang on and hang on. Rolling back wristlock takedowns. Cohen and Hassouni were stylists' stylists. Tejero and Lagache were expert bases, stooging and feeding and bumping out of the ring (the old Tejero special). They were all older now but the technique was the technique and they were masters. Maybe Hassouni didn't get as high up on his cartwheel. Maybe the rope running just lasted a few spots instead of a full minute, but they were able to get a lot of mileage out of teasing the wrenching of an arm or slipping a shot in to the gut or the ref preventing Cohen from getting in while Hassouni was getting double teamed. That meant when Tejero went sailing through the second and third rope to the floor on a missed charge or was tossed over the top afer Cohen's eventual hot tag, it just meant all the more. What can I tell you that I haven't already? In 1965 or 1985, these guys were good.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Blaire! McDonald! Primitiv! Lopez! Malpard! Marquis! Angelito! Gordon! Shadow! Frederico!

Linda Blaire vs Nicky McDonald 7/21/84

SR: It‘s a womens match. This was better than other 80s womens matches I‘ve seen from Europe, but that‘s not a high bar given that women were traditionally discriminated against in European wrestling. There was some decent stuff in here but not the super athletic shit you are used to see from French wrestlers. The annoying thing about the match was that it was part of that Le Dernier Manchette show where they kept cutting to certain members of the crowd and Roger Delaporte commentating. I have no idea if they still ran actual wrestling in the Elysee Montemartre at this stage or if these matches were just basically exhibitions for this documentary type TV show.

MD: The whole episode is here but it's timestamped to the start of the match. What I can say safely is that there's connection. The bald fan with mutton chops from the studio show is there in the crowd and causing antics. They focus on him (and a female fan) quite a bit, and do "cut back" to the studio where they're obviously not watching this live as the extra were just told to wave their hand randomly to some imaginary action. That means we miss a bit here and there but never much. The match itself felt like the middle ground between Moolah-ism and the French style. They hit hard. There were holds and takeovers. There were also hairpulls/tosses. It couldn't hold a candle even to the 70s Lola Garcia match we saw. That said, I think it would have held up pretty well to any comparable women's match in the States in the 80s and they filled the time well. Blaire was the heel and I liked her antics and in-between moments. She'd clap for herself after a front chancery takeover or scream a bit "Yeah!" as she was doing a slam. Big clubbering shots too, that sort of thing. And blatant low blows that you just kind of had to go with (she got a public warning for one). McDonald had some huge fiery comebacks the sort that drew public warnings. Her best was when she slammed McDonald onto the apron repeatedly after pulling her out. Objectively solid, but harder to watch in context.

Le Primitiv vs Patrick Lopez 8/1/84

MD: Look, if Mombo was coming to my town in 1984, I'd go and see him. Granted, I was a toddler in 1984, but still. The automatic translation on youtube called him a "real frenzied Mongolian plush toy" and that seems as accurate as anything else. Honestly, he was developing the act from the last time we saw him! There was more dancing to the tribal band's constant drumming now. He still hit the crazy tope and the top rope legdrop. This was just a wild scene. Lopez looked right out of the late 50s. He did all the up and overs and handstand ranas and cartwheels and rolls. He bumped big out of the ring and bumped Mombo big out of the ring. If we had him against Pellacani or Peruano or even Bernaert, it'd be another thing. Against Mombo, it ended up looking like some of the loosest work we've seen in the footage. They were playing at it instead of doing it. It was entertaining and didn't wear out its welcome but it felt more like parody than anything else.

SR: Bless Patrick Lopez, because god damn he tried. This would‘ve been a fun match on New Catch. Although the logic of the primitive monkey man knowing knuckle locks and tope suicidas eludes me.

Gerald Malpard vs. Marquis Edouard Fumolo de la Rossignolette 8/1/84

SR: More old man catch. I could see people digging the Marquis and his act, especially with him having a valet and all that, but the workrate isn‘t winning me over.

MD: Again, it's all relative. Richard in this role has completely changed his act and he's still developing it week to week and adding little flourishes. Some of the bits of the valet coming in and dusting the opponent while he's in a hold or just the way the match started with him jamming Malpard three or four times before getting his comeuppance was wonderful BS. He still hit hard. He wasn't afraid to bump. He was a full step slow and a little ginger in his movement, half for the gimmick, half not. Would I have rather seen him instead of the Rene Goulets of the world on a 1984 WWF undercard? Absolutely. Could he have had a great few week run against Jerry Lawler or Austin Idol in 1984 Memphis? Absolutely. He worked the gimmick into every moment and got full mileage out of the valet. Would we have gotten a better match if we had 20 minutes of stylist-vs-stylist worked to a draw Lopez vs Malpard (who was game here, bumping big, getting sympathy and having a way of just tossing himself recklessly at the Marquis)? Yeah, we would had. This was fun bullshit, entertaining. I'd say, given the length, it's absolutely worth watching! It just lacked the actual wrestling underpinning we even got from classic Duranton. And for those who have been following along, you know exactly what that means.

Angelito/Flesh Gordon vs Black Shadow/Eliot Frederico 8/1/84

SR: 2/3 Falls match going roughly 25 minutes. You know, these late period French tags may not be as good as the classic stuff, but I‘m really enjoying them. A big part of that is Angelito, who has really great body control and just moves so gracefully around. In this match, Frederico was also part of that. I don‘t know what got into him, but he decided to beat the shit out of Flesh Gordon with great looking punch combos. This match also had some blatantly Lucha spots. There was even a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor (!!) and Frederico launching Angelito with a military press onto Gordon who was busy outside. This was not just a spots match, though. Angelito ended up taking a big bump in the 2nd fall and spent much of the fall laid out All Japan style while Flesh was in peril. It didn‘t build to a kind of amazing conclusion but it was a neat choice of structure. It‘s cool that they were trying new things while sticking to the old rhythm even in the dying days of the territory.

MD: Sebastian hit this one pretty well. Angelito was very impressive, though there were times where he'd do one extra flip to turn something already impressive into something just a little over the top or not quite as smooth as it had been up until then. Gordon looked better here than the last time we saw him. He really understood how to work from underneath and had just enough flashy stuff to get by, including that up and over flip mare driver thing that he hits multiple times in this one (but each one was a killshot basically). Shadow was solid as ever, just a real pro at taking stuff and bumping big. Frederico is a guy I badly wish we had five years earlier, because while he doesn't keep up quite as well, his puncher's gimmick is just great. We've had so few boxing gimmicks in the footage, and I think this might be the first heel with it and it's perfect for the way these tags work. You mainly want the heels to be able to clobber and smash and grind the stylists down and he can just unload on someone in the corner. Angelito's big catapult bump over the top gave it all real drama even if they couldn't give the heels even one pinfall and the finish seemed just a bit wonky with the double sunset flips seeming to finish it but not quite, but overall, this was another good tag even deep into 1984.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Richard! Corne! Hassouni! Shadow! Angelito! Cohen! Bordes! Gordon! MANIAK!

Jacky Richard/Albert Sanniez vs Jean Corne/Kader Hassouni 9/3/83

MD: As we close out the 1983 footage, we bid adieu to three of our stalwart friends: Richard, Sanniez, and Corne. There will be a few more Hassouni matches in the collection, which is a good thing as he looked excellent here. They all did, of course, Richard the heatseeking, clubbering, basing malcontent; Sanniez the slicker, hard-hitting, big bumping technician; and Corne the junior hero, smaller and quicker than Corn or Leduc but just as able to carry the crowd. This was a great crowd too with kids who wore their hearts on their sleeves, uppity teenagers who dared to get right up to the ring, and yes, a pro wrestling granny. Lots of chants and big elation for the stylist comebacks.

Given the four we had in there, of course they moved in and out of the holds well for the first ten minutes. The heat came in two parts and the first was a little overwrought as Saulnier had to strain all over the ring to get out of position. He was missing Sanniez's pretty blatant hairpulls (armbar, with the head between the legs, and his hand reaching around the back for the pull). It meant that the first comeback was more about him paying for his transgressions with Sanniez catapulted right into him. The second bit of heat was primarily clubbering and this had a bigger and more direct sort of comeback with Corne sneaking into the ring and through the legs to break up a double team and lead to miscommunication and the finish. As always, it was amazing that Hassouni and Sanniez were able to do some of the things that they were in quick exchanges 20+ minutes in, but that's French Catch for you.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. You will know exactly how these go by now. Long, quality face shine chock full of super quick sequences to start, before the heels take over for a beatdown. Faces come back, heels bump like mad and a quick finish happens. After this, the matches we have get pretty wacky, so I guess this is a sort of last hurrah for the classic type of Catch. It was as good as any of these matches you‘ve seen too. Everyone looked pretty old but they had no probably going hard as usual. Richard especially was the most grey and crusty looking dude here but had no problem bumping big and fast and running the ropes. Hassouni was spry and Sanniez had one of his typically good performances. There were also a bunch of rowdy kids and an elderly lady at ringside threatening to storm the ring at the heel tactics of Richard & Sanniez. Maybe for this reason referee Michel Saulnier decided not to do anything fishy here.

Black Shadow vs Angelito (JIP) 2/25/84

MD: Just the last two and a half minutes here of a match that went almost twenty. Angelito and Shadow might have lost half a step but them half a step down was still pretty good for the bits we saw here. I imagine they had started off with a bit more flash and speed. This was pretty evenly worked with holds and rope running and flips about until Angelito bounded up cleverly into a victory roll for the win. From a technological standpoint, they were experimenting with slow-motion replays.

SR: About 2 minutes shown of what looked like a preliminary affair. Angelito has some really nice moves, though.

Marquis Edouard de la Rossignolette vs Georges Cohen 2/25/84

MD: I may have spoken too soon, for the good Marquis, in his fineries, with his medals and his monocle, and his butler "Paul Bart", does have a striking resemblance to Jacky Richard, if you just take out the beard. I do give him some credit for changing his look, his expressions, the way that he moved.

That said, this is going to disappoint people who are into the quicker stuff in the footage, the more technical stuff, AND the slugfests. I'm not going to lie about that. I enjoyed it to a degree, but it was a pale shadow of some of the other examples of the sort we have. It didn't have the manic energy of Duranton and his valet and no one compares well to the size, derision, and high spots of Lasartesse. Moreover, there were just less of the chained together moves or dogged hanging on to holds that you'd get from the tags (even the ones with Richard and Cohen). I do think this would compare quite well to a lot of what was happening in the mid-cards of pro wrestling shows in the States for 1984.

Richard played his character well, got heat, was able to grind down on Cohen. When it was time for him to show ass, he did. He bumped around the ring (but just one bump at a time instead of three), got dropkicked into a hanging in the ropes (replayed nicely with the slowmo), set up some spots for the butler (including Cohen chasing him around the ring, AND a repeat of what we saw in the last 83 tag where Saulnier as ref took a similar kicked away from the ropes and into the center of the ring bump), and even had a truly funny moment: after pulling the corner protector off, Cohen reversed him into it a couple of times and he gingerly tried to put it back on with deep regret. It was funny. So, I think, objectively, this was fine; it was the sort of stuff that Eric and I would write a bunch of words about and be glad that we saw. It just doesn't compare to what was came before, even what came a year before as we had just seen. The biggest sin wasn't a slightly slower pace or less technical back and forth or a lack of rope running; it was that Cohen didn't get more of a heated comeback before the Marquis got himself dqed with a corner crotching. They were getting over the character but I think that would have gone a long way to helping the match overall.

SR: I wonder if the Marquis ever faced the little Prince. This was the first sign of the old catch maestros slowing down. Both guys could still move but they only did the most barebones stuff and there were pauses between each movement. Not good.

Walter Bordes/Flesh Gordon vs Les MANIAK 2/25/84

MD: Flesh was really leaning into the gear here, with the lightning bolt tank top and belt. The Manics had sort of an Espectro, Jr look to them, with big hair and masks, but in grey with red splotches. My gut tells me that one was better than the other but I couldn't say that for sure. This was one fall but still went quite a while. Bordes and Gordon looked good. Les Maniak had one or two big moves (a front facelock drop that was nasty, a huge press up powerbomb type drop that may or may not have been intentional). They worked over Gordon's leg for their control but I'm not sure he had any real intention to sell it. A lot of what Gordon and Bordes threw out was still their tricked out stuff, but maybe things less reliant on their opponents, especially after the early going where there was some miscommunication on fairly simple things and Bordes seemed a little hot at one of the Maniacs. For instance, there was only one extended hold sequence of in and out, but it was a nice one where he kipped up repeatedly in an armbar until he got the headscissors to a big pop. There were a few quite gifworthy sequences in here, stuff that would be more like ten seconds instead of the usual thirty, and the never lost the crowd (Bordes is undeniable and Gordon really understood how to milk a moment for the back row, like when he just hung on a Maniac's shoulders and looked left and right before falling backwards with a Rana), but overall, this definitely felt a little disjointed relative to other matches of its ilk in the collection.  

SR: LES MANIAK. France was going full Catch y Lucha at this point. Apparently, Flesh Gordon was working Mexico in the 70s, so I guess that explains the crossover. This was even more Luchaesque than anything we‘ve seen before. Unfortunately, Les Maniaks, who acted quite sane and calculating, weren‘t very good here. There were several blown spots and their beatdown section dragged on forever. I enjoyed Bordes old man performance as usual. I can‘t tell if Gordon was getting lazier or if he was toning it down due to his opponent not being familiar with him. Anyways, this was charming and entertaining, but needed better rudo bases to work.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Boucard! Calderon! Siki! Bordes! Bouvet! Viracocha! Shadow!

Georges Cohen vs Daniel Boucard (JIP) 3/3/79 

MD: Last eight and a half minutes of a thirty minute draw here and it's good stuff and our loss that we don't have more. Cohen, is, of course, as good as anyone really. Boucard we've seen a bit more lately and he was an hard-hitting, agile, imaginative heel, able to do a Tajiri style handspring off the ropes, but also sporting an amazing one-two European Uppercut/gut shot. They worked some fun spots using more of those armdrag-into-a-slam that ended so many falls and matches on the set but here having a kickout cause the person who hit the move to crash onto the ref. They also went to the floor to brawl at one point only to have a fan try to intervene. Things built to one of those 1950s style of draw finishes where they just threw fists until the bell. Talented wrestlers, good action. Unfortunately, less than ten minutes of it.

Gaby Calderon vs Mammoth Siki 3/3/79

MD: I was kind of dreading this one. Calderon is very hit or miss throughout the footage, which isn't entirely fair to him because he's only there a few times and our first look at him was twenty years before this, but it is what it is. The judo gimmick he worked depended on the opponent. I hadn't liked Siki much at all in the last match against Schmid so this one had me worried.

I was mistaken. It was actually quite good as they worked every hold about as hard as it could be worked. Siki didn't do much fancy, but he was strong and could grind someone down. Calderon was smart working from underneath and pretty nasty when locking in holds of his own. This became a fight of strength vs skill, of precise judo vs bursting power and well-placed headbutts. It only went around twenty and there were signs in the back half that they weren't quite as sharp as they started, but in general, it was just good, solid wrestling that played to both men's strengths instead of falling into a messy contrast.

Walter Bordes & Gerard Bouvet vs Inca Viracocha & Black Shadow 3/3/79 (possibly 6/79?)

MD: Thirty minute tag that gets two falls, with some drama in the middle but a fairly celebratory last ten minutes. Bouvet is a guy who has looked great in the late 70s, one of the slickest and smoothest wrestlers we've seen in the footage, but we just don't quite have enough of him. Bordes, on the other hand, we have as much of as anyone, and he was such a complete ace by this point, a real star who could do almost everything. He might not have been quite as slick as Bouvet in his holds, but he was slick enough and here we got to see him slug and have imaginative spots, and work the apron, and play the crowd. Shadow was with Viracocha which made for a bit of an odd couple as Viracocha was usually with the Peruvians or the Spaniards and Shadow with Josef el Arz, but they worked well together, both in feeding and stooging (and Shadow bumping to the floor, a specialty) and in bullying when it was time to take over. Viracocha was such an expert in sneaking is foot in from the corner to stop a comeback attempt. This is typical for the time period in France, so there was just a bit too much heat on the ref (not wildly so, just a bit), but you could slug him and just draw a public warning and not a DQ, which Bouvet did after taking the hot tag from Bordes. Some very imaginative tandem spots at the end. Another good tag in the almost endless string of them.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Doukhan! Shadow! El Arz! More Mystery Wrestlers! One is Walter Bordes!

Arpad Weber vs Josef el Arz (JIP) 11/29/75

MD: We get the last 14 minutes of this. I'm though the guy in red was Guy Mercier, just from the way he looks and moves and hits and his fall away slam at the end, but I seem to be wrong. (We were told later that he was Arpad Weber) I'm not sure who the guy in blue is but I'm hoping we can crowd source it off of the announced public warning if nothing else. (And this was Josef el Arz which I should have spotted). It's a really good 14 minutes. The first few aren't super inspiring as Blue chokes and lays in nerveholds on Red, but once the comeback starts, they don't stop, just laying in big blow after big blow with some big bumps to the outside. Blue had great headbutts and wasn't afraid to throw them. Red had heavy heavy clubbering shots. This had more of a Red advantage in revenge, but Blue wasn't afraid to stand up to him and fire back. They were fighting to a draw but they were FIGHTING to it which is so much of what we want from this footage.

By the way, the date on this isn't incorrect. We have almost nothing at all in 1975. It'll pick up again in 76 somewhat at least. There still is footage to go.

Walter Bordes vs El Demonio Rojo(?) 11/29/75

MD: Somewhere in the last month or two of watching, we saw our last Rene Ben Chemoul match and I'm sad to see him go. He was such an interesting, unique wrestler, but Bordes is the legacy he leaves behind and we have more of his matches to go. Here he was up against a masked man who served well as a bruising base. Nothing was particularly novel in this match but it was cool to see certain things, like the fast rope running or Bordes bumping to the floor, or his endless cartwheels towards the finish, in color. The masked man had some mean shots, a step on the face, big corner whips, a fireman's carry drop straight to the floor, but nothing that overly stood out. He was simply good at his job. It was actually a little funny in the finishing stretch after all those cartwheels and dropkicks to see Bordes stop to play to the crowd instead of moving on with it and eating a little punch to his gut (not quite registered) for his trouble. Between that and the masked man not exactly selling a hard whip into the corner a minute or so before, there was just a slight undertone that they weren't 100% on the same page. In general though, this was a nice little Bordes showcase match, but in color.

Georges Cohen & Gass Doukhan vs Black Shadow & Josef el Arz 1/3/76

MD: I really wonder about these episodes with crowd noise but no commentary. Maybe what was kept was a different feed? The biggest advantage of color so far is definitely the ring jackets Black Shadow had a pretty amazing gold deal and then red tights. You'd think for how often they'd tagged, he and El Arz would match more but nope. On the other hand Doukhan and Cohen did match with blue jackets and white tights. Thankfully, we know all these guys and they're announced clearly. The downside is that we're already into 1976, having had almost no shows at all in 75. At least it'll stabilize a bit now again.

People ask about the quality dropping as the years go on but it really doesn't. This was just as good a tag as most that we'd see in the 50s or 60s, maybe not as hard hitting or technical, but with more actual heat than you'd get fifteen years earlier. In fact, there was too much heat here! The first fall ended with around eight minutes of Josef and Shadow doing what they did best: one would take liberties with stomps or shots and draw the ref so that the other could do it which would then draw the ref allowing for the first to take over again. This lasted through a tag but they had the numbers and momentum advantage, ultimately taking that fall. When the second fall started, Shadow immediately used a hairpull from the outside and a fan ran out of the crowd to throw wild kicks at him on the apron. Crazy scene.

Before and after that, everyone got to show off. For Josef, that meant hard shots and tossing his weight around. For Shadow it was bumping out of the ring over and over again, especially after getting dropkicked. The fans were so into the comeback towards the end that they started chanting Mamadou Mémé as if Doukhan was Rene Ben Chemoul or something. I've never heard them do it for anyone but him or Bordes. After the riot scene they let the stylists take over for most of the rest of the match, including some big double teams and heel miscommunication that led to catapults and the like, and a nice tandem finishing moment of Doukhan and Cohen hitting different things at the same time which I haven't seen to much of in the footage.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Lamare! Duranton! Bouvet! Cohen! Josef el Arz! Black Shadow!

Ted Lamare vs Robert Duranton 7/26/73

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. We've seen so many stoic French wrestlers, that Duranton with his flamboyant mannerisms looks like The Rock in comparison. Lamare has thickened up since we last saw him, but he was still a decent wrestler. This started with Lamare outwrestling Duranton in fun ways and then builds into a slugfest. Duranton really liked his boxing stance and kept throwing punches which made him a bit more interesting than the usual heels. Loved the little punch combo he threw towards the end. I enjoyed these guys trying to take each others heads off with the uppercuts and the finish was memorable with Lamare going headfirst into the steel ringpost and bleeding. I thought Lamare needed to show a bit more fire or at least make another comeback rally to make this really good but it was a fun look at the heavyweights from the time period.

MD: Duranton did change with the times. He was 46 here and went from being a bodybuilder sort when we first saw him in 1958 to a Gorgeous George takeoff with the valet, to whatever he was now, sort of a flamboyant gladiator boxer who didn't actually do much boxing. He'd more get an advantage some other way and then do some strutting and shadow boxing. Though he was still full of antics (grabbing the ref's leg while in a hold, flailing about while getting spun around, etc), I miss the valet. I bet the crowd did too. Still, he could get heat and could still hit hard at times. Lamare was a game opponent. We hadn't seen him in a while but he reminded me here a bit of a Frank Dusek sort, meat and potatoes, no nonsense, technically sound, able to lock in a hold and keep it throughout escape attempts. He was a serious and punishing straight man, a disappointed stern uncle, to Duranton's over the top antics. Duranton received plenty of comeuppance but not the final, definitive sort, instead slamming Lamare's head into the post and winning by counting and then getting out while the getting was good. This is probably more interesting as another match in Duranton's collective works than anything that would stand on its own.

Georges Cohen/Gerard Bouvet vs Josef el Arz/Black Shadow 8/20/73

MD: This deep into the footage, we don't see too many wrestlers that we haven't seen before. That's true here but Bouvet is someone we'd only seen in a JIP singles match, so it's nice to see him in something lengthy. He paired up well with Cohen, quick and savvy, with strong, engaging selling, and some big spots with cartwheels and dropkicks. El Arz and Black Shadow are one of the more interesting bad guy pairings we've seen and I don't think I've given them enough credit so far. A Lebanese 44 year old and a black American 27 year old former football player (called, by the announcer, James Linton, who I haven't been able to find out a lot about), they were able to get a lot of heat. Some of that might have been just from who they were, but a lot of it was in how they wrestled. They had gotten down the pattern of double teaming in the corner > heel on the inside admonished by the ref > heel on the outside used the distraction to attack illegally > babyface partner tries to get in > double team again as ref is distracted by him > repeat the process. I know that doesn't sound novel but it was still a process being developed over these years and this is probably the best I've seen it in the footage overall. They also fed and bumped all over the ring and Josef especially was a great striker, with some nasty gut shots. Some of the tags were too easy but they did have to cover 30 minutes and the hot tag in the last fall did feel pretty hot and led to some satisfying crowd brawling, creative tandem spots, and the finish. This was good both as our first major look at Bouvet and maybe our best look at the Josef/Shadow team.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. You won't be surprised to hear that the first fall of this had some amazing smooth exchanges and fantastic body control by Cohen and Bouvet. Not much matwork, just throws and rope running, but executed really sharply. The heels were hard nosed and tough and soon did a number on the faces cutting off the ring, but the faces kept retaliating. Same story as all these French tags, really. I liked El Arz who seemed to have some solid wrestling skill and Shadow had good stomps and stooging. It was a solid effort but there are so many amazing French tags that it takes a bit more than that to be memorable.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! El Arz! Black Shadow! Mercier! Falempin! Viracocha! Gonzalez!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Les Libanese (Josef el Arz) & Black Shadow 2/12/72

MD: I forget if I declared it or not, but if so, let me do it again. Ben Chemoul and Bordes are up there with the Blousons Noirs as unquestionably one of the best teams in the history of French Catch. We have enough footage, which is always the tricky part. This was in two falls, one long and one short, with something akin to shine/heat/comeback in both falls. By not forcing the heels to win a second fall, the pacing felt better and less stilted. Bordes felt at the very height of his power here, incredibly athletic but also hard-hitting, with Ben Chemoul not quite as spry as he once was but an absolute master of timing and popping the crowd. El Arz was very impressive, having a distinctive way of taking shots, having a cruel lifting choke toss, just laying it in. Black Shadow based well and took stuff but he was less memorable in general. Where he shined the most was in controlling the corner and cutting off babyface comeback attempts. They built to triumphant crowd pleasing stuff as you'd expect and everyone left happy.  

Guy Mercier/Michele Falempin vs. Inca Viracocha/Jo Gonzalez 2/28/72

MD: A rare one-fall tag. If I'm not mistaken, Falempin recently passed away and he was a very solid talent and a good partner for the beloved Mercier, who was a slugger and a wrestler's wrestler both. Falempin brought the rope running and energy and big escape attempts. Viracocha remains a bit heavier and he almost has a Brazo feel to him as a heel, way smoother than you'd expect from looking at him while still hitting hard and stooging big. Not as big as Gonzales though (billed as a gypsy by the way), who really does feel like a special talent, able to cartwheel and leap back off the top rope, but also having such a canny sleaziness to his act, luring his opponent in by selling too big or begging off and constantly going for cheapshots from the outside. Very much a total package sort of wrestler. This went back and forth with frequent moments of heat but always leading to big comebacks and crowd pleasing spots, none of which were new but all of which were executed to perfection.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Bordes! Shadow! El Arz! Kayser! Mercier!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs Black Shadow/Josef El Arz 7/25/70

MD: Ok, we've now seen enough to say that Ben Chemoul and Bordes are probably up there with the best stylist tag teams in the archives (in the 60s, the competition would be Ben Chemoul and Cesca or some combination of Wiecz/de Zarzecki/Montreal) if not the very best. We'll have a few more matches with them but they've already come quite a ways. Or at least it's safe to say that Bordes did. He'd expanded his act and bound it even further with Ben Chemoul. The match was more of a celebratory stylist showcase, full of tandem bits of offense, dancing taunts that drew some of the biggest chants and singing we've heard from the crowd and some really imaginative stuff from Bordes. Josef and Shadow hit hard and were persistent but they were mainly there to feed and feed and feed and they did an excellent job keeping up and going up for everything. Bordes did have a number of new moves, suplexes into slams, fireman's carry gutbusters, and some of the most amazing cartwheel spots you'll ever see to go along with his double knee and dropkicks and technical moves. Unless the matches are duplicates, we'll see them against Shadow and Josef again and hopefully the heels get a bit more in those matches to add some drama, but as a showcase, this was really great stuff.

Peter Kayser vs Guy Mercier 8/22/70

MD: This was the finals of what I think was a one night tournament. At the least, they did the semi-finals that night too. What it meant was that the crowd was very much familiar and very much behind Mercier and against Kaiser. They were up for everything, to the point of someone grabbing at Kaiser's leg from the crowd during the first lock up. The first lock up! There was a sense of fatigue from the get go with Mercier looking exhausted even when controlling things, but that didn't stop them from really laying it in. Mercier has a great spinning fake out leg pick, which at one point, led to him dropping down on the leg and and a hold. While in the hold, he probably threw the meanest, hardest chops we've seen in all the footage. Why? Just because he could. Kaiser would come back with nerve holds and just blatant chokes. Mercier would fire back with huge shots. Kaiser would return suit. Due to its nature and the other times they worked that night, this was shorter than a lot of the matches we've seen, and maybe it was lacking a little bit of the complex technical prowess, but everything, down to Kaiser's chokes and Mercier's chinlock, looked as nasty as could be.

PAS: This is my type of shit, two mean guys hammering the shit out each other. It almost felt like a heel versus heel match do to how nasty Mercier got, even ripping out Kayser's under arm hair. The forearms and chops were really nice and I liked how Mercier worked the Indian Deathlock as a wear down hold, and all the ways Kayser tried to get out of it, the finish was a bit of anti-climax, but the work in the match was hard and violent.

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New Footage Friday: French Catch, Super Boy, Rollerball,

Le Marquis/Black Shadow vs. Marcello Motta/Angelito French Catch 5/28/85

MD: All I want to talk about is the Marquis and his valet. Obviously, there was some old writ that somehow survived the Terror and Paris Commune that he was able to brandish showing that old landed gentry, of which he was one of the last, are lawfully allowed to utilize their valets in matches without any repercussion. This was some of the most acceptable and enjoyable constant cheating I've ever seen. They made an effort of distracting the ref a bit, including Motta being angry enough to hurt his own partner, but what made this sing was the total immersion. Every single time the Marquis entered or left the ring, the valet held the ropes. Every time the babyfaces got near the corner, he cheated. Every time the Marquis took a shot, he was there to dust him off. Occasionally the random mascot mocked him. It all led perfectly to the big dropkick spot that allowed enough space for the final pin. As for the work itself, it was good though maybe a notch down from some of the earlier French wrestling we've seen (though that still puts it pretty high). I liked all of the nasty side-mares. Angelito was pretty unique in look and movement but it all felt a little loose from him. I suppose the Marquis' act could get old if we had dozens of matches of his, but as this is pretty much all we have, it's gold in my book.

ER: These kind of matches are pure undistilled joy, and I always find myself loving the surroundings as much as the joyful ring work. Every shot of the crowd brings a smile to my face, and also makes me a little sad that this type of crowd is mostly gone. This looked like a crowd of families seeing a Saturday afternoon matinee. There were older couples and elderly couples, mothers there laughing with their children, a grumpy teen who was probably dragged there by a parent and was fighting the good times, and of course a giant blue furry mascot who apparently was just sitting in the crowd. He occasionally smacks Marquis' personal butler and the crowd appears to treat him like they would any other attendee. Everybody is in a sweater or an overcoat, and this seems like a crowd who would eat simple and deliciously prepared peasant food for dinner one night, which then gets turned into a stew the next night with wine, and in the meantime they're going to have a laugh while watching the acrobatic stylings of Angelito. And that's what I did! Angelito and Marquis were highly entertaining, with Marquis almost exclusively being a base for Angelito's breathtaking monkey flips, while being regularly toweled off by his butler. He and Angelito were quite a pair, and I did not get sick of those monkey flips, the way he would approach his opponent normally, then kick his body into the air so that he was nearly vertically upside down, before pendulum whipping downward to catch his feet on Marquis' or Shadow's thighs. They were amazing. He also had some cool counters, my favorite being Marquis catching him in a press slam, and Angelito immediately kicking his leg down to kick off Le Marquis' chest, landing on his feet and uppercutting him as punishment. I loved how Marquis' butler stood on the apron the entire match, and how that built to a big moment of Angelito drilling him with a picture perfect dropkick to knock him off (it should have been a bigger moment, but the butler oddly just sold it as if he had slipped off the apron and was getting back up to save face, not a guy who just had his sternum collapsed by a hard kick). This never veers into overt violence or intensity, it keeps its pace and is pretty to look at, and I am continually fascinated at these glimpses into the wrestling cultures of our worldwide friends.

PAS: I really enjoyed this although it lacked some of the mindblowing otherworldliness of some of the other French Catch. This was pretty formula wrestling match with a fun formula attack. Angeltio and the Marquis are a fun matched pair. With Angelito whipping off cool takedowns and monkey flips and the Marquies bringing his valet and a quality amount of horseshit to everything he does. I could have totally seen this turn into a six-man tag with the Mascot joining the babyface team. This French stuff is such a treat and we clearly need to find a Frenchman to invade the archives and get us more!!

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones All Star Wrestling 8/20/88

MD: Very cool that we got promos at the start of this, though Jones put Robert Gibson's lazy eye to shame. Rocco's hyperactive offensive bursts reminds me of the young Piper we've seen lately and now I lamented that there was never a scenario where those two could have teamed. This was really high end stuff, but it was almost too much so. They'd wrestled so many times that everything was a counter of a counter of a counter. The crowd was on board because they were familiar with them and it never felt choreographed; in a situation like that, I usually go for it. Here though, it was so metatextual, so over the top in the familiarity that some of the basic and primal stuff didn't entirely make it along for the ride. You ended up getting the blood and the DQ at the end but I felt like Jones had more reason to be angry a decade before. Here, familiarity seemed to breed contempt, not the hatred they needed to make the finish work. That's a nitpick but I still couldn't shake the feeling.

PAS: This didn't have the athleticism of the earlier matches, these guys both clearly had more wear on the tires. This had way more shortcuts then the WOS sport stuff we have from the 70s and 80s and I enjoyed the difference. Rocco tossing water into Jones eyes, removing the turnbuckle pad and Rocco bleeding by the end. Even the finish with the ref getting tossed around separates this from other stuff we have seen. It does feel a little more like two guys irritated with each other, then two guys who hated each other, and this kind of a brawl needed a bit more anger. I did love Jones wasting Rocco with the baseball slide dropkick, which is the moment it felt furious.

Rey Misterio Sr./Ultraman/Piloto Suicida vs Mercurio/Fobia/Super Boy FLL 2/15/95

MD: I came late in life to lucha libre, so obviously, I wasn't tapped into this vein like those who were part of the community twenty years (or more) ago. This, to me, feels like much more of a counter-culture scene than ECW. Maybe that's just hindsight but ECW was just a stylized, dirtied up version of what we always knew. This was something else entirely. At the base of it is just good lucha libre: majestic and valiant and scummy and tricked out, larger than life. They hit their spots cleanly and clearly. The primera exchanges were crisp and engaging. The segunda beatdown did a great job with crowd control, feeling organic instead of forced. There wasn't that moment of climax of a comeback. A lot of it happened between the segunda and tercera with a chairshot on the outside, but the finishing stretch hit all the marks, with a Estrella/Rana combo actually finishing the match instead of being a nearfall, which I'm not sure I've ever actually seen. Ultraman was quizzically over (he might not have been the guy I expected the crowd to go for the most) and he played into it well. How great must it have been to be a local during this period, right? The rest of the country was watching the Dungeon of Doom and Million Dollar Corporation and you got this.

PAS: Superboy is this total 90s cult figure, he would show up every year or so in Michinoku Pro as this short really fat incredibly graceful highflyer. He worked the WCW Lucha pilot which never went anywhere and then kind of faded away. So cool to see him in his So-Cal lucha home. The moment where he was working these incredible primera caida armdrag sequences with Rey Sr. were a true highlight. The opening sections off this were pretty great with all six guys getting a chance to shine. I thought the Segunda and Terecera lacked some of the Primera's focus, it was pretty aimless brawling leading into the Estralla finish of the third fall. The promise of that first fall never really delivered. That is a very lucha libre thing though, you will sometimes get this awesome individual fall in an otherwise pedestrian match, and those glimpses of brilliance are well worth it.

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