Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mercier! Montourcy! Yokouchi! Kiyomigawa! Masque! Drapp!

 Guy Mercier/Claude Montourcy vs. Chati Yokouchi/Kiyomigawa 2/20/66

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. Mercier and Montourcy looked like dynamite here. The Japanese guys, not so much. Kiyomigawa has these fun swinging chops and they both cheat, but that‘s it. Mercier and Montourcy have lots of great throws and technical moves. Merciers backbreakers ruled. They looked like they required zero cooperation, and he was ragdolling Yokouchi. Dug the pretty arm throws and his deadlift belly to belly, too. Bit long for a match where one side added very little, but by the end Montourcy and Kiyomigawa were busted open and some fun chops vs. forearms battles occurred.

MD: On paper, this one sounds pretty good. Our chance to see Chati Yokuchi, another look at Kiyomigawa. Legitimately good stylists in Mercier, who we haven't seen in ages, and Montourcy. Some fire, a little bit of blood, an engaged crowd. And it's ok, but it doesn't live up to a lot of the tags we've been seeing. The Japanese were dogged and persistent and mean, but mainly chopped, chinlocked (often with a face rake) and snuck in chokes. They tagged in and out quickly, played up the chops well, and fed though. Mercier and Montourcy were a lot of fun, fighting back from underneath and with plenty of "stuff," Mercier's triple variation backbreakers (one-armed, bearhug, waistlock) and Montourcy's submissions (a twist out of a sunset flip type position and a literal leg nelson where he got the legs behind the head). Mercier fighting out of the corner with forearms or clearing house after a tag was more than solid. The problem? The faces were able to come back a little too much so while the heels drove things, it was never sustained. It was a rare two fall match, with the faces taking both and the second one being very short. Maybe a little too much on the choking and chopping from the heels. Even the blood from the chops was more of a tease than anything else. The action was okay but this one needed a little more drama relative to the excellent tags we've been seeing week in and week out. Speaking of week in and week out, we have a sense of the different arenas now: The Winter Circus, The arena named after Leo Legrange, and this was at the Wagram Room, and someone more attentive than me might be able to speak to the different crowds at each but I loved that they interviewed some regulars here between falls and they said that they came every Thursday because they lived in the neighborhood and knew all the wrestlers by their first name.

L‘Homme Masque vs. Andre Drapp 3/4/66

SR:1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. This started out fun with both guys going hold for hold before Drapp decides to light the Masked Man up with some tough looking punches. It got pretty meandering after that, though. Lots of time killing working over a guy in the ropes and corner. Drapp starts hitting some fun jumping headbutts before L‘Homme connects him with a foreign object for an easy 3 count. Not very exciting match sadly given the talent in it.

MD: Drapp's an old friend we haven't seen for a bit, the valiant Lion of Lorraine. The last time we saw L'Homme, he was sans mask. He has it again here and is unmistakable either way, a towering behemoth who Couderc claims is a mix between the Phantom and Superman. I liked this as a heavyweight slugfest with a lot of character. Drapp carried himself like a main eventer, never backing down despite L'Homme's size. They started out with an almost shoot-like competitiveness, but as the match went on, there was a lot of stooging, that sort of dissonance of a giant needing to (or wanting to) cheat despite his size. He would go from tossing Drapp all around the ring to rolling this way and that as he was getting his comeuppance. Probably the most enjoyable bit here was when L'Homme got stuck in the ropes and Drapp arranged the mask so that he couldn't see and then just dropkicked him like he was in a shooting gallery. The bit at the end where L'Homme loaded his mask with a coin was a pretty distinct bit as well, as was Drapp getting the coin himself and running him off with a loaded punch. There was a bit after the mask twisting and L'Homme tossing Drapp out so he could restore his mask where Drapp's foot got stuck on the way in and L'Homme turned to target it that I wish, by 66, had turned into more consequential selling, but in general, this, while hardly technically smooth, was a perfectly fine heavyweight outing.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Cesca! Teddy Boys! Leduc! Montourcy! von Kramer! Gastel!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Teddy Boys (Aldophe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) 5/9/65

MD: I get that everything is high end at this point, but this still stood out more to me than it did to Sebastian. This has been out for a few years, but it's great to see it in context now that we know these guys better. Ben Chemoul and Cesca come off as one of the great tag teams of all time in the few appearances we have of them together, certainly one one of the most talented. Ben Chemoul had such verve and timing, such showmanship, working for the back row and the front row and everyone in between. He manages to do all three up and over variations off the top wristlock in a tag match at different points, and fills the match with little moments like throwing one of those no look spin kicks to a guy just hanging out on the apron. He fills the match with entertaining stuff while never losing the plot. Cesca's just as solid as they come, hard hitting especially when it's time to get revenge, sympathetic in selling, smooth in complex spots, quick with the dropkicks and 'ranas. They'd also share spots: Ben Chemoul would stooge le Boulch by turtling early and then Cesca would outsmart le Boulch when he himself tried to do it later. It all came together. The Teddy Boys were such an ideal heel unit too, with le Boulch an opportunist coward and Sevre having the hugest chip on his shoulder imaginable, though they could also switch those roles on a dime. Sevre hit hard and jawed well with the crowd while le Boulch spent a lot of his time shadowboxing. They were able to work around the ref to endlessly stomp: when the ref shoved Sevre, he'd come back and pat the ref on the shoulder. At one point, Sevre got knocked out on one of the bevy of catapult-into-partner spots in the match so he sat down in the front row while le Boulch recovered. He tried that again later and got into a fist fight with the crowd. The ending might have felt a little abrupt, but that was the general pacing of these things as much as them maybe wanting to move things to a finish before the crowd rioted, but over all, this was high end stuff to me.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This was another French lightweight tag with all that exchanges. Plenty of quick exchanges. The Teddy Boys didn‘t move me as much as other heel tandems. I mean, they were really good at making the C‘s uppercuts look great and had some nice punches and stomps, but it‘s France everyone is a GOAT, you gotta bring a bit more than that. Chemoul and Cesca as usual just had endless stuff to do. I liked Chemouls punch combo, and Cesca busting out a spinning argentine backbreaker and a back elbow combo that was like something Misawa would do. Highlight of the match was the crowd getting unruly and the police stepping in. I am probably making this match sound worse than it was, it wasn‘t top tier French stuff but there was enough entertaining stuff happening and some sickeningly stiff blows that will easily make this the best match you watch this week.

Gilbert Leduc/Claude Montourcy vs. Karl von Kramer/Robert Gastel  5/26/65

MD: Unique presentation here. I know nothing of 1965 French demographics and geography (Puteaux is in the western suburbs of Paris but I'm not about to watch 1961's The Long Absence to get a sense of it), but this felt more provincial than what we're used to. The crowd was awesome though, as much of the star of the match as the four wrestlers, as good as they were. The sound was a little off here, and it's amazing we don't see this problem more often, so it anticipated the action a bit. This was (wisely, I imagine) mostly a crowd pleaser for some sort of cup. There were moments of heat throughout, but nothing prolonged until the second fall. Even those moments felt a little perilous. The crowd absolutely hated Kramer, who looked brilliant here. He had so many interesting ways of taking someone down or keeping a hold, and just threw cartwheels around like they were nothing. I was expecting endless nerve holds (which could be fine if the heat's there, and it would have been) but he went another way with things. He stooged, but only occasionally, so when he got caught in the ropes towards the end of the long first fall, the fans went absolutely nuts. He got taken out by a catapult over the top to end the first fall, never to return. 

A stretcher job mid-match was probably the safest way to get him out of there. LeDuc more or less gave us the usual greatest hits (the headstands, the leg nelson after seeing how badly the fans wanted Montourcy to whack Kramer in a cross arm breaker, etc) but they're all great. Montourcy had a few more interesting takedowns. Gastel let Kramer do most of the heavy lifting in the first fall, but turned on the heat after he got taken out, absolutely demolishing Montourcy with headbutts, bloodying him up before crushing him with a tombstone and basically taking him out of the match. The fans were furious here. The third fall, then was just Leduc getting revenge on Gastel before they moved into a slick finishing stretch including Gastel catching a Leduc cross body block (the block itself not being something we've seen much in the footage) and planting him with a tombstone, before Leduc came back with a flip up power bomb for the win and the huge pop. I don't know if I'd feel the same about this one in a different setting, but in front of this crowd, I thought it was great. I do sort of wish they had leaned harder into Kramer getting advantages though, but they may not have lived to the next day if they did.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Karl von Kramer. Haven‘t seen him in a while. Karl looked really good here with his freak bumping and unorthodox throws. For a hard nosed evil German, he also wasn‘t afraid to make a fool out of himself and get his chest hair torn out. The first fall of this was the usual mix of fun wrestling and rough heels tactics, with von Kramer stealing the show and Leduc and Montourcy being formidable technicians. Von Kramer takes a big bump to the outside and doesn‘t make it back after that, leading to Gastel being in a 2 on 1 situation so Gastel just goes crazy with headbutts on Montourcy, bloodying him and KO‘ing with a tombstone piledriver. This leads to the 3rd  fall in which both von Kramer and Montourcey are out and Gastel and Leduc slug it out in an epic Mantel/Lawler style battle. Really cool glimpse at Gastle living up to his name and being a violent bludgeoner who ends up with his opponents blood all over him, and when Leduc hits those double elbows he‘s like Lawler doing a punch combo. Really really good match with a pretty unique layout for French wrestling.

PAS: I love how this match moved from comedy, skill and stooging to really heavy violence. It is one of the hardest transitions in wrestling to nail, and this match nailed it. The heels were masterful here, Kramer is a heat seeking pinball, getting twisted up the ropes, getting his chest hair ripped out, flying for all of the headscissors and takedowns, and hitting these deep cool looking flip throws. He gets tossed out of the ring to the floor taking a big bump and getting sent to the back. We get a Stone Cold Gastel section where he obliterates Montourcy including a fair amount of blood which is pretty rare for this era. We then got a big showdown between Gastel and LeDuc, which was pretty epic. I didn't like LeDuc basically no-selling the tombstone, it was a move which won Gastel the second fall, and LeDuc jumps right back onto offense right after taking it. Still everything else about this match was at a super high level, and while that one spot kept it from MOTY status it was still a classic. 

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: McTiffin! Guettier! Mountourcy! Gastel! Mantopoulos! Ricetti!

Marcel Parmentier vs. Bob Plantain 6/19/59

MD: As always it's a travesty we don't have more Parmentier footage. He was such a nasty striker with a surly face and tons of heat. This is just a minute or two. No one in the footage is quite as big a tease.

James McTiffin vs. Roger Guettier 6/19/59

MD: McTiffin is Gwyn Davies, of the great Veidor match. He was working an affable Scottish giant gimmick here, kilt and bagpiper, and maybe didn't have quite all the pieces together yet. Guettier was mean and frustrated, full of high class comedy as he couldn't deal with McTiffin's size advantage. My favorite bit was a pumphandle armbar where he couldn't get any leverage and just gave up, but there was more. This went pretty short for 50s Catch, just around ten minutes, seeming to surprise everyone. Remember the first time you saw George Steele's flying hammerlock and how painful it looked? That was the finish here which was a flying double inverted knucklelock, which would only work given a size differential like this.

PAS: This was fun stuff, much more of a wacky comedy match then serious Catch. Guettier was flummoxed by the size of McTiffin, and had a bunch of different ways to seem flummoxed. That finishing flying knucklelock was awesome looking and totally redeemed McTiffin from otherwise seeming a bit stiff. Babatunde should steal that shit.


Sergio Reggiori vs Jacques Bernieres 6/19/59

MD: This was the TV time remaining bonus match after McTiffin made short work of Guettier and while it's cut off as they had to give the feed back to the station, what we get is actually very good. I get the sense that these two knew that this was their big chance to shine in front of a television audience and they really went at it hard. This included a few extended hanging-on-to-a-hold sequences, a lot of struggle, some aggressive shots, and at least one dive through the ropes on a missed charge. Unfortunately, I don't know if it did either of these guys any good because we don't see them a ton in the footage.


Claude Montourcy vs. Robert Gastel 6/26/59

MD: We'd seen Montourcy before, both in the Mann match, which was really mostly about Mann, and in the 60 minute match where he had a lot of interesting showcase moves. Here, though, it was all about him, working a judo gimmick with taped up feet instead of shoes. Gastel was the straight man here, throwing his headbutts and big bumps, and hairpulls, and yes, the tombstone. This was about Montourcy using his feet in odd ways (especially to escape) and having big takedowns and contorted stretches, including the one that kayfabe popped Gastel's shoulder out to end it, causing Montourcy's Japanese Professor (?) to come out to fix it. Also of not here was a wrestler at ringside, which, along with an overly exuberant fan, subtly distracted Gastel post-tombstone, which theoretically gave Montourcy time to come back. This was another short one like the week before.


Vasilios Mantopoulos vs. Roberto Ricetti 6/26/59

MD: Yet another high end lightweight match in the late 50s style, where they don't quite go as over the top with acrobatics as we'd see a few years later, but instead did a lot of what we've seen already faster and with more impact. Lots of long holds with reversals jammed (even the ones that might work elsewhere). Ricetti had some really great bridges. We had, I think, our first giant swing too. There were a couple of moments where they were almost going too hard to make things work (and I'm tempted to pin that more on Mantopolous, as great as he'd be later and as good as he still was here, but that may not be fair), but it didn't necessarily feel unnatural, just less smooth than it might have been. They were competing so hard that it didn't hurt the match at all. The finish was really strong, a perfect reversal to the idea of someone going to the well too many times.

SR: 1 fall match that goes a bit over 30 minutes. Mantopoulos is billed as Greek. We are going to see quite a bit of him. Ricetti is billed as Italian and this is about the only time he shows up. This was a clean match, no heel shenanigans, but the crowd was calling for them to throw European uppercuts, so both guys soon did that. They stuck to mostly basic holds, peppered with that French brand of athletic escape attempts. Mantopoulos wasn‘t as flamboyant and flashy as in later clips, but you could tell he was a wrestling machine. Ricetti looked good also, aside from seemingly not knowing how to bump for Mantopoulos headscissors. This was going solid and they worked in some surprisingly hot nearfalls, including an awesome O‘Connor Roll and some plausible rope running exchanges later. Great finish, too. The thing that stands about these guys running the ropes and hitting improbable moves is not the athleticism, but the great sense of timing.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bout! Van Dooren! Montourcy! LeDuc! von Chenok! Gastel!

Jean Bout vs. Jack van Dooren 5/7/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. We get some nice graphics before the match and a strange segment that appeared to feature van Dooren between the falls. The outstanding thing about this was its discernible structure. The 1st fall is straight wrestling, wherein van Dooren gets the advantage and is able to catch his opponent in a powerbomb for the win. The 2nd fall sees Bout starting to fight dirty, throwing punches, before grabbing a surprise spinning toe hold for the tap. The 3rd fall has more dirty fighting and Bout going for takedowns with van Dooren desperately fighting off that dreadful toe hold. It was pretty close to what we have seen from US workers, plus this had the French touch where they move through the holds much faster. There wasn‘t much in terms of athleticism, but van Dooren looked like quite the tank retaliating with big headbutts and Bout adapts to working as a bastard quite well. Van Dooren liked to go for a cross choke, and Bout had a few nifty ways to work out of it, there was also another short arm scissor that was sold in a significant way. Also, that toe hold was about as deep as you can work a move like that.

MD: Van Dooren is a bit snakebitten with this footage. He was in one of the first matches we saw (vs Di Santo) but then two of the only listed matches from the archive that turned out to be not there were Van Dooren matches (vs Allary and Tarres, the latter of which probably would have been really interesting). Ah well. Maybe they turn up some day. Bout, on the other hand, is a guy that I'm liking more and more. Which means, of course, this is the last we see him. Important note: Van Dooren's day job is real estate and we get a profile skit in the middle when he tries to sell houses. Amazing stuff.

The first ten minutes of this is Bout completely eating Van Dooren alive. Van Dooren will try holds and escapes but nothing works. There's a slight mean undertone between the two of them even early. Right before the ten minute mark, Van Dooren tries an armlock and Bout just clobbers him. I really felt for the poor guy. That leads to a nice transition however, as they repeat the spot, but this time, Van Dooren ducks it and is able to put on a short arm scissors that lasts a good three minutes, in and out. Van Dooren can't capitalize on it however, and when Bout's back up, it's with some brutal shots. Van Dooren fires back with two great headbutts, and they build to rope running, a killer dropkick and more Bout mauling. He ultimately slips on a banana peel, unable to get the flip up 'rana cleanly and gets power bombed to end the first fall. The second two falls devolved repeatedly into a slugfest, with more great Van Dooren headbutts, and some awesome low kicks to the legs by Bout. The best part was when they went out to the floor and brawled like total madmen. While it wasn't his sole focus, Bout did go for the legs when he could, and ultimately took both remaining falls with a spinning toehold. Considering that Bout caught him with gut shots or kick ups during certain attempts to go low, it felt natural and opportunistic. Ultimately, yet another really good match.

Claude Montourcy/Gilbert LeDuc vs. Karl von Chenok/Robert Gastel 5/23/59

SR: 1 Fall Match going 60 minutes. Yes, you got that right, it‘s a broadway. Gotta admit, even though I know how great the wrestlers at the time were and matches going 30-40 minutes not being unusual, I was a bit skeptical whether they could pull it off. And well I‘m a damned fool, because they just do. The heat for this was insane. It seemed like a big crowd and the folks were super engaged from the beginning. It only took von Chenok & Gastel 1 cheapshot to have people threatening to jump them. The heat is a big part of why the match works, but also all 4 guys were absolutely on that night. Gastel had fully transformed into a stooging, grimacing prick heel here, and he was absolutely fantastic. He really struck me as Murdochian again, knowing exactly what to do when, having all these fantastic exaggerated bits of selling, and looking like an asskicker when it was time to crank up the violence. Von Chenok is a bit weird, as his sole intent is to nervehold guys which should normally be off-throwing, but I have no problem calling his performance here great. The man had no problem taking some insane punishment and bumping his ass off. His bump for the european uppercuts was like the 1950s version of the Rikishi clothesline bump. I also loved his Ohtani like crybaby selling when his hands got stomped. He also went absolutely savage at times, including a bit where he went straight for an eye gouge and then dished out several knees to the balls. He did go for the nerve hold a lot, but for the first half of the match, the hold was pretty much broken immediately, so when he finally got to sink it in later, it felt like a big deal. Also, undoubtedly he worked great with Gastel in cutting off the ring.

Leduc and Montourcy were fantastic as well. We‘ve seen how great Leduc can be, but Montourcy really stood out as well. He had ton of slick moves, including a great roll through into a boston crab, and something that was like a grapevine atomic drop that Hechicero should steal. Both he and Leduc also had a variety of ways to escape von Chenoks nerve hold, which kept things fresh. Of course the main job of Leduc and Montourcy was to hit explosive dropkicks, punch combos and forearms, and they do that rather well, my god. At some point in the 30 minute mark, the match just turned into a frenzy and all 4 guys were dishing out serious punishment. It wasn‘t exactly Holy Demon Army level structure (save for Leduc hitting multiple powerbombs as the time was running out) and the match may have peaked with the initial heel beatdown on Montourcy (culminating in an insane tombstone piledriver followed by some BattlARTS level near-10 counts and nerve hold nearfalls), you could tell they ran out of ideas towards the end and just kept repeating their stuff, but with a match this great I‘m not complaining. These guys just beat the shit out of each other and in between that you had shit like von Chenok stomping someone in the back of the head or Leduc trying to bite someones ear off again. Also, Gastel refusing to go down and just getting hammered towards the end was awesome, as was his bump over the top that landed him in the audience. Also loved that they only started going for pinfalls like 55 minutes into the match and before that it was all 10 counts with the crowd counting along and the wrestlers being awesome selling near Kos. I could go on and on but I will just say that everyone in this match ruled and it was really great.

PAS: I have very little interest in watching a 60 minute match these days. Give me a solid 16 and take it home. This, however, was fantastic, and in the discussion for the best 60+ minute matches ever. All four guys are great in this, with a bunch of individually awesome moments and also a weaved together structure. I loved what von Chenok brought to this. A lot of the great French Catch guys are stylistically similar, which can bring a bit of sameness to even incredible matches, having a bald weirdo just trying constantly for nerve holds was awesome. I really came away from this wanting to see a LeDuc master of the headspin versus von Chenok master of nerve hold singles match. Gastel was a total package too on the heel side, vicious mean prick, who when it came time to bump and stooge went for it. Those piledrivers were gross and he really threw then with disdain. You can tell a great French Catch match if I am sending Daniel Makabe DM's about moves to steal and that Montourcy octopus thing got the DM treatment for sure. This is standing as our 1959 MOTY and we will be truly blessed if anything outdoes it.

MD: Sebastian covered this so well that it's actually hard to add a lot, which is crazy when you think about a 60 minute broadway. Let me reiterate a few things and try to add something though. The level of difficulty on this one was extremely high. It's one thing to structure a long match, a long tag match, when you have some fall breaks to build to. Here they didn't have one single fall and more over, like he said, they didn't even really go into the pinfalls until the last ten minutes. They had the crowd (announced mid match at around 2387) into it the whole time, booing, cheering, chanting! There was a moment where Leduc was able to time the grinding of his toehold with the chants even as Von Chenok kept grabbing at his head. There were underlying themes both in general (like the heels controlling the ring with VERY quick tags and the babyfaces able to fall dramatically towards their corner for tags with bruising forearms and uppercuts to follow) and specific (such as Von Chenok going for the nerve hold, or Leduc getting justice with the catapult), and maybe they ran them a bit into the ground, but the crowd never cared and it's hard to care too. Instead of falls, they built to big moments of babyface comeback and fire. Then they brought things back down either with the heels controlling or some longer, excellent holds around the 40 minute mark.

Everyone brought something to the table: Von Chenok's begging off, cruel and desperate attacks at the eyes, selling of his hand, and the single-minded cross-choking and nerve holds; Gastel's stooging and bumping, his bullying chops and great cut-off headbutts, those tombstones, the way he'd constantly try to cheat or get frustrated with the crowd; Montourcy's jumping knee attack, his dropkicks, his backbreakers late in the game, the way he'd cheer on Leduc from the apron or pull the rope back to give extra oomph to those catapults, and yes, that Canadian maple leaf style crab and the amazingly cool stretch drop into the rolling cradle; and Leduc being Leduc, headstands and forerams, the leg nelson, those crazy power bombs at the end (the angle on one being insane), the vicious elbows to stop the nerve hold, and just both babyfaces' selling when in peril around the 35 minute mark, which is some of the best we've seen in all of the French footage.

There were times where I was wondering if this was going to hold together, but ultimately it did, driven by the constant struggle, the quick tags and heel cutting off of the ring, by the triumphant babyface comebacks and revenge punishment, by taking the crowd down and then bringing them back up, and then by escalating things towards the finish by introducing pins and bombs. Then with all of the small details that tick past along with the minutes. Truly an accomplishment of a match.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mann! Montourcy! Black Salem! Pellacani!

Tommy Mann vs. Claude Montourcy 10/17/57 - GREAT

PAS: Another week, another pair of awesome guys I have never heard of. Pretty classic French Catch heavyweight style match, with some really cool matwork a nasty cheating heel, and a finishing run full of violence. We even get a countout finish off a big bump, which seems to be a finish used a lot. I like well done formula wrestling, and this was very well done. Montourcy really works over the arm, including a great spot where he climbs Mann's back to clasp an arm. Mann is a guy with stiff cheapshots, and he had especially good looking uppercuts, landing right in the mandible. He looked like he was going to dislocate's Montourcy's jaw. The finish bump by Mann was a pretty big one, and I liked how he sold his arm like he cracked his forearm on the chair.

MD: Despite being billed as American, Mann is definitely British. He was on Benny Hill. He's a stocky grizzled, hard-nosed character and we're lucky to have any footage of him. Montourcy is a quick and fiery (when pushed) French babyface. I had some concerns in the first few minutes as the chain wrestling seemed okay but not particular dynamic relative to what we've been watching, but then Mann forearmed him out of nowhere and everything was okay once more. Mann either really understood or adroitly adapted to the crowd. Much like British rules, you have to chain your offense together in French Catch. If you knock someone down, you can't then go in and lock in a hold if bodily contact was broken and it wasn't all one movement. If you do, the ref will break the hold. Mann, however, kept going for unattached chinlocks, getting big boos each time. It's one of those things that probably wouldn't have worked in front of any other crowd of any other era but it made him reviled here. This turned into a good mix of slugging blows (including Montourcy affronted comebacks and bits of revenge) and punishing holds; Mann was especially good at turning one hold into the next as Montourcy shifted positions. Given the length of these matches, there are generally a lot of momentum shifts, which makes each individual comeback somewhat less memorable then it might be in a shine-heat-comeback formula, but there was a beautiful stepover (with the leg hooked every so slightly under the arm to give the flipping torque) cross-arm breaker with the leg clapping down over the face repeatedly, that really got the crowd up, including the Martian at ringside. Anyway, things escalated to some bumps out of the ring and a countout/TKO that protected Mann well enough while putting over Montourcy. We'll see the latter a few more times but Mann only once more I think.

SR: 1 Fall match going almost exactly 20 minutes. Tommy Mann was a British grappler who was looking quite lumpy and aging in this, while Montourcy is a slender young technician. Odds that this was gonna turn into a brawl were high, but they engage in some quite good grappling. It soon became apparent Montourcy would have the upper hand, so Mann decided to crank up the viciousness with nasty forearms and clubs. Really liked his backbreakers and the finger bending that he did which is exactly what you‘d expect from a crusty old veteran carny. Montourcy was slick as hell and looked like one of the better workers around. Predictably good match.

Jacky Corne vs. Rafael Blasco 11/29/57 - FUN

MD: This was something. We just get ten minutes of it but Blasco, who is a Spanish Light Heavyweight who I don't think there's any footage of but this, is an amazing striker and just pounds the hell out of Corn. He has this high torque twist out into a forearm or a punch that's brutal and he does it again and again. He also picks Corn up and charges him into the corner multiple time. Corn is a fighter as always and comes back to the crowd's delight, but ultimately it's too much. I liked the gamesmanship here: when Corn was coming back, Blasco tossed him out; when Blasco used the same tricks too many times, Corn was able to dodge away or deflect, but really this was all about the strikes and how much heat Blasco was able to generate from the crowd.

PAS: I am not going to complain about a match where a guy brutally punches another guy until the towel gets thrown in. It was pretty one-dimensional, but that is a hell of a dimension. The rainmaker into a punch was really cool, and it is fun to see how many 50s French Catch guys have cooler Rainmakers than Okada.

SR: About the ending of what looks like a pretty heated match. Mostly Blasco beating on Corn with nasty forearm shots until his corner man throws in the towel. Blasco also really likes a move where he puts Corn in a japanese strangelhold and spins him around like a Rainmaker. I would‘ve liked more Blasco as he came across mean and tough but this is his sole appearance.

Black Salem vs. Liano Pellacani 11/29/57 - GREAT

MD: Pellacani is one of the greatest heatseeking villains we've seen. Remember, he's the guy we saw someone throw a lit cigarette in one of our first matches. Here, he's not just facing Black Salem, but the ref and the crowd and the world itself. Ultimately, what that means is that we don't necessarily have a great match, but we do absolutely have an amazing performance. Salem was fairly big, with a great headbutt and some questionable strikes (kicks especially) and and throws/holds. He reminded me a bit of King Kong Taverne, where he could do the moves of the day, but not nearly as smooth as others. I get the sense that some of the technical masters we've seen could walk him through a really interesting match. That's not what Pellacani was there for though. He was there to enrage everyone in the crowd, especially the lady wearing the giant cross that may or may not have been a nun. Oh and the guy that pounded him when he was on the apron at one point. And the ref (though that was worked) who kept kicking him in the head repeatedly when he wouldn't break a hold. With almost every heel we've seen, there's a Tully-ian moment of at least trying to wrestle before going to the cheapshots. Not with Pellacani. He rushes right in at the bell and never looks back. If the ref hits him to break a hold, he makes sure to kick Salem in response. He jaws with the ref or the crowd as a distraction so he can lunge in at his opponent. When he hits something he's happy with, he'll do a little strut or a finger motion with a smug look on his face. Sometimes he even feigns contrition, as if it was an accident. And his shots all look nasty and brutal and sound even worse. Pellacani was truly the best at being the worst.

PAS: Pellacani continues to be great. You really don't need much on the other side, he is going to throw those big shots and try to fight everyone in the audience. He has some real shoulder separators for forearms, and knows just when to cool a crowd down and to heat them up.  I enjoyed Salem, his stuff didn't always land but he timed his stuff really well and that headbutt was class. I also like the spin kick, it didn't always land great but it looked cool.  Pellacani was the story though, he is really an all timer.

SR: With a name like Black Salem, you hope for some kind of esoteric mat wizard, but this turns into a brawl pretty much from the get go with Pellacani barraging Salem with his stiff forearm blows, punch combos and thudding kicks. Black Salem fought back with good looking dropkicks and big headbutts. Pellacani looked good in the Takashi Ishikawa role of psychotically potatoeing a guy, at one point he even started doing these stiff low kicks. Also liked Pellacani taking swings at the audience which gave the whole thing a vibe like something was about to break out. Pretty short at about 15 minutes and felt like it could have been more. Atleast we got a rough looking end sequence leading to the pinfall.

Read more!