Tuesday is French Catch Day: Siki! Zarak! Bayle! Eagle! Ramirez! Wherle! Schmid!

Mammoth Siki vs Zarak (JIP) 9/28/82

MD: Not nearly as good as the Siki vs Calderon match from 79 but not as bad as I thought it might be either. The big problem was that Siki didn't want to sell anything, so Zarak would get him in the corner and throw three chops into his throat and Siki would just come out hammering. The hammering itself wasn't so bad. He had a bunch of stuff, a chancery suplex, a drop down/leapfrog/dropkick, headbutts. And the strikes were substantial if nothing else. Zarak fought more from underneath throwing kicks into kneelifts, strutting about, carrying the emotional weight of the selling for the match certainly. In the end, Siki went for the mask one too many times and as the ref pulled him off, Zarak snuck in a low blow. It's a finish we actually haven't seen a ton in the footage so far. My gut says that if we had the first few minutes of this and more Zarak antics, it would have gained some points.

Remy Bayle vs Golden Eagle 9/28/82

MD: Another masked man against a strong guy but this had a different feel. Here, Bayle would have to use his strength to come up from underneath and he did so with quite a lot of verve, actually. They had built the idea of the mask being taken off in the last match and it's paid off here, with Bayle finally getting it after his big comeback, to the crowd's delight. There were some of the nice fire-ups out of a chinlock before that, the fireman's carry lift up and then just tossing the opponent over his shoulder out of the ring. Finish had Eagle angry about losing his mask and making mistakes. Straightforward stuff here but certainly not bad. I almost wonder if these two singles would have worked better as a tag though.

SR: These seem to be in the exact same building as the tag the previous month (or 3 years earlier?).
Anyways, these matches were mostly heavyweights beating on each other in not very exciting ways. The men mostly grinding these matches down were Siki (really like slazy chinlocks) and Eagle (really likes nasty chokes). I liked Bayle who looks like a Soviet grappler with his singlet and body hair. Anyways, these are for the "At least it was short" category.

Daniel Schmid/Remy Bayle vs Paco Ramirez/Gilbert Wherle 7/1/83

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. Paco Ramirez was apparently working EMLL as "Lawrence de Arabia". That was the most interesting thing about this bout. The wrestling was okay, but the face/heel dynamic was executed kind of poorly and you could tell they didn‘t have the kind spark of brilliance you usually expect from French wrestling. Worst of all, the match went needlessly long when these workers just didn‘t have much to offer. 

MD: I begrudgingly agree here. As best as I can tell, Schmid had an injury/accident in the late 70s and turned into a fan favorite after that and, as the parallel to him is Buddy Rose, it does remind me a bit of the Buddy face run. And he's fine in this role, even impressive with some of his flipping escapes given his size. But he was an entertaining bad guy and this would have worked better if it was Bayle/Wherle vs Ramierz/Schmid. We've seen very little of Wherle in the collection but he had some real expert arm/wrist manipulation and the best part of the match was when he was firing back and forth with Schmid. Ramirez had become quite the character with the bullwhip and matador gear and his preening theatrics. Bayle leaned into his strength again. The big problem here was just that the stylists were never in much danger. There was one bit where Ramirez and Wherle worked together to cheat for maybe a minute but it wasn't enough. There was the long technical first fall and the quick second with some comedy like usual but there was no drama in the middle. It meant things couldn't boil over and there was nothing to get emotionally invested in. That said, and as noted above, the work was still good. There was just nothing to sink your teeth into except for Ramirez being punchable and good exchanges for the sake of good exchanges.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Asquini! Trujillo! Mercier! Gonzalez! Momo! Latif! Siki! Schmid!

Bruno Asquini vs Tomas Trujillo 8/21/87 

MD: We get the last eight or so of this. Trujillo is the Peruvian we've seen the last, but he's very good. He's got interesting angles to come at with his offense, plays to the crowd well, bumps big, can handle complex rope running sequences, and has the big swooping climb up armdrag, which would be better on a babyface, but still stands out. He matched up here with Asquini, who by this point was relatively old, but still worked hard and had a sort of twinkle in his eye in how he wrestled. Saulnier as ref got just a bit too involved here. The put upon, furious tiny terror gimmick has its moments but I was more interested in seeing these two match up. Trujillo actually gets the win after catching Asquino off the ropes with a quick pin. I feel like outside of a monster like Henker, we haven't seen heels win almost at all in the last decade.

Jose Gonzalez vs Guy Mercier 8/21/78

MD: I love how clean this match was narratively. Twenty minutes. Entertaining. Well worked and competitive. Ebbs and flows. Saulnier (the ref) being a bit annoying but getting plenty of comeuppance and he can't outstooge Gonzalez who was just one of the best. Mercier grounding everything like the old pro he was.

I don't do this often but let me run you through how the match was set up as it was as clean as anything I've come across in the footage match. They have a feeling out exchange where Gonzalez gets an early advantage with multiple mares and armdrags and biels but where Mercier gives him comeuppance and sends him to the outside with a reversal. Then we get an extended cravat sequence where Gonzales hangs on through multiple escape attempts as Mercier tries to escape. After he finally shrugs him off, Mercier does his spin out legpick and starts with a toehold, peppering in legdrops onto the leg and changing position. This is probably the most extended portion of the match save for the actual heat later on, as Gonzalez manages to reverse it in the ropes and then uses the ropes for leverage as Saulnier keeps missing it. We've seen tag partners work together but less of one person really using the ropes like this. Mercier is able to take back advantage with more of the same, with Saulnier getting chopped for his trouble. Gonzalez gets another shot at it, in the corner, grinding the leg over his shoulder, but Mercier konks him in the top of the head with his foot and Gonzalez bumps forward into Saulnier (second public warning on Mercier).

They reset into a go behind reversal by Mercier, who drops Gonzalez into a bodyscissors sequence, with him thudding Gonzalez down repeatedly. Eventually, he gets out, eats a monkey flip to land on his feet, poses, and Mercier dropkicks him out (and then dropkicks Saulnier twice for good measure). Gonzles sneaks back in, gets a cheapshot and starts the real heat, a lot of stomps, headlocks with punches, and bicep poses to the crowd. Eventually he ties Mercier in the ropes and they run a spot where Saulnier gets his foot stuck trying to get him out, which the crowd loves. The transition is Gonzalez missing a charge and choking himself in the ropes. That leads to Mercier tying Saulnier up in the ropes too so he can whack Gonzalez on the top of the head, sending him tumbling and stooging on the outside.

The finish is some back and forth forearms, with a Mercier advantage, Saulnier preventing Gonzalez from holding the rope to avoid a whip, a nice bit where Mercier hits a gut shot the first time and gets sunset flipped the second for a nearfall, and a third whip where he hits the armdrag slam (really nicely as he'd been looking away until a split second before) for 3. This was one of the cleanest matches I've seen narratively. It only went seventeen or so, which helped, had clear characters, and they worked nicely segmented sequences (feeling out, stylist hold advantage, heel hold advantage, stylist overcoming to regain hold advantage, stylist presses advantage into clowning, heel comes back and gets heat, stylist comes back as they go to finish), but I do sort of wonder if it's just me living in this footage for a couple of years now.

Jean-Pierre Momo vs Salah Latif 8/28/78

MD: We get the last five or six of this. It went around twenty before we got here. There's a Breton folk group in the crowd dressed up. It feels like a smaller venue. Latif had a lot of headbutt related offense, despite not looking like a guy who would. I'm not sure if the ring was slightly smaller or usual or what but there were some spots where the positioning was off and dropkicks didn't quite unravel like they should. It felt like they were working towards a draw but Latif kept going for a double underhook in the end and finally hit a sort of floatover suplex with it to score a win with a couple of minutes to go. They hit hard enough but it wasn't the smoothest match in the footage.

Mammoth Siki vs Daniel Schmid 8/29/78

MD: I expected Siki to be the face here and Schmid the heel out of previous matches, because Siki had a good reaction coming out, and because the commentary talked him up as a good guy, a former accountant, a bouncer, etc. Plus Schmid is a natural heel, a Buddy Rose analogue. He's a few years older here and I know they brought him out the last time we saw him after a injury that was either real or fake, but seemed pretty severe. Since we're up to 78, Portland could have brought him into run an angle as Buddy's cousin and it would have been the best thing in wrestling that year. He could do kip ups and rope running quite like Buddy after all. This had a lot of him working from underneath in armbars or nerve holds. Not the most exciting stuff, but he was working hard and the crowd was behind him. The Breton folk group started playing music to support him and that's exactly when he timed his comeback, which is how wrestling is supposed to work when you're not working to specific quarter hours on TV. We're at least ten years into when I started noticing the trend, but this was the clearest I've ever heard the "Bonuses", which, in this case, was when people in the crowd or local businesses rewarded things that happened by offering donations to the wrestlers, 120 francs for Schmid and less for Siki by the end, and someone even gave the ref 10. It's a uniquely French thing as I've never encountered it anywhere else, but quite common throughout the 70s. Sadly, this ended with said ref getting crushed off the ropes in a mishap and then Siki stomped him which led to the DQ. It was an ok novelty but shouldn't be the top of anyone's list to watch.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Mitchell! Noced! Renault! Schmid! James!

Daniel Noced/Guy Renault vs Petit Prince/Alan Mitchell 10/12/74

MD: Really, really good stuff here. Look, Petit Prince is having a moment this last week due to a big viral tweet. I do hope that when that happens people find their way to the blog and the master list so that they can watch this footage for themselves. There's so much more than just gifs of highspots to these matches. Everyone that's been following along knows that. Spread the word! (And because I haven't linked to it for a while, here's the Master List, updated as of a month or two ago: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/05/french-catch-tuesday-master-list.html)

Ok, so this was excellent. Two things became very clear to me from watching it. Most importantly, Noced is the Psicosis to Prince's Rey Mysterio, Jr. He's the perfect base for him, able to take all of his stuff, able to beat him down when it's time, over the top with a red mane of curly hair and beard that the black and white doesn't do justice. He knows all of Prince's stuff and can play into it perfectly. The second is that Mitchell is really Prince's perfect partner. He's a technical brit who knows all the tricks and is all about the close-up magic of tiny bits of limb and joint manipulation. It's perfect contrast for Prince's sweeping acrobatics. This is the only match we have with them as a conventional team and they're just so perfect together.

Mitchell is very close to the top of the list of someone that I wish was in another ten matches. He has ways of clowning his opponent that no one else in France was doing. Bits where he bodyscissors them so they have to walk around the ring with him attached or traps their arms or legs with his arms. There was an exchange where Renault was trapped and it was all he could do not to fall over and Renault kept coming in to pick him up and Prince would come in to knock him back down. The fans loved it. Renault was totally game but Noced was the star in how mean he'd hit and how smug he was after escaping one thing or another (including the ref pulling his ears) only to slip on a banana peel or get his comeuppance from a stylist a moment later.

This had about fifteen minutes of the stylists mostly outwrestling the bad guys, including a great long short arm scissors by Prince on Noced where he was going back and forth with it like a rowboat as the fans chanted, and all of the lift ups/rolls that you'd expect. That led to a brief but awesome bit of heat once Noced was finally able to place him on the top rope. Because of his diminutive size, Prince could really get sympathy bumping into the crowd and getting knocked off the apron. This led to a great earned comeback by Prince and one of the best hot tags I think I've seen in French catch to end the first fall. The second fall was mainly fun and celebratory but led to a ref bump and guest Ring Announcer Jean Robic (a former Tour de France winner) coming in to count the fall to a big ovation. Just great stuff all around. Mitchell/Prince is one of the greatest one-match teams we have on tape.

PAS: Tremendous stuff, Prince is so great in every match he is in, it is hard to rank them. This feels like a high end Prince match, as we have a great pair of rudos, and Mitchell adding his own spice to the mix. Loved all of the stuff with Mitchell's drop toe hold and his weird body scissors. I am a short arm scissors mark, and this was a very cool variation of that spot. The Tour de France guy coming in to make the pin was a fun bit of old school pro-wrestling business, I love a good celebrity appearance, and it is fun to see  a guy who was a big deal fifty years ago but is lost to history now. 

Al-Casi vs Christian Preno 4/13/75

MD: Hey, we're in color now. Stylist vs stylist match that goes a little over ten minutes. Al Casi was 26, Preno was 23. This feels like the French version of a young lions match and it's probably extremely interesting to compare/contrast vs that or a first match on a mid-south card in 83, that sort of thing. Casi was obviously more experienced but Preno was very willing and there was never a moment where they weren't scrapping and trying for holds or escapes or mares or throws and occasionally even shots as it came close to boiling over in the middle before it calmed back down. I wouldn't want to watch these sorts of matches week in and week out at the expense of everything else, but you can't fault their effort here.

Daniel Schmid vs Rocky James 4/13/75

MD: This is just a bizarre scene. We didn't have anything from the end of 74 or the first few months of 75 and thus we're in April here, in color, and I'm not really sure what to make of this. James came out with bagpipers and an accordion player. Schmid had definitely been a heel before. Neither of them played nice. Both were bigger guys with big shots and a lot of aggression. James felt like a de facto face who did heelish things (snuck in a single leg from the ground, played king of the mountain in an unsportsmanlike way, wouldn't break clean, kept getting admonished by the ref) but expected to be cheered for them and sort of did. He reminded me a bit of Otto Wanz actually. Schmid, as always, reminds one of Buddy Rose with his pudgy speed and literal baby face reactions. This never really came together but that just gave everything a more competitive feel. Past a fairly long armbar early where James kept control through a lot of escape attempts, you never quite felt comfortable as a viewer with this one. It was good action with bigger guys but not wildly coherent, even as the band kept playing in the background and the crowd just seemed happy that they were hitting each other.

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit under 25 minutes. This was a match between two guys with fantastic physique. I love that Schmid was like a mini Greg Valentine while Rocky James looked like a more stocky Jerry Lawler. The first 10 minutes of this were pretty much a study of upper body holds and throws which these guys executed at blinding speed. After that Schmid tags James with a punch to the jaw and the match turns into a potatoefest. Schmid looked grizzly here, bowling James out of the ring when he tried a leg stretch and then putting on a nasty Fuchi stretch of his own while stepping on James face. The crowd seemed confused about who the face was, so James made sure to be a bastard and clubbed Schmid hard with nasty forearms and punt kicks. I loved all the body shots that were thrown and the back and forth european uppercuts were some of the funniest we‘ve seen with both guys aiming at the jaw. Basically a mix of really fun wrestling and hard hitting by two barrel chested dudes who look like truck drivers.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Chico de Oro! Corn! LeDuc! Henker! Schmid!

Georges Cohen vs Chico de Oro 2/23/74 

MD: Beautiful wrestling here. Stylist vs stylist, but they're juniors. This is our only look at Chico who was billed as a champion of Spain and 25 years old (to Cohen's 30). This never even came close to boiling over, as there was sportsmanship from beginning to end. As the match went on, Chico got knocked out of the ring frequently, or both might go over, and Cohen was always quick to help him back in Andre Chaveau, the ref, got more heat than either guy as he admonished them after some late comedy kickouts where they landed on him. But the wrestling was very good. It was full of struggle but more of a scrappy sort than a gritty sort, if that makes sense. It was more about preventing holds in the first place by constantly moving and scrapping and then preventing escape attempts as opposed to hanging on through them (though there was plenty of that too). Cohen had seniority and home advantage and was the aggressor for a lot of this, and he got to kick out both the old favorites (like the long body scissors in-and-outs) as well as some more advanced things like a tapatia and this great toehold that I had to watch three times to understand how he got it on. Chico sold well and fought well from underneath and had some fun things of his own including a nice version of Leduc's "toupe" headspin (which I finally have a name for). It was nice to see Cohen really stretch in a singles match even if you always want things to boil over at least a little. I don't think there was one strike in this whole match, which while a detriment in some ways, was a huge credit in others. 

Jacky Corn & Gilbert LeDuc vs Der Henker & Daniel Schmid 3/30/74

MD: We come in JIP here, maybe as much as twenty minutes in. It still goes another 20 so that seems like a bit much. By this point, we know it's going to be great when Henker gets in with these two, and Schmid is such a great underling goon, pudgy in a way that does remind you of Buddy Rose, but with this habit of running headlong into every shot and being able to fire back fairly well on his own. It's hard to explain what makes Henker so effective. He's big and strong but not the biggest and strongest we've seen. He has the tombstone but that's a blip in a 30+ minute match. An exclamation point at the end of a paragraph where it's the paragraph itself that matters. He just has a way of making the traditional monster clubbering look more punishing and violent and dangerous than most others. It's a sort of physical charisma where he can shrug someone off of his shoulders or cut off an escape attempt and make it look like it's a monster actually doing it. It stands out. And of course LeDuc and Corn play their roles perfectly at all times. They'll fight back cleverly (LeDuc undoing the mask for a distraction, for instance) and valiantly (standing toe to toe with both opponents) and when it comes time, with fire. Schmid is the perfect guy to eat LeDuc's headstand headscissors takeover and Corn's comeback forearms. This isn't as good as the handicap match because it doesn't tell as primal a story but there's nothing about the work that is any less. And hey, there's even a random Pat Roach (the English Giant) cameo as he comes in after Henker wins the second fall to set up a match that unfortunately we do not have.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Montreal! Henker! Corn! Leduc! Schmidt! Frisuk! Viracocha! Tejero! Ben Chemoul! Bordes!

Inca Viracocha/Anton Tejero vs Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes 1/18/73

MD: This was exceptional. So many of these Ben Chemoul and Bordes tags (and Ben Chemoul and Cesca for the six matches we have of them together before Bordes) are so, so good that it's hard to rank them but this has to be towards the top of the list. Viracocha did everything well, but Tejero was just an amazing big bumping base that had the visual of being almost Brazo like to really put it over the top. This match might set some sort of record for bumps over the top and to the floor or off the apron as Tejero just went over again and again in the first third, Bordes got absolutely killed in the second, and then the heels got their comeuppance in the last. There were some absolutely amazing sequences like Bordes getting lawn darted and bouncing into the front row only to come back on the second attempt at it with cartwheels and dropkicks as he bounded around the ring and took out both opponents.

The heat was strong and meaningful, cutting off the ring and taking out first Ben Chemoul and then Bordes, who had his back just demolished with whips and creative tosses to the floor and a huge backbreaker. He had a great bit of hope in there as he fought back in but over shot on a flying body press and got stamped out. Then the comeback was fiery and full of revenge and the final fall was hugely entertaining including a great spot where they crushed the ref between the two Peruvians and a high energy finish where Bordes leaped to the top and got his flying body press. I don't really see how this could be any better considering what they were trying to accomplish.

PAS: This was really great, felt like a classic lucha match, with Viracoeha and Tejero as big bumping, big stooging rudos, and the Chemoul and Bordes iconic technicos. Bordes was bumping big and I loved his big KO right hand, and when he went wild and started cartwheeling and flipping all over the ring. Tejero spent more time flying out of the ring then in it almost, and Bordes especially just got tossed everytime he hit the floor. Totally breezy 30 minutes, really something nearly any wrestling fan can enjoy. 

Mr. Montreal vs Der Henker 2/10/73?

MD: Big time heavyweight clash here. Henker was a big powerhouse but so was Montreal. Early on they played it up with Henker jamming Montreal's mares and headlock takeovers in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It took a shoulder block (also jammed) and a rushing headbutt to the gut to even get him into a position where the headlock takeover worked. This might have been methodological at times, but there was always that sense of struggle. The first half of this was really the two of them trading holds with neither getting an advantage. Eventually Henker's inside shots won out and he did take over with nerveholds and rabbit punches. Montreal came back big, dropkicking Henker out and tossing him around the ring, but he overstretched by going to the mask. That let Henker toss him out and post him and the writing was on the wall after that. While Montreal didn't bleed, he did sell it all well enough to really get over that it was the beginning of the end. The appeal in a match like this is that guys that are bigger and stronger are showing the technical prowess. There were less in-and-out escapes but they played up the power and the struggle instead, and Montreal did go up and over out of a top wristlock into a headscissors. It was just the right amount of flash to go along with the hammering blows and the just overwrought enough battling over a test of strength or full nelson.

Jacky Corn/Gilbert LeDuc vs Daniel Schmidt/Janek/Jean Frisuk 2/10/73?

MD: This is our first look at Schmidt and the first time we've seen Frisuk (Fryziuk, called Yanek here) in ten years. And this was very good. In part it almost felt like a throwback to the 50s with some of the holds, some of the spots, and the absolute slugfest that it devolved into again and again. Schmidt and Frisuk played de facto heels, Schmidt young and spry with as much energy as anyone we've seen in this footage other than Bollet maybe, and Frisuk older, a little slower on some spots, but still able to throw fists (or forearms as it was) and grind down. I say de facto because it was clean, with LeDuc and Corn helping Frisuk up after winning the second fall and all hands getting raised after the third. They had taken the first by capitalizing quite mercilessly on Corn going over the top and when the hot tag came in the second, it was very hot. Corn and Leduc were some of the best sluggers in wrestling history and they got more than their share of revenge with one big shot after the next. Down the stretch, it was all parties firing off on each other. Basically, if you enjoy watching wrestlers throw hands, this is one of the best matches in many a year from the footage for it.

Read more!