Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Bayle! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Strangler! Drapp! Vignal

MD: Couple of programming notes to start. First, we've been doing this for a couple of weeks more than a year now and I can't begin to tell you how great a part of my week this has been during these tough, isolated times. Thanks to everyone who has watched, commented, shared, and shown passion towards this project and this footage. We had no idea just how lucky we were going to be with it when we started. We could guess from what we already had, sure, but who knew that the week to week quality was going to be so high? That said, we're about to hit the dark period in the footage. Due to a cultural blowback, wrestling was much less frequently shown on TV between around this period and 1965. We still have a few scattered shows in 1961, then a handful of 1962 shows, just a couple of 63 ones, and only one for 64. It starts back up pretty steadily after that, and we've jumped ahead a couple of times to see that while different, everything's absolutely worth watching. That said, you can't help to be a little sad for what simply wasn't shown on TV for those missing years. Still, let's enjoy what we do have, including some really good ones this week.


Jacky Corne vs. Remy Bayle 4/14/61

MD: We get a good 25 minutes of this before it cuts out abruptly but it's well worth watching. This was right after Gagarin went into space and the announcer starts by referencing that which adds just a little bit of historical pinpointing to all of it. Just excellent stylist vs stylist stuff here, with Bayle younger and hungry. This had some of the best, most aggressive chain wrestling we've seen in a match like this, with each wrestler constantly trying to jock for position and escape holds and more effort than usual in the attempts to prevent escape (and there's usually a lot of effort so that's saying something). They even started with lockups instead of the usual double knucklelock/test of strength hand to hand entry points, which we haven't seen a ton of. Bayle went to the uppercuts first but Corn shut him down almost immediately with the leg nelson. They worked back up to more striking and Bayle followed with bodyscissors. They worked the intermission escape on that and then right back into it, then spent the rest of the match going between holds interspersed with spots and striking. It's a shape it cut off because if we had a finish on this, I could see it ranking pretty high for 1961. We get spatterings of Bayle all the way through the 80s, so it'll be interesting to see how he develops.

Jacques Bernieres vs. Jean Martin 4/21/61

MD: We get the last four minutes of this and it was pretty spirited. The announcer got confused which guy was which at the beginning, which messed me up too, but I'm pretty sure we come with Bernieres getting some revenge on Martin, who bumps and stooges big. The most memorable bit of this is Martin eating a back body drop over the top by the ref and after some good slugging and spots, Bernieres goes to the shoulder throw well one too many times and Martin hits him with a knee trembler. Post match, someone throws something (I think candy?) at Martin and he catches it and eats it, which is just brilliant stuff.

Andre Drapp/Bernard Vignal vs. Rocco Lambam/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 4/21/61

MD: Another week, another great tag. This is our first look at Kaiser in a while and I think our last look at him in general. Here he was spry and coy, emanating an air of gingerness that drew heat, even as he consistently worked to trap his opponent into his corner to lay in punishment. Lamban is, of course, El Strangulator. He has a dozen ways to strangle you (chinlock, cobra clutch, his finishing dragon sleeper, the very cool horizontal lift finger-into-throat when the ref can't see). Drapp and Vignal are a pretty perfectly paired tag team, with Vignal a little older but capable and fiery and Drapp one of those guys like Corn who have a real "ace" feel to them. Both can control on the mat, portray vulnerability, and come back strong. They took a huge chunk of this to start, but when you're wrestling two guys with strangleholds who can turn the match on a dime and then keep it turned due to chicanery and cutting off the ring, it more or less worked out.

PAS: The good doctor returns! Kaiser is one of my favorite characters in French Catch, and I love to see him sleaze around the ring. Cheapshotting, begging off, back jumping, all with that prim aristocratic affect. You can just see him walking into the farmhouse and drinking the fresh glass of milk. I love a strangler, and Rocco finds so many different ways to choke and torture, that lifting choke thing Matt mentioned was awesome. They are such a despicable pair. These weren't amazing babyface performance opposite them, but they did the job, delivered a beating when it was called for, added their own bag of tricks and were sympathetic victims. Match just kind of ended, without a big moment or two, which would have elevated it, but I wish we had another two dozen matches from Dr. Adolf and El Strangulator.  

SR: 2/3 Falls match over 30 minutes. The seemingly last appearance of the nefarious Dr. Adolf Kaiser. His partner here was Rocco Lamban, said to be a Spaniard. Lamban was another guy with a massive upper body and spindly arms and leopard trunks. If there‘s one thing to learn from old pro wrestling it‘s that guys in leopard trunks are likely douches. Lamban also knew how to finish people off with chokeholds. And that is what made this match really fun, as Dr. Kaiser & Lamban were constantly looking for a strangle hold, with Drapp & Vignal doing a lot of fun wrestling to squirm out of potential submissions. The animalistic behaviour of Dr. Kaiser is always highly entertaining, too. This developed into a quite intense beatdown on the faces. I‘ve been wondering whether the deal with Dr. Kaiser is similiar to the British deal that they wouldn‘t show his most violent matches on TV, but he and Lamban were surely and kicking ass full on here. I thought the match ended a little abruptly as it seemed to hint at the faces administering an epic counter-asskicking, but as it was it was a really fun romp.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: L'Homme Masque! Delaporte! Al Hayes! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Lambert! Laroche!

L'Homme Masque vs. Roger Delaporte 3/6/59

MD: So far, 1959 has been the year of the masked wrestler. This is the third we've seen and not L'Homme Masque's debut, but he'd only been around for a bit, apparently, even if he was the first. They bill him from Texas, with 3 wives who had all ran away. If he ever loses, he would unmask. He was presented in the announcing, more so than than Le Bourreau (who worked for another promoter) as the opposite of L'Ange Blanc and we do have a match with them but not for another ten years! This was a match in three parts, with some amazing comedic performing from Delaporte to start. The first five or six minutes were all him ducking away from L'Homme and trying one thing after another: top wristlocks, headlocks, a bearhug. Each time he was shrugged off, or with the bearhug, put into a giant headlock causing his arms to crumble. Each time his reactions were hilarious. L'Homme didn't do much here, but he didn't have to. He, given his massive size, was a perfect prop for a stooge like Delaporte. If Delaporte even got touched, he'd sell it huge. Eventually he got caught and things were a little disappointing for this middle section. You'd hope he'd get tossed around and really it was fairly disappointing, just a grounded wristlock with Delaporte flailing about a bit. I did like the knees to the kidneys L'Homme utilized in taking him down though. The last third was far better though. L'Homme kept going to the ropes, wrenching Delaporte's arm around it, and there was nothing he or the ref could do. It was a great visual and, expanded to include a few arm-trapped beales, played up as brutal. Delaporte would get a comeback or two (and did drop the arm selling but that's 50s French wrestling for you; selling tended to be immediate), really slamming L'Homme's head into the turnbuckle. That just made him angrier though and L'Homme jammed him with the most amazing monster spot, the thing we'd been waiting for the entire match: he picked him up over his shoulder with a gutwrench and just slammed the back of his head over and over into the turnbuckle, before dropping him and locking in a sleeper (which he wouldn't break) for the win. Ultimately, he had presence, but this was Delaporte directing traffic. It's a testament to the talent in the 50s that they were able to put these masked attractions against guys like Villars, LeDuc, and Delaporte to give them real credibility and entertaining matches. I think this would have been better if L'Homme had tossed him about or clubbered him the first time he really caught him instead of just sitting in a hold, but otherwise, it definitely did the job.

SR: It's... the masked man. This was a complete squash at 18 minutes length. Poor Delaporte, although the crowd took quite the delight in his demise. He really is the Louis De Funes of wrestling. What a weird character to be Frances major heel star, although I guess it speaks to their culture. It's so strange to see him going from being a vicious bastard brutalizing faces to stooging around as he is himself brutalized by this comical giant. Did Louis De Funes ever do serious movies where he is a corrupt cop breaking fingers? This was a good 7 minutes of Delaporte bouncing off of L'Homme Masque in such a comical fashion that John Tatum looks like Lance Storm in comparison. Followed by 7 minutes of the masked man hanging on to an arm lock with the referee getting increasingly involved. And then, a 2 minute section where the masked man uncorks the repeated turnbuckle powerbombs before wringing Delaporte to sleep. The masked man certainly had a menacing physique, looking like something out of a comic book, but his control section aside from the insane repeated drops to the turnbuckle wasn't super hot. Will be interesting to see him going against the likes of L'Ange Blanc, though.

PAS: Delaporte certainly met his match here. I agree with Matt and Jetlag about how Masque's armbar was a bit dull, although I did appreciate the dominance. I think this would have been better served just cutting the middle part entirely, and just had the match be Delaporte's stooging and that crazy turnbuckle powerbomb combo. I am mixed about the masked invasion, I appreciate the changes in style they bring, but I just wish they were all more compelling workers.  It is a bummer we don't have any footage of Tony Oliver or Karl Gotch's masked characters, I imagine they would be more compelling

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Karl von Kramer/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 3/6/59

MD: We have about 17 minutes of this before they run out of time and I lament the loss of the other 20+ that the match would have probably contained. We have one lone Hayes/Hunter match left, but it's against the Delaporte/Bollet combo, which should be quite the show. We have one more look at Kaiser (tagging with El Strangulador Lamban) and two or three more Von Kramer matches. So no need to say goodbye to anyone now. I do, however, lament that we don't get to see more of Von Kramer and especially Kaiser against Hayes. The last times we saw Judo Al, he really ate up his opponents and the first few minutes are Kaiser and Von Kramer putting their foot down to the best of their ability to prevent that. It doesn't meant they can stop Hayes but it does make for some great, extremely high end struggle. Hayes is very interesting as he will sell, unquestionably, and he will give, but you have to cheat to get up on him. He'll drop for a cheapshot or sell an extended cheating sequence (as he does here where he limps around the ring after they work his leg over using the rope and ref distractions), but if you wrestle him straight up, he's going to not give an inch. In some ways, it's a little unfortunate he's paired with Hunter, who has such a size and reach advantage against almost everyone he wrestles that he's nigh impossible to move. You try for a hold and he'll just bonk you on the head and there's very little you can do about it. That means that Kaiser and Von Kramer are stooging and bounding across the ring and trying and failing to cheat for a lot of this. Hayes and Hunter are also a little more apt to cheat here themselves than we've seen before, which I attest to the fact they're wrestling Germans. All good but not enough; never enough.

SR: We get about 20 minutes of this. No finish, and it appears that was only the 1st fall. That is pretty bitter, as the von Kramer/Dr. Kaiser duo is about the most high end when it comes to monocle wearing fake Germans in wrestling. Here they had matching outfits, they were bumping, stooging, cheating, miscommunicating, doing some pretty fun wrestling, along with their eccentric demeanour, they had everything you want from an entertaining heel team. There was an especially funny bit where the Dr. did his spider walk only to accidentally end up running into von Kramers boot. You get the sense either of them (but especially von Kramer, god what a freaky wrestler that guy was) against Hayes in a singles would've been dynamite. "Rebel" Ray Hunter is probably the least of the faces we have seen, when everyone else is uppercutting the shit out of the bad guys, a tall guy lightly tapping people in the head with chops isn't quite doing it. Still, maybe the full thing is laying around somewhere.

PAS: Yeah this is a real tease of a match, on paper this is a total gem, but we get to see the foreplay with none of the climax. Hayes is always worth watching, he is so skilled and I loved the whole section of him trying to bridge out of a face lock while von Kramer kept punching him in the kidneys. Dr. Kaiser was a little subdued here, we got all of the stooging with none of the maniacal evil. When we are all done with what got, I think we are planning on checking back with the archive, maybe the full version of this is still in the vault.


Henri Lambert vs. Roger Laroche 4/30/59

MD: This one took me by surprise. We had seen Laroche in one of our very first matches in this project and that was primarily to get beat upon by La Barba. I think a commenter previously said that Lambert was the ref in the Mann vs Montourcy so I wasn't sure what to expect here. However, this was, yet again, one of those matches, that if we had nothing else from 50s France, would have blown our collective minds. I wouldn't say that either of these two were dynamic and memorable characters, but there was a real contrast, both in their physical attributes and how they wrestled. Lambert seemed younger, was incredibly athletic, very spirited, quite dynamic. Laroche was (as i said last time we saw him) off that unassuming French maestro assembly line. He seemed older, more reserved. At many points in the match, he stayed low and took the count in order to slow Lambert down and recover, which is not a tactic we've seen much in the footage so far. There was a real but subtle sense of him trying to absorb punishment at times to blow Lambert up so he could take over with a hold, or to draw Lambert out so that he'd get impassioned and make a mistake.

The first few minutes of this had Lambert eating Laroche up with holds, and Laroche's response was to step on the foot. The first time he did it, Lambert brushed it off. The second time, he returned the favor and followed up with a clubbering blow. Taking Lambert off his game allowed for Laroche to get an arm, headbutt the wrist, and use the knee to drive him down, leading into almost SEVEN (7) minutes of Lambert dynamically trying to escape an armbar. We've seen this, of course, with the person in control holding on through armdrags and bodyslams and hip tosses, and blocking headscissors, but this was remarkable both for the length of it and for the fluctuating desperation from Lambert. He'd sell the hand within the hold more and more, trying to keep feeling in it, but he'd also launch lightning quick combinations of hip tosses, only for Laroche to hang on and Lambert to wear himself out. It was seven minutes and it was never boring, in part due to the energy of Lambert and in part due to the sheer audacity of length.

Much of the rest of the match pitted Lambert's athleticism against Laroche's skill, with a lot of great bridges and quick bits of punishment from Lambert and reversals upon reversals. Increasingly, Lambert, in frustration, would go into blows, more emotional than underhand. Laroche on the other hand, would be the sneakier of the two, dropping down and cutting off with a grab of the leg. Lambert, an actor on the side, had a lot of stuff but could also sell very well, and as the match went on both wrestlers really portrayed the weight of what they'd been through and the sheer exhaustion they were facing. There's a long strike exchange towards the end where they're barely standing by the end of it. They were ultimately working to a draw here, though given the tenor of French matches, you can't always tell. This could have had a finish just as easily. It didn't really need one though as the draw was both escalated to and completely earned.

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was a stiff technical match built around armlocks and european uppercuts peppered with some athleticism. It's kind of the French house style, but after weeks of seeing masked dudes running wild on French TV, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Laroche is balding and stocky, while Lambert has a mustache and looks like someone out of a squashbuckling movie. Sometimes, you just want to watch two gentlemen forearm the shit out of each other for 30 minutes, and this delivered in spades. Laroche was a real punisher here, not an outright villain, but taking his shortcuts when they appeared and thus heating up the match. I can't emphasize enough how hard these guys were peppering each other, big kneedrops, kicking their way out of holds, hard shots to the ribs, at one point Laroche blocks an escape attempt so he eats a knee to the head for his troubles. There was a lengthy section built around Laroche keeping an armlock, twisting and throwing Lambert to the mat over and over, often making him land awkwardly on his shoulder. When Lambert gets out, he is slow to get up, clearly favouring that arm, then, when Laroche tried to go back to that same arm hold, he kneed him right in the face. The match was full of "fuck you, you are not doing that spot" which always helps keeping these matches fresh, and enough cool athleticism thrown in at the right moments to keep this from being a sheer slugfest. Still, it's all about them rolling out those forearms and uppercuts. Last couple of strikes exchanges were downright crazy.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Jose Tarres 1/2/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. We are JIP‘d so far into the 1st fall that we see Dr. Kaiser putting Tarres away with the nerve hold. It rules that we still get about 30 minutes of these two wrestling each other. And this was expectedly really good. We‘ve seen Tarres , the man with the iron head, get a really good match of von Chenok, and Dr. Kaiser can do so much more than that guy. This was super simple, Tarres headbutts vs. Dr. Kaisers nerve holds, with both guys having a variety of ways to both hit their signatures and avoid the others. There was some pretty neat work around clinches, with Tarres trying to clinch and fire away with the headbutts and Kaiser having ways to get out of the clinch. We see Kaiser doing a lot of wrestling here including some pretty whacky submission holds and the announcer calls him an artist, which adds another neat dimension to this eccentric evil guy. His clawing and hair pulling was pretty insane, he looks like he is trying to pull the other guys scalp or face off. And with his strategic behaviour, including trying to work over Tarres‘ indestructible head, he reminded me a bit of Billy Robinson. Tarres was there to sell and headbutt the shit out of the evil Doctor, and that he did. Those headbutts to the back of the head are pretty crazy, he connected them with an audible thud too. We also get a good look at a deformity Tarres has on his forehead, so either the metal plate story was legit or he developed that from headbutting people for a living. Dr. Kaiser trying to methodically destroy this heavy hitter was pretty great. He also looked damn great selling the near Kos. The finish was logical but drew a lot of boos from the audience as everyone was eager to see Tarres KO the Doctor.

MD: This was very similar to Von Chenok vs Tarres, the nerve hold vs the headbutt, but where Von Chenok was more apt to dive every which way, Kaiser was inclined to try to tie Tarres up into knots. While Tarres had a range advantage, he was slow to get those hands up to grab Kaiser for the headbutt, and Kaiser was quick to grab and armbar or go low with a jab, so it was a more even contest. That made for a better match but maybe not as frenetic and entertaining as one. That's not to say there weren't fun spots, because there were (like Kaiser hurting his hand on Tarres' head or slamming him into the turnbuckle to no effect) and he was quick to writhe and spasm after the headbutts did hit. I thought they might be protecting the dragon sleeper in the match (Kaiser really only goes for it once as he took the first fall with a nerve hold with his legs inside Tarres' arm) but it petered out with a disappointing DQ finish instead.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, although with two such great characters I wanted a bit more. Tarres' scarred and lumpy head was a nice contrast to the Doctor's sniveling evil. Wrestling is so much cooler when it is populated by freaks and weirdos. I love how intent the Doctor is to get his sleeper, really cool focused attack, although he is going to get knocked off his plan by that gross head smashing him. A wilder finish would have brought this to next level, but the finish we got kind of dragged it down a bit. Still I love both of these guys and would watch anything they did.


Juan Botana vs Paul Villars 1/1/59

MD: When you watch these matches, you look for patterns. That's how you really start to figure out a style. I'm at the point, after more than a half a year doing this, where I get a sense at what at least a good chunk of the spots will be before they happen. I'm sure almost anyone who reads this could watch a WWE match right now and do the same thing. You start figuring out the crowd's reactions too. I didn't think they entirely knew what to make of Dula vs Duranton, for instance, even compared to another heel vs heel match like Taverne vs Delaporte. It was striking, for instance, how much heat Mann received relative to other people that had to work for it more. I think one element of that was when he laid his cheapshots in. Lots of guys will hit after their opponent is down, but Mann got the heat for going after his opponent right when he was about to get up but before he got there. Here, Villars definitely gets heat for the unclean stomps after the opponent is down, but when he starts to lay in the kneelifts as Botana is trying to get up, the crowd really gets after him. Some of it might simply be cumulative, but after the Mann matches, I think there might be something to this. The former is about being unsportsmanlike, but the latter is outright cheating; it's preventing an opponent from even having the slightest chance at coming back when he's supposed to have a clean path to his feet. Botana has to finally get an opening by kicking up repeatedly out of a headscissors, and then Villars takes advantage of the ref trying to hold back his revenge. By that point, though, the crowd is booming Botana's name. They went a little back and forth after that, but ultimately (after a nice bit of struggle where Villars jammed it) ended up in maybe the best leg nelson that we've seen so far with Botana just paintbrushing Villars with his leg and foot. The last few minutes had Villars dumping Botana a couple of times (the second being a counter that really took the fight out of Botana), which gave him quality time with the jeering crowd, before absolutely crushing him with a tombstone and ultimately adding insult to injury for the win and the crowd's absolute wrath and fury.

SR:1 fall match going about 15 minutes. Not a very happy new year for Botana, as he eats a pretty nasty one sided beating from Villars in this. Villars is great as he just mauls Botana with violent kicks, stomps and forearms. It seemed Botana was used to working as the rudo, as he threw the first shot, and later worked Villar with some nasty looking punches of his own. He also had the neckbreaker and a neat move where he turns his opponent around and knees him in the back of the head. There was some good work around the double leg nelson, but after that Stone Cold Paul Villar just destroyed Botana, nasty piledriver and all. It‘s rare we see a heel just stomp a guy like this and the crowd didn‘t like it at all.

PAS: I will always dig an asskicking and Villars was Finlayesque in this match. Just a brutal stomping, including a couple of gross knees to the back of Botana's head. I loved the leg nelson by Botana, it was a great little moment of offense and is something that could easily be stolen today. Outside of that flurry this was an ass stomping. Villars showed no protection on the tombstone and thumped every shot. Not sure why he hated Botana but this was a great set up for next week, what a badass.


L‘Ange Blanc vs. Paul Villars 1/9/59

MD: Well, here's our first look at L'Ange Blanc, top superhero babyface of France. As later footage of him has him unmasked, this feels a bit like us getting a rare Santo match. This seems to be his debut, and it's a rare 50s French match with a clear angle behind it. The idea is that L'Ange Blanc challenged Villars due to Villars' brutality vs Botana the week before. There's a pre-match promo where Villars says that he's not afraid as L'Ange Blanc is a man like any other with two arms and two legs.

L'Ange Blanc, here, comes off a bit more like an Atlantis than El Hijo Del Santo. What stood out the most to me was how much he gave to Villars and how thoroughly he sold. This was even before Villars started cheating. Early on, Villars took most of the holds, with L'Ange Blanc fighting out each time and then usually getting some sort of move back before Villars locked in another. For the first portion of the match, Villars had a hard time keeping him down because he couldn't figure out how to pull the mask instead of nonexistent hair. Later on, he figured that out though. Once the cheating starting, there was a lot of selling and fighting from underneath. Where L'Ange Blanc really shone was in his comebacks with big uppercuts and dropkicks. Nothing flashy but everything mostly clean and crisp and resounding. Clearly flashy, however, were his finishes: a power bomb out of the corner to end the first fall, and this great two-fingers-right-under-the-ears sleeper/nerve hold to win the match. While he wrestled clean (if tough) for most of the match, there was that tiny bit of folk hero vibe in the end when he poked Villars in the eyes twice, which the fans loved. This wasn't spectacular, but it certainly did the job.

SR: 2/3 Falls match a little over 30 minutes. Our first sighting of L‘Ange Blanc, a masked wrestler who was said to be immensely popular. With this being France and you watching a masked megastar looking like a luchador, you have good reason to expect some trippy shit. But this was a rather clinical, technical match aside from a few athletic moments from the angel. All the throws and holds looked tough and L‘Ange Blanc certainly had a palpable aura about him. Villars was quite great here. He was taking shortcuts and being vicious, but not turning the match into an all out brawl. He came across as being really determined to not lose to this masked joker. The first fall was going swell until the intensity turned up when a basic sequence of holds lead to both guys trading painful looking bodyshots and L‘Ange Blanc hitting some fantastic dropkicks which Villar sold huge. Villar soon cranked up the intensity by handling the angel by his mask and doing some nasty as hell knuckle grinding. Villars efforts were soon vanquished however when the angel put him to sleep with a weird ear nerve hold. In the 1950s nerve holds were really hot shit. I was hoping Villar would push L‘Ange Blanc a little more to the limit, although he gave it his best shot.

PAS: Amazing discovery, which works more as a piece of history then a high end match. After Villars was so dominant the previous week, he gets beat pretty soundly here. Blanc has a regal barring, moving with real ramrod grace. Great looking dropkicks and takeover and that jaw hold he finished with was brutal. He wasn't nearly the technician of the guys we have seen before, but he did have something about him, a physical charisma. I can see why ended up such a big star.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Luis El Gayo! Rene Gerber! Inca Peruano! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Cheri Bibi!

Luis El Gayo vs. Rene Gerber 5/11/57

SR:2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. We see Luis El Gayo again. Rene Gerber is introduced as Swiss, but not a champion. After using some foul tactics against Jacky Corne, Luis El Gayo gets to play face in this match as Gerber pretty much foregoes the usual hold for hold work and goes for brawling almost immediately, landing tough looking kicks and knees and it‘s a big hit and get hit contest from there. The bar for heels working France in 1957 was pretty high, Gerber had nice kneelifts and I liked the spot where he did a chinlock and kept switching around so he could punch Luis in the kidney, and he also does the amazing „pretend to tie your shoelaces but go for the attack“ spot. Luis is veritable in the babyface role and provides some slick wrestling moves. Most notable here were the fan reactions with excited teenagers and working class joes threatening to storm the ring when Gerber got too cute. We understand this kind of match is bread and butter French material by now, although it is really fun to watch, basically a 25 minute sprint with lots of violent shots and moments.

MD:  My compatriots rightly noted that Tony Oliver was one of the best one-off match heels that we might have on tape. I'd argue that Gerber's another. We have a JIP match later, but this is basically it. El Gayo, he of the cool Rainmaker set up into moves, we saw earlier as a heel. When you get foreigner vs foreigner, a guy who might be a heel vs a Frenchman can go face. There's a lot going on with this one, but the general premise, like a lot of what we've seen so far, is that Gerber gets outwrestled early and goes dirty, very dirty. El Gayo manages to come back by outslicking and outquicking him and fires back with a ton of big shots until Gerber does something else unexpected and then they repeat. The most memorable moment here is Gerber hitting a foul punt out of a double knucklelock set up, and the crowd just absolutely going nuts. We're talking first-row trying to fight him and getting some shots in nuts. I watched a recent match the other day, one of the very few I've seen as I'm neck deep in this footage, and it had a great little heel-takes-over-due-to-shoelace shenanigans transition would have absolutely fit into 1957 France (hell, in this very match, Gerber gets a leg dive out of pretending to mess with his own laces). How do the 2019 fans respond? They cheer for the heel. The past is lost to us, yet this book has been pried open for us once again. How lucky are we. Anyway, what made the riot even better in the moment? It's the distraction of fighting with the fans that lets el Gayo come back with a fury here. Wrestling does not get better than that.

El Gayo has some really slick stuff early, including an escape where he detatched Gerber's arm from a hold, brought his own legs up to encase it, and then rolled forward. Gerber's heeling was so good once showed his true colors. On a handshake, he dove forward and tackled el Gayo, rushing in after with stomps and kicks and never looking back. It was the sort of multifaceted, giving and taking heeling that had him both almost getting into fisticuffs with the ref because he wanted to stomp el Gayo instead of breaking clean and happily trying to ambush el Gayo, only to dive headlong into a shoulder throw (that happened a few times).

El Gayo has lots of great-looking, potent offense whenever he took back over, solid forearms and uppercuts and knees, all coming from fun directions. He'd flip Gerber over and trap him in the ropes so he could wallop him. He'd tap him on the shoulder and nail him when he turned around. He picked up Gerber's hand and drove it into his knee. And sometimes he'd just wail away and look to the crowd for support. There's a little late match arm-bar work that seemed a little out of place, but you're not going to remember that. You'll remember Gerber tossing el Gayo around by his ears, the close-ups of el Gayo's revenge-laden forearms, the fact that towards the end of the match, Gerber was ballsy enough to brawl with el Gayo on the floor right in the midst of that riotous crowd, and yeah, the 1957 slingshot-from-the-outside finish. In a crystal sea of matches with great heels and fiery, super technical babyfaces, this one stood out to me.

PAS: You have to love a guy like Gerber who can walk into a ring and within five minutes have people in the crowd trying to jump him. Most of the matches we have seen will start with the heel trying to wrestle with the babyface before losing their cool and going to shortcuts. Gerber forgoes the preface and just starts banging away. El Gayo is a really great expressive babyface too and they match up perfectly. I loved the spot where Gerber ties up El Gayo in the ropes and goes to jump on the turnbuckles to crank in the hold, only to get waylaid by a freed up El Gayo. Felt like an unseen Midnight Express spot. Gerber seemed to get such joy in the fury of the fans, he wanted to fight the entire arena and that totally made this one stand out


Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Inca Peruano 5/17/57

SR:JIP with 6 minutes shown. I would‘ve liked to see this in full, because these are two of the more unique workers showing up on French TV at the time. Inca Peruano has been a heel in other matches but easily becomes the babyface against the nefarious Doctor of Philosophy, Adolf Kaiser. This was a fun match up with Kaiser having cool ways to lock in his dreaded Dragon Sleeper and Inca having cool ways to escape from it. Peruano works some submission nearfalls of his own, and there are some cool hold escapes. I also really like Kaiser diving all over the ring trying to catch his opponent like an animal, and Peruano really gives him the business with fast uppercuts and kicks.

MD: Now without me understanding a lick of French and thus potentially lacking context, this felt straight on heel vs heel. For the six minutes we get, these two beat the crap out of each other with full on abandon. What was striking about this was how much it felt like a modern finishing stretch. Kaiser tried to lock in his dragon sleeper choke out multiple times; Peruano had clever escapes that would have seemed novel in a 1997 Ultino Dragon match, flipping over or climbing up the ropes, to lock in a hold of his own. Meanwhile, Peruano actually hit the elaborate arm-trap sunset flip (without the flip) pin he used to beat Comache but too close to the ropes, and a lot of the last couple of minutes were centered around his attempts to hit Kaiser with a monkey flip. Once he finally hit it (and a superkick for good measure), he went back to the well once too often, got jammed and meanly concussed for his trouble, and Kaiser choked the life out of him. If we're just going to get a 6 minute burst of action, this is the stuff we want.

PAS: I adore both of these guys, and was pretty bummed we didn't get more of this. The bit we get is pretty great though. I agree with Matt that the finish run did feel super modern, with multiple finisher teases before Kaiser finally locked on his Dragon sleeper. The rope assisted flip up by Peruano was especially cool, this is the first time Kaiser didn't lay his opponent completely out, although he remains unbeaten, I wonder if we get the match where he receives his commupance.


Ami Sola vs. "Cheri Bibi" Roger Trigeaud 5/17/57

SR: Roger Trigeaud is Cheri Bibi. A stumpy legged bald guy with a massive upper body. Roland Barthes was right when he wrote that at most 1 in 5 wrestling matches is „fair“. This followed the same formula as usual, wrestling to start, Cheri Bibi would start throwing, and they would keep the heat up until the finish, but it was a very good match with both guys adding to it. Ami Sola is a bulky looking guy with a mustache and wrestles similar to what we saw Gilbert Cesca and Billy Catanzaro do – cool flying headscissors, solid european uppercuts and kip-up headbutts. Cheri Bibi would do a spot where Solas dropkicks were bouncing off of his massive chest, and he also found an answer to some of the stuff Sola did. They didn‘t go for an all out european uppercutfest and went back to the wrestling. At about 20 minutes, this was pretty lean as well with a neat finish.

MD:  It's tricky to talk about this the same week we have Gerber vs el Gayo. In a different week, I think this would stand out more. It had a few things going for it. Bibi (and we'll go with that name since we'll be seeing a lot of him in this project) was more clearly defined than a lot of the heels we'd been seeing, deeper instead of wider. He was a big muscleman goon, the sort that can shrug off two of Sola's dropkicks like they were nothing but that would still turn to jaw with the crowd afterwards so that Sola could dropkick him a third time from behind and knock him out of the ring. I'd say he felt a little more like a base than we're used to in this footage. We do have a good deal more Sola and I'm glad for that; I'd like to see him more. He had some fun tricked out takedowns and a great 'rana which he followed with an even more novel bridge up sort of 'rana. There were some memorable callbacks in the match, the sort that again, makes the narrative feel more complete and meaningful: Bibi has this front facelock necktwist that we don't really see come to fruition because Sola pops back up with a headbutt the two times he tries it; the second time though, Bibi's ready and he clocks him. Then, the finish is all about the dropkicks, with Bibi catching Sola again in yet another really good finish. It should be noted that as opposed to a lot of the other heels we've seen Bibi raises Sola's hand after the match. You get the sense that he, like Bollet, will be more of a lovable scamp to the crowd over the years than some of the foreign heels we've seen.

PAS: I just love this stuff, I don't think this is high end French Catch but the floor on this footage is so high. Bibi is a blast, I loved how he used his barrel chest as a weapon, the spot that Matt described where he shrugged off the dropkicks, only to stooge on the third was great, but he also used it as a battering ram to Sola's face. There was some super nifty mat exchanged here too, one long section built around a short arm scissors, including some real wrenching of the arm, and one section built around a reverse leg stretch. Sola had some fun arial stuff including a cool rana, which he hung onto almost a triangle choke and some nice drop kicks (which Bibi bumped huge for) and was perfectly game when it got time to start throwing. Cool finish too, with Bibi hitting a nasty powerbomb out of a rana attempt. If this was the first Catch thing we ever saw, we would be losing our shit, but after seeing a bunch, it is just an example of how great the baseline was.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: La Barba! Inca Perano! Laroche! DR. ADOLF KAISER

Joachim La Barba vs Roger Laroche 3/7/57

MD: This was very good. You watch these matches and you get a sense that they were just mass producing absolute masters like Bout and Laroche off of some assembly line in 50s France. He was able to present this immense control over his body and his opponent's (obviously that's half on La Barba but the total effect was very convincing). One of my favorite bits was when he launched a spin-move feint out of nowhere to grab a leg. He had absolutely crushing blows too, including some pretty novel strikes like proto-Kawada kicks and a cravat-held kneelift. We'd seen La Barba as a mean, mugging heel before and that's exactly what he was here, getting whatever cheapshots he could and going for things like a double stomp at every opportunity, even if he mostly missed. His missed haymakers, for instance, were things of beauty. A lot of the narrative of the match, like we've seen elsewhere, was how he kept pushing the ref's buttons, taking advantage by cheating but losing it by the ref getting fed up and intervening. La Barba also brought excellent bumping, memorable facial expressions, and a tendency to go flying out of the ring in the most interesting ways, like when Laroche reversed a cross-arm puller and heaved him up and out of the ring with it. Everything came together nicely as they worked that theme into the finish with a brutal over the top bump onto a table leading to the count out. La Barba rushing back in after the bell only to get dropped was a perfect, giving crowd-pleasing ending.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This is a match with lots of wrestling that‘s gonna stay in your mind because of the parts where they beat the hell out of each other. Not that the wrestling was bad, Laroche looked like a classy worker, but it just wasn‘t that exceptional and as soon as Joachim kicked him in the kidney you wanted more where that came from. It‘s like you slotted Tenryu or Takashi Ishikawa into a European style grappling affair. Most of the first 10 minutes are built around Laroche evading the Mexican, with Joachim La Barba attempting some double stomps which was rather interesting. As soon as Joachim found his opening he wasn‘t letting go of the chance to beat the crap out of Laroche. He also took the chance to bump all over the place once again. It all builds to an especially big bump to the outside. Little hard to rate for me, it‘s clear that this was good shit and smokes most 2020 pro wrestling in a cakewalk, on the other hand the baseline for this French stuff is getting really high.

PAS: I loved this, I think I am higher then Sebastian and Matt. My god La Barba, he is listed from Mexico, and if he is actually a luchador, he must have been Satanico's illegitimate father. He has the whole rudo package, sickingly violent, great stooging, huge Jerry Estrada style bumps to the floor, and even some Un Foul's. I loved all of his missed moves, he was really great at whiffing at double stomps and splashes, and those big missed uppercuts were great looking, everything looked like it was thrown full force but still had this great silent comedy feel. Laroche was really good too, great hard charging foil to La Barba's wild performance, really brought the violence, and I dug all of his early grappling too. Loved the finish with La Barba getting pressed over the top rope landing hard on a table. He gets counted out, helped to the back, but reverses course and tries to jump Laroche and takes another stooging bump, what a man. 

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Warnia de Zarzecki 3/29/57

MD: This was an even better Kaiser showcase than the last match. In just a couple of matches, it's clear how good he was at walking a fine line between precision violence and a sort of manic desperation. You'll get a carefully set up arm-trap headbutt, a rolling short armscissors, and Kaiser going for the ears to get out of a hold all in the span of a minute or two. He hits a 1957 Full Nelson Slam too, in case anyone was wondering. The crowd was distracted early on by some police activity in the crowd but they recovered well. Zarzecki was competent in his role. He came off as younger and square-jawed, though ready to dole out revenge for Kaiser's cheapshots. He had the Andre the Giant kneecrushes too though I'm not sure how sound they are coming from a guy that's not a giant. It does hit home that we've seen a lot of variation of strikes in all of these matches though. I probably read way too much into the finish, but to me, there was real emotion to it: Kaiser finally was able to lock in his nerve hold that he had used with such verve in the previous match, but Zarzecki slammed his own head straight back into Kaiser's to break it. Distraught and furious, Kaiser yanked him into a 1957 Dragon Sleeper, cinched it up to a ridiculous degree and choked him out.

SR: JIP, but we get about 10 minutes. Mostly Zarzecki taking the Doctor to the pay window. Zarzecki wasn‘t kidding, he hit some pretty violent looking kneelifts and stomps. The Dr. is really fun at sneaking in cheapshots and his calculating behaviour is entertaining, he also busted out another cool double armlock. The finish has Warnia escaping the dreaded nerve hold with a nasty headbutt, only for Kaiser to spin him into a Dragon Sleeper in the middle of the ring. I didn‘t think they meshed quite that well and the match could‘ve picked up the pace a little, but it was a nice reminder that the Dr.s chokeholds will put anyones lights out.

PAS: I am the high voter on this match too, I thought it was fucking great. This match was full of really violent in fighting, with guys latching in holds, and then the other guy throwing short nasty shots, or stomps or headbutts. I am assuming Zarzecki is billed as Polish, and a Polish guy certainly has some incentive to want to stomp the shit out of a German doctor, and stomp the shit out him he does. Kaiser is being built up so great here, he gives his opponent a lot of stuff, but always has this aura of sadistic shocking violence looming. God that finish was incredible, Kaiser is able to grab his dreaded nerve hold, and Zarzecki breaks in by throwing the back of his head into Kaisers face, that back headbutt is a barfight move I can only ever remember seeing once in wrestling, when Chris Hero and Eddie Kingston started shooting on each other in PWG. Kaiser snaps and locks in this violent Dragon Sleeper, and they basically have to give Zarzecki CPR in the ring after. Kaiser continues to leave bodies strewn at his feet, I can't wait to watch more. 

Inca Peruano vs Comanche Indian 3/29/57

MD: I'm pretty certain that some of the people I went to grad school with could have used this match as a valid and loving case study for veiled homoeroticism in 50s French popular culture. They start with the rare-for-a-reason double grounded headscissors spot, go a bit overboard with the sitting-on-your-opponent stuff out of victory rolls and what have you, and even some of the positions Peruano gets punches in from were either ill-conceived or expertly conceived depending on what they were going for. Comache was fun, with a very unique way of stalking around his opponent that popped the announcer and that Peruano even mocked during a moment of his advantage. He really leaned deep into his hip tosses (utilizing the leg trip) which always looks so great in this footage and Peruano, who we saw as a face in the previous match, was a bullying heel with a bunch of flashy stuff, including the really cool handwalk headscissors spot. Not to go to deep onto the theme, but there was a sense of a lover's quarrel here, just that sort of animosity, from the initial stalking all the way to Peruano's post match cheapshot and it kept things interesting, at least.

SR: When you see a matchup with names like this, you expect everything. We ended up getting some really swank stuff. Lots of nifty throws, swank headscissors and smooth matwork, at one point both guys exchange fast leg trips. Comanche is a spindly guy with some eccentric mannerisms, and his physique adds to his matwork allowing for some cool escapes. Peruano continues to look like the real deal, at one point he does this transition where he hooks Comanches legs with his own legs and spins around almost like a double leg nelson, and his headscissor from the ropes – which he does slick and out of nowhere like a shootstylist – is one of my new favourite moves. He also busts out the Octopus Hold. Peruano eventually starts sneaking in inside shots and the bout gets chippy, with Peruano throwing punches to Comanches skinny body and Comanche firing back with neck chops. Comanche also has some cool looking non-standard dropkicks and a great victory roll. Once again, there were some intense pin attempts. Could‘ve built to a bigger crescendo, but what a neat match to watch in itself.

PAS: I thought this was weird and cool, although I am not sure if it totally nailed it as a match. There are a lot of nuts right in faces in this match, and that rolling double headscissors looked like porn. There was so much cool shit too though, that walk up headscissors was great as was a later spinning headscissors.  The whole thing felt pitched to a slightly different frequency, like this is what Peruvian wrestling in the 50s looked like, rather then a traditional French match. As always I loved the chippiness, although it never evolved into the pure wars that a lot of these matches get to. Lots of stuff here for wrestlers to steal, including a bunch of thing for Effy or Cassandro to take. 

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Tony Oliver! Bert Royal! Michael Chaisne! DR. ADOLF KAISER!

SR: We get about 5 minutes of Claude Dreyfus vs. Daniel (or Marcel) Parmentier.  Even in those 5 minutes you got a lot of character work. Parmentier was a grimacing old veteran heel and an absolute fox handing out cheapshots and faking injuries. I especially liked when he crawled underneath the referee so he could hit his opponent. Dreyfus was a younger wrestler and had some typically nifty athletic moves. Nasty finish with Dreyfus going for a rana only to get planted by a powerbomb.

MD: They packed a lot into these five minutes. The initial exchange in the footage had Dreyfus going up and over into a trip out of a lock up, Parmentier refusing to break clean after they end up in the ropes, and then Dreyfus getting revenge with three huge chops, and an insult to injury jackknife roll up in the corner with his feet perfectly dangling in the ropes. I've never seen its like. That finish was about thirty-five years before its time. Dreyfus was a little all over the place but definitely imaginative and Parmentier was a mean mug. I'd be happy to see these guys again.

Tony Oliver vs. Bert Royal 2/22/57

SR: Awesome, awesome fight. I was excited to see Bert Royal, a really neat WoS guy with all too little footage, showing up as a young lad in France 13 years before his WoS material. Tony Oliver is, I assume, another Spanish worker, and like all Spanish workers we‘ve seen so far he is really awesome. This was nasty, grinding title fight, 1 fall over 35 minutes. The wrestling equivalent to seeing Ali slugging it out with someone over 12 rounds. Great mix of wrestling and beating the shit out of each other. Oliver was the kind of worker who was all about inside shots and grinding his knuckles really hard into his opponent. Anytime he got an advantage he would dig his fist into Berts face, elbow to the stomach , bite, or hammer him in the ribs. There was a lengthy section where he was just trying to pull Royals knee apart. He also has really awesome mannerisms, like he gets so upset at the audience booing his tactics in hilarious ways, he is totally the hero of his own story. Later he takes the chance to stomp the referee, which was such an amusing psycho move. When Royal gets fed up and starts firing away with those forearms, Oliver is really awesome flopping around wobbly headed, it was amazing to watch. Royal is mostly on the receiving end of Olivers cheapshots, but he busts out some really cool fast movements here and there, he also has his awesome signature backslide submission hold and a really cool Tiger Mask spin into a victory roll. I loved how intense they worked the pin attempts, I am so mad workers nowadays have no sense for that kind of thing. Oliver also really knows how to escalate things, he is basically throwing shots the whole match, but when he drops his knee on Royals throat or stomps him in the back of the head it really feels like he crossed the line. It builds to this really intense frenzy, Royal taking bumps to the outside, Oliver getting pasted with a big palm strike (!!), both guys trading forearms on the floor, nasty use of the ring ropes, awesome finish. Post match Oliver shows some class, which I guess is a nice conclusion to his story, since we seemingly won‘t see him again. It‘s really amazing that we all got interested in French wrestling by guys doing improbable athletic shit in black and white matches, and then France keeps throwing completely different things at you that end up being really awesome.

MD: Just a lot to parse through here. It was a title match and it felt like one, with a lot of the trappings you'd expect from a long Race defense years later. Oliver was fascinating to watch. He was absolutely hyperactive, to the point where I wonder if he shouldn't have been medicated. He couldn't stand still, which played out in his work in any number of ways but the most interesting might have been his need to constantly pepper cheapshots in. It worked against him for most of the match. He couldn't just pin his opponent; he had to try to sneak three shots into the ribs or pull too much on the tights. He couldn't hang on to a submission; he had to keep trying to get some sort of extra advantage even at the cost of losing the hold. He did damage, but it was all probably counterproductive as the ref was firmly against him (and for good reason).

That middle section with the legwork, including frequent punches and grinding his knuckle into the knee, really worked for me, not the least of which because Royal sold a limb as much as anyone we've seen in this footage so far. Like a long title match, however, they transitioned out of it and into other things, but believably enough. It's almost impossible to write these up because there's just so much. For instance, Sebastian mentioned the cool backslide backbreaker submission, but it was set up by a few great dropkicks and Oliver bumping into the corner like a champ (and this was in response to Oliver utilizing some hand manipulation out of an armbar that he gave up to throw a nasty hammer, and after Oliver got out of the backbreaker by pulling the hair, Royal was right after him with rabbit punches and a shot with the ropes, and, and, and). The finish was perfect for the match, smooth as anything out of rope-running that they spent much of the match escalating towards. Forget modernity: this is the best way you'll spend thirty-five minutes watching wrestling this month.

PAS: This was a stone cold classic match. It is up there with Cesca vs. Cantanzarro and I could honestly see putting it above it on a list of all time French Catch matches. Bert Royal is in our 1971 MOTY, but this is a very different Bert Royal. We saw Tony's brother Jim earlier in the footage, and from the only two matches we get it looks like the Oliver brothers are up there with the best pair of brothers in wrestling history. I cannot overstate how much I loved Tony Oliver in this match. He was Masa Fuchi on speed, constantly driving his knuckles into parts of Royal's body in this torturous way, and then flying into big bumps and exchanges. It was so much fun to watch him lay in his cheap shots, including finding ways to plausibly stomp the referee without getting DQed. Royal was super cool too, I loved his early almost maestroish mat work, and later he lost his cool and matched Oliver blow for blow including a stomp to the back of the head which looked legitimately concussive. The final stanza was pretty wild with both guys spilling to the floor, some kinetic rope running and a deep backslide finish which was about as good of a flash pin as I can remember seeing.


Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Michel Chaisne  2/28/57

ON DR. ADOLF KAISER:

(from our correspondent in Paris, Alfred Lang, 1957)

„(…) French television has about half a million subscribed viewers. From experience, there are roughly 4 people watching every TV set at a time. A forum of an estimated 2 million watches both the speeches of head of government Mollet aswell as the appearances of Dr. phil Adolf Kaiser. (…) He is introduced to the French people as a German champion of Catch, and a Doctor of Philosophy. This man likely does not a speak a lick of German, he is slightly more repulsive than the musclemen who normally practise the noble sport of Catch, his face is more animal-like, and he looks like a lusty murderer in a fifth category American movie, who is brought down in the last scene by magnanimous G-man with a colt. The partner of this splendid German is usually chosen to be a good looking, sporty young man, whose pleasant task it is to get demolished by this supposed Adolf Kaiser over several rounds and finally be caught in this Germanic catcheurs gruesome stranglehold and sink to the ground, not completely soulless but unconscious, and be carried to the back in a solemn procession. The crowd completely loses it during these battles which are likely carefully choreographed beforehand. „Sale boche“ - „Beat the nazi to death“ is one of the more moderate chants. (…) Once the „Actual Report“ is over and the charming face of the host appears on the screen, 2 million people, surely a third of them children breathe a sign of relief, telling each other what a nameless swine this boche Adolf Kaiser is. The adults will listen to Monsieur Mollet excitedly talking about the French-German friendship the next day. People will be educated on the new epoch of French history in schools by well meaning teachers, but this Adolf Kaiser, German doctor of philosophy, will continue to haunt their minds until the next Friday, when 500 000 TV sets will be turned on once more to educate 2 million people on the German horror...“

SR: I have read about Dr. Adolf Kaiser, aka Hans Waldherr before. A german reporter, I think from Der Spiegel or Stern, saw him on TV in France and then wrote a rage filled article (see above) about Dr. Kaiser, who was portraying an evil German on French television, which supposedly had a toxic effect on the relations between France and Germany. I assume this was maybe the earliest appearance of Dr. Kaiser, since he gets a respectful reaction from the crowd at his introduction. I was expecting Adolf Kaiser, Doctor of Philosophy to be this outrageously evil and brutal character, but he was a fairly classy worker and he wore leopard trunks of all things. He surprised Chaisne with a nice leg trip and wrist attack, later he locks in a cool double armlock that a luchador could steal. It made me wonder how technical German and Austrian workers could get, I guess simply everyone in Europe then was some awesome wrestling genius. However, it soon became apparent where the bout was gonna go, since Kaiser was eager to show ass, bump big and throw inside shots. His animalistic body language and antics also had „evil“ written all over them. Chaisne soon started to give Kaiser the business with some nasty nasty knee scrapes and laying in the uppercuts. I almost thought it was too much too early, since Kaiser hadn‘t done anything that nasty compared to the heels we saw on French TV before, but I guess when you‘re a German named Adolf Kaiser working in France you gotta be prepared to eat some uppercuts. Wrestling wise there was some cool body scissors work and the Dr. showing he could wrestle even when he would gladly take shortcuts. Chaisne is another worker we‘ll see many times until the very 80s and he looked veritable here. He seemed to have the match in the bag until Kaiser launched him outside and rammed his head into the ringpost. Chaisne came up bloody and fell to an Indian Deathlock coupled with the dreaded nerve hold from the Dr. Afterwards Chaisne has to be carried to the back with everyone acting all concerned. Really nifty TV bout which was oozing with character all the way through.

MD: I'm glad to have the backstory on Kaiser, even though I lament the philosophy degree being worked. The crowd seemed fairly frustrated with both of these guys. We see nominal babyfaces really brutalize the heels at times in this French footage, but here it made this come off as more heel vs heel with the crowd booing both wrestlers accordingly. Kaiser leapt into his character and the match figuratively and literally, missing four or five dives. My favorite exchange in here (which sums the first two thirds up well) was Kaiser taking both of Chaisne's arms and dropping them hard onto the mat, only to scurry away hilariously on his back from the revenge armbar. It was a weird mix of comedy (with funny fingers-in-ear spots for instance), legitimately great wrestling (at one point, Kaiser did this amazing escape out of a headscissors by pressing his own feet into the ropes for a quick burst of leverage), and the two guys just being absolutely mean and uncooperative with one another (that headscissors escape was followed up by Kaiser tossing the ref into Chaisne, missing a dive, and getting kicked square in the skull for his trouble). Ultimately, that last bit won out and Kaiser's brutal posting out of nowhere gave him the match. It's good we will get to see these two again because I think I'd get a better sense of both of them against different opponents.

PAS: I thought this was really cool, we have seen better matches in this project, but something about Kaiser really connected with me. He was such a twitchy creep, like if Dennis Hopper was playing a Nazi wrestler. I loved how he would dive suddenly at the feet of his opponent, or dig his fingers into muscles. Really liked Chaisne too, he was really brutal, those knee scrapes to the face were over the top in a great way. Both guys were clearly super technically sound in addition to being violent fucks. Finish was awesome as you could tell they rarely did things like ringpost shots, and I could totally see that violent finish setting up Kaiser as a some sort of wrestling icon. The wrestlers carrying a bloody KO'ed Chaisne to the back was a pretty iconic image.

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