New Footage Friday: Mask Match, French Catch

Bruno Asquini/Gilbert Leduc vs. Les Blousons Noirs (Claude Gessat/Marcel Mannevau) French Catch 5/6/67

PAS: This French stuff is such a treat to watch, here are four completely new guy I have never seen before doing some incredible things I have never seen before. Bruno Asquini isn't in this match very much (he either legit blows out a knee or they do an angle) but he was pretty impressive in his brief sections. He has maybe the greatest headscissors take downs I have ever seen, he get a ton of height and wraps his thighs around the neck of his opponent and then drives their head into the mat like a piledriver, and does it a luchadore speed. LeDuc is the master of the headspin, he does a Santo style headspin leg scissors, but super fast, he also uses a headspin as a mistake, it is an elite breakdancer level headspin, he is the French precursor to Boogalo Shrimp. The Blouson's were fun stoogers and bumpers and were vicious when they needed to be, but were mostly just foils. Asquini torches his knee 10 or so minutes into the match, and can't go on, then they have a long section of 2 on 1, which Leduc weirdly still takes 60% of. When Le Batman comes down to join the match and take the tag, to clean house, it didn't really land because he was cleaning house on a pair of guys who already were getting walloped 1 on 2. I like Le Batman a lot, he is a fun babyface brawler, kind of a French Dream Machine Troy Graham. He wasn't listed on this match, so I was amped to see him. I liked both fall finished too, and if they had ever treated the Blousons as a real threat, this would have gotten an EPIC from me, but instead it was more a collection of cool shit then an all time match.

MD: This was a mix of stuff thirty years before its time and stuff that is absolutely timeless, all of it with that extra bit of connective tissue that we've lost today, the why of a move. We have a handful of 60s French Catch and that's got to be one of the great untapped treasure troves left. I was unfamiliar with everyone in the match but the wrestling is universal. The babyfaces outwrestled and outpunched the heels, all at excessive speed, throwing multiple dropkicks and armdrags and uppercuts and even quick ranas. The heels got a head due to luck or chicanery or a combination of both. The leapfrog transition to take out the leg is something that people should steal. We should be seeing that on TV six times a year. There were plenty of heel miscommunication spots that would have played anywhere or anywhen and they did a solid job of cutting off the ring. All of the stuff with LeDuc fighting off the numbers game was super compelling. I kept waiting for Asquini to come in from the back but Le Batman was a nice surprise, basically a mobile Bruiser or Crusher in a batman shirt. Once he arrived this ended in short order. LeDuc's Bearhug-drop down-leg-nelson-endless headsplitters thing is amazing and super over a guy like Riddle or Gable neeeds to steal it immediately).

ER: Paul Levesque was born in 1969. Here we have wonderful footage of a French ladies' man, Gilbert Leduc, wrestling in 1967. It was around this time that young Patricia Levesque first went to France, on a trip with her aunt, after he first year of college. It was here that she met Leduc and was so captivated that she wound up taking a summer abroad the very next year just to see him more. She had never been a fan of professional wrestling, but that wasn't what she loved about him. She loved his charm, his magnetism, his silly and showy sides. She loved him. And while she wasn't planning on becoming a mother while still at university, sometimes life gets in the way. She never told Gilbert about their child, fearing his reaction. But when the time was right she did tell Paul. She told him how much she loved seeing his father Gilbert entertain the crowds, and Paul would side wide-eyed, picturing this larger than life man who was able to be both beloved by crowds, while handily vanquishing two strapping men. Paul knew from a young age he wanted to be just like this man whom he would never know. He would be the coolest guy, who would beat up all the bad guys at once, and get the coolest girl. Leduc would never know.

Leduc wrestles much like his progeny, taking 90% of a match no matter the odds, with a major difference being that he's got some flat out awesome shit. Santo is the king, but LeDuc's spinning grounded headscissors blow Santo's out of the water. No hyperbole. LeDuc is able to bridge up onto the top of his head and get this crazy spin, legs scissored around his opponent's neck, that it looks like the most graceful and violent move. I came here to make a Breakin' joke, but Phil wrote his review before me, and you have to expect someone would have gotten there first. But it's an apt comparison. Gilbert's street moves were great enough that you know he knew some of the coolest street artists. He could throw a mean right, had great arm drags and takedowns, he just wrestled as a two man Guerriers de la Route, and if your brain somehow didn't notice that he was 1 on 2 and was totally fine the entire time and just watched all the cool shit they pulled off? This still would seem like the absolute best. Phil was also spot on about Bruno's headscissors, maybe the best I've seen. They're those great heavyweight style like Dave Taylor's, only lightning fast and even more snug. Phenomenal. Batman comes in to replace him and...erm...save? LeDuc, and throw some nice hard dropkicks...But I can't say I can remember any time where Batman showed up to save someone from henchmen and the guy he was saving said "Oh thanks for showing up, Bats, but I've had this situation under control the entire time. Even HHH didn't get to steal Blade's thunder.

Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar WWE 10/9/03

MD: How can you watch this match and think that we're in in the best timeline? Look, Suplex City Brock is unique and special. His matches are exciting. Some of that is how little he wrestles, some of it is how different he is from everything else. I have no desire to revisit any Suplex City Brock match though, not really. They exist in the moment and only in the moment. On the other hand, I think I'd be happy rewatching this match. This Brock was not unique. This Brock was not different. What he was instead was exceptional at doing all of the things that make wrestling great. You watch this and you wonder how he could have ever left. He's obviously having the time of his life as a heel. It's everything you'd want a house show like this to be. He spends the first third of the match stooging and stalling, diving out of the ring at every opportunity as Taker stands tall. The second third has him landing a few cheapshots and then working heavily over the leg. All of the intensity is there. All of the physical gifts are there, but they're channeled through the canon of pro wrestling heel champions. Taker's selling is top notch. There's nothing that he's ever done, ever, that's better than the way he sells his demolished leg on the way to hitting a big boot. Nothing. The last third has ref bumps and chair shots and everything you'd expect from a house show match in this era, but it's all larger than life while still drawing within the lines. It doesn't deconstruct the form and tear at everything else around it. It embraces it and glorifies it.

PAS: This didn't do a ton for me. I am still a high voter on Suplex City Brock, he has some misses for sure, but the AJ Styles match was my MOTY for last year and he still has this aura of unpredictable violence. Here he was basically working like all of the 2003 WWE heavyweights, a bigger and more muscular HHH or Rock. Feeding and bumping on every punch, stalling, even begging off. Nothing really felt organic or crazy. I thought the Undertaker was fine and I liked his selling, Biker Taker was always a more interesting worker then the Dead Man. It is cool to see house show footage like this, but I thought it was pretty by the numbers.

ER: I'm split down the middle on this one. Brock Lesnar was my favorite wrestler in the world during this era. He understood every aspect of being a wrestler, knew selling, made his own and everyone's offense look great, is one of the all time great bumpers, and never skimped on little things (even here watching him make Taker really duck on a low missed lariat). The guy just knew how to move around a ring. And it's awesome that in only their second show ever in Finland, they had the world's foremost Ludvig Borga clone in the main event. I agree with Phil that the match is very much "any 2003 WWE heavyweight", and while I like what both bring to the match, this very easily could have been a Chuck Palumbo/A-Train match. And hey, I loved Chuck Palumbo matches, so I liked this. If I was sitting in the crowd I would have been having a ball. At the same time, it would have been the worst Brock Lesnar match I've ever seen live. They work a few weird generic spots that guys this big shouldn't be doing, like Taker giving Brock a snapmare and then going for a pin. Snapmare into pin is a weird passing WWE trend that it felt like everyone was doing at a certain point, like the more recent TV match thing where every babyface comeback that leads to a finish starts with a heel putting on a chinlock. This is most definitely a house show match, so we don't get the usual big Brock bumps, but we get some impressive selling from Taker that he usually shrugged off during this era. Biker Taker would always acknowledge knee or ankle work, but usually would do something like punch his ankle a couple of times, selling leg work more like his leg fell asleep because he was sitting on the toilet too long. So I liked what Taker did with the leg, I liked Brock working as Larry Zbyszko in a foreign match that nobody thought would ever be seen by Americans 15 years later, and I liked the weirdness of having Rhyno of all people come out to attack Taker after the match and taking the biggest bump of the match. I would love for more house show footage to be released, but I would love full house shows the most.

Guerrero Azteca vs. El Supremo Nueva Laredo 4/20/87

PAS: This is a smaller arean mascara contra mascara match which has been sitting undiscovered on a youtube channel for a couple of years. Rob Bihari who unearthed this, hypothesized on twitter that this was run the day after they ran the same match in Monterey, getting two bites at the unmasking apple. It was a solid old school mask match, a lot of punches and kicks, some mask ripping, a great looking tope into the crowd by Azteca. This was really helped by the grimyness of the atmosphere, the VQ was good, but washed out and the arena was dirty, clouds of dust came off the mat every time someone was slammed on it. That kind of presentation can really add to this kind of fight. Nothing groundbreaking, but a cool discovery and an example of the deep pool of lucha footage still out in the world.

MD: This is clipped and "augmented" with music. The clips don't really affect the flow. The music you learn to live with. Sometimes it even helps the atmosphere. The start of this was all Supremo being an outright bully and Azteca selling big and broad, even for things like hip tosses. When you combine Supremo's swagger, Azteca's selling, the dust flying up from the center of the ring with each bump, and the music, it all added up to more than the sum of its parts. There was a lot to like here. I haven't seen much Supremo but you really get a sense of him here. He has a way of powering out from every hold he's in, as opposed to finding more technical ways out and that adds up over time. Azteca had a lean bodybuilder's physique but he brought both the selling early and the fire in his late comeback once the mask ripping had started. I thought the finishes (generally unique or character-laden roll-ups) to all three falls came off well, especially Supremo making Azteca pay for going to the well one too many times with a slam in the tercera. Just a solid, solid mask match.


La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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MLJ: Misterioso/Volador 1: Mano Negra, Misterioso, Volador vs El Supremo I, Espectro Jr., Javier Llanes

1991-05-31 @ Arena México
Mano Negra, Misterioso, Volador vs El Supremo I, Espectro Jr., Javier Llanes

The gameplan for the next week or two is to look at Volador (Sr.) and Misterioso (Sr.). This was inspired in part by the Between the Sheets podcast talking about their mask match and in part by Super Parka getting his Arena Mexico booking. I figured the best way to do this is to take a look at what's online, watch some matches with them teaming, watch some matches with them feuding and end with the mask match. There's not that much online so we'll jump around and cover a span of years.

This first one had Mano Negra, Misterioso, and Volador vs El Supremo, Espectro, Jr, and Javier Llanes. Negra's gotten play lately as an Atlantis mask victim. Llanes, the son of Enrique Llanes (and maybe cousin to the Guerreros?), was a guy I wasn't familiar with at all, but I liked him so much here that I went and watched his 92 title match with Dandy which is online and is top notch. You should check that out if you haven't already. El Supremo was a long time vet who took the mask of Robot R-2 (the fiend!) and Lawrence de Arabia (because of course he did). Pierroth, Jr. would take his the next year.

This was a pretty typical early 90s trios match in all of the best ways. Lots of tecnico shine, some solid heat, perhaps not the comebck that one would hope for but a very fun finishing stretch in the tercera. A dynamic, feel good match, and while this might be a stretch, I think it's the sort of match you don't get a lot now from CMLL due to a simple contradiction. Early match wrestlers aren't supposed to do quite as much as they do here and upper card rudos don't generally want to give as much as the ones here do. Sometimes you get something right smack in the mid card that approximates this, but not as often as you'd think. That's my impression at least.

The primera started with feeling out and ended with a bunch of rudo miscommunication and clowning. Llanes showed me a ton of personality here. Like, so.

He did that goofy post arm drag dance twice, which made it mean more when Volador really got him with one. And then there's the world's most subtle foul:

Lots of good, quick action here with all of the tecnicos getting to shine and flip and fight against the odds. This gif of Volador leaping over the rope after Supremo and then casually whacking him in the face as he walked past sums things up well.

Anyway, the tecnicos picked up the fall and they moved into the segunda with more of the same. Eventually the rudos took over with Espectro cowering in his corner, the tecnicos all charging in to crush him, the refs pulling two of them back, and Espectro pulling the third in. It was servicable, at least. Generally there are two sorts of acceptable rudo beatdowns. The first is when all of the rudos are in and the tecnicos cycle in and out only to get ambushed or swarmed. The second is when one rudo is in, the rudos do quick switches, and the tecnicos are stuck hoping for a tag on the apron. To me, the problem is when you have all of the rudos in at once and the tecnicos stuck on the apron. Thankfully, this match didn't have that. It was the latter which segued into the former, ending with a nice double submission on Mano Negra.

Unfortunately, the comeback transition spot was just okay. Basically, the tecnicos just had enough and then regrouped enough to make a concentrated offensive. Nothing clever but nothing egregious either. At least the comeback itself was good, with the tecnicos wanting revenge. Volador tossed Supremo into the ring cover. Misterioso punched Llanes in the corner. Then he kicked out his flipping gutbuster and Llanes sold it like his stomach had just gotten inverted as well.

This led into the finishing stretch with cut offs, a few dives (including a crazy one by Volador), and a roll up by Negra on Espectro. I'm not sure this match led to anything really. I don't see a big Mano Negra vs Espectro, Jr. match or anything, but it was a lot of fun for what it was.

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