Tuesday is French Catch Day: Wasberg! Reggiori! van Dooren! Spartacus! Drapp! Bollet!

Eric Wasberg vs. Serge Reggiori 7/1/60

MD: This was 12 minutes JIP and we get the last ten minutes of it, and all I can say is that it was awesome. The VQ isn't quite as good as it could be. Both guys have very similar body types, similar enough haircuts. There were times that I could figure out which was which and times I couldn't, so I can't really do this thing justice. Maybe Sebastian can give you some better analysis here. Here's what you have to know from my perspective though. This was a middlweight match. The fans were very into it. While there wasn't a lot you'd call outright heeling or a severe lack of sportsmanship, it was incredibly aggressive. Everything felt turned up a notch. Explosive tight quarters dropkicks. Completely dislocating arm drivers. Every throw and every hold. And that's before they start the uppercuts halfway through. That begins with maybe the loudest single shot we've seen in this footage and it doesn't let up from there, all the way to the completely uncooperative looking press slam into a gutbuster that ends this. We've only gotten these guys in JIP matches and we won't see them again, so even though this was honestly exceptional, it's probably best to chalk this up as yet another sign of what every day French Catch could be like in this period

SR: JIP. We get about 10 minutes. Looked like a really good match mostly because these guys were doing some tight wrestling and also they really beat the shit out of eachother. Some of the stiffest uppercuts in this whole project, golly gee. Some amazing looking dropkicks too. Match was pretty heated and Reggiori drew a share of boos even though he was gentlemanly enough to help up Wasberg after finishing him off with a nasty military press into gutbuster.

PAS: This was some nice small space fist fight stuff. Both guys were just trying to decapitate each other with uppercuts, and the shots were so hard they actually sounded sweetened. The press slam gutbuster by Reggiori was a hell of a finisher.

ER: I wish we had the first half of this to see how their matwork advanced, but I love the slugfest we did get. Who knows, maybe they were kicking each other's ass like that from the bell? I have so very little interest for modern Japan forearm porn, but the passion in this and the variation in degree of contact and escalating bumps show how to do a great stand and trade. This is mostly Reggiori destroying Wasberg with heavier and heavier uppercuts. It felt like one of those great battles where one guy was refusing to die, making things worse for himself. I love how he kept ramping up his bumps, rocking back into the ropes, using them to stay on his feet, and how Reggiori kept after him. Wasberg shows he has life a couple times by rushing in with these cool shoulderblocks live I've not really seen. They were kind of like shoulder shrugs a boxer might use to create some space, only these shrugs packed legitimate power, knocking Reggiori back on his heels. The match ending KO gutbuster was wild, like the most violent version of Nikolai Volkoff's trunks yanking overhead backbreaker, like something the villain does to lose a point but cripple the hero in a fighting tournament movie. 

Spartacus vs. Jack van Dooren 7/1/60

SR: 1 fall contest over about 20 minutes. After the heated brawl in the previous match, we now watch Spartacus engage in some serious scientific wrestling. You’d think a gladiator would be more prone to having gruesome bloodbaths in the ring, but maybe those just didn’t make TV. Anyways Spartacus is a pretty elegant technician and there were lots of fun wrestling exchanges throughout. I especially liked a luchariffic crucifix pin attempt from van Dooren which Spartacus turned into a freaky deadlift and arm throw. Van Dooren eventually started working Spartacus over with nasty headbutts and kicks. The whole match kept building to the escalation for when Spartacus would return fire and when he did he just straight knocked van Dooren out with a massive elbow to the jaw. We’ve seen faces putting on extended revenge beatdowns on heels before that it almost felt like an abrupt finish but the build to it was so good that it paid off for me.

MD: Not quite as exciting as the last Spartacus match, but maybe harder hitting. Van Doreen was bigger, bigger than Spartacus actually. This was primarily set up to showcase Spartacus' many tools. Lots of escapes using bridges, cartwheels, and pure strength, all made the more compelling because he was visibly shorter. Van Doreen heeled it up more and more as the match went on, with the highlights being taking advantage during a handshake after a short arm scissors that Sparactus powered up and over the top rope. It was a hot crowd and they probably should have leaned into it more to get some more heat. There were moments in the last third which were a little flat. Van Dooren's headbutts always stand out when we see them. He can use them to punish a guy but also as a quick flash at the start of an exchange to give him an advantage. Spartacus had a good act, marrying the strength and athleticism with solid selling and a match-finishing fury.

PAS: I thought this was badass. Spartacus is such an odd quirky wrestler. He is this stocky escape artist with a wild counter for ever move put on him, crazy bridges, cartwheels, flips, he cannot be held down. van Dooren eventually stops trying to trap him and starts trying to stomp and headbutt him into oblivion. Spartacus then shows why he survived all of those lion fights in the Coliseum, by absolutely beating van Dooren down with elbows to the ribs, and a knock out elbow to the side of van Dooren's jaw which drops him face first to the mat. So many cool spots in this match, with Spartacus being one of the most fun guys in history to watch and van Dooren being a fine dance partner. 

ER: This was so good, and I actually thought it would fit in well with the very best French Catch we've watched. Spartacus has so many great escape tricks, a guy you really have to fight to take off his feet, and luckily for us van Dooren is a fighter. The Spartacus escapes are really fantastic, and I love how stubborn he comes off. It never looks like he's sandbagging spots, just that his opponent is working extra hard to make any headway. That struggle really peaked for me when van Dooren went for a big headscissors takedown, and by the time he leg strangled Spartacus to the mat it felt like a giant had been felled. Watching Spartacus not panic, shift his heels closer to the butt on his bridge, work his head out of the headscissors and get to his feet in one motion was super impressive. Plus, it never made van Dooren look weak, as the headscissors looked great and it came off like only a man with freakish body control could have escaped it. van Dooren moves the fight to throwing a ton of headbutts at Spartacus, crowd hissing and jeering, and the frustration the headbutts came from really landed. van Dooren tried to play Spartacus's game, but it's pretty understandable once he moves into landing headbutts and kicking Spartacus between the shoulder blades. I liked how those shots exposed some holes in the Spartacus armor, and his big elbow strikes during his comeback felt earned and victorious. 

Andre Drapp vs. Andre Bollet 7/15/60

MD: Classic match up here between an expert stylist and the worst rogue in Paris. The first fall was a showcase of Bollet's facial expressions as Drapp twisted him from one position to another impressively. There was more shifting from one hold to the next than we've seen much in the footage. Bollet would come back with inside moves: hair-pulling, leg grabbing off a rope break, shots to the throat, which he doubled down on when briefly on top. The second fall showed something we really haven't seen much of, delayed gratification for the fans. Bollet really worked to avoid Drapp getting his hands on him, using rope breaks and tossing his body at Drapp (both to set up headlocks and beales and also a battering ram) to avoid it at all costs. It was masterful stuff, balancing desperation and underhandedness and it paid off with the end of the fall. In the third fall they reset back to some stooging and comedy before building to a revenge-driven finish that still more or less protected Bollet. We have Drapp vs Delaporte from later in the year as well, and I'm curious how that is in comparison.

SR: 2/3 falls contest going about 35 minutes. We seem to be JIP’d slightly, which means we unfortunately don’t any Bollet pre match antics. This was very predictable but extremely high end executed predictable. Andre Drapp does some amazing wrestling and Bollet beats on him with nasty punches and stomps. I am totally fascinated with how this bodybuilder guy Drapp just wrestles like he’s El Solar. And I think Bollet threw more punches here than anyone else we’ve seen so far, it was like he just came back from a tour in Memphis. At one point he was giving Drapp the business in the rope and a lady got up and tried to pull Drapp out of harms way. I guess she just wanted to grab ahold of his leg one time. This was a bit long and had a kind of underwhelming banana peel ending but I still thought it was a strong showing for both these men.

ER: Matt's description of Bollet as the worst rogue in Paris made me laugh, and it's a great description of him. He kept the fans riled by sneaking in several cheapshots, which also made his genuinely great selling come off as crybaby-ish without actually being crybaby selling. Drapp would counter much of Bollet's cheapshots with punches right to the mouth, which Bollet would understandably sell as a man who got punched in the mouth. But the crowd would respond as if he was "drawing a foul" or overreacting! Bollet had some cool tricks, my favorite possibly being when he stood up while in a snug bodyscissors, and punched Drapp into releasing the hold. Drapp had really strong punches, and I loved how he sold Bollet's (first fall finishing) atomic drops, taking a back bump when the knee made contact with the spine. A lot of people sell it as a recoil, but Drapp's selling made it look like his legs had gone numb from the impact to the coccyx. The crowd was already treating Bollet like a coward, but his true cowardice came out in the second fall: clutching the ropes to avoid confrontation, turtling up to avoid strikes, clearly avoiding Drapp now that he was up a fall. Both Bollet and Drapp take big cartwheeling bumps to the floor here, and I dug how Bollet came out in the third throwing big closed fists, knowing the time for games was over, leading to a big moment where Drapp dropkicked him from behind to send Bollet flying super fast over the top to the floor. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Tony Oliver! Cheri Bibi! Inca Peruano! Serge Gentilly!

Jo Benardo vs. Eric Wasberg 6/14/57

SR:JIP about 17 minutes in with roughly 4 minutes shown. Some cool holds and ranas before the winner takes it home by catching a rana into a folding powerbomb.

MD: Athleticism seemed a bit lacking in the few minutes we had but that didn't stop Wasberg from trying a lot of stuff, including a tiger suplex set up to a headscissors takeover and the rolling arm trap takeover off the ropes that we had seen in one of the last JIP matches. It was hard to get much of a sense of this but you had to like the finishing stretch of five or six twisting 'ranas that finally got jammed with a power bomb.

Inca Peruano vs. Cheri Bibi 6/14/57

SR:1 Fall match over roughly 25 minutes. Inca Peruano, baby. Cheri Bibi, aside from hitting like a truck, is probably one of the less interesting heels to show up on French TV. But the Inca is a joy to watch. He pretty much made this whole match watchable with his unique trips and throws, out of nowhere Santo headscissors and clinical holds. One of my favourite things they do in old euro matches is the hammerlock behind the back, which Inca Peruano uses to set up moves from the ropes in cool ways. I also really liked him really bending the fuck out of Bibis wrist while stepping on his chin. It was a really simple move compared to everything else he does, but it stood out. Cheri Bibi seemed slow to bump for the Incas moves and the finish seemed to come after a series of blown sequences, but I will alway relish in a chance to see Inca Peruano go to work.

MD: I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks and it hit most of the marks I wanted to, even if it didn't quite rise to the mean, slugfest level I was hoping for. That's not to say it wasn't mean and a slugfest, because it was both. Very non-cooperative and competitive, with Peruano having Bibi's number for most of the match. He was so good at portraying a casual, cocky excellence, able to grab a limb out of most exchanges, get a throw, and follow it up with a dropkick or a monkey flip or a hold. Bibi on the other hand, was pure, unbridled, bullying power, trying to ground Peruano with strangles, grab a headlock, or just press him against the rope to lay in shots. The problem for Bibi was that Peruano could give just as well as he could take and came back again and again so he could never hold an advantage for long. At the same time, Bibi was able to use his strength to fight out of all the holds, barely be rocked by his dropkicks, and even jam Peruano on things like Monkey Flips a few times and even managed to block a fireman's carry with a headscissors roll over. While Bibi was an interesting opponent for Peruano and the match had a gritty, believable tone, the high spots weren't quite as high as in other matches we've seen with both guys. The strike exchanges never quite went over the top. Peruano's most interesting spot was an Indian deathlock where he kept lifting Bibi back to lay in kicks. There were a couple of good nearfalls in the end (like Peruano getting a roll up off the ropes and his twist-turn pin he's won matches with before), but the ultimate finish was a little weak. I think the idea was that Peruano was supposed to catch a back elbow when going in for an attack, which allowed Bibi to put him away, but they didn't quite hit the execution. Still, this was just good gritty stuff and I'm glad we have a lot more time with both wrestlers.

PAS: One thing that really stands out from this footage is how good the execution of simple things are. Bibi has one of the best side headlocks I have ever seen, and a bunch of different ways to apply it and use it as a throw. Compare that to how time killing and weak most of the headlocks in the last thirty years have been and it really stands out. This was a bit of style clash and not nearly as smooth as these guys have been against other people, Bibi doesn't seem to know how to bump for Peruano's headscissors, and the finish seem a little off. Still the quality of the small things, the forearms, the headlock, and a Peruano's cool escapes make this worth watching.

Tony Oliver vs. Serge Gentilly 1/1/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a little bit over 30 minutes. It‘s another chance to see Tony Oliver baby. This wasn‘t an epic, super heated title match like the Bert Royal match, but still a welcome chance to see Oliver do his thing. Based on the grand total of 2 matches we have, it seems like Olivers program is reminiscent of a less cartoony Jim Breaks: Constantly brutalizing the opponent while stooging and reacting in amusing exaggerated ways. Tony Oliver really had perfect eyebrows for this role. My favourite thing that he did was the way he would grab his opponents face and try to hook him, or grab the chin when the guy was down. Then he would blast away with those unforgiving forearms and punches. Really trying to make every second of wrestling him as unpleasant as possible. Gentilly was another French technico with the charisma of a piece of wood, but the did give Oliver some fun receipts including some mean dropkicks. He had a lot of impact moves, the big Robinson backbreaker, even an inverted atomic drop, and the worlds greatest gutbuster. That‘s about enough to get on my good side, plus he really liked the catapult which gave Oliver ample opportunity to fly across the ring like a ballet dancer. The very last bump was like something Buddy Rose would do. Great to get another look at Oliver against a game opponent, who really seems like a complete package from what little we have.

PAS: Clearly our next raid needs to be the Spanish film archives, because Oliver really looks like an all timer. I just love watching him do his thing, what an all time great heel. So many little mannerism and niggling asshole moves. I love his double sledge to the back of Gentilly's neck, he comes at it from the side with a ton of force and it looks like every shot is going to send Gentilly into a dark room for four days. He also does this super nasty thing when he has Gentilly grounded, where he digs his fingers into his Adam's apple and twists, he must have just sucked to wrestle. Oliver was really great at putting over Gentilly, he has that great ability to switch from stooge to killer and back which is something that all the great heels have. Gentilly wasn't the most dynamic technico, but he was willing to land with the appropriate force on his shots (If I was wrestling Oliver I would be trying to KO him with every shot), and had some really cool moves. I loved his inverted atomic drops, and his gutbuster was really cool, he got a deep lift and really lifted him high before just driving his knee into Olivers belly.

MD: Another match with Tony Oliver. He's no longer the best heel we only have one match of. This was actually much more of a specific showcase for him, as opposed to a title match where he pulled out constant stops like we had before. Here he still did everything dirty imaginable. The difference was that, for the most part, it worked. That doesn't mean that he didn't stooge and bump and get caught out by the ref. He did, but he took a lot more of this one with a hundred cheapshots, constant face raking and ref maneuvering, and a hundred more straight up brutal blows. Gentilly had some really novel stuff that we haven't seen much: an actual bulldog (as opposed to Oliver's armbar bulldog), some nasty submissions, an inverted atomic drop/atomic drop combo on the guy most deserving to eat those in history, and this really great spinning gutbuster. Oliver's hyperactive antics had him arguing with the crowd, with the ref, complaining about anything that didn't go his way and taking every opportunity imaginable. And us? Before we could complain that we only had one match with him. Now we can complain that we only have two.

ER: Not a surprise, this was great. Tony Oliver is as must see as this French Catch gets, a total package of nasty ringwork, pratfalls, shtick, and a mean side. If he had just a couple of his excellent qualities and nothing else, he'd still be a major standout. If he was only a guy with a fantastic body vice and the best clubbing fist to the back of someone's neck, he'd be a guy we'd talk about at length. If he just had a nasty grounded punch among several other cheapshots, we'd be talking about him as a heel legend. But he has everything, and does it all so so well. I love his pratfall bumps for catapults, loved his clenched butt straight leg selling for a pair of atomic drops, loved the way he made Gentilly look like a tough guy while also beating the hell out of him. Gentilly looked super capable here, and I think would have stood out much more against a lesser opponent. His execution was so tight, from his picture perfect snapmare to the way he fought against Oliver's body vice (I loved how Oliver tightened the vice on a standing Gentilly, who slid his boots back across the mat as his body was forced downward by Oliver), loved how his flexibility made Oliver's holds look even more cruel. Now it's also possible that he looked even better *because* he was in with Oliver, who seems to be a master at both hyping and murdering opponents. But then I see what an all time great gutbuster Gentilly has and I'm pretty sure his work stands on its own. Oliver's pratfalls never had a straight comedy flair, as even when he gets knocked ass over crown and is hanging by his feet over the ropes, it doesn't come off silly. A wrestler could watch this one Tony Oliver match and find literally dozens of things worth stealing, as every single sequence is fresh and inspired by who knows who, a guy whose every bit of movement could be analyzed and ripped off without anyone knowing. And now we all get the chance to know, and we should take it.

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