Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gueret! Teddy Boy! Chaisne! Corne! Bollet! Wiecz!

George Gueret/Teddy Boy vs. Michel Chaisne/Jacky Corne 7/30/56

MD: Hell of a tag here. Just hard hitting, constant motion and attitude and fire. Guerret and Teddy Boy made for a great team, which Guerret really a proto Harley Race in a lot of ways (even shaved), between his ruggedness and his willingness to bump and stooge. He's just missing the suplexes. Teddy Boy is just a manic creep, constantly getting involved, constantly swiping at his opponents like a bulldog, full of attitude, endlessly dangerous in the corner, a heatseeking machine, but also completely willing to run into a bull charge "Ole" type spot between falls. He'd get tossed out of the ring and immediately run around to try to grab a leg from the outside. Guerret and Teddy Boy absolutely controlled the ring well, pressing their opponents to the corner at every opportunity. Chaisne had the height (which gave him good slams relatively) and could do everything you'd expect a stylist to be able to do, able to go up and over backwards to get out of a hammerlock or hit dropkicks in rope running segments. There was one point where he kept throwing Guerret across the ring and did these pounce-like shoulder blocks again and again. Really, though it's Corn who stands out, like always. He's the best slugfest machine that we have in this footage, and these bad guys deserved to eat forearms. I feel like we haven't seen the spinning toehold much and Corn broke it out here, as well as a sort of Indian Deathlock (the Gagnelock style, with the foot pressing against the knee), and Chasine and Corn locking in tandem leg nelsons whacking their opponents' faces into the mat repeatedly at the same time. Finish was a little confusing to me. Guerret tended to break up falls more than most we've seen and it's possible he might have gotten DQed for doing it too often, but the last image of the match was Teddy Boy bumping hard over the top, so the ref might have just called it after that. The fans didn't care. It ended on a triumphant note with the creep going splat. Just good, fundamentally sound mid 60s French tag wrestling.

PAS: We are really getting a ton of great tags in this period, it almost feels like 60s France was an 80s Crockett level of a tag promotion.  All four of the guys in this match were great, but man alive was Teddy Boy incredible, he really reminded me of Jerry Estrada in both the frequency and insanity of his bumps and the sleaziness of his aura. He just seemed like such a scum bag in the best wrestling way. Corn was also great, he is a super hard hitter along with being skilled and the pop of the exchanges in this match was one of the things that really stood out, all four guys were bringing the heat. I also had no idea what was going on with that finish, but it didn't really dim my enjoyment of the match or anything. Looking forward for more from all of these guys.

Eddy Wiecz vs. Andre Bollet 9/20/65

MD: Battle between two wrestlers that are about as iconic as you can get in this footage. I've seen hints at it before, but I'm really sure of it now: Wiecz/Carpentier just gets it. He gets it on a level that every other stylist just hadn't figured out. They're all out there having brilliant Catch bouts and he's canny enough to play like a star. He's got his big spots (like the back flip off the top) and he works them in. He milks it before doing them. He'll take a lot of offense but be stoic about it, coming off as tough. Most of all, though, he'll build towards a big moment of comeback, here, a telegraphed block and a comeback punch, that's much more definitive than the ebb and flow we get from almost everyone else. Even a guy like Corn will just fire back but this was set up for the people in the back row and the folks at home. He's also going to break norms; Bollet kept picking him up at 2 to punish him more, so during the comeback, Wiecz would do the same. It's a bit of elaboration you didn't really get as often as you'd expect in the footage so far. Bollet, of course, worked not just for the people in the back row, but for the birds flying above the building, emoting so big that surely they could see him through the roof. When it's time for him to takeover, he's just the meanest swarming striker. When it's time to stooge again, he gets caught in the ropes or lobbed to the floor or trapped in a hold and his face contorts in every shape imaginable. He's good enough to land a great escape, but almost every time he gets immediate comeuppance; he'll then come back by being twice as nasty with chokes or cheapshots though. He's the very best at what he did. The match had a few holds that went a little too long and maybe Wiecz took a little too much of it, but people knew what to expect coming in and I doubt anyone except for fans with the most particular standards would come out of it disappointed. 

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Apollon! Williams! Amor! Gueret!Bibi! Montreal!Delaporte! de Zarzecki!

Ray Apollon/Eddy Williams vs. Yves Amor/George Gueret, 3/28/65

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Amor and Gueret. This had one of the stiffest openings in all the project as Amor (looking shaved and quite flabby compared to his 50s appearance) and Gueret just barraged poor Williams with stiff kicks, gut shots and uppercuts while cutting off the ring. It was one of the coldest beatings we‘ve seen so far and it succeeded it creating some hype for the match as Ray Apollon didn‘t even get to tag in during the 1st fall. It settled down a bit, but all 4 of these gentlemen kept forearming and headbutting each other with serious intensity. Ray Apollon was apparently a pretty big star, a big weightlifter who looked like he was made of stone, and whenever he came in he acted nigh invincible. Williams acted as his junior partner, taking beatings and busting out the flip sentons. There was one really intense bit where Yves and Gueret drove Apollon to the corner and he was making a go at one guy while the other literally tried strangling him with the tag rope. I didn‘t mind Apollon acting so tough, and I dug his bearhug and arm work. This went a little long (some parts where guys seemed to be just latching on to leg locks to buy some time) but for heavyweight slugfest it was wholly satisfying.

PAS: This was pretty sparse stuff, but it was really hard hitting and violent. Williams is the older brother of Stampede Legend Champaign Jerry Morrow and really takes a beating in the opening fall. It was a very lucha structure, with the rudos taking every bit of the offense and Apollon never even getting to tag in. When he finally does, he throws some big shots and it is pretty much a stand and trade fest. Amor is such a unique looking guy, like a fatter shorter Giant Baba, and he slings it. It doesn't really dip and surge, just kind of worked at a single pace, but it was a fun pace.

MD: It's always good to see Amor and Gueret again. Gueret had shaved his beard which is a shame. Their act had evolved a bit with the team and they leaned even more into the ref distractions, illegal double teams, and cutting off the ring. Amor's striking seemed better than I remembered. I liked Williams a lot here. He was able to do some slick stuff while working well from underneath. It's good too because he was in there for 80% of the match. Apollon, who was past 40 at this point, came off as more of an attraction: an immobile tank with big hammering shots and headbutts. He never stayed in for long. The first fall ended with Williams getting some hope but ultimately cut off due to a cheap shot. The second had a fairly big comeback that culminated in a revenge double team with Apollon holding Amor from the apron as Williams charged in. Then some cutting off and Williams firing back and getting a slam. And then the third was primarily them trying to work over Apollon only for him to come back with a slam. There was a really hot tag to Apollon that they could have built to here and never did. This would have been a lot more effective if they had switched the second and third falls around. Apollon was obviously limited but could probably be channeled within a match to high effect given the right structure and opponent. We'll see him in another tag in 66 vs Lasartesse and I have no idea what that'll look like.

Cheri Bibi vs. Mr. Montreal 4/9/65

MD: We get the last ten minutes or so of this and it's very straightforward and pretty great. Montreal's a strength gimmick. Bibi's an absolute monster. After one King of the Mountain bit and a bump through the ropes by Bibi right towards the start of the footage, they basically just pound on each other for the rest of the time, Montreal with uppercuts, throws, and these deep, contested slams, and Bibi with upppercuts, headbutts, and these killer shots to the gut. The advantage shifts with Montreal charging in to fire away and Bibi going low. It maybe gets a little repetitive once you realize that they were working to the time limit, but it's such a clash of the titans (and one that we've yet to see despite being pretty familiar with both wrestlers by now) that you just sit back and enjoy it.

PAS: Can't help but love this. Two guys standing in front of each other throwing heat and refusing to bend to the wind. Felt like Wahoo vs. Johnny Valentine, which is about as big a compliment as I am going to give for a wrestling match. Loved how Bibi would mix in those nasty bodyshots with the uppercuts and forearms. This was the finish stretch of the match, and I would like to have seen how we got to this point, but I loved what we got. 

Roger Delaporte vs Warnia de Zarzecki, 4/9/65

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Warnia de Zarzecki. Haven‘t seen him in a while. And well based on this I‘d wish we‘d see him more. He was outstanding at looked like a wrestlers wrestler. This had the most grappling in any Delaporte singles in a while as they did some super smoth armdrags and headscissors type wrestling. Naturally though, the foul tactics come in, and soon you have de Zarzecki grabbing Delaporte by the  mustache. There were some really nice rope running sequences, including one where Warnia took Delaporte down with a top wristlock which was super simple but executed beautifully. De Zarzecki softens up Delaportes arm a bit and Delaporte threw some cool punch combos in the corner as a response. I was a bit underwhelmed with the finish was I felt like these two had another two falls in them. Really really fun match, though.

MD: I said the Frisuk match was the single Delaporte one to watch but maybe it's this one instead. There are funnier ones. There are ones with higher highs. There are ones with greater heat. If you want to know who this guy was in the ring though, this is a great example of it. In the back third of the match, Delaporte spends about five minutes cringing in the corner and getting his arm whacked only to show it was a ruse all along and get big heat for jumping about and waving his arm around after he took back over. Post match, he tries to boast about his win and gets absolutely clobbered by Zarzecki. At one point, he's tied up in the ropes and Zarzecki's charging in. The ref gets in the way and ends up part of the charge, so Delaporte, after the fact, while still stuck in the ropes, kicks the ref for good measure. That's Delaporte: craven, cringing, cowardly, dangerous, hard-hitting, cruel, spry. I see the criticism being that you have to be in the mood for him, but I'm always in the mood for this. At times, he's an excellent wrestler too though. I really liked the early armbar work here, where Delaporte kept control but where it also kept escalating through escape attempts and cut offs and moving in and out, with the two of them finally moving to big shots. Some of the slugging was just excellent too, especially the little bit on the floor. For a wrestler who was no physical marvel and that was very much the same thing in all of his matches, Delaporte, maybe due to the rigors and difficulty of the style, came off as an extremely complete wrestler.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Al Hayes! Hunter! Delaporte! Bollet! Montoro! Bernaert!

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Roger Delaporte/Andre Bollet 12/1/60

MD: This is the back thirty of what's billed as a 60 minute draw. We get what I imagine to be most of the second fall and all of the third. It's a shame we don't have the whole thing because it means we miss the early Hayes wrestling and enough control for the heels to win at least one fall but what we get is, of course, absolutely iconic. This is going to be our last look at Hayes and Hunter and they feel like the best team in the world, with Delaporte and Bollet maybe a close and very different second. We still get a brilliant stretch of Delaporte and Bollet controlling their half of the ring to contain and punish Hayes. We get lots of heel comeuppance and stooging, just endless amounts of it, each bit hugely entertaining. I'm not sure there's a better stooge heel pairing in the history of wrestling than these two and Hunter and Hayes were the perfect straight man babyfaces, between Hunter's size and Hayes' sheer skill and presence. I could have done without the ref letting Hunter score the win in the second fall when he clearly wasn't the legal man (though I had no real problem with him coming in after all of the heel cheating, though, of course, there was a better way to do it), but other than that, my only complaint here was that we didn't have more of it. You knew exactly what you were going to get coming in and it was everything you could possibly want from a 1960 French tag match.


SR: JIP into the 2nd fall, but we get 30 minutes of this match, which is 30 minutes more good wrestling than you are likely to see in any given week in 2020. This was another bullshit tour de force from the superduo of Bollet and Delaporte. They will bump like mad, they will get bitchslapped, they will commit every single buffoonish mishap in the book, they will miscommunicate, they will grimace their way through the match in a way that makes mid 90s Shinjiro Otani look stoic, and then they will stomp the crap out of you. There was a nasty beatdown section involving Hayes taking lots of nasty flying stomps and knees to the gut while in a surfboard, which is a spot that modern indy guys could steal but they would inevitably make it look too much like a choreographed spot compared to the raw asskicking that we got here. This is the last appearance of Hayes & Hunter, and they had another good night doing almost nothing but uppercutting the shit out of their opponents. Hayes also looked good selling an asskicking, there was a moment where he ate an uppercut and whipped his head back into the ringpost, eyes rolling into his skull, it was like something out of a FUTEN match. Hunter also got to have a good night hitting a really fast airplane spin. Wild ending that saw Delaporte doing his usually great "Where the fuck am I" selling.


Arabet Said/Serge Gentilly vs. Yves Amor/Georges Gueret 2/12/60


SR: JIP match. We get about 10 minutes of what could have been a great TV main event. Yves Amor & Georges Gueret are a welcome change of pace compared to the crazy antics of Delaporte and Bollet. These guy will focus on just straight up ass kicking. It rules that about every other heel team we see in catch is another awesome version of the Anderson Bros. This didn‘t reinvent the wheel, but I could watch these guys waste each other with forearms and stiff body shots all day. Gentilly threw some crazy elbows for a skinny guy. There was a chaotic ending with Amor waltzing in to blast guys like a bearded Taue. It ended in some controversy and I could see these guys having an epic feud, but this was the only time either of these men was seen on French TV that year.

MD: We only get part of the third fall here but it's basically nine minutes of guys hitting each other as hard as possible in meaningful ways and we're always going to be for that. Past a bit of darting around and one funny spot where Gentilly waves his hands all around to try to fake out Guerret who complains loudly, we didn't see a lot of the babyfaces' speed or skill, just tenacity. Amor really used his size in interesting ways, able to get to the ropes easily or having the reach to get out of holds but also a giant canvas when he was getting whacked. Just tangible noise for forearms and uppercuts. He ate some atomic drops too, which looked sort of small but he sold huge. The finishing stretch was chaotic as Amor, as the illegal man, kept charging across the ring like a giant bullet to attack Said on the apron while Gueret beat on Gentilly, but the babyfaces came back big and it all devolved into violence and got thrown out. I thought, at times, Amor and Gueret worked a little too even with Said and Gentilly but when the end result was guys beating the crap out of each other, you don't complain too much.



Antonio Montoro vs. Pierre Bernaert 2/12/60

PAS: This is our first glance and Montoro who is a Spanish wrestler who had a mid to late 60s run in EMLL working all of the top stars (Karloff Lagarde, Humberto Garza, Blue Demon, Cavernario Galindo etc.). Man I hope there is a Spanish motherlode out there somewhere, because every time we get a Spanish wrestler in France they absolutely rule. Bernaert keeps it pretty scientific for most of this match, as Montoro does a lot of athletic takedowns and bumps big for all of Bernaert's offense. I especially liked the section where they exchange funky looking monkey flip which both guys took big bumps off of. Montoro also has a spot later in the match where he dives on Bernaert and eats a boot to the face. Finish came on a really graceful victory roll. Not at the level of the absolute best stuff in the footage, but a cool look at a guy we hadn't seen before

MD: Whew, so this was hit or miss at best. Montoro is one of the best regarded Spanish wrestlers of this period and this is our first look at him. Bernaert is a cheapshot artist who looks like Kirk Douglas and we've seen him plenty. While there were a number of innovative spots and plenty of athleticism, this worked better as selected gifs than a match. There were more moments of miscommunication or flubbed attempts at things than in any other match in the footage so far. Some of that was because Montoro was going for so many tricky things, but sometimes they just crashed into each other and sort of went over oddly. It wasn't just one time either. That can create a feeling of competitiveness but here it made things seem somehow more cooperative and you could tell by the hush and occasional groan from the crowd that they were used to something more visceral. Montoro is the first guy in this footage that would do an extra flip or flourish when he probably didn't need to and it was often simply not additive. Bernaert started playing to his strengths two-thirds through, going dirty, but he probably should have led with it instead. The novel stuff that hit was legitimately cool but the match wasn't.

SR: 1 fall match going about 20 minutes. Montoro was another Spanish wrestler. I‘ve branded Bernaert as a bit of a one trick pony before, but I thought he redeemed himself a bit here, opening the match with a good 15 minutes of straight wrestling which I always appreciate. That alone made this bout worth watching. Montoro was a lightweight and significantly smaller than Bernaert. He looked pretty slick at times, but there were a few moments where they blew their spots. Montoro also landed awkwardly a few times when he was seemingly controlling himself at times, so I‘ll blame him. On the other hand, Montoro probably had a touring match with a more familiar rudo where he looked like dynamite. Montoro also did some of those Johnny Saint style escapes that looked like dance moves so I guess it was interesting to see someone do that kind of stuff as earl as 1960. Bernaert eventually went to his cheap shot routine (as he should) and there were some nasty bumps including Montoro flying face first into an upkick which looked nastier than it was probably intended to be.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Le Big Chief! di Santo! Zarak! Lecomte! Le Petit Prince! Sanniez!

Jose Arroyo vs. Georges Gueret 10/15/59

JIP with about 5 minutes shown. These two totally have a long awesome main even in them. This was more of a preliminary bout, but we got to see an awesome Arroyo punch combo and Gueret kicking some ass.

MD: We get about six minutes of this, JIP. It's a good showcase of Gueret who's a heel again. A long headscissors by him to start, but he works the crowd in his cutoffs in it. At one point he does that thing where you put your thumb on your nose and wiggle your fingers. Arroyo doesn't get a comeback here after this, because Gueret goes to the eyes and immediately chokes Arroyo in the ropes, tying him in them and jumping on the ring ropes from the other corner which isn't something you see often. When Arroyo comes back it's with flurries of strikes and lots of begging off by Gueret. They go back and forth for the last minute or two, with Gueret launching nice cheapshots and clubbering blows, before ultimately having his leg taken out once or twice and eating the fall on a failed bodyslam. We didn't see a ton of Arroyo here but Gueret came off as well-rounded as ever.

Lino di Santo vs. Le Big Chief 10/15/59

SR: 1 Fall match going about 25 minutes. „Le Big Chief“ has to be the greatest previously forgotten name in this entire project. He was this guy built like a tank who came in wearing a Native American head dress. I‘ve grown to expect war dances and chops from guys like that, but that was not the case for Le Big Chief. Instead Le Big Chief was this absolute violent menace. Boy oh boy. Lino Di Santo can get surely, but the Chief was beating the bricks off of him in a way few other heels in this territory or anywhere else could. Fish hooking, head stomps, nasty kicks and knees, the Chief was dishing out the kind of beating you‘d expect in a Tenryu match. After watching this I‘d say the Chief belongs with Hashimoto in the dome. The Chief had really great looking bumps for Di Santos uppercuts and dropkicks and a neat spot where he flung backwards over the top rope, plus a really amusing moment where he did a no water in the pool dive into the ring, so there was style to the madness. Di Santo gets to have some moments but mostly he is there to take an uninterrupted 20 minute asskicking and then win on a shady DQ. You know they must have had bigger things in mind for this Big Chief, but this is the last we see of him. Talk about abject and inexplicable violence.

PAS: The Big Chief is certainly in the tradition of Wahoo McDaniel as far as American Indians who will kick the piss out of you. One of the craziest things about this project is seeing guys like this, totally awesome wrestlers who feel like all time greats and just pop up once or twice. I would gleefully watch an old school 8 hour comp tape of Big Chief matches, but this is what we have. No big chops, but punches to the back of the head, fishhooks, this kind of downward eye poke strike which looks like it would dislocate retinas. Really felt like Kurisu's mom must have visited a Reservation. The no water in the pool dive was a great high spot and let to di Santo getting in some licks, and I always love the Dragon sleeper stoppage finish. French Catch can be both spectacularly smooth and violently rough, often in the same match. This was more on the gritty side, and I love gritty.

MD: I enjoyed this. Le Big Chief reminded me a lot of Iron Sheik in his prime, just from his body type and bluster. I wouldn't say his stuff looked smooth by any means. A lot of it was clunky and unfocused, but he was relentless on offense and kept things moving. He'd brutally swarm Di Santo again and again and again. It meant that instead of being back and forth, this was built towards a lot of smaller Di Santo comebacks, most of which could be quite memorable with dropkicks and forearms and plenty of revenge. Chief was more than happy to stooge huge in these moments. He'd whip Di Santo's head to the ground backwards twice, but when it was his turn to take it, he'd get whipped all the way over the top. Never giving Di Santo a moment to recover got him plenty of heat, as did the usual bevy of low blows and a fake handshake. Past the missed top rope dive attempt (which is exceptionally rare in this footage, especially for the 50s), the most interesting thing about Chief was the way he moved Di Santo around. He'd whip him off the ropes by his head, or get under him to pick him up and move him and even used a bum's rush type redirection once. He set up his dragon sleeper finish by lifting him with a choke and tossing him into the corner. Everything's so polished and trained and spot-based now that you rarely get something that feels so rough and natural. It added to things. That sleeper ended the first fall and Di Santo couldn't answer for the second. When Chief went after him anyway, he almost caused a riot. There wasn't a lot pretty about this one but it got the job done.

ER: I like Matt's Iron Sheik comparison for Le Big Chief, and I see it. I watched this and saw a Bad News Allen who actually delivered on his coolness potential. A lot of credit is rightly given to Big Chief's stiff ring work, but I came away impressed with his unique bumping and the way he would lean into all of Santo's strikes. di Santo didn't exactly need help making his strikes look good; when you elbow a man squarely on the chin, you are elbowing a man squarely on the chin. But I think we underestimate how uninteresting the fast flat back bump has made wrestling, and how that might be an actual contender for worst WWE stylistic change to make into an industry norm. di Santo brought the strikes, but I don't think they would have been anywhere near as interesting without some of Big Chief's spills. My favorite saw him take a forward bump and fall chest and shoulder across the bottom rope, but not linger on it for comedic purposes. I think that it's important he doesn't treat his bumps as comedic overexaggerated flourishes, as it's a very different vibe to take stooge bumps as stooge bumps while still treating the strikes as authentic. He pulls it off marvelously, utilizing the ropes in his bumps several times, finding neat ways to get his body to the mat after another gorgeous sky high di Santo dropkick catches him in the collarbones.    


Zarak vs. Jean-Pierre Lecomte 10/15/77

SR:1 Fall match going a bit over 10 minutes. Zarak was a British wrestler under a mask. It seems he was popular as he showed up on TV a lot, but he didn‘t quite have the same snap as the masked stars we‘ve seen in the 50s. That being said, he was a solid rudo in the vein of a Fit Finlay. Stepping on fingers and hitting a nasty piledriver. Lecomte was a balding guy with a mustache who was amazingly lithe and agile. He totally looked like dynamite cartwheeling around and running the ropes super fast. I dig any wrestler who looks like a PE teacher and is really athletic and Lecomte in this made me excited to check out his other sole appearance. At this length this was like a Nitro squash but it pushed all the right buttons for the time given.

MD: We're here for the Prince vs Sanniez match, but as a rule we watch whole shows. This is our first look at Zarak, who was a British wrestler under a mask. He's got an amazing heel swagger and strutting nature, and can base pretty well to boot. I'm not 100% sure about Lecomte but he might be the guy who played Der Henker (and maybe even Le Borreau) without a mask and as a spry, older Nick Kozak looking babyface. These guys were not small, but he launched into four or five cartwheels in the match, including one where he reversed course to dodge and grabbed a leg out of it which was really slick. There were definitely some marginal differences from what we were used to. There were more whips, maybe more ref intervention against the babyface (especially when he went for the mask), some of the armdrags felt different than what you'd see in the 50s, but the ebb and flow of Zarak getting ahead with cheapshots and Lecomte firing back big felt familiar. Pre-match, Zarak had taunted Lecomte with the universal, hands clenched up-and-down signal for the pile driver to Lecomte, and after some nice rope running (including that hip toss power slam that ends so many 50s falls), he hit a flip-up tombstone off the ropes for the win. Post match, he strutted and Lecomte got carted out on a stretcher. Wholly entertaining stuff.


Le Petit Prince vs. Albert Sanniez 10/15/77

SR: 1 Fall match going about 25 minutes. The Little Prince was 10 years into it at this point, but he could still seriously go. Sanniez was an athletic tecnico himself a few years earlier, it‘s quite interesting that he went from stellar tecnico to being a stellar rudo. This was like the worlds most athletic crowd pleasing house show main event you‘ve ever seen. It followed a predictable structure and had the old heel ref spots and what not, but the exchanges were so fast and intricate, the bumps so dedicated that you won‘t care. Sanniez was working this like Fuerza Guerrera, cheating from the get-go and coming across as pretty bumbling as he missed backhands and bumped like a maniac. He did show some glimpses of his past skillful persona and those exchanges were the highlights of the match. There was one exchange that lead into a flying short arm scissor that no one in the world now could pull off. It‘s been said before, but the speed that the Prince got on his stuff is a league of its own. Despite the mostly light hearted nature of the match the Prince ended up taking a big beating and being flung around (with a second in a blue jumpsuit who was also looking like a PE teacher and probably working the opening match that night catching him) before taking the finish in a classy fashion.

MD: Great showcase match for Prince. Sanniez was an admirable foil, quick with the cheapshots and hair pulls and bluster, able to mostly hang but always a half step behind in speed and finesse which only served to make Prince look better especially as he had to spend more than half the match working from underneath. Sanniez was able to cut him off effectively, often times having help from the ref. When it was time for Prince to get revenge, he got it big and entertaining. Lots of his flip-around go-behind up-and-over armdrags, some huge monkey flips, a tapatia, and probably my favorite spot of the match where he tied Sanniez up in the ropes and hit two charging headbutts, where on the second one, the ref who was trying to play interference got bumped dramatically over the top. Tail end of the match had some effective king of the mountain heeling by Sanniez, leading to Prince's final comeback and one of the best visual pins in a sunset flip you'll ever see as Sanniez was practically vertical. Huge spectacle with just enough substance to make it work.

PAS: This was maybe the most lucha match we have seen in this footage. We have the super athletic babyface flyer facing off with a bumping, stooging heel with a bit of Tirantes style ref worked mixed in. Prince is one of the most dynamic wrestlers of all time. He's remarkably fast and smooth with everything he does, but Sanniez is a hell of an opponent, getting huge height on all of his monkey flip bumps and eating all of the armdrags and headscissors perfectly. I really liked all of the king of the hill stuff near the end of the match, great way for the match to break down and add some nastiness to the proceedings. Cool stuff and any chance to see the Prince is a blessing.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Le Boulch! Delaporte! Villars! Amor! Gueret!

 Jean Corne vs. Robert Le Boulch 9/3/59

SR: 1 Fall match going about 16 minutes. Robert Le Boulch is short, has a massive skull and is balding, and he has a funny little mustache. He decided to cheap shot Corne some, and Corne outwrestled him easily, then Robert threw some more cheapshots, and Corne unleashed a full blown retaliation that had Robert Le Boulch flying all over the place. Le Boulch was a bump machine and a fun enough discovery to carry this short match in which Jean Corne showed even less character than usual.

MD: To make sure everyone's clear on this, Corne is not Corn, though he was already middleweight champ and is announced at 22 years old. I don't think he was quite as smooth as many others we've seen so far (Corn included) especially when it came to his timing, but we have a lot of him so we'll see him come into himself later. There were some rope-running bits that seemed weird, and he didn't stay down quite long enough to draw excitement for his comebacks. At one point, le Boulch put his head down and Corne dropkicked him head on and that didn't quite seem right. Despite Le Boulch getting plenty of heat, there weren't big pops for the head twists, for instance, which was out of the norm since the French crowd loved those. I thought Le Boulch was great. He's another in the line of those Jackie Gleason looking put upon, stooging heels. He was congenial enough in the beginning, pulling hair but offering handshakes, as if it was just a job, you know? When Corne started to get fiery, he started to get mean back. He had a lot of fun stuff, like tying Corne's shoelaces to the ropes and yanking on the other leg, of having a sequence where he missed a few dropkicks in a row. Probably the most memorable bit here was Corn dropkicking him into the ropes and following it up with a monkey flip repeatedly. It wasn't that the crowd disliked Corne, but the story of this one was le Boulch, his performance, and how he got under their skin by the end.

Roger Delaporte/Paul Villars vs. Yves Amor/Georges Gueret 9/5/59

SR:2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. You look at this match up and you know exactly what you are getting. 4 guys who have no problem being bastards and trading massive beatings, doing just that. That being said, this had a pretty clever layout. Most of these matches start like a house of fire but kind of fail to build to an epic conclusion. Here they start slow with some fun wrestling and build really well to all hell breaking lose. We‘ve seen Amor & Gueret as heels before, but they work this pretty much as straight faces. All their shots come as retaliations to heel tactics from the mustached superduo of Delaporte/Villar. They won‘t do anything athletic, but they sure knew their way around the holds. There is a fun structure with the 1st fall ending early and much of the 2nd fall being spent working face in peril sections before Gueret and Amor are able to stage their comeback. Gueret once again looks pretty great here, he is great as a tough bad guy beating the shit out of good guys, and he is great as a tough good guy beating the shit out of bad guys, and the same goes for Amor really. The 3rd fall is pretty intense with some really great Mantell/Lawler feeling exchanges, including Amor and Delaporte beating the shit out of each other on the floor with the police having to get involved, and of course these guys were hitting each other so hard they make pretty much everyone in the world right now look like pussies. Delaporte deciding to take out Amors leg was another instance of his sudden brutal assaults that he has a real knack for. Another entry in the stream of great French tags.

MD: Another high quality 50s Delaporte tag. We've seen Gueret and Amor before, but they were both heels then. I thought they brought a lot in this role. Amor was relatively giant, but able to get down and wrestle. He had a lot of presence in general. Gueret had a tough, rugged look and for the most part, he backed it up. Villars was, as always, the perfect, resonant goon for Delaporte, and Delaporte, is basically the Satanico of France, if Satanico was 10% more a coward and a stooge. Rudo numero uno, basically, able to direct traffic, to beg off and prevaricate only to come back in with an earnest, merciless brutality. This one sung the loudest when they were dismantling Amor's leg, which was both well executed and made perfect story sense. Though it led to a transition as Gueret was able to convince he ref he tagged as he was breaking it up, the tandem STF was a thing of vicious beauty. Amor's selling was excellent and lingered on to the finish where he re-damaged his leg during the great brawling on the floor. Delaporte and friends walked the balance between conniving and opportunistic and outright dangerous exactly as a lead heel carrying a territory should.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Gueret! Delaporte! Villars! Said! Minisini!

Jacky Corne vs. Georges Gueret 7/9/59

MD: One thing I love about this footage in general is that it's almost never predictable. We get new wrestlers every few weeks or wrestlers that we've seen before in different settings. We only get a few looks at a lot of them so surprises come up all the time. That said, we pretty much know what we're getting with a Jacky Corn match by now. Crisp holds, throws, and escapes. Long sequences with hang-ons and attempts. The heel getting mean/frustrated first. Corn selling excellently in that sort of "full body" exhausted sort of way I always give Bockwinkel credit for. And then finally, as the match goes on, Corn coming back with righteous indignation and fury and it becoming an absolutely brutal slugfest. Corn wrestles beautifully and he fights valiantly and it's never unwelcome even if we've seen it before. Here, Gueret was sort of a bruising Larry Hennig sort (though in better shape), swarthy and expressive, especially when he was in a hold or begging off. He gets frustrated at the end of the first fall (including inadvertently hitting the ref) but Corn is able to capitalize with a sunset flip. Even though he beats on him a lot in the second fall, it's not until the start of the final fall that Corn really starts firing back. Just great striking here, including one exchange on their knees. Corn ultimately takes it with a very slip through the legs takedown and bridging pin. Of note here, from a format perspective, they had Roger Lageat, promoter and Corn's father, providing insights before the match and between falls.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. It‘s George Gueret, baby. He had grown a beard here, which adds a bit of personality, I guess, and he was quite hated. This match had a surprising amount of wrestling that built really well to the 3rd fall where they just explode and beat the shit out of each other. The wrestling was really fun as you‘d expect, but you want these guys to throw down and uncork their forearms and uppercuts, and they knew exactly that this is what their audience wanted from them really. Really good slow build to the eventual explosion. Gueret only had to throw a few cheapshots before audience members threatened to jump into the ring. Corn is pretty bland but he can wrestle and throw down, and he earned his paycheck here. And Gueret just has about the greatest forearm smashes you‘ve ever seen.

PAS: Corn is a technically sound babyface and Gueret is a heat seeking bruiser, and that is classic professional wrestling contest. What makes so much of the Catch standout is how good the bruisers are at technical wrestling, and how nasty the technicians are at bruising. The early wrestling sections are solid stuff, I love a good headscissors, and they had a great headsicssors section, and then of course it breaks down with fans jumping on to the apron and big shots being exchanges. We say it over and over again, but the baseline of this stuff is so high.


Serge Francille vs Pierre Bernaert 7/16/59

MD: We get this JIP, but you definitely get the gist of it in the fifteen minutes we have. I don't remember Bernaert leaning as much into the Kirk Douglas look but he was still the same cheapshot artist as before, always reaching for a leg when he's on the ground and sneaking a punch or hairpull in. His punches, forearms, and knees were particularly mean. Francille was yet another judoka guy. I think that's the third we've seen in 59 so it was obviously some sort of zeitgeist. While barefoot, he had less goofy foot escapes and more throws and interesting trips. He was fiery in answering Bernaert's cheapshots at least. The match absolutely knew what it was and never deviated, down to the finish where Bernaert got a little lax in his beating, tried the same thing twice and got outslicked for his trouble.

SR: JIP, but we get about 13 minutes. Francille seems to be doing a martial artist gimmick and I think the announcer calls him a judoka. He is barefoot and wears those ankle-length pants, which weirdly seems to be the go-to look for wrestlers with a judo gimmick at this point. Did judokas wear those kind of pants in the 1950s? Francille has a mustache and slender physique and looks very old time. And he has those funny open hand chops. This was just going along, Bernaert cheats some and Francille retaliates. Then suddenly Bernaert starts unleashing a really violent beating only to be cut short and pinned seconds later.


Roger Delaporte/Paul Villars vs Arabet Said/Leon Minisini 7/16/59

MD: Another long Delaporte/Villars tag, though this one went closer to 30 than an hour. Delaporte remains one of the greatest stooges. Villars, on the other hand, is absolutely brutal, and when the heels were in control, this was excellent. They cut off the ring and kept most of the action right in their corner, even as the ref tried to stop them. When they won the second fall, it was really because of that sort of attrition over time, just hacking away at Minisini until he couldn't fight back. The first fall, by the way, was lightning quick with a flash pin out of a full nelson reversal and that happened in just the first couple of miniutes. What I liked about it is that it was against formula. I don't think we've seen first falls go like that much in the footage. There was also an early moment where Delaporte refused to throw a cheapshot on a Villars full nelson in the corner but the faces did instead and had some miscommunication because of it. That felt very lucha-esque where the tecnicos (stylists in this case) cheated when it was unwarranted and feaced cosmic justice because of it. It was our first look at Said and Minisini. Said had solid fire when it was called for but when in charge, he mainly did a lot of inner armdrags and crosslegged headscissor spots, the latter of which I've had my fill of recently. Minisini played a valiant face in peril, including fighting out of the corner early only to get overwhelmed later and had an interesting bridging escape or two. The crowd was up for this, like always for a Delaporte tag, though they were more into the comeback than the heat, I'd say, and so much of that was on Delaporte's stooging and Villars bumps to the floor. Another banana peel finish utilizing Delaporte's one smooth offensive maneuver and that made the crowd hate him all the more.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. With names like Arabet Said and Leon Minissini, you get giddy just wondering what these mysterious dudes will bring. The answer was that they were both pretty wirey dudes who could both wrestle and put serious punishment on their opponents, so they match up very well against the mustached super heel duo of Delaporte and Villar. The interesting thing about this was the early finish to the 1st fall, which set up a kind of heel in peril section as Said & Minisini kept showing them up and the heels had to try and get a handle. Kind of a weird way to structure a match, and I kind of had the feeling it was since Delaporte & Villar were technically the stars, as the focus was on them. The 3rd fall cements this as Delaporte and Villar, after playing some of their shenanigans got banged up badly by pissed off Said and Minisini before a punch-drunk Delaporte got the pin with a pretty perfectly timed rollup. It was almost like a reverse Rock n‘Roll express finish. That being said, this isn‘t better or worse than any other Villars/Delaporte tag we‘ve seen, as they all kind of all blend together, but you always end up getting some fun wrestling and lots of guys putting big damn beatings on each other, so it‘s all good entertainment, anyways.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Wiecz! Koparanian! Gueret! Bollet! Alfred Hayes!

Eddy Wiecz/Eddy Koparanian vs. Georges Gueret/Andre Bollet 2/23/56 pt1 pt2

PAS: This is the earliest French footage available, and is a hell of start to this whole project. This isn't the balletic, frenetic, athletic middleweight Catch we have seen. This is four heavyweights pounding on each other. We start off with the top wrist lock lockups which are a Catch staple, and there are some cool flips and takedowns out of those, including a great looking drop toehold by Bollet. The heels (Guret and Bollet) start mixing in some cheap shots,It starts to get chippy, and then just unloads into some absolutely super violent forearm and uppercut exchanges. This is Johnny Valentine level violence from all four guys, including Koparanian doing these super nasty half chop, half eye rakes. We get a first fall win with an airplane spin by Koparanian. There is some really great stuff in the second and third falls as well, although the vicious forearm exchanges at the end of the first fall were the apex. I really liked Weicz working a half crab, and there was this super cool spot where Koparanian kept turing a body scissors into a leg stretch. Finish run of the third fall was really cool with Bollet getting especially viscous with a shot to the back of the head, only to fall to a top rope dropkick/schoolboy combo, which looked more like a Fantastics finish from the 80s, then something from the mid 50s.

SR: 2/3 Falls match that goes about 40 minutes. Our journey into French wrestling begins with Edouard Carpentier of all people. He‘ll be interesting to watch, since he obviously stands out in the US wrestling scene, but in France he might be just another guy. Although I imagine he will definitely get a bump from watching this French footage. This match wasn‘t quite in the super athletic French style that blew all of our minds in the first place anyways, it was instead a classic heat mongering affair. Gueret seemed rather non-descript, but Bollet drew a really loud negative reaction as soon as he was announced. He was a towering guy, he could clearly wrestle, but you could sense that this wouldn‘t be a wrestling heavy match very soon. The match was the type that I imagine sent folks into near riots all across Europe in the post WW2-wrestling boom. It starts with some slick arm rolls and nice wrestling, but they soon get to the real meat. Guys get bitchslapped, cheapshots are thrown, and eventually you have a bunch of heavyweights throwing forearm smashes with abadon. Gueret did look a little bland, but he sure knew how to throw those forearms. The heels would soon start to try and buckle their opponents to the corner to deliver nasty 2 on 1 beatdowns, and the faces would retaliate with ear rakes which the crowd loved. Koparanian was kind of bastard too, he would bitchslap the heels and get in cheapshots of his own. The whole match was worked like this, there would be moments of well executed wrestling, only for someone to throw a forearm or cheapshot and things would fire up. It‘s quite a long match, but they keep the pace up. Add 3 fun finishes and you have one hell of a match.

MD: By all rights, this should have been our first match last week. It is the first match chronologically in the set, but alas, it took a little longer to find the second half. It's 2/3 falls, long, fascinating, dynamic, in many ways, very easy to understand and familiar while also being unique and alien as any new footage can be. There are familiar faces in Bollet (who we've seen not all that long ago vs Andre) and Weicz who would become Carpentier. It goes forty to fifty minutes and there's so much to cover. Look, we could spend a paragraph just talking about how they use handshakes instead of handslaps to tag one another.

Bollet was the real heatseeker and Koparanian, more than Weicz, the charismatic babyface (one excellent at milking a moment). Everyone stood out. We are inundated with footage, but I'm going to remember Guerret's forearms, Weicz' weird slicing chops, and just how much of a goon Bollet was (both in the action itself and how after he won the second fall as he pranced about with some trash flying in the ring). The faces (white trunks) were faces and the heels (black trunks) were heels. There was illegal double teaming and a few measured and over heel miscommunication spots in the corner. It was familiar enough that when you watch it, you won't be lost at sea.

I won't always do this, because it's a terrible way to write a review, but I know the rest of the guys will carry the narrative weight and I just want to make everyone understand just what has been uncovered and why all of you should stop what you're doing and watch it. There were a hundred little details worth noting; we could never get to all of them: Bollet not shaking hands at the start and later avoiding Koparanian to build heat and anticipation; how much French fans seem love the make-a-wish style submissions in this and other matches; how the heels utilized their side of the ring and how Koparanian just pounded his way out of the corner; how dramatic and expressive Bollet and Koparanian were when they were taking and putting on holds respectively; Guerret's hugely credible forearms and fists and how Weicz judo flipped him to reverse one; the endless feet face-twists as super over babyface comeback spots (really all the revenge spots, like Koparanian's rabbit punches after Bollet's examples or the tit-for-tat hairpulls on top wristlock takedowns; revenge spots are the best); the way they used jerk headpokes as an insult; Weicz stopping Guerret's interference shot on Koparanian from mattering by running in with an armdrag to keep Bollet on their side of the ring; the cool Koparanian body-scissors counter that involved hooking his own feet up around the scissoring ones; the heel neck work at the end including Bollet's deep vice and quasi-hotshot; how serious any pinfall attempt was: the finish, a full-nelson set up for a missile dropkick, was preluded by the momentum shift of a mere kickout and it absolutely worked; and the post match celebratory backflips (Bollet had to get into the act and I think the fans were chanting for Guerret to do one too?). This isn't even the half of it. There's so much to see. It's absolutely overwhelming, and it all somehow comes together as a coherent, emotional whole.

Bollet is so fun on offense (both in his underhandeness and how he'd occasionally do something super athletic, like a flip to set up a drop toe hold), so it's a shame he ultimately works from underneath so much. As with what else I've seen so far from this footage, I wish there was a little more selling. It's not that things don't matter, but a lot of limb focusing (be it hand-stepping by Koparanian on Guerret or Guerret taking out Weicz's leg from the outside, etc.) is more to set up the next spot/opening than something that plays into a longer narrative. In general though, it's astounding how far the style had advanced by the mid-50s and how well they filled so much time in entertaining and meaningful ways. 


Al Hayes vs. Guy Robin 3/22/57

SR: This French gem features a 29 years old Al Hayes. Aside from that, there is an obvious thought looking at the matchup: how will a British guy fit into the French wrestling style? The answer is they meet up in the middle and work pretty much a World of Sports style match without rounds, with Hayes working classy British escapes, and Robin bringing the French touches, although the sights of the match were set on a chippy bout from the introductions. There it is immediately noticable how this match is pretty much the Roland Barthes description of wrestling exemplified: Hayes, the clean cut, tall technician who never complains and is never unfair, against the short, balding, somewhat mishapen looking Guy Robin. And Robin really embraces his role to the fullest being a pesky little goblin. And he is a total show here, gesturing big, diving all over the ring like he was Gargamel trying to catch a smurf. His out of control bumping, mannerisms and cartoony stooging were really awesome and may have carried the match. That is not to disparage Hayes, who had some quite beautiful escapes and knew to lay in the european uppercuts when it counts. At one point he did a totally GIF-worthy escape from a cravate that was slow and deliberate like Arkangel de la Muerte, at another he just lifted Robin and threw him, and my favorite may have been his beautiful sweep from the ground. It was almost like carny Jiu Jitsu. The whole match had a slow and deliberate pace, maybe because both guys weren‘t familiar, but they kept it simple and effective, with Robin really bringing the funk towards the end , earning himself a few public warnings and trying to crack Hayes with nasty backbreakers and armbreakers. Hayes retaliated with some nasty face scrapes that seemingly bloodied Robins nose and got sold with BattlARTS style 9 counts. Classic formula match executed extremely well, and it was really cool to see the classy British technical style in place at this stage.

MD: At some point, I'm going to stop being in awe with what we gain in every new match. Not yet though. As noted by others, this was a proto-World of Sport style match, with Hayes as the youthful, intrepid, blue-eye and Robin as the underhanded rogue. We have almost no Hayes on tape: the Veidor match from the 70s, the 80 Heenan manager vs manager match where he's a defacto babyface, and very little else. I love Hayes vs Veidor and I think on some level, despite knowing how unlikely it was, I was hoping for another look at full on heel Hayes here. What we have instead is probably more illuminating, however, because it gives us a more rounded triangulation of Hayes as a wrestler and even some interesting early trappings of "Judo Al" with chops and some of the takedowns. It's also a good look at a very dynamic Robin as the frenetic rulebreaking stooge.

Robin leaned into his role, bounding back and forth early on like a spring, creation motion and energy. He was technically sound, though constantly outwrestled by Hayes, resorting instead to the behind the ref's back rabbit punches that were WoS standard, and adding in a backbreaker variation from that position cool single-arm drops, and pretty nasty knees. There was something almost Backlund-esque to Hayes, with his perfect posture on mares and the way he'd power out of certain holds, to go along with the more deliberate point-by-point escapes and the memorable escalating cravat escapes (first slow and then lightning fast). When he advanced to fighting a bit dirty, whether it be tweaking the nose to allow for an escape or the fisticuffs, it was all with a stiff upper lip. No jury in the world would convict him. The finish was a culmination of what came before, with Hayes bloodying Robin, reversing one of those arm drops, hitting the cradle powerbomb flip and just cinching in a deep accordion pin. Everything was precise enough that you could check your watch by it but it all felt perfectly natural and like a true athlete at work.

PAS: I thought this was absolutely great. Lord Alfred Hayes was a great character actor in the wrestling I grew up on, as sort of a Benny Hill drunk British goof in Tuesday Night Titans sketches. It is so cool to see him young and handsome and incredibly skilled. I loved the contrast in this match with Hayes as an incredibly slick mat master, and Robin as this twitchy aggressive hawk. He was like the guy in a pickup game you hate to play, picking up full court, pushing his chest into you while you are trying to drive, diving at your knees for a loose ball. Hayes worked at his own pace, and had some really beautiful counters, I especially loved all of his escapes from cravates. Finish was really cool with Robin landing these nasty Fujiwara armbar takedowns, and Hayes getting frustrated with Robin's bullshit and messing up his nose, and pinning him deep.

Read more!