Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Corn! Henker! Samourai!

Gilbert Leduc/Jacky Corn vs Der Henker/Le Samourai 6/13/75

MD: Some old friends here in Corn and Henker (Remy Bayle). We're not entirely sure who Samourai was  but he was pretty good at what he did and we do have various Samourais in other 70s footage. They made sure to note that we had an Axis team on the heel side. I will say this though: the Henker gimmick was a few years in now. He's a monster, a brick wall, someone you're not going to stagger back with even a strong shot, but he's not the monster he was a few years before. Remember, he once took on both Corn and Leduc by himself. Here they needed to take out a leg or use finesse to take him down for the most part (though Leduc could manage it, eventually, with even a headlock takeover worked hard enough). And he ultimately ate a very clean pin off of a very clean slam to end the second fall in the match. Still, most of the time, they had to double team or outsmart a double team attempt to really get him down and they recovered more often than not against Samourai. 

This was probably a little long going ~40 with the introductions but every exchange was good. It just means you ended up seeing Leduc's toupie headspin 3-4 times when 1-2 would have done the trick instead. Samourai was slick, able to do the karate shtick but also keep up with all of the wrestling and feed when he had to. When he was in there against Corn they were able to turn up the speed a little bit. He also had a lot of very fun comedy bits where he slid around the ring and sometimes all the way out to the first row. The first fall was long and didn't have too much peril for the stylists. The second fall was shorter but had them working from underneath (Corn especially) a little more. I'm not saying the stakes weren't there because Henker always was a threat but again, this wasn't the Henker of a few years earlier. Lots of good individual moments and spots because Corn catching Samourai in an unlikely body scissors or Leduc torquing Henker's arm one way and then the other to get him down will always delight, but there was a moment thirty minutes in where it did feel a little much having not watched one of these long tags in a while. Still another enjoyable entry into the Henker vs Leduc/Corn feud (one of the better feuds of the 70s that we have considerable footage of) overall.

SR: I think this is the latest apearance we have of Gilbert Leduc. Cagematch says he indeed retired in 1975, so this might be a last hurray of sorts. He still does the beautiful head spinning escape. Other than that this was notably slowed down. There's some somewhat compelling work but also a lot of holds and the whole thing feels way too long. Give some credit to Le Samurai, its hard to read 'Le Samurai' and not think of Alan Deloin, but this masked guy did a few nifty things. One thing I noticed that masked heels seem less incompetent and outmatched than your typical French heels. Samurai is able to do a bit of neat wrestling, including a rope hanging choke move that was really neat and also those nifty rolling bumps and odd mannerisms, and the Henker is at least hard to get off his feet. There is some of the fun bumping and stooging that we know from the French tags and a few good moments such as a crossbody being caught into a gutwrench suplex. But yeah this was too long and slow paced overall. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Leduc! Ramirez! Boucard! Mercier! Asquini! MacGregor! O'Connor!

Walter Bordes/Gilbert Leduc vs Paco Ramirez/Daniel Boucard 7/25/77

MD: We get a solid 20 minutes of action here, so while this is incomplete, there's a lot to see, and a lot of enjoy, and a lot to learn. For one, it's Leduc, the wrestler of the 60s, teaming with Bordes, who may well be the wrestler of the 70s. Ramirez, working sort of ebullient yet cowardly matador gimmick, was a great heatseeking heel and Boucard, more of a mugging, clubbering one. Leduc still had it, able to slug it out and do all of his signature spins and Bordes had such amazing energy, both when he was charging headlong into his own offense and eating Ramirez' charging headbutts to the guts. Sometimes, he went so fast that it went haywire, like when he tried to flip up into a 'rana off, but they always recovered; here it was with a nasty power bomb. The structure of this makes it a bit of a shame we dont' have all of it, as Boucard and Ramirez, after shaking hands politely, staged and ambush and actually pinned Leduc in the first minute. We only get the brunt of the second fall before the video cuts off, unfortunately, but it was very complete in the action we do have, exchanges and bits of heat and comebacks and the occasional slugfest. This will be our last look at Leduc so I saw it as something of a passing of the torch to a more than game Bordes.

Guy Mercier/Bruno Asquini vs Alan MacGregor/Marc O'Connor 8/1/77

MD: Michel Saulnier was an exceptional wrestler and trained Andre and Petit Prince if I'm not mistaken but he was an outright heel ref here, as heelish as we've seen, and while it absolutely got everyone in the crowd angry, especially as this was a crowd filled with more kids than usual, it ended up being a bit much in this one. Let me put it this way. It was okay this one time, because it certainly worked for what they were trying to do, but as someone watching 45 years later, hopefully they don't go back to the well again. On a social level it was interesting to see the announcer laughing and dismissing Saulnier's antics as good fun and patronizing the kids in the audience for taking it all too seriously. That gives you some sense of how all of this was taken in France on a macro level maybe?

It was all so over the top and comedic (with the comebacks being about Mercier and Asquini attacking Saulnier as much as attacking the Scots) that you really have to take it as its own thing and it makes it hard to compare to more conventional matches. That's almost a shame because this had more straight up heat than most French matches we see. The heels dominated almost the whole thing, mainly through control of Asquini's arm, cutting off the ring, some very credible offense, and of course, Saulnier missing tags and holding Mercier back. MacGregor had size and hit hard and O'Connor was a real mean mugging goon type. Asquini, older but spry, did very well as face-in-peril including setting up and paying off his hot tags rolling across the ring and Mercier, unsurprisingly, was able to knock everyone about when it was his time to come in. There wasn't really any meaningful selling of the arm but it still made sense as a was to control things. The celebratory last fall was shorter than usual though you got glimpses in the second and so much of it was about Saulnier getting his comeuppance. It was certainly fun, no question about that.

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

Georges Cohen vs Chico de Oro 2/23/74 

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

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

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

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Mychel! Dumez! Cohen! Montoro! Tejero!

Gilbert Leduc vs. Bert Mychel 4/16/73

MD: This is a rematch to a very good match from a couple of years earlier. Mychel was a two time Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling. We come in late, maybe ten minutes in, but by this point, everything is gritty as hell and it never, ever lets up, not even once, over the next twenty-five plus minutes. One of the first things we see is Leduc powering Mychel over with the tightest cravat you'll ever see, just torquing his head around. As the match escalates, they'd escalate to throwing forearms, just pounding each other, both in holds and on their feet, but it never felt unsportsmanlike. It never felt craven or underhanded. It felt like exactly what they needed to do to contest each other. That was the level of skill and grit and determination and power and precision. They rolled around the ring, and it was everything Leduc could do to keep Mychel in a hold. Even with the slightly deteriorated film stock, you'd see it in his face, the exhaustion and frustration. He would catch him with a fake out, would take a leg, would snatch an arm, would get him down but there was no rest, no respite, no real control. Mychel was always grabbing for a limb, locking arms around a waist, and as the match went on, kicking or smacking, doing anything he could to escape.

Meanwhile, Leduc, even deep into his 40s, was an absolute warrior, always back up on his feet to fight, always pushing forward, giving his all to escape each hold, but sometimes not how he'd prefer. He was able to get his trademark headstand spin out of an arm puller, but for the headscissors, he couldn't manage it; they were just too tight. He had to squirm his way out through splitting the legs, through doing anything else he could. Maybe that's why he did strike first once or twice, but you never held it against him. It was what he had to do; the stakes were that high, his opponent that deadly. It was just business. Towards the end, he was the first to pick up speed, to escalate things further, but a high cross body went awry and he tumbled over the top rope. He climbed back in but was felled by three consequtive fall away slams by Mychel, able to pull himself up after the first two, but not the third. You can jump into any moment of this match and watch the two of them push each other up against the limit. Even when they were striking one another back and forth, they seemed to cut the gap so that they were almost face to face. There wasn't an inch of give there and there wasn't an inch of give anywhere else in this one. An amazing thing, maybe more so considering we've been watching Leduc go at it for almost two decades now and that he was able to create an equally exceptional but very different, gaga filled match when he teamed with Corn against Henker. What a struggle.

ER: We've seen a lot of stiff, well-executed matches in the 20 years of Catch, but this might be the match with the best fight feel we've seen. I don't think we've covered a French match like this. This felt like bad blood, but bad blood between two real entertainers. It all ended in Leduc being helped to his feet, but the 25 minutes before that sportsmanship was filled with potential hamstring injuries or broken jaws. This was Gilbert Leduc working as smooth as Santo but more violent than Finlay. Leduc's headspin escape should at minimum put him some sort of respected-in-the-right-circles Breakdancing Progenitor role. There was a real missed opportunity to have a Street Stylin Jacques Tati short feature with a Frenchman in a well tailored suit breakdancing on the L Train. Leduc could have started in a Spike Jonze video in a slightly different life. 

But in this life, he's trying to break Bert Mychel's hands by snapping at them with his strong grip (see how vice grip Leduc applies a cravat and picture that grip pinching into your hamate bone. Leduc pounds Mychel's hand into the mat, knuckles going into the soft spot of the palm. Michael takes the hand breaking in stride and sees where Leduc wants to take this, and starts colliding with him on every strike. Once we built to strikes, I'm not sure there were any strikes that only made contact in one spot. They start throwing their whole body into uppercuts, throwing a shoulder into the clavicle while throwing a forearm across a length of jaw. As the striking got more intense, the matwork got more intense. Leduc had an escape where he grapevined Mychel's leg out of a hold and rolled through so hard that it made my hamstrings sore. And the more intense the matwork gets the harder the strikes keep landing. Mychel rings Leduc's bell with one of the loudest open hand slaps, and the crowd reacts in more of a DAMN! way than with pro wrestling heat. It all builds to Mychel fallaway slamming Leduc to death repeatedly, throwing him over the top rope to the apron, then throwing him more onto the ring until the ref stops the damn match. It's pretty incredible the different ways that French Catch has continued to outdo itself, and I don't think there's another Catch match like this one. 

PAS: This was great stuff, it felt like a Billy Robinson or Terry Rudge match more than any other Catch match we have seen. We have seen other matches with great mat wrestling, and other matches with big striking, but this kind of hard gritty mat wrestling was a new thing. Every bit of grappling felt incredibly painful, and the spots with Leduc pounding Mychel's hand was iconically sick shit, it looked like he was torturing an enemy agent. Loved the finish too, with the multiple big fallaway slams. This footage just keeps delivering. 

Maurice Dumez/Georges Cohen vs. Antonio Montoro/Anton Tejero 4/30/73

MD: I think we have four matches with Montoro in the collection. This is the last. He has a rep of being one of the best Spanish workers, up there with Aledo, and he's so good and so versatile in what we have of him, especially his 70s work, that you can really see it. If someone who had lived through this period and watched these matches told me that he was the best they'd seen, I'd believe it. We just don't have enough footage to make that claim ourselves. He's taller, lankier, but can keep up with everyone in rope running and quick exchanges. He's hugely imaginative, using the conjuro backbreaker, a ripcord into a spinning tombstone, complex and intricate rope-running spots. He works those spots into callbacks, winning the first fall with a leap back body press off the top and losing the second by having Cohen catch him while attempting the same move. He has just enough personality throughout it all, raising his hands to deny cheating, sneaking in shots, having his arms flail about as he's getting punched. He bases for all sorts of offense, including a really tricked out headlock takeover exchange by Dumez, and bumps all over the ring, including a mad leap backwards on a miscommunication spot where Tejero crashed into his gut to set up the finish.

Tejero, of course, given his girth, bumps like mad as well. Dumez and Cohen were more than up to the task to face them here. I wish some of the comebacks had a little more dramatic oomph to them, as the beatings were solid and the heat was good, but when they came, they came a little too easy and didn't have that perfect flash of lightning to make them possible. Still, you watch this and marvel that Dumez and Cohen could take and hit all of Tejero and Montoro's stuff and equally that Montoro and Tejero could take and feed for all of Cohen and Dumez' stuff. You can't fault a second of the action in this one.

ER: We did not have a 1973 match on our All Time MOTY List, and none of us have seen a better contender from 1973 than Leduc/Mychel, so that match is now our 1973 champion! Peep the rest of our All Time MOTY List at the link below: 

ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Catanzaro! Bernaert! Mantopolous! Montreal! Corn! Leduc! Henker!

Billy Catanzaro/Pierre Bernaert vs. Mr. Montreal/Vasilios Mantopolous 6/5/72

MD:  I'm amazed we didn't watch this one before. It could be that we saw it was a swimming pool match and decided against it because the few pool matches we've seen so far just haven't been great. This had a few things going for it though. First, it had Billy Catanzaro who is a singular, once in a century, stooging heel. It had Bernaert who is as professional a put upon bad guy as you'll find. It had Montreal who was one of the biggest positive surprises in all of the footage because even a muscle man, in France, was excellent. And of course, it had Mantopolous, who was imaginative, creative, deft, skilled, very over, whatever word you want to use, just a marvel. Even so, what made this work was that they treated the water like a big deal. The tag setting meant that Bernaert could get knocked out relatively early due to mishaps with his own partner, but they took twenty minutes teasing the reviled Catanzaro going out with any number of close calls. It ended up being a bit like an exploding ring match where they tease it and tease it and then finally pay it off, here with Mantopolous skinning the cat and taking Billy over, except for instead of pain and destruction it was a wet humiliation that Catanzaro was trying to avoid. The tag nature meant that Bernaert could suffer repeatedly and keep the fans happy and the gimmick fulfilled while the tension for Catanzaro finally crashing into the pool rose and rose. Once that happened they were already in the second fall and they could just keep building upon it.

There wasn't going to be much heat here. Some cheapshots, some tandem cheating, but it was almost always to set up immediate comeuppance for the bad guys. This was all about keeping the crowd happy and the interplay between Bernaert and Catanzaro was perfect for that. Catanzaro was a jerk's jerk, so much so that Bernaert, a jerk himself, was getting more and more furious at him. On the other side you had Montreal's strength spots and big hammering blows and Mantopolous flying around the ring, using tricked out takedowns, and lady in the lake turtling to make fools out of his opponents. This wasn't the most dramatic match we've seen but it was wildly entertaining the whole way through.

Gilbert Leduc/Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker 7/5/72

MD: This was actually a tremendous piece of business, maybe the most emotionally resonant match we've seen in the entire set. Corn and Leduc were true stars, wrestlers' wrestlers, absolutely tops on my list of babyfaces and stylists I've seen in this footage. They were heroes. Henker was another in the line of masked headsmen but he had an aura, hard shots, big power moves, believability. We'd seen him face off against Leduc and Corn in singles matches already and I wouldn't say anything in those made it inevitable that he could take on both in a handicap match, but they leaned harder into his power and presence here and laid out a match that caused a near riot and that left everyone looking better than they came in.

Early going here was Henker's power up against Corn or Leduc's skill. They would tag in and out and never double team or cheat. Leduc obviously made good use of his headstand and the Mascaras style headscissors. Corn would go quicker into the strike exchanges. Midway through the match, Henker was able to toss Corn out, to slam his head onto the post as he was trying to come back in, and then to drop him hard with a tombstone. The crowd banded together to carry Corn to the back leaving Leduc alone. Leduc did well at first, taking over and even going for the mask, but the ref held him back allowing for a Henker cheap shot and infuriating the crowd. From there, it was Henker slowly whittling Leduc down with big blows and power moves even as the crowd occasionally tried to storm the ring. Leduc would get pops every time he tried to get up, every time he threw a futile blow but Henker was just too much, or at least he was until, minutes down the line, Corn, head taped up, rushed back to the ring. He got the tag and the tide turned with Corn (one of the best late match sluggers ever) and eventually Leduc getting revenge on both Henker and the ref. From there, it was more about Henker surviving the onslaught and making it to the time limit draw, which, as I said, left everyone looking formidable and respectable by the end. The last shot is Corn and Leduc embracing to the crowd's delight. We've seen many matches that were technically better but maybe none that had more heart.

PAS: This was a blast. Henker is a big beastly dude, and I liked how the match built from more exchanges to big bursts of violence. You don't see much blood in French Catch and to see Corn just dripping after getting smashed by those nasty elbow/forearms and the posting was pretty memorable. Also the mass of people carrying him to the back like a martyred rebel leader was awesome. They had really established Henker as so formidable that LeDuc being one on one with him felt like he was at a big disadvantage. Corn coming from the back was iconic and his fired up comeback was some Lawler Mid-South Coliseum level great stuff. After all that I would have liked a more conclusive ending then a draw, but this was very cool stuff.  

ER: I wasn't sure what to expect from this as the handicap structure felt odd. Der Henker is a big man but not so much bigger than Leduc or Corn that a handicap match feels necessary, but these men had all been feuding for a year or more and this was two of the best babyfaces teaming up to rid France of this asshole Executioner. I'm used to German words sounding more ominous than their American counterparts, but I admittedly think that Executioner sounds much cooler than Der Henker. That said, tell every person in attendance that Der Henker doesn't sound ominous and they'd find you mad, as this man is loathed. I love when a French Catch match has these simmering social situations that just keep getting hotter until they boil over, leading women in their nice coats to charge the ring and yell in Der Henker's face.

Henker did a good job of fending off the fighting babyfaces, but things went up to the next level when he tossed Corn to the floor and posted him, then dropped him with a tombstone. Up to that point it had mostly been Henker defending and clubbing in response (with these weird but also cool elbow strikes that landed the entire inside of his arm and elbow across Corn and Leduc's heads), but this was an actual outright offense! The crowd actually carried the injured Corn to the back and I thought for sure that there was going to be a riot, as Der Henker had the stones to actually get out of the ring and face the crowd, more of them pushing closer to the ring every second. A kid, 12 years old tops, even starts to climb up the ring steps to get in before an adult grabs him! 

The match had given us a lot of holds to work out of and now was the time for the uppercuts to start landing. Henker kept winning exchanges, taking a lot of damage, but not staggering or falling to his knees, into the ropes the way Leduc was. Leduc's best attack was his cool slingshot into the ropes, Der Henker falling back hard - twice! - into the points of Leduc's knees. But Der Henker's excellent press slam gutbuster (a move that might have made me flip out even more than the French acrobatics, had I been alive and in attendance) and tombstone on made it seem like that bad guy was taking this, leading to the bloody and wild Corn returning to save his partner. The finishing stretch to the (admittedly disappointing but understandable) time limit draw was pure joy. Corn threw his closed fists to the side of Henker's head and really let loose with uppercuts. Der Henker got stuck in the ropes, the referee got monkey flipped into Der Henker, total madness leading to our draw. I loved how this kept building and leapt into something huge. 

 

ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Henker! Siki! Masque

Gilbrt Leduc vs. Der Henker 7/31/71

As best as I can tell, this was for Leduc's Light Heavyweight Title, though I don't think Henker was at all a Light anything. I'd call it a very good title match and go further to that to say that Henker might have been the best pure wrestler of the monsters we've seen, in as he made the gimmick work while still wrestling the sort of title match you'd expect out of the footage. That meant early on Leduc couldn't get an edge on him due to Henker's superior strength but that Henker couldn't keep Leduc down in holds for long given Leduc's prowess and his amazing headstand escapes. As the match went on, there was a sense of both wrestlers wearing down. Leduc, especially, was able to pry off a hand and hammer it repeatedly, though he lost focus occasionally between feuding with the ref and trying to get Henker's mask off. At around the twenty-five minute mark, Henker really opened the match up for the first time with a huge fireman's carry gutbuster and a tombstone, but Leduc mounted a bit comeback by reversing a second tombstone and scored a pretty triumphant win. We haven't seen too many matches outright billed as title matches in the footage and while this isn't going to hold up against a Tony Oliver vs Bert Royal sort of match, it was very good for what it was.


Mammoth Siki vs. L'Homme Masque 8/21/71

MD: Often they'll present other wrestlers before the match and they'll shake hands and wave to the crowd. The most interesting of these was when we first saw Andre and Petit Prince. Here we get the Hippy and some others but actor Michel le Royer as well, who will guest commentate. I mainly mention because unless I'm mistaken, he died just a week or two ago. I've gotten the sense over the last few months that they've made a real effort to mention celebrities or athletes in the crowd. It's probably an attempt to stay relevant but I'll be honest, from a totally textual examination, things don't seem less hot in 71 than they did in 61.

I'm not sure how much we know about Siki. His name sounds more familiar than the internet record would leave you to believe. He worked in Germany and Japan in the 70s and does, in fact, feel like a pretty great Inoki opponent (they wrestled in 74). Save for his dropkicks, nothing he did was particularly spectacular, but everything was backstopped by his size, presence, and charisma. He came off as someone who was a wonderful attraction but that you wouldn't want to see every week. The first third of the match was L'Homme Masque, who was of course massive, trying various holds and Siki reversing them, driving L'Homme into the ropes. He finally found an achilles heal with a grinding leglock in the second third but Siki continued to escape and press his own advantage with a headbutt or dropkick or an arm driver. Basically, Siki had an answer to everything L'Homme could do. The last third was crowd pleasing as Siki went for the mask again and again until eventually getting it, leading to the ref being used as a ranged weapon and Siki scoring the win. The novelty here was the size and by doing simple things but making it seem like a lot of effort was going into them, the match more or less worked. I'm just not sure I needed twenty five minutes of it.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Batman! Viracocha! Der Henker! Corn! Leduc! Kamikaze

Batman/Paco Ramirez vs. Inca Viracocha/Gonzalez 5/17/71

MD: A rare one-fall tag (or alternatively just the first fall of a longer one, but I don't think that's the case). Between this and the first fall of the Genele tag from last week, I think it's pretty safe to say, two years in, that most of these French tags probably would have been better if they weren't in an unbalanced 2/3 falls format. This was very good as a standalone fall. Neither of these Peruvian heels are Peruano but they're both very good in their own way. Viracocha can lean on someone and Gonzales had a wild energy with some big high spots that you'd expect out of a babyface like dropkicks and cartwheels. He also shouted Arriba! in one of his first moments in the match which popped literally everyone including the announcer. Where they really excelled was cutting off the ring and sneaking in shots to keep their opponents down in the corner. And feeding for the faces, of course. Batman looked as good here as we'd ever seen him, mixing in a couple of power moments that almost felt heroic in with his usual technical, tricked out stuff. Ramirez was a game partner, fiery at times, especially in drawing away the ref enthusiastically when his partner was getting double teamed. Just a really good, really solid tag.

Der Henker/Kamikaze vs. Jacky Corn/Gilbert Leduc 6/14/71


MD: This one felt special. First off, it was Leduc and Corn teaming together, which has been rare, just two of the biggest, best scrapping, technical babyface stars we've seen in the footage. They were greeted at the start by dancing majorettes and a marching band. Kamikaze may well have been Aledo, but it's hard to tell because he was so immersed in the gimmick. When he bumped, he bumped huge, and he was quick, but his offense was primarily chops (including high, low, high attacks), and he was way over the top with the stereotypical Japanese act. Henker was nothing if not consistent, an absolute monster. Much of the early part of the match was Henker shrugging off Corn and Leduc's technical wizardry. As none of the conventional wristlocks or up and over escapes worked, they built to Leduc's trademark headspin headscissors and that at least chipped away at him a bit. Towards the end of the first fall, they were able to get him out long enough for Corn to hit this amazing gutwrench throw on Kamikaze for the fall.

Henker became absolutely unleashed in the second fall, press slamming Leduc into a gutbuster and then just crushing him with a tombstone. Leduc ended up getting taken to the back (rare for this footage) as the heels continued to work on Corn, including another press slam gutbuster, and alternating tombstones from Henker and karate shots from Kamikaze, before a third tombstone meant that he couldn't answer the call. My favorite part of this beating was Kamikaze doing something I'd never seen before. He lifted Corn up in a Rude Awakening style over the shoulder neckbreaker and then walked him over to the ropes, slipped Corn's head under the top rope and lifted up to choke him with it while still holding the over the shoulder neckbreaker. Awesome stuff.

The third fall set things up to seem impossible for Corn. He barely recovered to meet the bell and, as the beating continued, he kept crawling to a corner with no partner. Then, suddenly the crowd erupted as Leduc somehow powered his way from the back. Corn rolled for a hot tag and Leduc started unloading on the heels (and the ref as well when he tried to get in the way). Henker would come back, but as the fall went on, Corn and Leduc would continue to get the upper hand until they could finally tie up Henker in the ropes long enough to score the win over Kamikaze. This wasn't the most technically sound match we've seen. It didn't have the highest workrate or the craziest moves or the most intense shots, but it told a hell of a story that the fans completely got behind and like I said, even in a sea of footage that gives us great wrestling week in and week out, this felt special.

PAS: This was really great stuff, wild over babyfaces mean flamboyant heels, wrestling at its best. I love LeDuc one of my favorite guys on the set, he has an almost Mr. Wrestling 2 vibe with a combo of dancing and asskicking. I loved him in the third fall, as he hit these super cool fast forearm combos, and then tying up Henker and catapulting  Kamikaze into him. Not sure if Kamikaze was Aledo, but he ruled, Aledo unmasked has less restrictions on what he could do, but Kamikaze was a tremendous evil Asian heel, cool chops big bumps, vicious and stoogy, exactly what you want.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Falempin! Gilmour! Kaye! Der Henker! Corn! Leduc! Mychel

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs. Ian Gilmour/Jeff Kaye 11/14/70

SR: 1 fall match going 30 minutes. I was expecting the Brits to bring some heat, but this was a pure technico vs. technico contest. Pretty much just one exchange after another, and while it wasn't high speed athletic stuff there were some smoth cartwheels and pin exchanges. To be honest I could not tell who was who, but everyone was about on the same level. Dug all the technical trickery such as the various turn-yourself-into-a-ball-moves, there was a nifty wrist legsscissor and a cool sequence from a stepping inside pin that turned into both wrestlers turning into an amateur scramble. Things got a bit fired up here and there but the match stayed clean and never really seemed to indicate that you were about to see a finish. Great to watch if you just want to see some good wrestling though.

MD: Another week, another excellent tag. This was face vs face with the premise being that the Bretons were up against the Scots, with bagpipes and flags for everyone on the entrance. Lots of fast, tricky exchanges back and forth. They were working towards a draw but I didn't figure it out until the last third. I think this is our earliest look at Gilmour and he brought a lot of flash with his cartwheel escapes. Kaye had some stilting escapes of his own where he just snuck out of headlocks or headscissors. I wouldn't say it necessarily boiled over towards the end, but it did get more chippy, first with headbutts to the gut off the ropes and then with the forearms and uppercuts. Before that, even when they might focus hard on an arm with lifts or hammerlocked throws, they were also very quick to help when someone's throat got stuck in the ropes, very sportsmanlike. A big chunk of this was taken up by the commentator hobnobbing with people in the front row which hurt the mood a little but, but the holds, escapes, counters, rope running, and finally escalating shots as they ran out of time were all excellent.

Der Henker vs. Jacky Corn 12/12/70

MD: Hell of a debut for Henker, who was billed as a German sort of headsman (as opposed to the French one we've gotten before). He came off as something of a total package, able to lock in holds, escape from them, having superior power, able to knock Corn down with one shot and absorb multiple ones from him, able to pick up the pace a little with pin exchanges, and with a real vicious streak that came through at the end. Corn was his usual self, able to slug it out with anyone and with a fiery streak in his comebacks and when they got going in the stretch this really did become a slugfest. Henker had a way of meeting him head on right until he didn't, and the key moment towards the finish was when he went low in a strike exchange. That let him toss Corn out and then post his head on the way back in. Corn bled, which has been pretty rare in this footage overall, and Henker focused in on it, though it's worth nothing that Corn was still trying to fire back right until the end, which was a resounding tombstone and a stoppage as everyone was more than a little concerned for their longtime hero (including Mr. Lageat, Corn's father and the promoter). Good debut that put over Henker as a dangerous force but not an unstoppable one.

Gilbert Leduc vs. Bert Mychel 12/12/70

MD: In the last third of this match, the commentator sums it up better than I can (or at least the youtube translation I use did): "No Unnecessary malice but holds well worked." Mychel was a former two time Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling and he had an amazing fall away slam, a real ability to dominate while in a hold and to turn escape attempts into slams, and even went for a really interesting gutwrench once. Leduc was 38 at this point, remained a real master at the headspin escape, could outstrike Mychel, and could hold his own in the wrestling (that gutwrench? Leduc picked a leg out and got a hold out of it). This was wrestled clean though it threatened to boil over once or twice and other than those fall away slams and some Leduc crab attempts towards the end, would have fit right in ten+ years earlier. But the struggle in holds, especially as Mychel didn't want to just go along with Leduc's headspin, was excellent throughout. Late in the match, Leduc would return the favor, eating one too many fall away slams before finding a way to jam Mychel on them. Two experts wrestling expertly for a title belt and celebrating each other's skills after the match.

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Seems we JIP'd a couple minutes into it. This was a slow match where guys fight in and out of holds. It was enjoyable but pretty much for the purists only. If you can get into that, it was quite good. Mychels suplexes were great and there was a really cool moment from a gutwrench suplex that turned into a scramble. A bitchslap happens at one point but they kept working a technical match, though the crowd seemed willing to go unruly at Mychel. The only shade I can throw at this match is that it wasn't as good as Leducs 50s work (50s Leduc would've bitten Mychels ear off) but few things are.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Batman! Inca! LeDuc, Gonzalez! Mercier! Lemarre! Marsalo!

3 on 3 series: Batman vs. Inca Viracocha, Gilbert LeDuc vs. Jo Gonzales, Jean Corne vs ??? 12/20/69

La Batman vs. Inca Viracocha

MD: This was a three on three event where they drew names (or threw names) and then went one-on-one. The announcer claimed this was a brand new thing they were trying. This was the first pairing and it was very good. Batman isn't the very best stylist we've seen but he had some size and charisma and could really hit a lot of stuff effortlessly. He had some signature spots no one else did, like his up and over to get out of a headlock. Viracocha, as we're quickly learning, may not have Peruano's flair but he was a quality cheapshot artist and stooge who could hit an extra gear on rope running and feed into all of Batman's offense. Lots of little counters and jockeying for positioning. This went a little shorter than normal given the format and ended with very rare interference from Gonzales to explain how Viracocha could take the first fall for his team.

Gilbert LeDuc vs. Jo Gonzales

MD: Gonzales (who I think was Jo) was dressed like Viracocha with the pancho and similar pants. I feel like we haven't seen LeDuc for a while, but he still knew how to work from underneath exceptionally well and had the trademark headspins. They worked some long holds where Gonzales held on well, and Gonzales certainly stooged like a champ, including teasing a hand behind his back like Mantopolous only to get kicked in the face by LeDuc who was too old for that crap. LeDuc was a real crowd pleaser, especially when he put on a leglock, whacked the knee to bring Gonzales to a seated position and then chopped him as he sat up. Repeating that a couple of times got the crowd chanting. He had all of the older French spots (like the repeated body scissors drop) and the leg whacks on the rolling leg nelson and they were all used to high effect. He took the second fall, but unfortunately we ran out of time before we could get the third: Corne vs whoever he was lined up against (which was some guy with a top hat that I never caught the name of).

Jacky Corn/Guy Mercier vs. Ted Lamarre/Jo Marsalo ?/?/70

MD: Excellent, excellent wrestling here. This was nominally stylist vs stylist with guys who were very experienced. We haven't seen too many stylist vs stylist tags. It's usually singles, and that gave this an interesting dynamic where it got heated, especially towards the end, but would lead more to holds than hard shots throughout the match. Lamarre and Marsalo were more the aggressors maybe, quicker to go mean if not dirty, with Mercier and Corn doing more of the firing back. Lots of great sequences. I thought Mercier had plenty of fun stuff, lots of leverage throws and takeovers. Lamarre kept up with his opponents and worked some of the best chinlocks I've ever seen, amazingly tight, amazingly competitive. In general, they spent a lot of the match rolling all over the place jockeying for position. Marsalo was more of a bruiser, bigger and stockier with a slam to Corn over the top rope or bearhug attempts, but the tag nature of this meant that it kept moving. Instead of Corn's usual big comeback, he built to a hot tag after the second fall and a very quick third fall which was Mercier cleaning house. Top notch match of its style and now I wish we had more stylist vs stylist tags.

PAS: Yeah this was nifty stuff, this didn't have the lighting fast exchanges of the lighter weight wrestlers, but lots of cool technical wrestling including lots of cool spots working out of Lamarre's chinlocks, and an extended short arm scissors section which is one of my favorite things in wrestling. We got some solid clubbing when it broke down a bit as well. The pacing of this was a bit weird with the long first and second falls, and the 90 second third fall, but the actual work was top notch

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Sullivan! Martino! Caclard! Noirs! LeDuc! BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!

Albert Sanniez/Francis Sullivan vs. Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard 10/21/67

MD: At some point in this one, you just need to stop and sit back and relax and watch the thing. We've seen some very, very good middleweight tags over the last few months and this is where I wonder if they didn't go just a little too far, well on their way to the trampoline space catch match where you know they got too far. This was full of absolutely spectacular and amazing spots, spots that we hadn't seen yet in the footage chronologically, as best as I can tell. Sanniez had a way of contorting himself upside down and back to his feet that he used to high effect. Sullivan, past his great headbutts, was a tiny burst of terror able to fly around. Martino and Calcard kept up, certainly, and based and stooged and whatever else. At times, I think it felt too cooperative which is not something I've felt about almost any match too far, though everything had oomph behind it. They were countering counters, cartwheeling, headcissoring, rana'ing and blocking 'ranas. While the fans were appreciative throughout, everything shifted somewhat around the fifteen minute mark when the heels started to act that way. Martino especially was nasty. Now, the comebacks felt more earned and the big spots felt like they were worth something. There was a bit too much of the ref asserting himself (which made things feel almost like a midget match towards the end) but the moments of triumph came to feel triumphant. This match was at its best when it felt like a match instead of an exhibition, but at least the exhibition that we got for the first half was absolutely spectacular.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. This was one of my absolute favourite French matches when I first saw it, and even so much more French catch being unearthed, it still stands out head and shoulders as one of the absolute top tier tags. What made this stand out among the dozens of French face vs. Heel tags was the technical skillset of Martino and Caclard. The opening minutes were just some beautiful wrestling, just basic throws and holds executed with a unique touch, such as the guys being dragged all the way over the back on snapmares as if they were judo throws, or guys being prevented from making headscissor escapes. Martino and Caclard largely stood their ground, and the first fall was basically 20 minutes of edge of your seat lightweight wrestling with a serious competitive streak. Eventually Caclard and Martino wanted to start roughing their opponents up and tried cutting off the ring, but Sullivan and Sanniez wouldn‘t let it happen. Eventually they just let loose and start beating the shit out of their opponents. 

Sullivan was awesome, like a mini Tenryu who could also do acrobatic moves, and during the heat segments he would just explode kicking the shit out of opponents with nasty kicks to the mid section, punches and those explosive dropkicks. Caclard looked snotnosed but was quite the fucker too, and you get the sense the heels were really trying to bruise up the faces kidneys. I also really dug the use of the hammerlocks and chickenwing. So the 2nd fall has the rudos evening the score through rough methods and the 3rd fall was all out with the faces having to step up to those foul moves. The athleticism in the match was just amazing, even by the standards of French wrestling. I think both Sanniez and Sullivan had an acrobatics background and it showed as they both busted out beautiful athletic counters, dropkicks and ranas left and right. They weren‘t afraid to throw hard shots too, and so the match just became a frenzy of beautifully executed and timed sequences and brutal strike exchanges. At one point Sanniez was bouncing around hitting like a dozen dropkicks to the left and right, something that would even make most athletes throw up. They went about all this in such an elegant and seamless way as if doing this kind of match was natural for them. Total classic, and still a stone cold contender for the best of all the French tags which would pretty much make it a contender for the greatest tag of all time. Just 30 minutes of the most beautiful and violent pro wrestling ever filmed.

PAS: Wild stuff. The match was worked at a incredible pace throughout, but there were spots when they would amp it up to 11, which were some of the fastest things I have ever seen in a wrestling match. Sanniez especially could flip out of anything and land on his feet. I also really liked how it broke down into something more violent at the end, with some really sharp and nasty punches and kicks. That ability to get down and fist fight was something that really separated the magnificent French Catch lightweights with those that followed them. They were brilliant acrobats, but it wasn't just acrobatics wrestling needs that grit to really make it work. 

Gilbert Leduc/Batman vs. Blousons Noirs 12/1/67

MD: Our first hair match and maybe the most iconic Blousons match possible, with some interesting structural flourishes we just haven't seen much of. After a bit of even wrestling and babyface shine (with some unforced errors as the stylists miss a kneedrop here or there), the Blousons undo the corner protection and toss Leduc in to start the heat that'll extend past the surprisingly short first fall into the second. Just amazing tag work here as they cut off the ring and make sure to follow up every kick out or but of hope with a nasty kick to the back. As always, Manneveau is the stooge, constantly grabbing from outside and mugging and cheapshotting and Gessat is the meanest guy in the world with his shots. By taking the early fall, it means that the next twenty or so minutes has Leduc and Batman at risk of losing their hair. Ultimately, though, Leduc is able to counter an attempt at a double team and we get one of the hottest tags we've seen in all the footage. 

The second fall is very long, with Batman and Leduc having to come back from a severe disadvantage due to the beating in the first one. They'll get one up on the Blousons but then fall to cheating and double teaming until something ultimately backfires again. Here, Leduc gets to do all of his headstand spots and Batman gets to get in plenty of cartwheeling, but they almost always end up in the wrong corner and have to fight back from underneath once more. Ultimately, after the third big spot where they knock both guys out of the ring, they are able to tie up Manneveau which allows for the pin. After that, the third fall is academic and the only question is eliminating the other Blouson so the pin can actually happen. Therefore, the crowd goes nuts when Leduc runs around the ring to grab Gessat's legs from the outside preventing him from coming into break up the pin and leading to Manneveau getting shaved. There were a few moments in the second fall where it dragged just a little and they didn't quite press hard enough into the peril of the faces losing their hair, but in general, this was excellent, just an amazing, classic heel tag team performance by Manneveau and Gessat with the good guys more than holding up their end. There was more thought put into this one than normal too and it showed.

PAS: So cool to see an apuestas match from this time and this country, wager matches are one of my favorite things in wrestling history, and it is cool to see how the concept is adjusted in France. Fun dynamic with the Noirs being this killer heel tag team, nasty cheapshotters and hard hitters who have a bozo side as well. Both Batman and Leduc are escape artists, and much of the match was the Noirs trying to corral them, only to see Leduc and Batman slip out. I am a mark for LeDuc's master of the headspin spots, and he has some cool ones here, Batman is a bigger guy and he also has some very cool escapes along with some great looking dropkicks. I am used to hair matches in Mexico building to a violent climax, and this had a much more standard French Catch tag ending, with Gessat getting tripped up an Manneveau getting cradled. I would have liked to see it break down a bit more, but the work we got was very cool. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Cesca! Teddy Boys! Leduc! Montourcy! von Kramer! Gastel!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Teddy Boys (Aldophe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) 5/9/65

MD: I get that everything is high end at this point, but this still stood out more to me than it did to Sebastian. This has been out for a few years, but it's great to see it in context now that we know these guys better. Ben Chemoul and Cesca come off as one of the great tag teams of all time in the few appearances we have of them together, certainly one one of the most talented. Ben Chemoul had such verve and timing, such showmanship, working for the back row and the front row and everyone in between. He manages to do all three up and over variations off the top wristlock in a tag match at different points, and fills the match with little moments like throwing one of those no look spin kicks to a guy just hanging out on the apron. He fills the match with entertaining stuff while never losing the plot. Cesca's just as solid as they come, hard hitting especially when it's time to get revenge, sympathetic in selling, smooth in complex spots, quick with the dropkicks and 'ranas. They'd also share spots: Ben Chemoul would stooge le Boulch by turtling early and then Cesca would outsmart le Boulch when he himself tried to do it later. It all came together. The Teddy Boys were such an ideal heel unit too, with le Boulch an opportunist coward and Sevre having the hugest chip on his shoulder imaginable, though they could also switch those roles on a dime. Sevre hit hard and jawed well with the crowd while le Boulch spent a lot of his time shadowboxing. They were able to work around the ref to endlessly stomp: when the ref shoved Sevre, he'd come back and pat the ref on the shoulder. At one point, Sevre got knocked out on one of the bevy of catapult-into-partner spots in the match so he sat down in the front row while le Boulch recovered. He tried that again later and got into a fist fight with the crowd. The ending might have felt a little abrupt, but that was the general pacing of these things as much as them maybe wanting to move things to a finish before the crowd rioted, but over all, this was high end stuff to me.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This was another French lightweight tag with all that exchanges. Plenty of quick exchanges. The Teddy Boys didn‘t move me as much as other heel tandems. I mean, they were really good at making the C‘s uppercuts look great and had some nice punches and stomps, but it‘s France everyone is a GOAT, you gotta bring a bit more than that. Chemoul and Cesca as usual just had endless stuff to do. I liked Chemouls punch combo, and Cesca busting out a spinning argentine backbreaker and a back elbow combo that was like something Misawa would do. Highlight of the match was the crowd getting unruly and the police stepping in. I am probably making this match sound worse than it was, it wasn‘t top tier French stuff but there was enough entertaining stuff happening and some sickeningly stiff blows that will easily make this the best match you watch this week.

Gilbert Leduc/Claude Montourcy vs. Karl von Kramer/Robert Gastel  5/26/65

MD: Unique presentation here. I know nothing of 1965 French demographics and geography (Puteaux is in the western suburbs of Paris but I'm not about to watch 1961's The Long Absence to get a sense of it), but this felt more provincial than what we're used to. The crowd was awesome though, as much of the star of the match as the four wrestlers, as good as they were. The sound was a little off here, and it's amazing we don't see this problem more often, so it anticipated the action a bit. This was (wisely, I imagine) mostly a crowd pleaser for some sort of cup. There were moments of heat throughout, but nothing prolonged until the second fall. Even those moments felt a little perilous. The crowd absolutely hated Kramer, who looked brilliant here. He had so many interesting ways of taking someone down or keeping a hold, and just threw cartwheels around like they were nothing. I was expecting endless nerve holds (which could be fine if the heat's there, and it would have been) but he went another way with things. He stooged, but only occasionally, so when he got caught in the ropes towards the end of the long first fall, the fans went absolutely nuts. He got taken out by a catapult over the top to end the first fall, never to return. 

A stretcher job mid-match was probably the safest way to get him out of there. LeDuc more or less gave us the usual greatest hits (the headstands, the leg nelson after seeing how badly the fans wanted Montourcy to whack Kramer in a cross arm breaker, etc) but they're all great. Montourcy had a few more interesting takedowns. Gastel let Kramer do most of the heavy lifting in the first fall, but turned on the heat after he got taken out, absolutely demolishing Montourcy with headbutts, bloodying him up before crushing him with a tombstone and basically taking him out of the match. The fans were furious here. The third fall, then was just Leduc getting revenge on Gastel before they moved into a slick finishing stretch including Gastel catching a Leduc cross body block (the block itself not being something we've seen much in the footage) and planting him with a tombstone, before Leduc came back with a flip up power bomb for the win and the huge pop. I don't know if I'd feel the same about this one in a different setting, but in front of this crowd, I thought it was great. I do sort of wish they had leaned harder into Kramer getting advantages though, but they may not have lived to the next day if they did.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Karl von Kramer. Haven‘t seen him in a while. Karl looked really good here with his freak bumping and unorthodox throws. For a hard nosed evil German, he also wasn‘t afraid to make a fool out of himself and get his chest hair torn out. The first fall of this was the usual mix of fun wrestling and rough heels tactics, with von Kramer stealing the show and Leduc and Montourcy being formidable technicians. Von Kramer takes a big bump to the outside and doesn‘t make it back after that, leading to Gastel being in a 2 on 1 situation so Gastel just goes crazy with headbutts on Montourcy, bloodying him and KO‘ing with a tombstone piledriver. This leads to the 3rd  fall in which both von Kramer and Montourcey are out and Gastel and Leduc slug it out in an epic Mantel/Lawler style battle. Really cool glimpse at Gastle living up to his name and being a violent bludgeoner who ends up with his opponents blood all over him, and when Leduc hits those double elbows he‘s like Lawler doing a punch combo. Really really good match with a pretty unique layout for French wrestling.

PAS: I love how this match moved from comedy, skill and stooging to really heavy violence. It is one of the hardest transitions in wrestling to nail, and this match nailed it. The heels were masterful here, Kramer is a heat seeking pinball, getting twisted up the ropes, getting his chest hair ripped out, flying for all of the headscissors and takedowns, and hitting these deep cool looking flip throws. He gets tossed out of the ring to the floor taking a big bump and getting sent to the back. We get a Stone Cold Gastel section where he obliterates Montourcy including a fair amount of blood which is pretty rare for this era. We then got a big showdown between Gastel and LeDuc, which was pretty epic. I didn't like LeDuc basically no-selling the tombstone, it was a move which won Gastel the second fall, and LeDuc jumps right back onto offense right after taking it. Still everything else about this match was at a super high level, and while that one spot kept it from MOTY status it was still a classic. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Israel! Corne! Duranton! LeDuc! Black Diamonds! Cesca! Rene Ben!

Ischa Israel vs. Jean Corne 1/15/65

PAS: We have seen these two guy as a tag team before, and this was a pretty spectacular friendly match. Just two very skilled guys working at a fast intricate pace. It was an exhibition, there was never really a sense of escalation or narrative, but it was a really cool exhibition. It felt a lot like a faster version of a lucha maestros match, or a WOS match with out a heel. This was a really fast match, even when they slowed it down with a long knuckle lock section, they were constantly doing stuff, dropping down, beeling, trying to counter. Really nifty stuff. 

MD: Hell of a match. It only went 15 and didn't wear out its welcome, with a lot of the trappings you'd want at a speed that we've rarely seen in the chronological footage so far. There isn't a huge difference between the heavyweight and the middleweight footage we've seen so far. It's just that the middleweight stuff goes faster with a bit more rope running. Here there was another wrinkle, one that we probably wouldn't have noticed so well if we had cherry picked this match, an evolution of spot where they invert the expectations of what we've seen already. Corne will do the up and over to try to get out of an armbar or top wristlock, but instead of it working or Israel jamming him, he goes all the way over but the hold's maintained. Only on the third try when he makes it into a headscissors takeover, does it work. It was the same thing with the extended bodyscissors spot that they worked out of. We've seen some real elaboration before they reenter it, but this match had the most. A flip side to that is how commonplace some of the roll up exchanges were. There was one point mid-match where Israel caught Corne on a 'rana and turned it into a powerbomb that I knew he was going to bridge up and 'rana out. We've hit the point where that feels more novel than natural. Anyway, this had a bit of everything, with Corne taking more of an aggressor's role and Israel containing him more. There were some absolutely brilliant escapes, like Corne getting both Israel and the ref to look one way so he could sneak out the other, and Israel throwing some boots while in a short leg scissors that made Corne commit to blocking, which allowed Israel to sneak a short leg-scissors of his own on, forcing the break. It wasn't quite as smooth as the best of the stuff we'll see a few years down the line, but them just barely hitting some of it only made it feel all the more organic. Just good stuff all around with an exciting finish.

SR: 1 fall match going about 18 minutes. This was compared to Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey, and it felt like a good gateway match to the French style. It also felt extremely British, more so than the stylist matches we've seen so far. Of course these guys work super fast and with a real snap to even things like spinning out of an armlock. I really liked the bodyscissor sequence they did where the guy followed his advantage by following up with a bearhug. It builds very well to an exciting little ending run that has one guy taking a big bump to the outside and some great looking rope running. There was also an obscenely beautiful backslide. I thought the match wasn't as intense as previous classics we've seen, but that is a high high bar.

Robert Duranton vs. Gilbert LeDuc 1/15/65

MD: I don't thinks this really worked. Some of that was because it had to follow Israel vs Corne, but a big chunk was on Duranton. Occasionally, they'd run a big spot or sequence that was really good, like a highly kinetic series of hanging on to a Duranton chinlock over multiple escape attempts, but more often than not, he was pretty sluggish in there. He was always a body guy sort of heel and aping the Gorgeous George act was good for him, but given his natural deficiencies, he should have leaned even more into the act. He got heat. There was a great moment where some trash was making it into the ring and he picked up a piece and tossed it at LeDuc. I don't know if we're still hanging on to the 50s when he came up, but he tried to wrestle too much, when really, the crowd would have been happier with LeDuc doing the headstand escape out of a few holds and then pummeling Duranton. At one point, it was pretty obvious Duranton was just sucking wind in a hold which you never see in this footage. The valet was a great prop, but ill-used here as well, hanging out on the apron for no reason, interfering when he should have hung back and hanging back when he should have been interfering.

SR: 1 fall match going about 20 minute. Duranton is full on the goonish bodybuilder he was in that one Louis de Funes movie here. He still hard Firmin with him. This was very similiar to Duranton/Carpentier from a while back. Meaning it was good, but it stuck to Durantons formula. That means some hold for hold wrestling, then some tantrums and short kicks, and finally Firmin getting involved. Firmin angered the folks in attendance so much someone threw a chair at him (and it was a big wooden chair), and the ref had to calm things down by throwing Firmin over the rope in a funny spot. The match felt like a very good TV bout. Maybe it's due to Durantons experience from his US work, but it seemed everything lead to another in a very organic way. And Leduc is not the most charismatic guy in this kind of spectacle match, but he is really good at doing his thing.

PAS: I thought this was kind of the French Catch version of a solid but forgettable WCW Thunder match. We got to see Duranton strut and preen, got to see the master of the headspin do a couple of headspins, some shtick with the valet, and they took it home. It's like looking back at a match list and going "Chris Adams versus Super Calo? I wonder how that is" and the answer is "It was OK".

Abe Ginsberg/John Foley vs. Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca 2/28/65

MD: The blog covered this one years ago but seeing it in context makes a huge difference. This felt like the next evolution in French tag team wrestling. The Black Diamonds had a similar look, with beards and dark tights, would control in the corner, would switch when the ref was distracted, would do exchanges where they switched off by doubling up submissions in order to keep control on tags. The match would build towards them doing some sort of fairly elaborate double team, only for it to fail the second time and Ben Chemoul and Cesca to do their own version of it to the crowd's delight. My favorite of this was a double cross choke, but the tandem set up for a victory roll that finished both the second and third falls were the most impressive. Cesca was great as always but there's something transcendent about Ben Chemoul. He has an extra spring to how he moves, this almost elastic charisma where the laws of physics bend just a little as he winds up and recoils. Anyway, if they could just work out how to really make hot tags happen, they'd have something, but I feel like this successfully refined the frequent heat-and-revenge structure we saw in those Hayes and Hunter tags, for instance, and made it all just a little more focused.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 35 minutes. I was delighted to see Abe Ginsburg, a guy who had a sole appearance in one of my favourite WoS bouts, show up in a long French tag. This was quite the tour de force from the Black Diamonds. They had lots of heel shtick, double teams, cut off spots. Lots of original stuff, some amusing, like the weird 2 on 1 hanging move they did, some a bit odd, like how one guy kept falling off the top rope. I liked them most when they laid violent punches and forearms on their opponents and worked wringing holds. Chemoul and Cesca are slick as always here. Chemoul threw some great punch combos. Finish was downright ridiculous. Good match overall.

PAS: I think I liked this more on a second look then reading my review years ago. Just head over heels for the Black Diamonds, what a pair of classic asskicker heels. Constantly cutting off the ring with cool violent double teams, including a sitting tapitia where the partner unloads with uppercuts. Serious something To Infinity and Beyond should steal, their double cross armed choke was really cool too. When it came time to bump and put over the faces they were great too, both guys too some of the best monkey flip bumps I can remember seeing from our boy Rene Ben. Loved the finish with the victory roll which ended the second fall, getting countered with a doomsday device style dropkick. I had this as a GREAT match when I first reviewed it, but would happily bump it up to an EPIC now.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Inca! Mercier! LeDuc! Portz! Aubriot! Bernaert!

Inca Peruano vs Guy Mercier 10/19/62

PAS: This is pretty JIP, but man what we get is spectacular. Peruano has got to be one of the wildest wrestlers of all time, and parts of this were like watching a leveling up spotfest for the first time (something like Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite in MSG, or Rey Jr. vs. Psicosis in ECW). Mercier was a nice dance partner, but you are watching this for Inca. Peruano has these beautiful effortless headscissors, which he hits until Mercier counters the last one with a Giant swing. Peruano also takes to crazy bumps into the ropes, one where he gets kicked into a Andre ropes trapped position, one where he gets thrown into a Cactus ear loss strangle. Not a fan of the double pin ending, but everything before that was killer.

SR: About 6 minutes are shown. And well, be happy for that, because these two do a lot of cool wrestling in 6 minutes. Mercier catches a Peruano flying headscissors and hurls him around in a giant swing in a really cool spot, and Peruano does some ridiculously on point bumping and launching himself into the ropes to get tied up. We also see someone get pinned off a surfboard hold.

MD: It's such a joy to watch Peruano. We get the last 8 minutes of this, having missed around 15 before that and they're just at it from the start. Almost immediately, he's maring Mercier to set him up for his askew angled headscissors takeovers, only for the rule of 3 to come into play and Mercier to just jam him with an elevated giant swing of all things. Then they roll right into a sequence where Peruano bumps himself way over the top and into a tangled situation in the ropes. It's one athletic, creative, innovative, and completely believable and organic spot after the next, with them trading holds or blows or dropkicks in between. This is the most interestingly I've seen a lot of Peruano's token stuff used (like the jammed headscissors). We're at the point of the footage where we're dealing with such known, experienced entities that there are counters to counters and spots that are twisted and remixed and since we're fairly familiar with the style and the specifics, we can pick up on them.

Gilbert LeDuc vs. Geoff Portz 10/19/62

SR: 1 fall match going 30 minutes. Geoff Portz is a legendary British tough guy wrestler. His status is such that he could‘ve stunk this whole match up and it would still be a super valuable find. But, he was very good here. They worked a kind of clinical contest, and I wonder if Portz was holding back slightly, but he looked super impressive just trading holds with Leduc. Portz was built like a brickhouse, and you get the sense he was a powerhouse who could move like a graceful technician. At one point he lifted Leduc straight up from the ground like a child and into a full nelson hold, and another moment involved him lifting Leduc on his shoulders up from his knees. The hold battling was really good – especially dug Portz trying to torture rack Leduc with Leduc clamping on a side headlock for dear life, and there was some great headscissor work that lead amongst other things to Leduc lifting up Portz and Portz victory rolling him. They never throw strikes but there is some rope running which is mixed well into the match. I thought the match was going to go to a 30 minute draw but then a controversial fall happens that the crowd got super mad over in one of those moments that emphasized how dear the people then held their wrestling. And why wouldn‘t they, getting bouts like this on the regular.

MD: Portz is yet another brit that we're lucky to get footage of so young. This is just a gripping heavyweight wrestling clinic, including some of the best worked side headlock sequences I've seen. That includes Portz attempting multiple times to heft Leduc up into a torture rack, which is the best headlock counter that no longer exists. He finally gets it later in the match and it feels like a quality payoff. Portz has an extra bit of power and a way of just trying to peel off limbs that made me wish we had a match with him against Spartacus. Leduc's able to hold his own and keep him from capitalizing too much on any single advantage. Unfortunately, just as it's starting to pick up and get chippy, there's a three count out of nowhere and it makes you wonder if they were going to take it a couple more minutes and pound each other into the draw.

PAS: I thought the first part of this was a little dry, Portz had a very Dory Jr. feel to him. He was going to do his headlock takeovers and it didn't matter what the crowd wanted. I started to get more and more into this as it went on though. We get a couple of cool headspin escapes from the master of the headspin, including one from an armbar. Portz was a super strong guy and at one point he just stands from a sitting position using his leg strength, and I loved all of his torture racks. I feel like the accidental fall robbed us of a really hot ending, but what we got was pretty cool.

Guy Taillieu vs Gerard Franck 11/9/62

MD: Last few minutes of a hard hitting but friendly enough match. Franck looked pretty good here with huge uppercuts and an abrupt dropkick. Tallieu was slicker with a nice cartwheel takedown and some STO style trips we haven't seen a lot of in the footage and some hammerlock assisted throws. He could hit hard too. Really though, we didn't get enough of this to get more than an impression but it was a positive one.

Dan Aubriot vs Pierre Bernaert 11/9/62    Pt2

MD: Phil and Eric covered this seven years ago and it's still MOTY for 1962 for SC. As it's the next chronological match in the collection, as we have so little from this period in the 60s, and as we know Bernaert a lot better now, we thought it was worth another look. I do think we'll have to take stock again after next week when we finish off 62's Catch offerings. That's not to say this isn't an excellent match. It is. Aubriot brought all the right attributes to the table. He was lightning fast, a wizard on the mat, sold each bit of damage in the moment, wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring, and had some very imaginative spots that stood out in a world of imaginative spots. Bernaert showed signs of competence in previous matches (though he was much more of a cheapshot artist), and has developed over the years we've seen him into an excellent tag-team wrestler, but this was the best showcase of his so far. At times, he'd completely hang with Aubriot, not simply basing but calling and raising Aubriot levels of complexity all so that Aubriot could do something even more impressive in the end. The best example of that was Bernaert dropping down for a rare heel mascaras twist only for Aubriot to cartwheel out of it and hit some brilliant ranas. There was something dogged and persistent about Bernaert actual wrestling, which we hadn't really seen from him or from most of the heels we've seen so far. They escalated to blows and Bernaert to cheapshots but it came back down to the holds again and again.

PAS: I think as of now this keeps the 1962 crown, although I don't think it would make a top 25 of the footage we have seen, although that is more a testament to the insane quality of the French Catch, then a diss of this match. Aubriot was very slick, great ranas, cool reversals and a great looking mix of a stunner and a diamond cutter. Bernaert really lays in the violence in the second half of the match, including some urine reddening knees and forearms to the kidneys. The breakdown is some of my favorite stuff in this style, and they really rock each other at the end, including some nasty forearms by Bernaert when he was trying to break Aubriot's body scissors. I thought the judo throw for the pin was cool, but didn't really feel like a finish. I am interested to see what we get next week to challenge this match, it's a hell of a match, but vulnerable. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Delaporte! Bollet! LeDuc! Gastel! Montreal! Sola! Bernaert! Rouxel!

Roger Delaporte/Andre Bollet vs Gilbert Leduc/Robert Gastel 12/14/61

MD: Great tag with four great guys. I have no idea why Gastel was on the side of the angels here but he came off as a folk hero and the fans loved to cheer for him. He would just mow everyone down with forearms and headbutts and the crowd ate it up. Leduc took a nasty bump on a fireman's carry into the heel turnbuckle early on and they just unleashed the most brutal, long beating on him with quick tags, slams and backbreakers, stomps, and even a somersault senton by Bollet that spelled his doom in the first fall. Eventually, in the second, Gastel had enough (they had done a good job goading him while in control) and rushed in to a big pop. From there it was fairly back and forth. Leduc sold his back for the rest of the match but had moments of fire. They built to a few big comeuppance spots like usual. Gastel had a way of taking the crowd back down after comebacks to set up the heels taking back over which were well and fine but he held one armbar for over four minutes without them working in and out of it and that was a bit much. Still, past that, these guys were masters and the match was masterful.

SR: 2/3 falls match. We JIP about 20 minutes into a 60 match. This is one of those matches which is heated as we join, and it stays heated for almost a full 40 minutes from that point forward. This was all about Delaporte and Bollet throwing hard punches and stomps, and our man Gastel being a real one and helping poor gentleman Leduc through the match by fighting fire with fire. Gastel being excepted wholly as a babyface by the audience is heartwarming. Bollet was doing those flip sentons to peoples backs like Tenryu being in a funny mood. This had quite a bit of back work, which didn‘t pay off in a major way. In fact the match had some unusual restholds and may have suffered a bit from being nothing but all these guys beating the hell out of eachother for 40 minutes, but these guys are great at beating the hell out of each other. The last 10 minutes or so are great though with Gastel throwing some awesome looking headbutts. I would‘ve liked to see the full thing, as these kinda heatfests suffer a bit when you don‘t get the early build. But knowing these guys, they may have gone for full on heat from the get go.

PAS: This was great stuff, it is really impressive the pace these guys can set in a 60 minute draw, we tend to mentally think of 20th century 60 minutes draws having long rest hold sections, but this was a go go pace. All of what we got were hard exchanges. Liked the contrast on the face team, with Gastel working like a third heel, and LeDuc being more of a technician (although in French catch even the technicians throw heat). We got two classic LeDuc headspins,  one the Santo style headscissors, one a spin out of a arm stretch, which was especially awesome. I loved Gastel's final heat segment, tying both heels up in the ropes and wailing on them with forearms. No real finish, and long matches suffer if they don't build to anything, although the work her was super strong. 

Monsieur Montreal/Ami Sola vs Pierre Bernaert/Jack Rouxel 1/12/62

MD: Another week, another show, another great tag. This is our second or third match with Rouxel and I really like him so far. He had this upstart attitude in how he'd disengage or lay shots in or interact with the ref or the crowd. Montreal leaned hard into the strongman gimmick (using the bear hug and a lot of his opponents making him look good by flying around the ring on normal exchanges) and at one point, he picked up Rouxel out of a headlock, deposited him on the apron, and knocked him off. Rouxel made sure to land in a woman's lap which popped her and the crowd. I like the guy. Bernaert (who wasn't teaming with Bibi here since Cheri was in training for another match apparently) was a perfect partner, a smarmy mentor in cheating and underhandedness. Yes, he managed a fake handshake into a forearm once here. Sola was as savvy as we've ever seen him, delighting in Montreal's strength spots, working the apron well, orchestrating a lot of the revenge spots; the best of those was probably a series of arm stretchers in the heel corner where they kept kicking Sola down when he tried to work to his feet. When he got an arm of his own, he yanked it back to the face corner and they repeated the spot on the heels in an over the top manner. It's interesting to watch things develop over the years. By this stage, limbwork/bodypart work is 100% a thing. It really wasn't a couple of years earlier. The first fall ended with the heels really targeting Sola's back. That led to a fun little moment (again showing Sola's presence and experience) when he rushed in to touch his opponent so that he could immediately tag back out to start the second fall, as you can't tag until you touched at least once. Good moment in a match full of good moments. Everything really came together here to make for yet another good tag. Others might disagree with me but I think the overall quality of the tag scene is better than a few years earlier, where there would be heat and intensity and big moments, but less tricks and narrative shortcuts, like the heels cutting off the ring or stopping babyface reversals from the apron or using the ref being distracted. In 61-62, there was just a great balance of the two elements.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 35 minutes. The Montreal/Sola team is pretty fun. Sola is pure technique, and Montreal is all about strength. Rouxel on the other hand looked like a slightly less blonde version of Bernaert. A classy guy who could wrestle but was simply more interested in cheapshotting guys. This built for quite a bit and there was some nice skill on display from Rouxel and Bernaert. Of course, their bread and butter is cheapshotting guys hard, and when it got to that they looked great. Especially liked Beraneaert loosening Solas jaw with a knee only to get giant swung seconds later. And well, Mr. Montreal and Ami Sola are great pair of faces to play off those vicious tactics. This wasn‘t as heated as the other tag but it felt more complete (not just in terms of how much we got to see) and well rounded.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Quasimodo!! Arroyo! Chaisne!

Josef Kovacs vs Gaby Calderon 10/23/59

MD: We just get a couple of minutes of this but it tells the story. Kovacs is the Butcher of Budapest, a big stalking slugger who whales on his opponents. Calderon spent six months in the Orient and came back without shoes but with chops and throws. He gets his shots in, Kovacs shrugs them off, and ultimately he falls prey to a sort of spinning Atlantida whirlybird.

SR: JIP match with 3 minutes shown. Calderon with his unorthodox style is always fun to watch. And Josef Kovacs was a shaven headed tough guy in a singlet who could kick ass, which is kind of my favourite type of European worker. He worked over the judokas mid section with body section before hoisting him up in an Argentine Backbreaker, spinning round and throwing him like a sack of potatoes for the pin and that is a finish to match. 

Gilbert Leduc vs Quasimodo 10/23/59

MD: I think we've had this one before, a few years back, but we're seeing it in context now, with better VQ and a much better understanding of LeDuc. Remember, we saw Leduc selling and crashing up against walls in Le Borreau's debut as well. Obviously this is our first look at Quasimodo who they bill from America, weirdly enough. He's a different sort of monster, one that will remind you more of Dr. Kaiser than of the behemoths we've seen lately. Skulking, clenching his hands and his face at all times, slipping in gut shots, constantly going for nerve holds and throat shots, with unique, monstrous high spots, and fully immersed interactions with the ref and the crowd. Leduc sells big, both the horror of the nerve hold and ultimately the damage done to him throughout the match. Through much of the match he's able to come back big though, either out wrestling Quasimodo or utilizing the ref's interventions to get some revenge shots in. Midway through, Quasimodo hits his biggest bomb, a draping, over the shoulder, flip of Leduc that lands him throat first onto the ropes. After that, the fight is out of him. His other odd moves are a tombstone position lift that looks strange but painful and a cool arm trap lifting backbreaker. If that pendulum throat shot was the first big turning point of the match, the second is when Leduc jams another attempt of that tombstone position lift by flipping him and hitting some tombstones of his own. That puts him back in the match and they go much more back and forth down the stretch until Quasimodo gets disqualified, presumably for repeatedly attacking, and putting the nerve hold on, before Leduc reaches his feet. It all feels a little dodgy to me, which is probably the point. Cruel, french justice for the monster. This was more of a match but maybe less of a spectacle than some of the other monstrous matches we've seen. Leduc was excellent in it and Quasimodo brought a lot to the table too. Most of all, they were both fully committed to everything that was happening.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. It‘s motherfucking Quasimodo. Quasimodo was another Spanish worker with a deformed head. He came in wearing full on hunchback get up. In the ring he was quite a monster. Short guy who hopped around the ring like a gremlin. With monster heels you usually get them big and slow, I quite like the short and aggressive approach. Leduc was on fire here once again. I think he has a serious case for being the best worker around in 1959, not that we have a huge sample. Quasimodo loved the nerve hold, but that is not a detriment when you‘re fighting Leduc as Leduc struggles so hard against that particular hold and makes it meaningful. Quasimodo, aside from all the cheap heel stuff like choking and inside shots, had quite a few wrestling moves. He had this cool slam from a Japanese strangle hold and a sick looking reverse catapult where he whipped Leduc into the ropes. At one point he even went for a reverse bearhug, really ragdolling Leduc. Leduc had his usual slick wrestling moves and when the freak took it too far he tried to bite his ear off. The 3rd fall was really intense with Quasimodo working over Leducs throws and Leduc just clobbering him with those left-right elbows and whipping out a sick piledriver. Inspiring stuff and Leduc looked dead towards the end. I came in expecting this to be more like a silly freakfight, but I thought this genuinely ended up being a really good match. It‘s telling that a guy with a fucking Quasimodo gimmick could be a convincing heel then. 

PAS: I thought this was excellent. Quasimodo was a true old school wrestling character, but also a hell of cool worker. I loved how single minded he was attacking the throat, from his nasty looking nerve holds and strangles, to his electric chair catapult into the ropes, at one point he even palm struck LeDuc in the throat. LeDuc is a hell of a foil, we get to see the master of the headspin break out his headspin a couple of times, and when it came time to dish it out, LeDuc landed big bombs. I loved his combo elbow strikes, if we are going to have to have elbow exchanges in every wrestling match now, they might as well be cool combos like that. Built to a big finish and it was something that protected both guys, I am a Nightmare Freddy fan, but Quasimodo is by far the best movie monster in wrestling history. 

Yvan Doviskoff vs Delacour (jip) 11/20/59

MD: Two and a half minutes of this. Not a lot to see. I get the sense Doviskoff might be a good cog in a tag match, but we're never going to see him again so it hardly matters.

SR:2 minutes shown. Not much here but there was a pinfall happening after a running cross chop. Love the running cross chop as a finisher. 

Jose Arroyo vs Michel Chaisne

MD: One of the best stylist vs stylist matches we've seen. The first half had a lot of the hang-on-to-a-hold sequences that we're used to, with bigger spots in between, but there were slight evolutions and bits of self-awareness here. Things that might lead to a fall, like a powerbomb counter after two 'ranas, led to another counter and things kept going. In that front half, even after long sequences, they'd just throw themselves into the next with verve and abandon.

They'd move from body part to body part, often in response to what's happened to them. After Chaisne kicked Arroyo in the back to get out of holds twice, Arroyo went after the leg for a bit. After Chasine's long headscissors (including a victory roll back into it) worked his neck, Arroyo hit two neckbreakers and a bodyslam tombstone. After Arroyo hit a backbreaker, Chaisne followed up with whacks to the back, a side backbreaker, and a catapult back onto the knees.

Chaisne's selling was excellent throughout, both little things like touching his back after hitting his own backbreaker after eating Arroyo's, the dramatic things, like the way he'd fall into the ropes and just sit there, legs splayed after getting hammered by a huge forearm, and the cumulative things, as you could absolutely feel the exhaustion and desperation with each move in the back half.

There was a slow escalation of animosity and meanness and aggression. The percentage of wrestling vs strikes flipped as the match went on and ultimately went careening towards an absolute slugfest as they hit the 30 minute broadway. Just an excellent example of a stylist match at its best.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 30 minutes. This was another clean match. I certainly prefer this kind of TV booking where its mostly face vs. heel stuff and brawls with the occasional technico vs. technico dream match thrown in instead of dream matches all the time like it is now. This was another really good match. These are two tall looking guys so when they whip out fast huracanranas and slick reversals it all looks super impressive. It was the first time we see Arroyo in a clean match and it felt like a big step up for him. He‘s looked good going hold for hold before, but his bread and butter has been retaliating against vicious heels. Here he looked really good pushing the pace against Chaisne with some big neckbreakers, a piledriver and a nasty neck hanging submission. There was another great body scissors sequence here and a series of ranas that got countered into a spinning powerbomb. It slowly disintegrates into this long series of strike exchanges that is infinitely more compelling than the long strike exchanges you see nowadays as both guys look like they are clearly trying to get more shots in than their opponents. There‘s some big bumping and really good Mantell/Lawler style exhaustion selling with both guys cracking each other hard, really looking like they want to quit after eating some of those shots but their pride won‘t let them, until the time runs out.

PAS:  This was pretty great stuff. I loved all of the neck work by Chaisne, including a rana into a side triangle choke which really should be stolen by Matt Makowski. The body vice by Arroyo had a bunch of nifty counters and moves out of it too. That piledriver by Arroyo was utterly uncalled for, the kind of thing which would be a finisher in an overloaded indy match, and is nuts that it was in a match from the 50s. Liked the big set of strike exchanges, which were so much cooler then the forearm and stare shit we get today. Just cool wrestling. 

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