Tuesday is French Catch Day: Le Primitiv! Gordon! Falcons! Hassouni! DeBruyne! Piranhas!

Kader Hassouni & John DeBruyne vs Les Piranhas 5/11/85

MD: Totally solid tag here. The highs weren't quite as high as they could be but the floor was high enough that you didn't mind much. Hassouni was older, a bit slower, able to move with bursts and then take things back down or to have the heel make the motion for him but he was still quite the pro. DeBruyne was mainly in there to get a few youthful, agile flurries of his own and then to take a beating. The Piranhas had their act down, a lot of ref distraction and hairpulling and clubbering and they had a game target in DeBruyne, who'd charge right in only to get nailed. This had a couple of hot tags and big comebacks by Hassouni and they kept cutting to a very happy crowd that was very into it, with a large number of kids present. The wrestling wasn't quite as complex, the action not quite as heated or spirited, and I'm not sure this ever reached the triumph of good vs evil of classic tags of years prior. It was still probably a love way to spend an afternoon however. It's also important everyone knows that the trumpeter Jean-Claude Borelly was a special guest announcer. 

Flesh Gordon vs Mambo le Primitif (Strap Match) 5/11/85

MD: There had been a tease of a strap match with Bordes and a monster back five years earlier but here's the payoff we get, and it's late era Catch with Flesh Gordon and Mambo Le Primitif. No crown, no drummers for Mambo here. Instead he had a couple of village people looking handlers. This went over twenty and there was probably a great twelve minute match in there. Conceptually, some things really worked and some things didn't. For a good chunk of the match, Gordon used the strap as a way of keeping distance on Mambo and moving him around the ring. He'd whip the ground to keep Mambo back more than he'd whip Mambo himself. Gordon was slightly older, a little rougher around the edges in appearance, but whatever he might become later, he was still spry at this point: able to do the up and over and move and hit big dropkicks and bump around the ring and sell emotively. Mambo would catch him, beat him down, and Gordon would come back as Mambo was posing.

Midway through there was a glorious minute where Mambo took the metal strap connector and dug it into Gordon's eye and if the match had more of that it'd have been many degrees better. Instead, it was all more back and forth. Gordon certainly knew how to present himself as a star and Mambo was constant motion, constantly entertaining, even if there wasn't always substance behind it. Eventually he did take over, including a big dive off the apron to the floor, so that the end of the match was Gordon coming back big by catching him on the top and choking him with the strap to give him a visual win but a DQ loss. 

Mambo le Primif vs Golden Falcons 7/7/85

MD: We get 15 of this and then it cuts off and, I mean, look, Mambo is trained, right? He's agile. He's capable of basing for some complex spots from the Falcons. If I could track down Gerard Herve/Flesh Gordon, the only thing I'd probably ask him would be who Mambo was. He had some staying power when you think about it. He wasn't giant compared to other big masked men or at least the costume made it seem like he wasn't but they sold for him like he was late-era Andre at times. This was more or less what you'd expect. They'd use their numbers game to bump him around. He'd isolate one and take over. Strength spots, falls out of the ring, just grinding down. You can imagine how it would end considering he beat both Angelito and Gordon at the same time previously. I don't know. The world's probably richer and more insane for the existence of Mambo and him leaping throat first onto the top rope so they can run text across the screen saying SPLAACH!!!"

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Gordon! Falcons! Mercier! Montreal!

Walter Bordes/Flesh Gordon vs. Golden Falcons 8/13/83

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. I am totally fine with young Flesh Gordon and an ancient Walter Bordes carrying French TV at this point. Gordon is really spry doing these luchariffic exchanges and I am loving Bordes in these matches, just bouncing around and mixing in all this cool shit while being old enough to be everyone's grandpa. This also had a nifty heel beatdown where Flesh Gordon was laid out like an All Japan tag and Bordes took a big beating. In a nifty moment, the Falcons even stole the "wrestler gets catapulted into his own partner“ spot which is usually reserved for babyfaces. Gordon comes back in the 3rd fall wearing a bandage and just uppercuts everyone a lot, and all is right in the world.

MD: Yeah, this was just chugging along like any other match, with some great bridges by Gordon and Bordes blocking some throws in cool ways and having really nice hanging-on arm holds. Some of the spots seemed a bit recycled from the last time we saw these two teaming but it was all good stuff that they were continuing to build upon so that was ok. The Falcons took all of it and had a certain bit of cheek that you appreciated in heels (also a diving headbutt which is also appreciated in hold footage). Then, after Gordon won the first fall with his spin around mare thing that people need to steal, everything got wild in the second fall.

One Falcon catapulted Bordes into Gordon (held by the hair by his partner) and Flesh (said with a possibly straight face to be a distant cousin of Flash, by the announcer) did a human stretcher job from the bump off the apron. After that they leaned hard into the heat. Bordes would fight back but the numbers game was too much. He'd get knocked off the apron or tossed into the crowd. The Falcons had some strong stuff here, including this punch that knocked Bordes off the ropes and right back into a back elbow. After they took the second fall they hit a double team, one Falcon holding Bordes in a full nelson and the other coming off the second rope with a headbutt to the gut. They went for it again, but Bordes moved and Gordon flew back in, his bloodied head bandaged, and it was a big iconic moment as they fired back and took the win and won a tiny little trophy as the crowd went wild. 1983 French Catch? Still rousing stuff.

 

Guy Mercier vs. Mr. Montreal 8/27/83

MD: Three or four big, long, incredibly well worked holds in, halfway through the match, Montreal was hanging on to a headlock so tightly that I thought Mercier's head was going to pop off. Then Mercier started to slam him, uppercut him, drop elbows (rare for the footage) and knees and slam him some more. Montreal dodged one and came back with huge whips and huge shots and slams. They end up slugging one another, until they crash into one other and both hit the mat hard. And there's still ten minutes to go!

There are a spattering of matches like this in the footage, especially once we got into the 60s, but they were always something absolutely exceptional. The holds are so tight, so mean, so thoroughly worked. There's not an armbar here which also doesn't have a shin grinding onto the cheek. There's always motion, always an attempt to escape, but it takes three or four motions to even get to the escape attempt and then that gets cut off, and then it's that many until the next, and that gets cut off, and so on and so forth, so expertly worked, until the opening finally is earned, as is everything else in a match like this (And when what is earned is Mercier's headstand spinout? It's as good as it gets). And the shots? The shots hit so hard and resonate so deeply. They're not the end, but instead a response to the last affront and a prelude to the next hold. During the stretch as time was going out, three, four hard forearms or uppercuts would lead to a headlock takeover or a body slam or even Mercier's fallaway slam, but all to no avail. You could say that this was Montreal's strength against Mercier's leverage and skill, but it was really just two aging masters putting everything out there and it stands up to just about anything we've seen during this entire journey.

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit under 30 minutes. This was a clean technical match, a rare occurrence by 1983. The fact they still had matches like this at that time made me wish there was more 80s French TV around. This was super minimalist, two guys struggling over basic holds for 30 minutes without a fall. It was something you‘d expect out of the 60s. The holds were simple, but they were really cranking them. The whole match felt clinical and the fact Montreal was squeezing Mercier so hard with those headlocks his veins seemed about to pop emphasized that. I imagine this kind of contest was more Mercier's specialty than the heatmongering face/heel style. His suplexes ruled. Both guys seemed to get increasingly agitated towards the end, really cracking each others jaws with the uppercuts. I‘ve seen a lot of 80s Euro draws like this, but seeing this go 25+ without rounds or falls was impressive. I could see most people finding this boring, but I enjoyed the show.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Siki! Zarak! Bayle! Eagle! Ramirez! Wherle! Schmid!

Mammoth Siki vs Zarak (JIP) 9/28/82

MD: Not nearly as good as the Siki vs Calderon match from 79 but not as bad as I thought it might be either. The big problem was that Siki didn't want to sell anything, so Zarak would get him in the corner and throw three chops into his throat and Siki would just come out hammering. The hammering itself wasn't so bad. He had a bunch of stuff, a chancery suplex, a drop down/leapfrog/dropkick, headbutts. And the strikes were substantial if nothing else. Zarak fought more from underneath throwing kicks into kneelifts, strutting about, carrying the emotional weight of the selling for the match certainly. In the end, Siki went for the mask one too many times and as the ref pulled him off, Zarak snuck in a low blow. It's a finish we actually haven't seen a ton in the footage so far. My gut says that if we had the first few minutes of this and more Zarak antics, it would have gained some points.

Remy Bayle vs Golden Eagle 9/28/82

MD: Another masked man against a strong guy but this had a different feel. Here, Bayle would have to use his strength to come up from underneath and he did so with quite a lot of verve, actually. They had built the idea of the mask being taken off in the last match and it's paid off here, with Bayle finally getting it after his big comeback, to the crowd's delight. There were some of the nice fire-ups out of a chinlock before that, the fireman's carry lift up and then just tossing the opponent over his shoulder out of the ring. Finish had Eagle angry about losing his mask and making mistakes. Straightforward stuff here but certainly not bad. I almost wonder if these two singles would have worked better as a tag though.

SR: These seem to be in the exact same building as the tag the previous month (or 3 years earlier?).
Anyways, these matches were mostly heavyweights beating on each other in not very exciting ways. The men mostly grinding these matches down were Siki (really like slazy chinlocks) and Eagle (really likes nasty chokes). I liked Bayle who looks like a Soviet grappler with his singlet and body hair. Anyways, these are for the "At least it was short" category.

Daniel Schmid/Remy Bayle vs Paco Ramirez/Gilbert Wherle 7/1/83

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. Paco Ramirez was apparently working EMLL as "Lawrence de Arabia". That was the most interesting thing about this bout. The wrestling was okay, but the face/heel dynamic was executed kind of poorly and you could tell they didn‘t have the kind spark of brilliance you usually expect from French wrestling. Worst of all, the match went needlessly long when these workers just didn‘t have much to offer. 

MD: I begrudgingly agree here. As best as I can tell, Schmid had an injury/accident in the late 70s and turned into a fan favorite after that and, as the parallel to him is Buddy Rose, it does remind me a bit of the Buddy face run. And he's fine in this role, even impressive with some of his flipping escapes given his size. But he was an entertaining bad guy and this would have worked better if it was Bayle/Wherle vs Ramierz/Schmid. We've seen very little of Wherle in the collection but he had some real expert arm/wrist manipulation and the best part of the match was when he was firing back and forth with Schmid. Ramirez had become quite the character with the bullwhip and matador gear and his preening theatrics. Bayle leaned into his strength again. The big problem here was just that the stylists were never in much danger. There was one bit where Ramirez and Wherle worked together to cheat for maybe a minute but it wasn't enough. There was the long technical first fall and the quick second with some comedy like usual but there was no drama in the middle. It meant things couldn't boil over and there was nothing to get emotionally invested in. That said, and as noted above, the work was still good. There was just nothing to sink your teeth into except for Ramirez being punchable and good exchanges for the sake of good exchanges.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Rocca! Tejero! Remy! Golden Falcons! Herve! Lamotta!

Gerard Herve/Tony Lamotta vs Golden Falcons 8/11/80

MD: Herve and Lamotta had matching tights. Saulnier was the ref. I read an article that may or may not have been BS where Herve said Jean Corne discovered him in the mid-70s and he was a Celt for a while. I saw no evidence of that but hey, it's possible. The Falcons were billed as Peruvian here, one larger who could hang a bit more with the faster rope running and spots and one who was smaller who hit a bit harder. Saulnier was the ref, which means Saulnier made his diminutive presence known.  

First third of this had Herve and Lamotta not necessarily control, but escape out of one hold after the next. There were some pretty elaborate exchanges out of wristlocks, but I'm not sure the technique was quite as tight as things we'd seen in years past. Herve's problem was that he was working big and loose for the back row but the back row really wasn't that far away in 1980. They could have brought him in as the French Von Erich cousin and he would have done very well in Texas. Most of the rest of the match was the Falcons controlling by doing nasty things behind the ref's back as Saulnier admonished the other stylist or yelled at the crowd. Not direct heat on Saulnier but certainly indirect. Lamotta, who was super agile and able to kip up a million times in a row, scored a quick roll up to win the first fall but either through Herve going to the mask foolishly or Saulnier intervening, the Falcons took back over. They won the second fall after a double team kick and back body drop which we haven't seen a ton of in the footage. Herve worked well from underneath, firing back to keep the fans in it and selling broadly. There were a couple of sufficiently hot tags here too but it maybe didn't come together as much as some of the other recent tags. Finish was yet one more hot tag to Herve and that amazing twisting armdrag thing we've seen a couple of the Panamanians and maybe Juan Guil Don use. I badly wish someone would steal it. Overall this was still well on the good side but there were some things I wouldn't have mind a bit tightened up.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. French pro wrestling was nearing the end, but tag team wrestling could still deliver, and this delivered. Fast intricate exchanges, a pair of masked guys who can stooge and deliver a beating... yeah, this is pretty much Lucha. Also, both teams wore matching outfits, so they understood the crucial parts of tag team wrestling. Gerard Herve is some young stud and a quite polished technico. Lamotta is balding and grey, but still really athletic with great looking ranas and flips, although he wisely leaves the bulk of the work to his partner. I didn‘t know what to expect from the Falcons (what kind of heel persona is that, anyways?) but they were ready to wrestle and bump and had good heel timing. There were some heel ref shenanigans with Michel Saulnier again, but to be honest he may have carried the heel beatdown section with his amusing ways to sabotage Herve. The european uppercuts landed loudly and the crowd was into this. The last fall is really short but the ending move is a good one.

Petit Prince/Claude Rocca vs Anton Tejero/Bob Remy 8/18/80

MD: This was as good as you'd expect. Some bonus heat to start as Tejero walked across the ring pre-match and ripped Prince's spectacles off his face. Once they got going there was a lot of Prince finding ways to fling Tejero to the floor, as he was always willing to get there the hard way, so revenge was had. More little bits of sputtering heat here in the first fall with a lot of comebacks, sometimes at the expense of the ref but often by simply stooging the heels. Prince really understood how to get sympathy and build to moments by this point. Remy and Rocca matched up well, Rocca with a lot of slick stuff and Remy more of a brusier where as Tejero could do everything under the sun. Towards the end of the first fall they really turned up the heat on Prince, with him, at one point, bumping into the third row. It wasn't until the ref missed the tag, a worthless moral victory for the stylists, did they actually pin him. Second fall had a molten hot tag which saw the ref get nailed as well, and then they soared into all of the fun celebratory stuff for the last fall. So it was a lot of what we've seen lately, but more of it, and with four excellent, excellent wrestlers working as hard as humanly possible. French Catch, still great in 1980, just in case anyone was confused about that.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a little over 30 minutes. The guys were still absolutely killing it. It‘s the same formula as any of these late period French tags, two good guys who will armdrag hard, 2 rudos who will bump like crazy, and an incompetent referee who is made the butt of many a joke. It‘s really nice that we have footage of Tejero from the 1960s up to here. He was getting lumpier and greying, but still an insanely dedicated bumper. He flung himself out and across the ring like 20 times in this. I have no idea what kind of money these guys were getting to work this hard, but it‘s a trip. Rocca looked awesome just running the ropes and the Prince hadn‘t slowed down much since the 60s. I also really liked Bob Remy who was a real fucker tagging guys with punches and stiff punt kicks. This was all action until a pretty intense rudo beatdown kicked in with the Prince taking a beating,even getting flung into the crowd and carried back by a second who didn‘t bother removing his cigarette. The 3rd fall wasn‘t as intense as the first two, but this was a romp.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Golden Falcons! Menard! Michel! Celts! Kamizake! Priore!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs.  Golden Falcons 5/13/72 

MD: A return match here. It starts exactly the same for the first thirty seconds or so which made me wonder, but it diverges after that. Very good as always when it comes to Ben Chemoul and Bordes, but you want just a little more heat sometimes. That's not to say that what we got in that direction wasn't good as the Falcons were excellent at controlling their corner and laying in clubbing (and clubbering) blows. All of the celebratory stylist stuff was excellent too, of course. Bordes increased his toolkit every match. There were maybe four or five new spots he did here that I'd never seen him do before, as varied as a belly to belly over head toss to more innovative tricked out rope running exchanges and even knife-edge chops which we don't often see in the footage. We have Ben Chemoul footage dating back fifteen years earlier and he could still go at such a high level here. Bordes might have outpaced him when it comes to flash but he still brought so much stylized sizzle and had such a connection with the crowd. And really, the fact that the two of them, 30 minutes into a match like this, could just shoot off 'rana after 'rana and dropkick after dropkick was just amazing.

Jean Menard/Alan Michel vs. Jean Corne/Michel Falempin (Third Fall) 5/22/72

MD: This is the last fall of a 2/3 falls match, and we get about eight minutes overall, plus the Celts celebration with a giant flag after the match. It was stylist vs stylist, mostly clean but occasionally boiling over in that 50s style. A lot of quick exchanges, some pin exchange sequences that were sharp and exciting. Usually when I see a new move in a match, I'll see it again in another with different people soon after. That was the case with the crucifix pin here, which I saw Bordes do recently for the first time in the footage. Really, by the end, this was just exchange after exchange and nothing really resonated too much. The tag setting made it hard for things to build towards a chippier finish because once they finished throwing shots, they'd tag out and go back to holds or pin attempts. The wrestling was all good though. I think we just missed out on not having the first two falls.

Kamikaze vs. Nicolas Priore 5/22/72

MD: I'm going to assume this was Aledo. He had a new deal where he took the mask off and revealed a ghastly bald head with a mustache and probably the eyebrows taped back to go full caricature. The announcer sold it as being worthy of a horror movie. Nothing incredibly spectacular out of him here, but he had a lot of stuff, going all in with the gimmick. That meant nerveholds and neck vices, throat shots and a nice punch to the cheek, chops to the head and stomach in a high/low pattern, skinning the cat by going through the second rope while getting tossed a couple of times, a bound up to the top to hit a diving chop to a prone Priore, a lot of bowing to the ref whenever he cheated, and this great bit where he sprung over the top to the floor like Savage to slam Priore's leg into the apron. He also had a way of sneaking in a quick counter to almost everything. So a lot of stuff and hoping at least some of it stuck. He had heat and they were behind Priore's comebacks so I suppose it did. Best part of this was probably when Priore came back and got his own revenge whack of the leg onto the apron. Kamikaze sold the leg well for a minute or two before deciding he had enough of it. Story of the match after that was Priore's head getting damaged from the chops and he selling the injury more and more until the ref stopped it. He had a few nice flourishes and comebacks including some brawling on the floor and a press slam gutbuster and giant swing, but it was all for naught. It's always interesting to see the Kamikaze act in full force but even with all of those affectations in offense and mannerisms, it only shows half of what we know Aledo could do.

 

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Bordes! Falcons! Cesca! Noirs!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs Golden Falcons 1/2/71

MD: Another notch in the belt for Ben Chemoul and Bordes. Another match with game opponents that goes 30, keeps the fans constantly entertained, and is one fun sequence after the next. Their opponents here were the Golden Falcons, billed from America and looking quite a bit like Halcon de Oro I and II. While they got clowned for most of the match, they did have some fun offense, inverted headlock backbreakers, these big whacks to the top of the head, and a nice rope running cheapshot sequence to win the first fall, plus good use of ref distraction for double teams to cut off the ring later on. They took the first fall in around ten minutes, which feels sort of rare in these matches and helped keep at least a little bit of drama while the stylists kept winning exchanges. Bordes was 24 here and continues to show more and more every match. He had these running-up-the-ropes armdrags I don't think I've seen much in the French footage so far, for instance, and they did the old waistlock-takedown-bodyscissors-posterior bump sequence in stereo which the fans loved. It's hard to explain Ben Chemoul to someone who hasn't seen him. Every movement was stylized and punctuated, with an acrobat's athleticism but this incredibly precise timing to draw the attention of every eye. He conducted the crowd and they chanted and sang for him more than any other wrestler in the footage. I'd liken it to Dusty's punches and atomic elbow except for it was just about everything Ben Chemoul did and he could do a lot. This had a few wrinkles and some very game, big bumping heels and was a good time had by all.

PAS: Really cool to see the Falcons, who maybe legendary luchadores considering how little 70s lucha footage we have. They were very solid rudos, kind of a lesser Oficial's team, who were there to serve as foils for the more spectacular babyfaces. Matt did a great job of describing Rene Ben, I think it is almost Wrestling 2ish, with just spice on every blow. Bordes is a great young babyface, a little bigger then your real juniors, but with that level of athleticism. We know what we get from these French tags at this point and it is great stuff. 


Gilber Cesca/Bruno Asquini vs Les Blousons Noirs 1/25/71

MD: Another year, some more Blousons Noirs. Top guys. Cesca and Asquini were definitely game opponents here. The Blousons looked a little older, especially Gessat but they were still great at stooging (especially Mannevau), at being absolutely mean (Gessat's face ripping in a nelson position), and especially at controlling things (love the body manipulation, especially full nelson spinouts into mares) in the second and first half of the third fall. Yeah, this actually settled down after the stylists took the first fall (long and mostly back and forth but with a definitely stylist advantage on exchanges and some clowning), into real, substantial heat. That's not always or maybe even often the case in these tags. Cesca and Asquini would get a tag and maybe a shot in but the Blousons would hammer them right down again. It wasn't until a missed double team and some chaos on the floor that Cesca and Asquini were able to comeback. Once they did, they never looked back with great looking strikes and energy down the stretch, right to the back flip off the top by Cesca and leapfrog to set up an Asquini missile dropkick that was the finish. We've seen the Blousons fairly steadily but Cesca really drops in and out of the footage. You see him back now and again with the same confidence and pin point accuracy and skill and wonder what he was up to during these gaps. This was a cut above due to the greater dedication to a more familiar structure if nothing else.

Read more!