Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Richard!

Petit Prince vs Jacky Richard 11/6/66

MD: Both wrestlers were young here, Prince at 23 and Richard at 22. As much as I like the really slick Saulnier matches, my favorite Prince stuff is always him matched up against a bully and Richard is quite the bully here. There's just much more of a sense of build and payoff in those matches and contrast really does make the world go round. 

Here this meant that Richard really ground down Prince. He had five minutes early on where he just tore apart the leg. Prince would try to reverse it, and sometimes would even come up with a reversal attempt (the most memorable had each going for a crab at the same time) but Richard's superior side would combine with the damage already done to keep him down. The crowd was increasingly incensed as Richard used the ropes and really just because Prince was being contained. And the legwork was mostly to punish and contain because when he did come back, he hit one of his amazing flurries of move after move, incredibly dynamic stuff. 

Richard stayed on him however. and really started beating him with stomps and kicks. He'd toss Prince out and when Prince tried to get back in, would knock him not just off the apron but into the third row (where he was caught by a woman who gave Richard the what for). When he tried to get back up again he ended up in the third row again. They moved into another comeback shortly thereafter and you half got the sense it was to avoid a riot. Richard ended up tied up tight in the ropes as Prince hit him with shot after shot after shot. The finish played into all those extracurriculars on the floor as Richard went to knock him off again only for Prince to catch him. The act was still developing but this was still primal, spectacular stuff.

SR:  I think this is the youngest we have seen Jacky Richard, which is kind of nice. Now we know he wasn't always crusty and old. This felt almost like a very mat-based match for the Prince. I mean, the first 5 minutes only had a cool backflip from him, otherwise they were working a modified headlock and step over toe hold. The Prince did get on a few tears with his beautiful athletic offense, but it wasn't all out like we had seen in other matches. The match was more about Richard garnering heat by being a bastard. He really tore up the Prince's leg. It didn't stop the Prince from hitting his stuff but it looked nasty. At one point he kept throwing the Prince into the crowd over and over with folks looking really upset and throwing trash in the ring, so it was a good night of work for Jacky Richard. He also had a great looking lift into a gutbuster. The Prince's comeback was more about beating the shit out of Richard and less about hitting his spots, which was pretty cool to see. A fairly typical French TV match for the time, upgraded with the Prince's cool agility, and Jacky Richard looking like a particularily nasty bastard. Would've blown a few minds if it were the first French match we had seen, still a pretty decent addition to the collection.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Marquis! Shadow! Motta! Angelito! Lailee! Acesnsy! Gordon! Frederico!

Marquis Richard/Black Shadow vs. Marcello Motta/Angelito 8/25/85

MD: We're leaning on INA's youtube site for this one. It's next on the list as it is, and I might have skipped it (especially because we covered it for NFF back in 2019; look at how little we knew!) but this is the second to last week so... well, let's lean on them outright. Anyway, this stands on a strong foundation. Most of these 80s tags do. There were all the elements. Angelito was the heir to Le Petit Prince and he was flashy as could be, with things I've rarely ever seen like a body press into an armdrag or using the ropes to slingshot up and over on a hammerlock escape. He was a special talent and should be thought of as much. There are the other hits. Black Shadow still likes to get tossed out of the ring. Richard had the valet and he got heat (more on that later). The heel-leaning ref was annoying but in a way that got the job done. Motta was fiery and had the crowd behind him. They ran holds and sequences for the first two thirds, with a little bit of heat, broken up, in the middle. Then they leaned hard into it, due to the valet turning the tide, with endless stomps and clubbering, everything looking credible, Angelito selling huge. And finally, there was the comeback, probably one of the best actual comebacks we've seen in quite a while, with Richard tossing Angelito into the ropes, likely so the valet could sneak in another shot, only for Angelito to turn it into a massive, high octane dropkick, knocking the valet off the apron. The finish was sloppy but the fans didn't care. Hell, there was even a Martian type mascot on the outside, a dog named Alberic. I know this isn't the tight work of the 60s, but there was still a lot to enjoy in this faded reflection of grander times. And look at the difference between our 2019 review and this one. We had no idea what wonders were ahead of us!

Gaby Lailee vs. Acensy Del Oro 3/8/87

MD: Ok, so, welcome to 1987. We're just about done here. Here's what you need to know. The program opening has the wrestlers come out with synth music in the background and someone playing a trumpet. It's the whole promotion including Flesh in his 1987 singlet with one strap look and some guy with a K themed mask/outfit with a cape that we'll probably never learn about. Gaby has a Native American gimmick with a headdress she was gifted after she came back from the states. She came out with a huge guy with an Ivan Drago/Terminator type thing who was "the champion of Yugoslavia" and being trained by Flesh Gordon. Acensy is "a former champion of Spain" like every other Spanish wrestler we've ever seen in France. This was the worst of combinations to start: openly collaborative and sloppy all at once; Acensy was pretty clearly basing and helping Gaby do thing cartwheels and they badly blew a sunset flip. Once things got a little more heated and they went away from the wrestling, things settled dow a bit, but outside of one heated moment where Gaby chased her out into the crowd, it wasn't particualrly memorable. Definitely a far cry from what we saw with Lola Garcia at the end of the 70s.

Eliot Frederico vs. Flesh Gordon 3/8/87

MD: This entire episode feels like an attempt to force a revival in 87 to me. They talk on commentary about L'Ange Blanc and Le Borreau and Duranton and Firmin. They say that Flesh Gordon is the hope to lead them into the future. He's bill as a star all around the world. And, it's a last gasp, right? I don't think this match was bad. It was a fine sprint but it had none of the real art or flair. I think it would have matched well to a Prime Time Wrestling match from 87, but it also doesn't seem quite as distinct from that. Gordon didn't do any of his tribute spots. No headstand, no up and over, not even his flying flipping armdrag finish. You know what he did? Three matches before I'm done with this whole project? The first ever clothesline I've seen in French Catch. If that's not symbolic that the end has come, I don't know what is. Frederico remains a solid heel who hits hard and Gordon even hit hard at times too but this wasn't even a reflection, or if it was, it was maybe a reflection of something else that was happening across the Atlantic.

 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Bordes! Gordon! Marquis! Texas! Frederico! Maniaks!

Angelito/Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Marquis Richard/Jessy Texas/Eliot Frederico 8/11/85

MD: Some high level takeaways on this one. First, I've been doing this for three years and I'm nearing the end, just a few more weeks to go, so to hear the crowd chant Mamadou Meme again for Walter Bordes struck an emotional chord. Second, it's such a shame that we didn't get more trios matches. There are only two or three in the footage and it's such a natural, logical extension for French Catch. The style and action and constant motion plays into it so well. This was three of the last stalwart hero stylists of the last decade (or at least two thirds of a decade) of Catch: Bordes, Gordon, Angelito, up against some game heels. Texas came out on a horse. Frederico was dubbed "Le Rocky". Richard had his valet. They all did admirably here basing for the first third, bullying for the middle third, stooging for the last third.

As such, I thought the structure worked. Exchanges and pairings to begin. Bordes had entered middle age but could still go. Gordon was starting to show cracks, maybe, but still worked broadly and his spots, when they hit, had star power. Angelito was a marvel; they were calling him the new petit prince, basically, and it's not like it wasn't fair. 

The match broke open on the outside with some pretty visceral brawling, ending back in the ring with Bordes trapped in the heel corner. He took a huge beating (including some valet-assisted hidden object nonsense), and they really should have pinned him after a great tandem move where Texas and Richard held him up by his limbs so Frederico could hit a driving headbutt off the top on his elevated form. Still, eventually he did come back with a big set piece of turning the table on the heels that Ben Chemoul would have proud of. They worked a mini heat on Angelito after the hot tag but he fought back too and Gordon scored the first pin with his twisting armdrag slam. The third fall was almost entirely celebratory with Frederico getting his mustache pulled and the heels tied up. There was a blip of Bordes having the rope pulled down on him and eating a nasty bump but it was all so he could come back with the big reverse body press off the top for the win. A nice look at what had been, what was, and what might have been all at once.

Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Les Maniaks 8/18/85 

MD: One last look at our friend Walter Bordes, as we now just have a few matches ahead of us. This was a great performance out of him too, smooth as anything in his exchanges in the first half. There was a point where Maniak #2, who was more of the showman, went for a catapult into the corner and Bordes just flew towards the ropes and casually ducked between them and right back in. It was a slick little piece of business which if done poorly might have exposed one of the more dubious moves in a wrestler's arsenal, but overall looked great. Then, for the back half, after a Maniak caught him out of nowhere with a Tombstone, he sold and sold and sold, starting at comatose and coming back just a little more and more until he was able to utilize a leg clap to break up a second tombstone attempt and make the tag.

Gordon was fine. You really get the sense that he had taken all the moves of his predecessors (even using Jon Guil Don's crazy  360 armdrag as his finisher) and had a definite connection to the crowd, but wasn't quite as smooth and slick with any of it. Here he did a headstand to escape an armbar but sort of just fell over with it instead of doing the spin out, that sort of thing. Still, you can't say he wasn't a solid babyface even if he was just a reflection of the stylists of old, especially when he was in there teaming with Bordes who was still the real deal, even with his middle aged hairline. So the first half of this was just ok, with one Maniak trying more than he could manage and the other solid with some nice cravats but not much more than that. Once the heat started and the fans really got into it all the way through the big comeback and comeuppance for the heels, you could see the glimpse of years' past once again.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gordon! Hassouni! Marquis! Shadow! Primitiv! Jessy Texas? Cohen! Tejero! Lagache!

Flesh Gordon/Kader Hassouni vs Marquis Richard Fumolo de la Rossignolette/Black Shadow 7/14/85

MD: I'd call this one surprisingly good, pretty well put together. By this point, the good Marquis (now mentioned as Richard instead of Edouard) had figured out a better balance for the act. It was still getting a lot of heat on the valet (a Paul Butin-Fluchard; your guess is as good as mine), which involved him having to stand on the apron and go all the way to the center of the ring at every opportunity and contrived ref distraction, but he was better at knowing when to bump and feed and work rope running spots and when to slow things down and pose and preen. They were all moving pretty well in there actually, surprising for Richard since he'd been more of a lump recently and for Black Shadow because he took so many big bumps and dives to nowhere. I thought Gordon looked quite good; Hassouni probably hit things cleaner and moved faster but Gordon had more of a star's sense when to appeal to the crowd and really milk something. This followed the old structure with exchanegs and stylist dominance in the first fall, cheating leading to a straight up beating in the second, and all of the celebratory bits of comeback and humiliation in the third, including the valet getting what was coming to him. The ref leaned heel which was kind of necessary for the valet act to work but made it all a bit much but the fans were into it, the action was good save for a few flubs, and the production team certainly had a lot of fun putting quasi-blasphemous phrases up on the screen to highlight the Marquis' antics. We're deep into 1985 now and while Flash Gordon isn't Jacky Corn or Petit Prince or Gilbert LeDuc, and while he'd turn into whatever he would turn into in the years to come, you do get the sense from the footage we do have that he did do a fairly admirable job helping to anchor things in the 80-85 period.

Mambo Le Primitif vs Jessy Texas 7/21/85

MD: I have no idea who Jessy Texas is but he's around off and on through the end of he footage and after. Mambo has his drummers back. It's crazy that we have more Mambo matches than L'Ange Blanc matches, right? And over the span of a few years here. his was fairly spirited, I guess. Ol' Jessy (billed from America and with a fun shirt with his name on the back) had a lot of the tricks (dropkicks, the up and over top wristlock reversal, monkey flips, a very nice heaving back body drop type throw), and Mambo bumped all over the place, including his signature chest first miss off the ropes splaach bump. Eventually, he got biting and clubbering and despite a fiery comeback from a bloody Jessy, one big shot to the gut ended his hopes. Mambo finally more or less figued out how to do the Alabama Jam too, so good for him. This didn't have he spectacle of the handicap match or the strap match but it was probably the best darn Mambo Le Primitif match I've ever seen. Oh and since everyone needs to know this, pop star "Billy" was there for the last match and singer Francois Deguelt (who represented Monaco at Eurovision!) was sitting on commentary for this one. Important stuff.

Georges Cohen & Kader Hassouni vs Anton Tejero & Pierre Lagache 7/21/85

MD: I'm going to miss these sequences. Up and over into headscissorss. Amrdrags where they hang on and hang on. Rolling back wristlock takedowns. Cohen and Hassouni were stylists' stylists. Tejero and Lagache were expert bases, stooging and feeding and bumping out of the ring (the old Tejero special). They were all older now but the technique was the technique and they were masters. Maybe Hassouni didn't get as high up on his cartwheel. Maybe the rope running just lasted a few spots instead of a full minute, but they were able to get a lot of mileage out of teasing the wrenching of an arm or slipping a shot in to the gut or the ref preventing Cohen from getting in while Hassouni was getting double teamed. That meant when Tejero went sailing through the second and third rope to the floor on a missed charge or was tossed over the top afer Cohen's eventual hot tag, it just meant all the more. What can I tell you that I haven't already? In 1965 or 1985, these guys were good.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Blaire! McDonald! Primitiv! Lopez! Malpard! Marquis! Angelito! Gordon! Shadow! Frederico!

Linda Blaire vs Nicky McDonald 7/21/84

SR: It‘s a womens match. This was better than other 80s womens matches I‘ve seen from Europe, but that‘s not a high bar given that women were traditionally discriminated against in European wrestling. There was some decent stuff in here but not the super athletic shit you are used to see from French wrestlers. The annoying thing about the match was that it was part of that Le Dernier Manchette show where they kept cutting to certain members of the crowd and Roger Delaporte commentating. I have no idea if they still ran actual wrestling in the Elysee Montemartre at this stage or if these matches were just basically exhibitions for this documentary type TV show.

MD: The whole episode is here but it's timestamped to the start of the match. What I can say safely is that there's connection. The bald fan with mutton chops from the studio show is there in the crowd and causing antics. They focus on him (and a female fan) quite a bit, and do "cut back" to the studio where they're obviously not watching this live as the extra were just told to wave their hand randomly to some imaginary action. That means we miss a bit here and there but never much. The match itself felt like the middle ground between Moolah-ism and the French style. They hit hard. There were holds and takeovers. There were also hairpulls/tosses. It couldn't hold a candle even to the 70s Lola Garcia match we saw. That said, I think it would have held up pretty well to any comparable women's match in the States in the 80s and they filled the time well. Blaire was the heel and I liked her antics and in-between moments. She'd clap for herself after a front chancery takeover or scream a bit "Yeah!" as she was doing a slam. Big clubbering shots too, that sort of thing. And blatant low blows that you just kind of had to go with (she got a public warning for one). McDonald had some huge fiery comebacks the sort that drew public warnings. Her best was when she slammed McDonald onto the apron repeatedly after pulling her out. Objectively solid, but harder to watch in context.

Le Primitiv vs Patrick Lopez 8/1/84

MD: Look, if Mombo was coming to my town in 1984, I'd go and see him. Granted, I was a toddler in 1984, but still. The automatic translation on youtube called him a "real frenzied Mongolian plush toy" and that seems as accurate as anything else. Honestly, he was developing the act from the last time we saw him! There was more dancing to the tribal band's constant drumming now. He still hit the crazy tope and the top rope legdrop. This was just a wild scene. Lopez looked right out of the late 50s. He did all the up and overs and handstand ranas and cartwheels and rolls. He bumped big out of the ring and bumped Mombo big out of the ring. If we had him against Pellacani or Peruano or even Bernaert, it'd be another thing. Against Mombo, it ended up looking like some of the loosest work we've seen in the footage. They were playing at it instead of doing it. It was entertaining and didn't wear out its welcome but it felt more like parody than anything else.

SR: Bless Patrick Lopez, because god damn he tried. This would‘ve been a fun match on New Catch. Although the logic of the primitive monkey man knowing knuckle locks and tope suicidas eludes me.

Gerald Malpard vs. Marquis Edouard Fumolo de la Rossignolette 8/1/84

SR: More old man catch. I could see people digging the Marquis and his act, especially with him having a valet and all that, but the workrate isn‘t winning me over.

MD: Again, it's all relative. Richard in this role has completely changed his act and he's still developing it week to week and adding little flourishes. Some of the bits of the valet coming in and dusting the opponent while he's in a hold or just the way the match started with him jamming Malpard three or four times before getting his comeuppance was wonderful BS. He still hit hard. He wasn't afraid to bump. He was a full step slow and a little ginger in his movement, half for the gimmick, half not. Would I have rather seen him instead of the Rene Goulets of the world on a 1984 WWF undercard? Absolutely. Could he have had a great few week run against Jerry Lawler or Austin Idol in 1984 Memphis? Absolutely. He worked the gimmick into every moment and got full mileage out of the valet. Would we have gotten a better match if we had 20 minutes of stylist-vs-stylist worked to a draw Lopez vs Malpard (who was game here, bumping big, getting sympathy and having a way of just tossing himself recklessly at the Marquis)? Yeah, we would had. This was fun bullshit, entertaining. I'd say, given the length, it's absolutely worth watching! It just lacked the actual wrestling underpinning we even got from classic Duranton. And for those who have been following along, you know exactly what that means.

Angelito/Flesh Gordon vs Black Shadow/Eliot Frederico 8/1/84

SR: 2/3 Falls match going roughly 25 minutes. You know, these late period French tags may not be as good as the classic stuff, but I‘m really enjoying them. A big part of that is Angelito, who has really great body control and just moves so gracefully around. In this match, Frederico was also part of that. I don‘t know what got into him, but he decided to beat the shit out of Flesh Gordon with great looking punch combos. This match also had some blatantly Lucha spots. There was even a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor (!!) and Frederico launching Angelito with a military press onto Gordon who was busy outside. This was not just a spots match, though. Angelito ended up taking a big bump in the 2nd fall and spent much of the fall laid out All Japan style while Flesh was in peril. It didn‘t build to a kind of amazing conclusion but it was a neat choice of structure. It‘s cool that they were trying new things while sticking to the old rhythm even in the dying days of the territory.

MD: Sebastian hit this one pretty well. Angelito was very impressive, though there were times where he'd do one extra flip to turn something already impressive into something just a little over the top or not quite as smooth as it had been up until then. Gordon looked better here than the last time we saw him. He really understood how to work from underneath and had just enough flashy stuff to get by, including that up and over flip mare driver thing that he hits multiple times in this one (but each one was a killshot basically). Shadow was solid as ever, just a real pro at taking stuff and bumping big. Frederico is a guy I badly wish we had five years earlier, because while he doesn't keep up quite as well, his puncher's gimmick is just great. We've had so few boxing gimmicks in the footage, and I think this might be the first heel with it and it's perfect for the way these tags work. You mainly want the heels to be able to clobber and smash and grind the stylists down and he can just unload on someone in the corner. Angelito's big catapult bump over the top gave it all real drama even if they couldn't give the heels even one pinfall and the finish seemed just a bit wonky with the double sunset flips seeming to finish it but not quite, but overall, this was another good tag even deep into 1984.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Richard! Corne! Hassouni! Shadow! Angelito! Cohen! Bordes! Gordon! MANIAK!

Jacky Richard/Albert Sanniez vs Jean Corne/Kader Hassouni 9/3/83

MD: As we close out the 1983 footage, we bid adieu to three of our stalwart friends: Richard, Sanniez, and Corne. There will be a few more Hassouni matches in the collection, which is a good thing as he looked excellent here. They all did, of course, Richard the heatseeking, clubbering, basing malcontent; Sanniez the slicker, hard-hitting, big bumping technician; and Corne the junior hero, smaller and quicker than Corn or Leduc but just as able to carry the crowd. This was a great crowd too with kids who wore their hearts on their sleeves, uppity teenagers who dared to get right up to the ring, and yes, a pro wrestling granny. Lots of chants and big elation for the stylist comebacks.

Given the four we had in there, of course they moved in and out of the holds well for the first ten minutes. The heat came in two parts and the first was a little overwrought as Saulnier had to strain all over the ring to get out of position. He was missing Sanniez's pretty blatant hairpulls (armbar, with the head between the legs, and his hand reaching around the back for the pull). It meant that the first comeback was more about him paying for his transgressions with Sanniez catapulted right into him. The second bit of heat was primarily clubbering and this had a bigger and more direct sort of comeback with Corne sneaking into the ring and through the legs to break up a double team and lead to miscommunication and the finish. As always, it was amazing that Hassouni and Sanniez were able to do some of the things that they were in quick exchanges 20+ minutes in, but that's French Catch for you.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. You will know exactly how these go by now. Long, quality face shine chock full of super quick sequences to start, before the heels take over for a beatdown. Faces come back, heels bump like mad and a quick finish happens. After this, the matches we have get pretty wacky, so I guess this is a sort of last hurrah for the classic type of Catch. It was as good as any of these matches you‘ve seen too. Everyone looked pretty old but they had no probably going hard as usual. Richard especially was the most grey and crusty looking dude here but had no problem bumping big and fast and running the ropes. Hassouni was spry and Sanniez had one of his typically good performances. There were also a bunch of rowdy kids and an elderly lady at ringside threatening to storm the ring at the heel tactics of Richard & Sanniez. Maybe for this reason referee Michel Saulnier decided not to do anything fishy here.

Black Shadow vs Angelito (JIP) 2/25/84

MD: Just the last two and a half minutes here of a match that went almost twenty. Angelito and Shadow might have lost half a step but them half a step down was still pretty good for the bits we saw here. I imagine they had started off with a bit more flash and speed. This was pretty evenly worked with holds and rope running and flips about until Angelito bounded up cleverly into a victory roll for the win. From a technological standpoint, they were experimenting with slow-motion replays.

SR: About 2 minutes shown of what looked like a preliminary affair. Angelito has some really nice moves, though.

Marquis Edouard de la Rossignolette vs Georges Cohen 2/25/84

MD: I may have spoken too soon, for the good Marquis, in his fineries, with his medals and his monocle, and his butler "Paul Bart", does have a striking resemblance to Jacky Richard, if you just take out the beard. I do give him some credit for changing his look, his expressions, the way that he moved.

That said, this is going to disappoint people who are into the quicker stuff in the footage, the more technical stuff, AND the slugfests. I'm not going to lie about that. I enjoyed it to a degree, but it was a pale shadow of some of the other examples of the sort we have. It didn't have the manic energy of Duranton and his valet and no one compares well to the size, derision, and high spots of Lasartesse. Moreover, there were just less of the chained together moves or dogged hanging on to holds that you'd get from the tags (even the ones with Richard and Cohen). I do think this would compare quite well to a lot of what was happening in the mid-cards of pro wrestling shows in the States for 1984.

Richard played his character well, got heat, was able to grind down on Cohen. When it was time for him to show ass, he did. He bumped around the ring (but just one bump at a time instead of three), got dropkicked into a hanging in the ropes (replayed nicely with the slowmo), set up some spots for the butler (including Cohen chasing him around the ring, AND a repeat of what we saw in the last 83 tag where Saulnier as ref took a similar kicked away from the ropes and into the center of the ring bump), and even had a truly funny moment: after pulling the corner protector off, Cohen reversed him into it a couple of times and he gingerly tried to put it back on with deep regret. It was funny. So, I think, objectively, this was fine; it was the sort of stuff that Eric and I would write a bunch of words about and be glad that we saw. It just doesn't compare to what was came before, even what came a year before as we had just seen. The biggest sin wasn't a slightly slower pace or less technical back and forth or a lack of rope running; it was that Cohen didn't get more of a heated comeback before the Marquis got himself dqed with a corner crotching. They were getting over the character but I think that would have gone a long way to helping the match overall.

SR: I wonder if the Marquis ever faced the little Prince. This was the first sign of the old catch maestros slowing down. Both guys could still move but they only did the most barebones stuff and there were pauses between each movement. Not good.

Walter Bordes/Flesh Gordon vs Les MANIAK 2/25/84

MD: Flesh was really leaning into the gear here, with the lightning bolt tank top and belt. The Manics had sort of an Espectro, Jr look to them, with big hair and masks, but in grey with red splotches. My gut tells me that one was better than the other but I couldn't say that for sure. This was one fall but still went quite a while. Bordes and Gordon looked good. Les Maniak had one or two big moves (a front facelock drop that was nasty, a huge press up powerbomb type drop that may or may not have been intentional). They worked over Gordon's leg for their control but I'm not sure he had any real intention to sell it. A lot of what Gordon and Bordes threw out was still their tricked out stuff, but maybe things less reliant on their opponents, especially after the early going where there was some miscommunication on fairly simple things and Bordes seemed a little hot at one of the Maniacs. For instance, there was only one extended hold sequence of in and out, but it was a nice one where he kipped up repeatedly in an armbar until he got the headscissors to a big pop. There were a few quite gifworthy sequences in here, stuff that would be more like ten seconds instead of the usual thirty, and the never lost the crowd (Bordes is undeniable and Gordon really understood how to milk a moment for the back row, like when he just hung on a Maniac's shoulders and looked left and right before falling backwards with a Rana), but overall, this definitely felt a little disjointed relative to other matches of its ilk in the collection.  

SR: LES MANIAK. France was going full Catch y Lucha at this point. Apparently, Flesh Gordon was working Mexico in the 70s, so I guess that explains the crossover. This was even more Luchaesque than anything we‘ve seen before. Unfortunately, Les Maniaks, who acted quite sane and calculating, weren‘t very good here. There were several blown spots and their beatdown section dragged on forever. I enjoyed Bordes old man performance as usual. I can‘t tell if Gordon was getting lazier or if he was toning it down due to his opponent not being familiar with him. Anyways, this was charming and entertaining, but needed better rudo bases to work.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Caballec! Richard! Renault! Prince! Bouvet! Sanniez! Tejero!

Jean Corne & Rene Caballec vs Jacky Richard & Guy Renault 10/12/81

MD: This was just go go and more go but everything was mean and nasty at the same time. We've been watching Corne and Richard for years and years now with Renault and Caballec coming in and out of the footage but could they ever still go. You'd get Richard or Renault just feeding and feeding and feeding, bounding off the ropes, bumping around the ring while in holds, in and out and in again. Even when they slowed down, they didn't let up. It'd be Richard grinding on a chinlock and just punching someone right in the cheek and putting it back on or Caballec snatching a bridging headscissors to a standing Renault and the working of it just constant motion and struggle. And they'd move right into an armbar with Renault scooting around the ring and Richard bumping in trying to get a tag. Or Richard would have an arm puller on Corne with Renault continuously whacking him from the outside, eventually Corne would manage to knock him off the apron but they'd work right back into the hold until Corne could roll around into a headlock and kick Richard in the face. They just kept going and going, constant motion. Just one sequence after the next, constantly interesting and engaging and violent.

There were differences. Richard and Renault were the next version of the Blousons Noirs, I guess, now fitting for the early 80s, by way of Adrian Adonis and studded leather everything. I mean, it was still Jacky Richard. He had to be an old friend to most of these fans. There was a quick and out of nowhere first fall where Corne got clocked by him off the ropes, though. Even Delaporte seemed confused by it, but it did add a bit more drama, yes. The only time the match settled down were the real periods of heat where the heels were controlling the pace and beating down the stylists, and there Delaporte helped to bring the motion as ref as he bristled about. That didn't give the crowd any rest. It just ramped up the pressure for the comeback more and more. And that paid off with some big house cleaning moments from Caballec and clowning revenge by Corne. All of the turmoil boiled over into a short third fall as they worked towards the time limit with pin attempt after pin attempt before Delaporte got to partake in his favorite indulgence and declare the stylists the winners. Just a wonderful middle ground between working hard and working harsh.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going 30 minutes. Richard & Renault were donning the leatherman gear here. There were some structural choices here that may confuse people, but the work was undeniable. This kind of insane cardio show from a bunch of crusty old men is just befuddling. I liked the early pinfall to increase tension throughout most of the match, and there was just one entertaining exchange after another. Richard & Renault weren‘t bumping as big as other rudos we‘ve seen, but had no problem going along and looked considerably scummy. The crowd absolutely loved this and folks were jumping up and down anytime Les Celts got the upper hand.

Petit Prince & Gerard Bouvet vs Anton Tejero & Albert Sanniez 7/24/82 

MD: There's some question on whether this is 79 or 82, but given the technological advances (the names on the screen for instance), I'm thinking the 82 date is right. It's strange being in 82 as opposed to, let's say, the mid 60s where we actually have so little footage from the rest of the world. We have a great idea what wrestling looks like all over in 82 and it doesn't look much of anything like this. This was all the hits, once again, but it's amazing that Prince (and his bases, and Bouvet in his own way) were still able to do them 16 years after we first saw him. You can't help but wonder what it'd look like if Sanniez got to team with 82 Dynamite or Tejero with 82 Buddy Rose or with the potential 1980 Prince vs Fujinami match would have looked like.

It's the hits but the hits are so good, crazy wristlock exchanges early where a wrestler will hang on through everything, all of Prince's headlock sequences where you, and his opponent have no idea which direction he'll dart next as he twists around and through and over, so many cartwheels, Tejero bumping out the ring again and again, Sanniez with a chip on his shoulder, Bouvet being slick as can be. There's even the short arm scissors sequences with the Gotch lift and stumble over the top and right back in, with the actual heat in the match starting with Tejero cutting Prince off when he tries to go up and over the second time. That's the big difference between 66 and 82, that they're able to work the heat to a comeback better, with missed tags and distracted refs and everything else. That bit was probably just a bit too short to really inspire hearts and souls to rage though. It all still ends in a celebratory third fall with a lot of stooging, but even in 82 the action here more than holds up against anything in the world at the time.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. This exact same match is also uploaded as being aired on 1/1/1979, so it‘s another mysterious case. This was a "more of the same" match with some sequences being replicated exactly as in the previous Prince/Rocca match. That is to be expected, I guess, and there were still like 10 sequences that would have most luchadors drop their jaws with envy. The man bringing something fresh to the table was Bouvet, doing some more technical stuff and even a skin the cat spot. Tejero was a bit more subdued here, so Sanniez stepped up being the
master of the hair pull. There was no intense heat segment like in other French tags and the faces handily bagged this one 2:0, so I guess that disqualifies it from a Best Of list anyways.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Caballec! Richard! Sanniez! Lasartesse! Mercier!

Jacky Richard/Albert Sanniez vs Jean Corne/Rene Caballec 9/8/80

MD: Caballec is someone we've seen a few times in the footage, going all the way back to the early 60s. Last time we saw him, he was positioned as a bad guy but I noted that he seemed to have stylist skills. He certainly showed them off here. Sanniez, of course, had been an arch stylist but he'd worked out how to be a bad guy in his time in a role. He and Richard were perfectly balanced, the stooging, bruising, slamming, jawing Jacky and the slick, bumping, technical, rope running, and constantly trying to interject from the outside Sanniez. Between the two of them, you had just about everything you could want two stylists to go up against. And of course, Corne was one of the very best at what he did; by this point, it feels like the Celts were as iconic and as much of a staple as the Rock'n'Roll Express, even if Corne was the constant and partners moved around him. In between them was that old walrus, Delaporte, gruff and even more aged than we last saw him, but beloved and one of a kind in his reactions.

Richard comes off again and again as one of the best wrestlers in the entire footage. He's not going to be one that casuals who drop in for trampolines and Petit Prince headlock spots are going to notice, but he's a base's base and a stooge's stooge and a mauler's mauler. He's the glue. He's the reaction that gives meaning to the action. He's the consequence ready to strike and capitalize on an opportunity. Here he's gotten even better at working with Delaporte, working with the crowd (and hating the music from the Celts' fan club), while still being able to take everything and keep up enough to make it all work. They work this to a draw, though that doesn't really make the first twenty minutes much different than what we'd be used to in a long 2/3 falls tag. What it means, as much as anything else, is that Richard and Sanniez are quick to rush into break up pinfalls and earn Delaporte's ire. At one point, after Richard snuck something and the fans called him on it, he pointed to him with the most perfect "J'accuse!" imaginable. They got the heat that they did did by running circles around him, attacking a downed opponent while he was stuck admonishing the other. He got the last laugh as after the time ended, he declared the stylists the winner anyway; he's the promoter so he can do that.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going 30 minutes. If all 80s French wrestling is just gonna be quality workrate tags like this involving lumpy maestros, I‘d be fine with that. The opening exchanges were just ridiculously fast and intricate. It was like watching Navarro/Solar on speed. I also enjoyed Albert Sanniez a lot here, who may be the best of the French rudos. He just makes everything look great. The structure was a bit weaker than in the previous tags as it seemed like the faces were never really in trouble and there wasn‘t an extended heat segment. Roger Delaporte was the referee here and for some reason he keeps this in order. Being a legendary TV villain and then turning around to be a good guy referee is weird. The time limit ran out, but Delaporte declares Corne & Caballec the winners anyways. The work here was very good, but I could see some people being annoyed or confused with the match layout.

Guy Mercier vs Jack de Lasartesse 10/5/81

MD: And suddenly we're in October 1981. The wrestling in 1980 was good! So it's a shame that we're basically a year later without much to show for it. This is our lot though. We shall meet it with dignity. There's still quite a bit left after all. They say it's been thirteen years since we've seen Lasartesse and the footage bears out at least 11, I think. Delaporte is the ref. I'm with Sebastian that the big issue on this one was that Mercier's comeback just wasn't hot enough. Lasartesse had taken over fairly early by working the back and he did it well, with hard shots, pulling the corner protector down for whips, backbreakers, butterfly suplexes. When it came time for the comeback, it was sort of an eyerake out of the bearhug, which led to legwork and the duel selling of the leg and Lasartesse's ears as I think he was doing the Mongolian Stomper gimmick of the crowd noise hurting him. He's such a unique character, with his lanky limbs and gum chewing and the way that he always sells and strikes while he's just constantly walking, like a shark who can never stop. When he sells late in the match by writhing and not walking, having lost his swagger, that's when the fans know he's in trouble. Before that, he's always a long-reached hairpull away from escaping any hold. Mercier does a good job selling the back and then coming back with leglock after leglock and Lasartesse does take back over later, leading to a fairly fiery comeback and strike exchanges towards the bell, but it's just not as primal as a Van Buyten (or Jacky Corn for that matter) match would have been. Great build, but the payoff sputtered too much.  

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. Lasartesse was sporting blonde hair here and hadn‘t fully morphed into the evil grandpa looking guy yet. This had the weird Lasartesse match problem where he did a ton of offense, but the match wasn‘t as smartly laid out as his better matches. His offense looked good, especially the knee drops and throat jabs, but Mercier wasn‘t able to stage some kind of epic comeback against that like a Van Buyten type worker would have. I thought Mercier was too small to fight Lasartesse (seems there was a lack of big guys on the French scene), and while he does fine, he doesn‘t do a ton of interesting things here either. He was mostly hogging Lasartesses leg which
didn‘t lead anywhere. There was also the thing where Lasartesse hits his sick ass knee drop off the top rope followed by the tombstone piledriver which is a finish if I‘ve ever seen a finish in French catch, but Mercier just kind of gets up and they move on with the match. Guys will get pinned following a bodyslam or hip throw, but for some reason everyone survives the Tombstone Piledriver. This also goes to a draw and again, referee Delaporte declares the face the winner which feels like it completely eliminates the purpose of a draw. I‘m probably making this match sound worse than it was, the work was good and especially Lasartesse had a good showing, but the baffling layout choices prevented this from being more than that.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Hassouni! Angelito! Richard! Herve! Ramirez!

Kader Hassouni/Jean Corne vs Jacky Richard/Angelito 3/11/79


MD: We've got one more match after this in the decade, but this was a beautiful way to end the 70s. It was a swimming pool match. Delaporte was the special ref. Corne and Hassouni are two of the great medium-sized wrestlers of the period. Angelito is flashy and entertaining. Richard is one of the best stooging, bullying heels and bases.

For the first quarter or so, Angelito plays stylist too, which made Richard a bit of the odd man out. He would clap and bow. They had a fun bit where everyone was rolling safely on mares and throws except for Richard, who was getting increasingly more frustrated. Things started to turn a bit after a series of very long, complex, entertaining and very skilled wristlock sequences with both Hassouni and Corne controlling Angelito who was doing everything he could to escape. Shortly thereafter, he went full bad guy and seemed to revel in the role, posing and preening, doing flips just to taunt, teasing getting tossed into the water only to catch himself at the last second. Eventually he took it too far and Corne gave him an outright jackknife power bomb for his trouble.

The combo of Angelito and Richard controlled much of this. Hassouni scored a roll up in the midst of a beating for the first fall but ultimately misstepped (literally) and knocked Corne off the apron and into the water, leaving him open for a slam (and Richard had huge slams) to be pinned. The third fall was all the heels until they took it too far, knocking Hassouni out, then Corne when he was checking on him, and then Delaporte himself! He came back in leading the charge for the final comeback and after the heels were vanquished, he got his pound of flesh on them in a pretty wonderful celebratory moment with the old gruff grump standing tall. Pretty good all around here. Obviously you have to accept Delaporte's role in the finish but Richard and Angelito both made excellent and very different foils for the stylists.

Gerard Herve vs Paco Ramirez 11/18/79 

MD: An incomplete 18 minutes or so but we get the gist of this one. It's very fitting that the last two matches of the 70s focused on Delaporte the ref in a swimming pool match and had Gerard Herve's debut (and with Saulnier as ref). For good or ill, we'll be spending a lot with Gerard in the 80s, as he becomes Flesh Gordon. Here, I get the sense that Ramirez was driving the ship but that Herve was a game passenger. He took a beating, was fiery in his comebacks, could be in the right place at the right time for holds and counters, which were fairly even, was overall athletic and coordinated, and had some charisma as he looked to the crowd for shots that would never come as Saulnier cut him off. Sometimes he took two moves to get to a certain point when one would be smoother, but in general, there was plenty of potential. Ramirez was excellent here, combining a matador flair and some big cutoffs like a flying tope headbutt, and mean, controlled shots. He's not afraid to bump and stooge towards the end when Herve has a comeback. We miss the end but you can pretty much figure it out as Saulnier is losing his cool and Herve is tying Ramirez up in the ropes. This is the first time we see names on the screen when introducing the wrestlers (even if they're in the wrong place) and it reminds me how far we've come through the years of the Martian and classic art and music interspersed and Luna Catch 2000.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten! Vladimir! Lola! Brigette! Angelito! Hassouni! Richard! Menard!

Either 5/17/78 or 7/15/78 

MD: The poster below was in the footage itself. I have no idea who Rocco and Zorba are here (Claude Rocca maybe?). I'm also not sure on the date. I've seen both. Note that the second match in the footage is our first women's match, for those who might be curious at what the quality was there (high; the quality of "Combat Feminin" was high).

Le Grand Vladimir vs Franz Van Buyten

MD: The footage starts around twenty minutes in. Delaporte's the ref. There's no commentary but it sure seems like Van Buyten to me. There's no babyface in the history of wrestling quite like him. We get the last ten or so and they're fighting to a draw, though Van Buyten is almost constantly going for the win once he comes back. Lots of hard shots, especially off the ropes from Van Buyten, as well as slams, with Vladimir clubbering as well as anyone ever and using his knee a lot (knee lifts, knee crushers, knees to the gut). Van Buyten was constantly scrambling, avoiding chinlocks after mares with a quick roll out so he can rush to his feet to fire back some more. Delaporte calls him the winner on points at the end. Lots of empty seats relative to previous weeks. I'm not sure if that's just because we're earlier into the card than usual (this was the second match of the night) or what, but they missed some good action here.

Lola Garcia vs Brigette Borne

MD: This was excellent. It stands well next to a lot of the action we've seen in the 70s. It was very much more of the same, long holds well worked, building to big counters, big shots, and transitions into the next hold. Garcia looked to be the more seasoned of the two. Borne was working the stylist role and something of an underdog as well. Garcia had some amazing bridges, including one where she kept a toehold even after Borne had gotten an arm around her chin to try to counter. They were just constantly working for escapes, constantly driving for the next thing. There were moments I wish that they almost let things breathe just a little more, that's how hard they were wrestling. Some of what they did was incredibly slick too, like when Borne shot her into the ropes and followed in to tie her up, I've never seen it done so quickly and smoothly. The ref seemed to be favoring Garcia, and there was a tecnico/rudo sense that we do get sometimes, where the bad guy is expected to take some liberties but the stylist is held to a higher standard. It culminated in the one big comedy spot of the match where Borne kicked the ref into Garcia causing both to tumble over and the ref to go flying out of the ring. Hard-worked, entertaining, full of character. It's a shame we don't have another half dozen Garcia matches.

Jean Menard/Jicky Richard vs Kader Hassouni/Angelito

MD: I keep waiting for the quality to drop. It never does. I'm not sure how many people have been watching these from the start and following along week to week for the last few years during the pandemic, but I know it's been a few of you at least. This stuff is just still really, really good. Another great tag that goes long. It loses a little bit of focus in the second fall during the protracted comeback, but always with very good individual exchanges. Every time these guys lock up, it's just good wrestling.

Here, you had Angelito really showing off. He was able to pause in midair on hold escapes or monkey flips and really let things sink in. His bumps were huge. He just sailed across the ring on slams or biels and the occasional crazy, crazy bump to the floor. The ultimate finish is him not able to meet the ten count after missing a run up twisting moonsault. He had some really fun offense too including a repeated attempt at an elevated half crab and a doctor bomb just for the hell of it. Hassouni was a game partner, with a lot of quick pin exchanges with both Menard and Richard, trading holds with Menard, rope running with Richard. He had a flair for entertaining too, turtling into a lady of the lake for instance, and getting the crowd to sing Mamadou to his bouncing.

The announcer spent the whole match thinking Richard was Menard and vice versa but I at least know the former by sight by now (and you could tell from the public warnings, for instance), though I never know if it's Ricard or Richard. Regardless, Richard is an amazing base and clobberer that could still go when needed. He was announced as the "#1 Bludgeon" which is accurate. He also added press slams (into a gut buster and just a military press forward) into his arsenal. Richard was a clear bad guy here, constantly arguing with Delaporte, but Menard was mostly playing fair. He had endless amounts of cool stuff, slams from a suplex position, a Robinson backbreaker, a conjuro type spin out into a slam. Just a very interesting wrestler to watch. This followed the usual format for the late 70s, long feeling out, cheating leading to heat and a pin, a comeback in the second fall, and then a more entertaining third fall, with the entertainment less about comedy (save for Richard and Delaporte getting into it) than just all out action. The finish was abrupt and striking and a very cool spot for the time. Another great match, even if we know these wrestlers better than the announcer does now.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Falempin! Richard! Menard! Bordes! Rocca! Sanniez! Bernaert!

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs Jacky Richard/Jean Menard 8/22/77

MD: I wouldn't call this one balanced, but the actual wrestling was just excellent. They went around twenty minutes of a first fall in and out of holds, with rope running, quick exchanges, some fiery slugging, certain things that were somewhat innovative for the times, like crabs and a backslide takedown and even a doctor bomb sort of takedown. Menard was able to do quicker and more elaborate exchange but Richard had a way of falling like a tree and stooging more and really could keep up on the rope running. Delaporte (announced as the "former licensed villain of wrestling"), as ref, was a non factor for the first fall, just the guy with the best seat in the house. The second fall had the heels cheat to take over, with Delaporte getting frustrated and admonishing one while the other made cheapshots. The last fall had a fairly quick hot tag and both guys tied up with another spot of Delaporte getting stepped on and encouraging the stylists to keep it going. Quick and celebratory. It's not how I'd want this match to have been balanced, but it's the style, and as a match in the style, it was excellent. Just great wrestling all around.  

Walter Bordes/Claude Rocca vs Albert Sanniez/Pierre Bernaert 8/29/77

MD: This was a tale of two matches, or at least of two falls. The first fall felt very complete, had some really nice exchanges, fresh ones too because it wasn't just Bordes but also Sanniez and Rocca, who we've not been able to see much of. Bernaert was a surprise. It'd been a while since we'd seen him and he was certainly up there in age, but he wrestled early on like someone with something left to prove. By this point, Delaporte was old hat as ref. The matches and spots were not based around him. He was able to bluster about when the heels were cheating and worked into the comedy at the end (more on that in a second) but he felt almost like an expectation instead of an attraction. Still, it was nice to see Bernaert in there with him as they knew how to play off of one another. After a lot of wrestling, the heat based on double teaming, and a rousing comeback, the second fall was entirely shtick. Sanniez bumped all over the ring for it, Bernaert begged off like a champ, and Delaporte fed people into the next spots when applicable, but it wasn't quite as imaginative as you might have hoped with the pieces at play. Still, overall this was a good one, a comfortable one. By now we're well aware of the ebbs and the flows and pacing of late 70s tags and matches like this feel right in a way that they might not if you weren't awash in them.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten! Schneider! Corne! Richard! Strogoff!

MD: More sound issues. We know they do resolve at some point but not yet. Just use one earbud. Thanks for the help on identifying Michel Di Santo and Vanberg.

Franz van Buyten vs Karl Schneider 8/7/77

MD: We get the last five or six minutes of this, a swimming pool match, and it's reaffirming what we already knew: Franz van Buyten was an exceptional babyface. He was constantly driving forward, constantly fighting from underneath, constantly punishing his opponent, standing up to the ref at every point. It was all Schneider could do to try to snatch a headlock or get some shots in and he could never hold Van Buyten for long. This built to a schoolboy trip off the ropes and a catapult into the drink. When the ref complained, van Buyten picked him up in a fireman's carry and hefted him out too, drawing a DQ. Van Buyten was an absolute folk hero.

Jean Corne vs Jacky Richard 8/7/77

MD: Speaking of folk heroes, Delaporte, as iconic as Dusty Rhodes or Hijo Del Santo in his own, villainous way, was the ref here. I learned something about myself watching this one. I'd probably have paid to see Delaporte ref a match in the 70s. He was that entertaining as a draw. Usually a special ref is there to further a story or provide a kayfabe level of enforcement if things boil over or just provide a sheen of celebrity, but Delaporte was as entertaining a wrestler as ever existed and this utilized him fairly perfectly. For the most part this was a standard match, Richard basing for Corne and bullying him with underhanded shots and moments of comeuppance, but when they really introduced Delaporte as a key figure, it was brilliant. That could be Richard retreating to him on his knees and Delaporte patting his head or far more complex things. The spot of the match had Richard tied up in the ropes and Corne charging him. After the first charge, Delaporte got in the way and Richard, in frustrating kicked forward, hitting our beloved ref from behind. Delaporte was incensed and got out of the way, coaching Corne on to hit him over and over with running shots to the crowd's delight. Legitimately funny stuff. The finish was almsot over the top in showing who the star was, with Richard dominating and finally knocking Corne into the water repeatedly, only for Delaporte to have enough of him not listening (and going so far as to hit him) and knocking Richard out too. If Corne had then come in and gotten a quick pin, it would have been better than the DQ on Richard that we ended up getting. Still, this was all great fun and another great Delaporte performance.

Michel Di Santo vs Vanberg 8/8/77

MD: Not a ton to say here. We have audio so I'm sure we'll figure out who these guys are (and we did, thanks! It's Lino Di Santo's son), but it's just the last few minutes. Delaporte is the ref and brings the star power. The heel leans hard early until he cheats a bit too much and Delaporte grabs his mustache. From there the stylist starts to work back with uppercuts again against the clubbering shots of his opponent, really getting an advantage towards the end as the time runs out. Delaporte still proclaims him the winner and everyone's happy but the bad guy.

Franz van Buyten vs Ivan Strogoff 8/8/77

MD: The finish of this was tremendous. We have a Van Buyten vs Strogoff match from Hanover from a few years later but it's got pretty rough VQ and felt a little slight, maybe? This was a very complete match, with two huge comebacks by Van Buyten, the last after the ref had already thrown it out because Strogoff assaulted him. I just can't say enough great things about Van Buyten as a babyface. He's legitimately one of the best ever and this match is a great example of that. He's so into every moment, makes everything matter so much, draws the fans in. You see every bit of agony when he's being assaulted, every iota of strain as he's trying to find the strength to come back, an absolutely electric level of fury as he's getting revenge. His bound across the ring to leap onto the top rope so he can throw fists down into the face of his opponent is just one of the best, most gripping babyface spots ever.

This match had Strogoff controlling early with dirty tactics and strength but Van Buyten out wrestling him and even, at times, showing crowd-rousing strength of his own, making it look more like unstoppable will power than strength itself. Strogoff primarily used open hand chops to the throat and outright chokes but he painted an imposing figure. They ran through an extended short arm scissors sequence which was full of gritty, ugly struggle, none of the precision and beauty of Petit Prince working the sequence with a solid base, but just as effective nonetheless. Ultimately, Strogoff took over by choking him repeatedly in the ropes, putting his head under the second rope and pulling up as he choked him, making for an amazing visual image. That made Van Buyten's comeback as he worked him forward and out of the ring a little more and a little more before sending him (and the referee) tumbling all the more potent. Just an all time fight for a comeback out of a hold followed by him laying it in and beating him (and at times the ref) around the ring.

That finish had everything break down wild, with Strogoff abusing the ref, including just sizing him up and clocking him for all the world to see, and then Van Buyten firing back on him due to the distraction. Strogoff would go back to the ref, pulling his shirt apart. After the match was called, Van Buyten tied Strogoff into the ropes and catapulted the ref head first into him. The ref would stumble up and toss another headbutt in for good measure even as Delaporte tried desperately to get control. Just a great crazy mob scene as Strogoff wouldn't stop and Van Buyten kept firing back on him. There were some points that were somewhat plodding here, but overall, Van Buyten's presence made this great.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Corne! Mitchell! Noced! Richard! Renault! Mercier! Menard! Fake Mongolians?

Guy Mercier/Jean Menard vs. Abdul Khan/Chang Li 1/5/74

MD: French heroes vs probably fake Mongolians here. Chang Li was taller and thinner and could have passed for a fake Russian a few years later. Mercier is very good at what he does and had been for decades at this point. Menard we've seen once and we'll see again (but as a heel, I think) and he had the crowd behind him, especially the young ladies. They had a bit of Ben Chemoul/Bordes vibe as one was sort of a younger version of the other. Mercier used all the old tricks, the cross-footed Mascaras twist, the bearhug into a backbreaker, the repeated bodyscissors butt crash followed by atomic drops and Menard was game. He especially did well as face in peril building to an actual hot tag, as the ref had missed a tag and Chang Li and Abdul Khan did well cutting off the ring. They were mostly chop and nerve hold based with a decent amount of chinlocks and cheating. Abdul Khan brought the over the top character flourishes, looking like he was all but electrocuted as he reacated at times and Chang Li's strikes looked pretty good for what they were as he went high low high or low high low. After the big comeback in the second fall, it never quite felt like the Mercier and Menard were in much danger but by that point the crowd wanted to see the Mongolians get what was coming to them anyway. Fun stuff if you're in the mood for fake Mongolians, certainly.

Petit Prince/Jean Corne/Alain Mitchell vs. Daniel Noced/Jacky Richard/Guy Renault 2/9/74

MD: Due to a preliminary match (where the heels cheated) Alan Mitchell can't participate in this match for the first fifteen minutes, so it's three on two. For the first ten minutes, that doesn't really come into play as Petit Prince (and to a lesser but still meaningful extent) Jean Corne run circles around the heels and clown them repeatedly, because they're just that good. The heels base well and take everything, with Noced's reactions especially good. Eventually though, Noced has a very mean control on Prince (drawing a public warning and making it worth it) and he knocks Corne off the apron. That means when Prince makes it to the corner, there's no one to tag. By the time he's back the heels distract enough so that the ref misses a hot tag. They really cracked the code on how to get heat, southern tag style, somewhere in the early 70s and here we really see it bear fruit. That means a huge press slam into a gutbuster by Noced gets them the first fall.

Perfectly timed for the end of Mitchell's penalty period is Prince's comeback however, and the fans go nuts for the tag. The rest of the second fall was full of Mitchell showing off some nice matwork tricks, a bit of heat where the heels try to keep things in the corner, but ultimately a lot of big clowning spots, including all of the heels trapped in the face corner with Prince standing on them, and miscommunication spots, before Mitchell lands a pretty unique sunset flip variation. The third fall was more of the same, with plenty of elaborate spots, lightning quick one after the next like an old lucha match's tercera where much of the drama had passed and now it was time for the crowd to celebrate the prowess of their heroes. All in all, this was a great showcase, maybe one of the best, especially given that they were able to successfully milk the drama of the penalty period.

PAS: This was really great stuff. I agree with Matt about how this is one of the first tags we have seen with the more traditional cutting off the ring stuff which is what we expect from tag wrestling. Prince is a perfect babyface for that role, and a perfect babyface for the later section where he just dazzles around turning the heels into stooges and goofs. All the heels were really cool as foils and I liked the idea of a penalty box in a six man tag. So crazy that Le Petit Prince was basically unknown five years ago, and now we have so many chances to see him dazzle us.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Richard! Peruano! Dumez!

Jacky Richard vs. Angelito 6/29/71

MD: This was our first look at Angelito who was billed as the son of L'Ange Blanc. It was another look at Richard who was a great base that could be really mean when called upon. Maybe what made the match most interesting however, was the debut of Babette Carole as the "First woman referee in France." The match was structured with Richard digging in with holds and Angelito working a number of escapes. You got the sense that Richard was probably directing traffic and setting up the spots. He could definitely go, even if the commentator seemed to doubt the shape he was in for the weight class. Angelito seemed a bit unsure at times, but had some very slick escapes, including an extended leg springboard to escape a hammerlock and a pretty nice rolling leg pick at one point. The match built to a couple of big moments, the first being Richard, who had cheated more and more as the match went on, getting Angelito's mask off only to fire Angelito up leading to a number of dropkicks. The second, which really got the crowd going, was Carole having enough of Richard and launching him with an arm drag. Gimmick stuff between the debut of Angelito and the female ref getting so much focus, but the underlying wrestling was pretty solid.

L'Ange Blanc vs. Robert Duranton (JIP) 7/5/71

MD: This was attached to the Van Buyten vs Gastel match that we had covered ages ago. We had around five minutes of this. It's worth noting L'Ange Blanc's connection to the crowd and how he'd bask in a moment before hitting a shot; Duranton's absolutely amazing jabs which I don't remember being a big part of his act previously and dropped L'Ange again and again, including one right to the eye; and the fact that Duranton actually got a relatively clean win here which felt surprising. Post-match, they interviewed Delaporte who basically indicated he was retired but had all of the promoting to look after.

Inca Peruano vs. Maurice Dumez 7/24/71

MD: This one had been mislabeled but it's definitely Dumez vs an aging Peruano. This isn't the Peruano of the late 50s, but he was still very good. Remember, we're in 71 now, only five years until he'd be wrestling on WWWF shows as enhancement talent Rocky Tomayo. Dumez apparently was 25 and had a greco-roman background but you wouldn't really know it from this. He had some interesting stuff based around headlocks, and stepovers into armdrags and what not, and a really nice entry point takedown into the rolling leg nelson in the end. He also spent the first two thirds of the match coming back and scrapping no matter what Peruano did, maybe too much. Peruano didn't hit his hanging headscissors takeodwn but he had a great rana and did that body splash onto the shoulders of a sitting opponent that's so good. Dumez returned favor later on with some elbow smashes down onto the back of the neck as Peruano was sitting. At that two-thirds mark, however, Peruano had enough and started a long sequence of choking him with his palm and his foot pretty brazenly. Then he tossed him out repeatedly. Even into his WWWF run and 1980, Peruano wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring so he didn't ask Dumez to do anything he wouldn't do but given how close the chairs were to the ring it was a good visual. While Dumez kept coming back down the stretch after that, he seemed a half step behind due to the damage. Some of that late rope running came off as a little sluggish but that could be selling. It was believable enough when Dumez got a lucky body press for the win.

Peruano is such a fascinating figure throughout this footage. I think we came in looking to learn more about a figure we knew of, a Gory Guerrero or Santo, and we have gotten some of that, with Lasartesse and Van Buyten and Carpentier and Kiyomigawa and certain British wrestlers like Hayes, but Peruano was someone that was hiding in plain sight that we had no idea about. You can watch a Rocky Tomayo match from Hawaii against Sam Steamboat or at MSG vs Larry Zbyszko or even into the 80s in Puerto Rico against Gino Della Serra. Maybe someday we'll get some of his early 70s AJPW work as Joe Soto. Even in those late matches when he was broken down and didn't do much, he had such great timing and personality and crowd interaction. He was always on just like he was always on in 1957, even if he wasn't interspersing those moments of character with unique and innovative spots. Definitely one of my favorite wrestlers to have come out of this project.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Robin! Royal! Hessle! Liehn! Petit Prince! Louis! Noced! Richard!

Vic Hessle/Bert Royal vs. Edmund Liehn/Guy Robin 9/11/58

SR: JIP 2/3 falls match of which we get about 23 minutes. We join about just as the first fall is decided with a spinning toe hold of all things. After that, this is pretty much an all out brawl. Liehn & Robin are all over this, buckling the Brits to the corner and taking them apart like a leaner Anderson brothers. This is the only time we see Liehn, and I really liked him here, a car salesman looking stocky guy who looked like he was trying to pull peoples head off and not holding back with punches and forearms. Robin always looks great in these matches drawing heat and being a pesky shit, and he was great here once again diving off the top rope to knee people in the back. The brief bit where he just decided to slap the shit out of Royal with Royal taking him down and looking like he was gonna kill him had to be one of the best moments in this whole project so far. The job of Hessle & Royal was mostly to just hand out great looking forearms and uppercuts, and that they did. Hessle is the father of Bert & Vic Faulkner, so it‘s cool to have him on tape. He didn‘t do much extraordinary but he looked like a surly barrel chested dude from the local pub. He gave one of the heels a pretty painful looking face massage during a pin attempt and that is what you want from an elderly veteran type face in a tough brawl. Bert Royal is once again dynamite in this. He is so energetic when it‘s time forearm the shit out of someone, and his fast, super-vicious arm assault that left the other guy broken on the mat was awesome.

PAS: I loved every second of this, you had three barrel chested brawlers and Royal who was awesome at using his athleticism to hurt people.  Royal has this cool spot where he climbs up his opponent and knees him right in the face and was willing to throw just as hard as his opponents. Hessle had some of the most violent monkey flips I have seen he uses his stubby legs to just fling his opponent on his head. There is a point at the beginning of the third fall where it seems like everyone stepped out of the script. Robin starts slapping Royal, Royal takes him down (after Robin stonewalls a couple of attempts) and grinds his forearm into his face, which brings in Liehn who starts hammerfisting Royal, which brings in Hessle to throw a slap to the ear. It felt like something you might see in a Japanese interpromotional match. Finish was incredible with Royal just ripping and tearing at Liehn's arm with a spinning arm hold and knees.

MD: Very interesting match. It's our first look at Liehn. Robin is one of my favorites. Royal had the amazing match against Oliver and Vic Hessle is actually his dad. This is 2/3 falls and we come in around 15 mins in at the end of the first fall though we have another 20 plus of action. I liked Liehn right out of the gate. He comes off as big stooging blowhard which works well with Robin's manic alacrity. The difference between this and some of the Delaporte tags is more subtle than striking. The general idea is the same: cheating and swarming with big moments of babyface comeback and dominance. Here though, the comeback setpieces were fewer and shorter and the swarming was both more chaotic and somehow less cooperative. Instead of the elaborate counters and escapes of French Catch, the heels had one goal and only one goal, to get their opponents back to their corner. The ref was all but useless even as there was goozling and choking with the tag rope and Robin coming in again and again with knees off the top. In this regard it almost felt like a lucha trios where the tecnicos were just unable to stop the rudos momentum for almost mystical reasons. The heels were akin to rabid animals just tearing away and doing anything they could to keep the advantage. It made sense, for whenever they lost it, they were punished. There just seemed to be less orchestration behind it without someone like Delaporte directing traffic. Hessle was big and rugged, with meaty, satisfying punches. Royal was spirited, showing a lot of the righteous fire we've seen out of visiting Brits in this footage. Ultimately, this had less big moments (though it had a few like a big battering ram in the corner and the miscommunication between father and son that let the heels take the second fall) but created a very vivid feeling of dirty warfare. That'll stick with you, as will Royal's absolute destruction of Liehn's arm at the end, one of the best maulings to end a match and force a submission you'll ever see.

ER: This was nonstop French action that we've come to expect, a breathless pace a year before Breathless. All of this era Catch that we've seen has been great, but every few weeks we pull something out that is a cut above its peers. This was a perfect use of all four men, with Royal/Robin being the real marquee pairing while Hessle and Liehn brought a ton of personality to go with big clubbing arms. This whole thing was a real fight, the kind of match I can watch a few times and notice new things each time. Royal is such a scrapper, undersized compared with the other men but he sure doesn't act like he's undersized. He hits as hard as anyone here and had inventive ways of overcoming any size differences. I loved how he climbed up Liehn, almost like he was going to do a monkey flip and then thought "why stop there?" He climbs up bit by bit, clenching his neck with both hands, one leg at a time, before boosting off a thigh with a great knee. It was nice payback for Liehn practically cranking Royal's head off with a cravat earlier. Hessle brings a cool dad charisma to this, like a Catch Pat Patterson, and his scraps with Robin may have been my favorite parts of the match. Robin took out his hairline on the immaculately coiffed Hessle, locking in one of the sickest chokes I've seen. He hooked his arm around Hessle's neck like he was going for a judo throw but just leaned into the choke, throwing a punch to the kidneys when Hessle almost broke it. I loved Hessle coming in throughout the match to break up the heels, and how Liehn would subtly stooge for him, the best being one punch that knocked him back on his heels and onto his butt, holding his face and head like he wasn't expecting it. The finish was joy filled savagery, Royal twisting and kneeing and leaping on Liehn's arm with glee and a glazed over rage. It almost looked like Robin didn't want to step in and stop it because he didn't want any part of that Andy Capp dust cloud.


Le Petit Prince/Francis Louis vs. Daniel Noced/Jacky Richard 2/22/71

SR:2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. The evolution of the lightweight style in France is interesting to watch. Basically, they still did the same moves as 15 years earlier, but everything smoother, and with a formula in place, making these matches approach the same rhythm, similiar to a Lucha trios. You had the Prince and his partner Louis looking fantastic as you‘d expect, with lots of stupidly fast armdrags and everything being executed with a sense of struggle, and also a real standout performance from Daniel Noced. Not only was Noced a great base and dance partner for all the flashy shit in the match, when the time was right he just kicked the shit out of the Prince and even chucked Francis Louis over the top rope. The heel beatdown on the Prince was pretty intense with him eating a ton of kicks to the ribs and body shots as well as getting hammered into the mat over and over. It‘s also the kind of things that people who aren‘t used to European wrestling can watch and easily get into, as there were multiple cut offs building to the Prince finally getting the hot tag and Louis rolling in to give the heels what they had coming to them. The ring being pelted with garbage is an iconic sight too. The Prince remains the focus of the match though, as he soon eats a nasty posting. Noced takes a spill to the outside and a near riot breaks out, with folks surrounding him and the police having to break the scenery up. The ending with the Prince covered in blood looking to get a piece of Noced and towel being thrown in was something else too.

MD: What made this work as well as almost anything we've seen in the collection so far was the marrying of the slickness of Petit Prince matches with the patience and discipline of a narrative-heavy Southern Tag. It's equal parts spectacular and accessible; plenty of style, plenty of substance. We're talking shine-heat-comeback (and a breathtaking shine at that), with the added story element of Prince demanding to get back in, again and again, when he wasn't ready to fight in order to get revenge. When I say discipline, I mean that while there were a lot of illegal double-teams behind the ref's back to build up heat, the ref missing the hot tag didn't happen until right before the end of the first fall. They held it off until it'd mean the most and then almost immediately went to the finish of the fall afterwards. When you have a two-out-of-three-falls structure, you can do that. That's what built the fans up to a fever pitch and that allowed things to boil over as they went into the second fall. By that point the crowd was already throwing things into the ring. Obviously, we've seen that sort of thing before elsewhere. What really made this stand out here, though, was that this was awash in the 70s French juniors style. The hope spots here were Prince utilizing more and more elaborate escape attempts only for his opponent to either hang on to the hold or immediately thereafter cut him off and put him right back in. Basically, it leveraged what we've been seeing all throughout 57 and 58, the way they strung together matches with long, dogged holds and frequent escape attempts, and overlaid that onto the southern tag format. When your face in peril is one of the most athletic and agile wrestlers ever, a smaller underdog, someone who can portray a singular fire and passion, and your heels are a bunch of real goons: Noced who was an uppity bully and Richard who just had this meanstreak intensity to him, well, you're going to get results. Add in some color and that's a riot. The finish was equal parts triumphant and satisfying and heartbreaking and leaving you wanting so much more. Exceptional stuff.

PAS: This was awesome stuff, a true discovery. Much of the Prince we have seen before was like an early Rey Jr. exhibition match, like Rey vs. Psicosis in WAR. This was more like Rey vs. Eddie on Smackdown, a complete violent match with a dramatic arc and huge payoff. We still get some of the crazy takedowns and evasions from the Prince and he also gets the shit kicked out him, including Noced grabbing him by the side of the head and driving him into the mat temple first. We get a real hyped up hot tag with Louis throwing big uppercuts. Prince gets lawn darted head first into the ringpost and comes up bloody, and we get an awesome fired up bloody babyface standing tall moment, with the crowd trying to murder Noced. This is in the highest level of matches we have seen in this project, really an all timer.

ER: This was spectacular, like seeing a Michinoku Pro trios for the first time, except I'm not sure any of them were as good as Le Petit Prince (and those guys were GOOD). His sequences are so tight, so believable in their physics, this small man knowing exactly which way to swing the pendulum to make the most of his momentum. There are plenty of small wrestlers now who just expect larger wrestlers to bump for everything they do, and that's what happens. Most of the time, it looks absurd. Prince connects all those dots and makes it look crazy if one of his big armdrags didn't take someone down. He moves so fast that he makes typical time stand still moments look incredible, like when he crawls through his opponents legs to get the drop on them. He actually scrambles through opponents' legs fast enough that he is back on the attack before they turn around in real time! Noced and Richard are great heels for him to work his magic against, as Noced especially is a great base for his flying, and then cruel as can be when the tables turn. Louis is a wonderful babyface partner, taking a couple big bumps to the floor, always ready to fight for Prince. This whole thing really jumps up another level once the heel team starts cutting Prince off, with Noced and Richard putting the boots to them, like two Sonnys giving Carlo twice the beating he deserved. Noced had this running kick that was greater than any punt I've seen in wrestling the past several years. These two were just burying kicks in Prince's ribs and off the side of his head, to the point where a riot felt like a reasonable reaction. Fans immediately swarm Noced the second he hits the floor, with one tall Daniel Stern motherfucker leaping hard into the fray with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth. That was an organic reaction inspired by tremendous ring work, the kind of match where you know you're watching something special the whole way through.


PAS: Hell of a week, which places two matches on our All Time MOTY list, with Le Petit Prince tag beating out  Tony & Roy St. Clair v. Vic Faulkner & Bert Royal for 1971. Bert Royal got bumped out of the 70s, but he stays on our All Time MOTY list with 1958.


ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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