Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mercier! Brown! Les Gorilles Marsallon!

Guy Mercier/James Brown vs Les Gorilles (Lou/Geo Marsallon) 7/1/65

MD: And we are back for a limited ten week engagement thanks to the efforts of Phil Lions to scrub through the archive one more time. A varied run of matches full of a lot of familiar names and a few new ones. I'm excited for it. Even just hearing Roger Couderc commentate again felt like visiting an old friend.

And this one started off with another old friend, or friends as it was, as seconding the Gorilles here to start were no one other than Robert Duranton and his valet Firmin. Duranton complained about not getting enough TV time, took of his shirt, threatened to go down to his underwear and left. Pretty funny stuff.

The match itself was one of those feel good babyface-heavy French Catch tags full of so many entertaining bits but that suffered to modern eyes because it was so astoundingly lopsided. The clip is 36 minutes. The match is, let's say 33 of that given the Duranton antics to start (not counting introductions and the bits in between falls) and i wouldn't say the heels really took over until the 30 minute mark.

And that's not to say they weren't formidable. They had big clobbering shots. They double teamed well. They had size and presence. There's just not much anyone could do against James Brown and his headbutt. Multiple entertaining comedy bits of them timbering to headbutts or trying to slam his head into each other's foot or trying headbutts of their own. Whenever they did take over due to a double team the stylist partner was quick to come in (usually with dropkicks, with Brown having a sort of shotgun front dropkick with big impact). Lots of dropkicks in this one.

Still, there were a lot of individual bits that I enjoyed, whether it be Mercier doing his thing spinning before a takedown (or going through the legs) or Brown himself going through the legs on a leg splitter. Brown had a victory roll bit where one Marsallon walked him over to the corner for a punch from the other only for that punch to get blocked to set up the victory roll. Lots of miscommunication bits where they ran into each other on full nelson charges too, that sort of thing. At one point one of them went flying through the roles on a missed charge, a tope to nowhere.

I will say that they got a lot of mileage out of these hefting lawn dart hotshots onto the top rope right at the end, but not so much to counterbalance 30 minutes of stylist control. Overall fun candy that kept the crowd delighted and a nice visit back to France for me but a little Brown goes a long way considering how much air he takes up. 

SR: The first new French match in a while, and man it is jarring to get back into that world. Flawless, tight execution on everything, everyone a 100% game, constantly engaging the face/heel dynamic, never missing a beat. It's safe to say when it comes to the fundamentals all these guys were on a completely different level compared to todays workers, and the athleticism, fast pace and big bumping still holds up insanely well today. Lou and Geo Marsallon could be Les Marsallons, but they are Les Gorilles, and boy do they look the part. Square, bulky, heads as bald as their chests are hairy, ugly and mean like only the best heels can be. They were dedicated stooges really taking pinball bumping to the next level, flying in and out of the ring for a dozen babyface dropkicks in ways you don't really expect two men so bulky and square looking men to fly around. They were pretty vicious too, occasionally putting back alley beatings on the faces, another thing that is really jarring, in this world something as simple as a stomp or an elbow upside the head was executed like it was intended to maul, and they wouldn't let up, crawling all over their opponents punching, strangling and doing god knows what. It was a quite vicious edge for a match that was largely a dose of fun for the crowd to watch the faces one up the heels over and over and occasionally get heated and kick the shit out of them. Brown and Mercier are a bunch of fun here too. Brown works a bit different from your typical cookie cutter French babyface, perhaps owing to him breaking into the business in Germany if I am informed correctly. He'll get up to a lot of cool things, hitting those nasty Giant Baba style falling armbreakers, a bulldog where he keeps holding on to the head, cool out of nowhere headbutts, perfect european uppercuts, backbreakers from odd angles. At one point he flipped out of a hold and lost his footing, only to immediately dive for the legs with an ankle pick like a seasoned amateur wrestler. Mercier isn't in the match as much but he is reliable as always, beautiful throws, picking guys up with freakish ease and dropping them across his knees in nasty ways. This was mostly a romp and executed extremely well with hardly any letdown. Feels crazy we've seen like a hundred tags like this, even if you are well familiar with the French footage this is a blast to check out.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Petit Prince! Bibi! Husberg! Falempin!James Brown! Corne!

 Le Petit Prince vs. Michel Falempin 5/27/66

MD: Seeing d'Ericourt twice in such close succession definitely exposes him a bit at this very early stage in his career. While it wasn't the same match as the Genele one, a lot of the biggest spots were move-for-move repeats of that match. It was a different arena and the fans ate them up, but even more than that, with a different opponent, it was a different match with the spots layered in different places. While Falempin bullied him, more of this was about him containing Prince with hammerlocks and armbar sequences, and that was probably for good reason. The sheer momentum that he had on with his float overs and back flips had him crashing into the ropes in pretty dangerous ways. He overshot about half of what he was going for here recklessly, but that energy and enthusiasm was just electric. No one was going to look away. Certainly, he made it worth it when he battled back and got to get some revenge. This, more than anything else, shows me his progression into a complete, contained, controlled, wrestler in the years that would follow, as he learned to channel his acrobatics and intensity into a far more honed and polished act. At this point, though, he was like lightning bursting onto the scene.

PAS: I am not holding having signature spots against the Prince, he is electric to watch, and just because Santo does his senton tope in every match, doesn't mean I don't want to see that over and over again. I liked Falempin here too, he really wrenched in the hammerlocks and armbars, and made the fancy flipping counters really count. There definitely is a progression later, and the difference between Prince then and Prince in a couple of years is like 93 Rey Jr. and 97 Rey Jr. Still 93 Rey Jr. is fucking awesome as is 1966 Petit Prince. I liked that some of his stuff threw him into the ropes in weird ways, it added to the level of difficulty of the stuff, it was almost like Olympic diving where the flawed dives are as compelling as the perfect ones. 

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. The Prince is clearly becoming a TV mainstay. No surprise. This was another beautiful match. Smooth exchanges beyond belief. Falempin seemed a bit nondescript, but he was a great dance partner for the Prince. Look at how fast he moves behind the  Prince when he goes for a hammerlock, or the way both guys would bump. The devil is in the details, and they had them down pat. Falempin found himself outshone and decided to lay some brutal stomps into the Princes head. He took a big bump, too. Seems he would go on to be a technico later but it was a nice solid non descript rudo performance from him here. And they pulled the more beautiful stuff of like magic.

Cheri Bibi/Eric Husberg vs. James Brown/Jean Corne 6/16/66

MD: Fun tag that goes maybe a bit too long at 40 minutes. Bibi and Husberg were a well oiled machine and much better at controlling the ring but save for a moment at the end of the first fall, it never felt like Brown and Corne couldn't just come back at any moment. Of course, Bibi could also retake control at any moment since he was such a bruiser. I liked the organic transition out of that, by the way. Corne had just eaten a fall after being double-teamed for a while and he had to start the second fall since those were the rules. He's trapped in the corner again but escapes when a fan grabs Husberg's leg. It wasn't quite as smooth as that but it was a nice bit of presence that you'd never see happen today. They built to some of those big triumphant babyface moments, my favorite of which was Corne helping Brown get both guys in leg locks simultaneously before running right over them repeatedly. Someone needs to steal it. I really like Brown in these matches. Yes, he has the headbutt like you'd expect, but he can also slug it out and he's very crisp with most things he does and has some big power moves like a one-armed back breaker and the torture rack lift up out of a chinlock and the airplane spin on Bibi (no small feat) that he finally ended things with.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. Nothing much to see or say here. I'm always happy to see James Brown since his style is a bit different from the regular French guys. He had some nice Fujiwara Armbars here. Other than that this was a house show ish effort. The match hinged on the heel act of Bibi and Husberg and didn't really bring the violence in a big way like in their better matches. Okay stuff but skippable.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Boucard! Demon! James Brown! Apollon! deLasrtesse! Hess!

Daniel Boucard vs Red Demon 2/6/66

MD: This was something. I'm just not sure what. Red Demon, in his ill fitting costume, definitely got an A for effort. He reminded me of a Chris Champion or Brady Boone, one of those guys who had bigger ideas than they had athleticism. He'd land on his feet off of mares and monkey flips, but just barely and never gracefully. He'd bound up to the top rope and somersault off onto Boucard but it looked neither smooth nor entirely painful. I liked his attitude. He kept returning to this attentive position, presumably to throw off and taunt his opponent and the crowd. Every time he landed on his feet early on, he'd charge right back in with a flying headbutt to the gut. When Boucard started to get some offense, he tried to keep him outside the ring. At one point he took a powder when things got too hot. And he had interesting stuff, an armhook takeover or a cavernaria and those flips off the top. He just couldn't really execute any of them well. I liked the layout too with Boucard really struggling until he either wore Demon down or figured out how to solve the puzzle. When he started to hit a few revenge charging headbutts of his own, it was a nice moment, and then a nice callback at the end as he got too overzealous on it and took a nasty bump to the floor (not his first in the match) and couldn't answer the count. Most of all, this made me look forward to was 1968 and the arrival of Kamikaze into our footage.

James Brown/Ray Apollon vs Jack de Lasartesse/Hans Hess 2/11/66

MD: I'd say that this had some of the better hope spots and fighting from underneath we've seen. Really, I thought Brown was excellent here. His shine stuff, the dropkicks and 'ranas and strikes were very good. Watching him land on his feet out of a cravat into a mare perfectly was a breath of fresh air after our masked friend from the last match could barely manage it. He had good fire and the crowd was behind him. Lasartesse and Hess were a very good team, with Lasartesse's reach just a brilliant tool for tag wrestling. When he had Brown in a chinlock and he started to get out, he could reach over to Hess from almost anywhere in the ring, it seemed, and get pulled back to their corner. Long tags too, of course. The heel side were great at cutting off the ring too. Plus, of course, you would have Lasartesse doing an arm trap suplex or swinging bearhug backbreakers (Brown had a great pendulum backbreaker too). 

Apollon was a crowd pleaser but a little of him went too long if you ask me. His primary mode of attack would be to bully his opponent in the corner and hit these swinging hammers to the gut as the fans counted along. In and of itself, it wasn't a bad act but that was the entire act. He'd thereafter seem lost and almost immediately tag out. That meant that Brown would get some revenge shots in, but he was almost always put in a tough situation, even after he'd make a big, valiant tag. It was the right call for the match since the quality was loads higher when Brown was battling against Hess and Lasartesse and I could see Apollon working well as an attraction that fans only saw occasionally, but that's not exactly how this footage works. This was the best we've seen Brown look and next time we see him, against Bibi and Husberg later in the year, he'll even have a proper partner in Jean Corne. Oh, in case anyone was wondering, here it is too, before the match, our first look at the giant Jean Ferre, who got to shake hands with the aforementioned Cheri Bibi. He looked almost unrecognizably young at 19.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Falaux! Elandon! Caballec! Puydebat! Charles! Guguliemetti! Brown! Kiyomigawa!

Albert Falaux/Bob Elandon vs. Rene Caballec/Gilbert Puydebat, 2/22/63

MD: Welcome, friends, to what feels like the end of our golden age of footage. Today we're covering February and March 1963, having just covered November and December 1962. After this point, we'll have one show in May 1964 before skipping to a silver age, beginning in January 1965. More on why that gap exists next week (and really, it goes back to 61 relative to the years prior, though not nearly as dramatically as this) and some of the scant stuff that we might be missing from 1964, thanks to what we've learned from Phil Lions's research.

This was another nice, long tag, with some guys we haven't seen much of before. Elandon is the person you'll remember the most here, as he alternated between cowardly and blustering, quick to attack, quick to retreat, quick to kick the ropes in frustration or jaw with the crowd, and well served in a setting where he could tag out at the first sign of danger. Definitely a heatseeker. The other three brought a lot of more conventional wrestling to the table, though all of them had a number of tricks we haven't seen much of before in the footage, if at all. That could vary from Falaux's bulldogs or missed dropkick that let him flip off the ropes to set up the finish or Caballec's flying cravate mare or neckbreaker twist or the victory rolls the stylists were throwing around. Puydebat had a real energy and verve to his work that made me want to see him more. Unfortunately, this is it for him, I think. Even Caballec we won't see again until the late 70s. This all came together well with Falaux playing along with Elandon's antics and heeling it up as well and the faces firing back with one interesting exchange after another.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. This was another solid solid long French tag. Plenty of athleticism and asskicking here. These guys are like springs the way they would bounce around the ring while looking tough. Falaux and Elandon were the rudos. Elandon was this straight forward asskicker, who had a cool section working a strangle hold at one point where he would yank the other guys chin. Falaux was interesting as he could do some athletic and technical moves of his own. He wrestled like he once was a technico himself but took a liking to sneaking in inside shots. It made for a cool dynamic and there were some quality exchanges. The finish with Falaux doing some Psychosis like leap into the ropes only to bounce back and land on his feet was baffling even by French standards.

PAS: I thought this was really excellent stuff, four completely new guys all of them really impressive. Liked the rudo team a lot, and the technicos had some really flash. One thing I especially liked about this were good finishes for each fall. Even the best French matches don't always have great finishes, but this one really did. Callabec and Falaux face off and Callabec gets totally rocked with a knee to the back of his head. He tries to shake it off several times but goes to a knee, only to finally get his bearings, rock Falaux with some uppercuts and a crazy neckbreaker. Falaux is able to bound off the mat with a leaping forearm, hits this great flip rope fake into a jumping tope for the three count, spectacular finish for an excellent match. 

Tony Charles vs. Giacomo Guguliemetti 3/29/63

SR: We get about 8 minutes of this. Tony Charles we have seen on World of Sport and in Memphis, making this a cool sighting. He doesn‘t show off his technical skill here, instead we join right into the asskicking portion of this match. These two just smacked the shit out of each other. Not pretty but heated and very intense. Wish we had the whole thing.

MD: We come to this one 12 minutes in and get the last nine minutes of it. Charles is in his late 20s, which is fun to see. He's pretty go-go-go here, spending a lot of the match just tossing himself around the ring and it's really on Guguliemetti to just try ground him. He's never able to do it for long. He'll redirect Charles out over the top in a big bump and Charles will just rush back in and fly at him again. He'll hit a huge forearm off the ropes and Charles will kip up and ram him with a driving headbutt. He'll stomp Charles in the face and keep him down for a minute, only for Charles to rush back up with a backbreaker and flip him about in the ropes. Definitely not one of the best selling performances we've ever seen but it's exciting and not quite what I was expecting from young Charles. This ends with a nice dropkick, a back handspring celebration, and a fairly happy crowd. Good action and hard hitting but given Charles' penchant to pop right back up, I think nine minutes of this was the about the right amount to have.

James Brown vs. Kiyomigawa 3/29/63

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Kiyomigawa was a Japanese ex-sumo. He co-founded one of the first Japanese promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance, and trained some joshi legends. He wrestled in Europe and the German speaking countries a lot. Having him on film is neat, especially against a German trained US guy. And well this was a really good match. Brown is clearly a pretty great pro wrestler. Just a classy athlete, and really good at selling holds, struggling, eating offense and firing back. Lots of nifty work here where they work in and out of holds and into strikes. Kiyomigawa was this lanky guy who liked to throw chops to the neck and sometimes throat. I wouldn‘t say he was great, but he was a breath of fresh air to the generic clobbering heels you usually see in France. He also knew how to use a nerve hold in interesting ways. Lots of cool european uppercut vs. Chops battles here. Kiyomigawa ends up bloodied after a series of nasty headbutts and we got some cool exhausted strike exchanges before the match is thrown out due to Kiyomigawa not breaking a stranglehold. Disappointing finish but Kiyomigawa shaking Browns hand after the match was cool. Quality work here.

MD: Interesting look at two figures we don't have much, if any footage of, in James Brown and Kiyomigawa. Brown was a multi-level threat, able to wrestle with some interesting holds like a bow and arrow and this lifting vertical STF that felt like one of those lucha holds that seem devastating but that they can only hold for a few seconds; powerful enough to wrench out of holds and lock in backbreakers and bulldogs (two show in a row, which it seem like the new hot move of 1963); to strike, including great forearms and his awesome headbutt; and some athleticism, including standing dropkicks out nowhere. Kiyomigawa was persistent, with a lot of nerve holds and chops, slaps, and throat attacks. In some ways, I thought they were matched up well. They worked their holds and escapes snug and their shots stiff, with wicked slaps followed up almost immediately by jarring receipts; the battles between chops and headbutts were actually quite compelling, more so than I expected. In other ways, though, you kind of wish they were up against different opponents. Brown had an answer to everything and Kiyomigawa might have been served better by a LeDuc or Drapp or Corn; Brown on the other hand would have been better off with a heel that stooged more. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the match-up we got though.

PAS: This was a battle of racial stereotype offense, with Kiyomigawa hitting chops and nerve holds and Brown landing big headbutts. Kiyomigawa had great looking chops though, hard nasty shots right to the side of Browns neck, and Brown laid in those headbutts too. Brown seemed to have some real mat skill including a crazy STF which he lifted off the ground, felt like a Hechicero spot. I thought the finish was a bit wonky, felt like the ref wasn't clued in or something. This was hard hitting stuff though, enjoyed it a bunch

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: James Brown?!? Kovacs! Quasimodo! Rabut! Costella! Allary! Lasartesse!

James Brown vs. Robert Gastel  1/14/60

SR: JIP match, but we get about 20 minutes. I think James Brown was a US guy stationed in Germany and became a wrestler there. If his performance here is any indications of the standards of German wrestling, then it wasn‘t much worse than French wrestling at the time. Brown was super athletic, both in terms of agility and strength. At one point he did this straight lift from a headlock into a torture rack which was inspiring. He seemed a little green here and there, but overall he looked a good babyface. And Gastel is really good opponent for that kind of worker. Gastel really is the Dick Murdoch of Catch, working opponents over with a variety of punches while demonstrating impeccable timing and crowd control. It‘s European wrestling so the punches are to the body but the point stands. His sell of a simple headbutt to the mid section was a thing of beauty. I also loved how he pushed the referee. Really fun match.

MD: I didn't love this. I thought Brown was super athletic and had a lot of skills and tools, but he just needed to let Gastel lean on him more. He'd let Gastel get an advantage through chicanery but it'd be gone a moment later. Because of that, there was never really any drama to this except for whether or not Gastel might get some sort of banana peel win after giving up most of the match. Gastel's a great stooge and a great heel and to see him get knocked around and stymied by Brown was entertaining at times but even with some good spots it was just too much of the same.

PAS: I agree with Matt that Brown took a ton of this match, but I was really enjoying the hardest working man in French Catch doing his thing. Countering a headlock with a deadlift into a torture rack is one of the coolest spots I have seen in all of the French Catch and there have been some amazing spots. I also really liked how he landed on his feet on every throw. I expected James Brown to have more splits based offense, but what he did was very cool. 

Josef Kovacs vs. Quasimodo 1/14/60

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. Two guys whom we saw on different matches on TV before face off. I guess it was a bit of booking that just made sense. Kovacs is big and towering and he reminded me a bit of Pat Roach here, which is a very good thing. From British wrestling I am used to Hungarians being brilliant technicians, but Kovacs was a bit more blunt force in his style. He did some cool wrestling around blocking Quasimodos throws, and when the little freak got too uppity with his dirty tactics he was made with some big European uppercuts. He wasn‘t kidding around with his bodyslams, too. Kovacs is not as charismatic and fiery as Gilbert Leduc so the match wasn‘t as exciting, but it was a good match, and that spinning torture rack drop sure is one hell of a finish.

MD: This was a war of two very different monsters, an unrelenting and bitter winter rainstorm and the hulking, groaning inevitability of a slowly rolling boulder. Kovacs is announced as the Eagle of Budapest here instead of the Butcher, but he's still a big nasty behemoth. We'd seen previously how Gary Calderon's judo skills couldn't chip away at Kovacs' strength. Quasimodo, however, is a dogged wrestling machine, rusty, jagged, oddly shaped and creaking, but a wrestling machine nonetheless. He's like a festering ooze that creeps around Kovacs, looking for an eye, a throat, a leg, hair, anything that would give him an advantage. He adds to this a low center of gravity and surprising wiry strength, able to sneak in these nasty gutbusters and an electric chair drop onto the ropes. What I like the most about him is how he's able to create advantageous situations, turning a top wristlock into a backbreaker, things like that. The problem is that it's impossible to press an advantage against someone as strong and impenetrable as Kovacs for long. All he has to is get his hands on him and Quasimodo goes flying across the ring. Quasimodo does chip away at him as the match goes on, grounding him with a nervehold, flipping him over the ropes to stomp on his head, but all Kovacs has to do is catch him, which he ultimately does with his torture rack whirlybird. I thought the mismatch and the heel vs heel nature of this was going to make for a poor match but I ended up liking this a lot.

PAS: This was cool stuff kind of like when Yokozuna would beat King Kong Bundy or Nash would beat Wrath. Establish a monster by having him take down another monster. I am an unabashed Quasimodo mark, so I wish my dude would have gotten some more shine, but he did deliver some really creeper offense. I like his backbreakers and clawing, grasping offense, but eventually the beast was going to catch him.  I agree that finishing move was a finishing move, big time impact for sure. 

ER: I love Quasimodo, truly the role this man was born to play. He wrestles with a hunch (which is really no different than the freestyle wrestler's hunch that someone like Mark Schultz had), he's ripped like gassed old man Kurt Angle, but he has the face of Rondo Hatton. I thought he looked super impressive here, especially with the size of Kovacs. He used that low hunch to muscle him into corners, and was always pawing and clawing around his face and shoulders. He takes big bumps when Kovacs does get ahold of him, getting tossed especially far on a Biel throw, but he was plenty punishing to the bigger guy in the killer one strap singlet. He had cool gutbusters and backbreakers and a single leg crab that really looked like it was cranking Kovacs knee. Towards the end of the match Quasi powered Kovacs over the top rope, flipping him over and catching his neck over the bottom rope, then started standing and jumping on Kovacs' neck as it was over the rope. It looked like some sadistic Greg Valentine tough guy offense. 

Jean Rabut vs. Ventos Costella 1/22/60

SR: JIP match with about 10 minutes shown. This was in that fast paced French lightweight style. Not everything was tightly executed and I thought nothing they did topped the initial sequence built around a kip up headbutt (probably my favourite uniquely French spot), but they knew they had to have matches like this to contrast with all the heel spectacle main events.

MD: Even in the context of what we've been watching, this felt a little like seeing Blitzkrieg for the first time on Nitro, or watching that Brian XL/Divine Storm vs SAT/Red match using Real Player. In both cases we could sort of see where things were trending, but this felt like fireworks flying over the heads of it. The sheer speed that they were working, how quickly they got back to their feet, how quickly the momentum shifted, the rapid fire pin attempts and reversals, and just the constant motion. Everything wasn't always smooth but there was always a sense of competition and struggle. There was never any winking. Sometimes after a reversal or a recovery, they'd take a second to catch their breath, but then they'd be slamming their bodies into each other once again. All of the sunset flips were the leg-hooked sort which feel so much more impressive than the standard model. It wasn't all rope running and up and overs and sunset flips. Costella had a great forearm and Rabut did this amazing torpedo headbutt to the gut in the ropes, but what you're going to remember about this is the sheer movement about it. I wouldn't want every match to be like this, but by this point, the richness of the French footage is the overlap between constant variety and constant quality.

PAS: This was more of an exhibition of speed and execution then a structured match, but man were they moving fast. A ton of really cool sunset flip roll ups and ranas, and that kip up headbutt is an absolute killer spot.

Jack de Lasartesse vs. Michel Allary  1/22/60

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. It‘s the debut of Jack de Lasartesse, who went on to be kind of a phenom. And he may very well have been in his prime here. He was a bodybuilder before turning Catcheur, so he didn‘t have the kind of skill other wrestlers we‘ve seen have, but he had no problem going in a long heated slugfest. His swaggering, self assured mannerisms here were certainly a sight to behold. It sure got the crowd riled up good as people were looking to storm the ring 5 minutes into the match. There seemed to be 300 people in that building but they sure wanted to see Michel Allary beat the shit out of this arrogant bleach blonde aristocrat. And that he did. Tons of nasty uppercuts and forearms in this match. It didn‘t develop any kind of story but they sure knew how to keep the heat coming which is what counted at this point. Lasartesse had fantastic body language and excellent sense of timing which can totally carry a match like this. It was funny to watch him do a few things he would still do as a crusty old corpse 25 years later in Hamburg. Anytime he was eating shots from Allary he would throw a punch or just jab him in the throat. All the throat work felt super violent and the throat knee drops were just insane. Brutal fucking finish too.

MD: And here we have Lasartesse, finally. The announcer says he's been in the States buying cowboy outfits and cadillacs, but he comes out in his cape with its royal seal on it, the very picture of a guy who'd lose his head in the Terror. What a perfect heel for 1960 France. We've seen him off and on through the years, of course, but here he's everything you'd want him to be. Lanky, using his size to the utmost advantage, both on offense and as a tool for drama and emotion. Deliberate, filling negative space as well as almost anyone in the history of wrestling, chewing gum, strutting around the ring as he has to wait for Allary to get up, it almost becoming a dance as the crowd chants at him. This has some elements we've been slowly starting to see creep into the footage, both focused segments on a limb with a lot of various offense targeting it and a couple of top rope moves, Lasartesse first missing and then later, to end the match, hitting the bombs away kneedrop. Allary is yet another fiery babyface with great strikes but I do wish he sold the bodypart work a bit more. Instead, he opts for more revenge. Lasartesse attacks the back; Allary does the same in revenge when it's his turn. Anyway, as I said, Lasartesse was everything you'd want him to be: menacing, stooging, infuriating, imaginative, petulant, smarmy, vicious, and craven. We're endlessly lucky to get to see him in his prime.

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