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.

Read more!

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.

Read more!