Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Bibi! Aledo! Dula! Monsieur Montreal!

Jimmy Dula/Jean Martin vs. Monsieur Montreal/Leon Minisini 11/16/62

MD: Long tag that we miss the start of, and it's good. The last time I saw Dula, I wasn't 100% sure what to make of him. He hit hard but seemed to appeal, ironically, to the crowd after each shot. Here, he held that to between falls and it was pretty funny when he did it and made poor Martin do it with him, plus some fanning antics with the two of them as well, but otherwise, he remained fairly focused and helped to make a 40+ minute tag almost constantly entertaining. He just had this odd way of coming at you, weird angles, a lot of charisma, but hit super hard with his clubbering and headbutts and whatever else, while still being able to work holds. I think he'd improved since last time we saw him. Martin was a persnickety bully, no question, feeling like a guy trapped in a world he didn't make, just being swept along for the ride with Dula and taking it out on his opponents. Big stooging power when he was taking offense too. We won't see more of him, which is a shame. Montreal continues to show me a bit more than I was expecting out of a muscle guy. He works well in this environment, is more than willing to take his opponents' offense, but has some big set pieces to come back with, whether it's a belly to belly toss over the top or big catapults out of the ring. This is it for Minisini too and he was fine and fiery, with big shots when warranted, but a little bit interchangeable with all the others we've seen. Anyway, they kept this moving, kept it entertaining, with Dula almost constantly finding ways to keep himself involved and active. It felt unique in a sea of great, long, hard-hitting tags.

PAS: I thought this was totally excellent. Martin and Dula are cool looking guys, they look like a pair of Sam Cooke bodyguards, and made a really fun team. With Dula as the big bruiser and Martin as more of a frenetic ass kicker. I loved Martin's low angle in ring topes, and he took some fun bumps where he missed them and flew into the crowd. These long tags are very long, but the Martin and Dula team had a bunch of different ways to work exchanges so the time flew by. The finish got super exciting, including an all time great slugfest exchange between Martin and Montreal, it was Lawler vs. Dundee level stuff, with the combos and feints and variety of shots, blew me away. 

Jean Rabut vs. Modesto Aledo 12/14/62

MD: You look back at this footage and it's Modesto Aledo and Tony Charles we really, really wish we had more of. This is it for Aledo though. 3 glorious minutes of he and Rabut really going at it, with clever call back spots (turning the second knee crusher into a shin breaker, turning the second headbutt to the gut off the ropes into a knee lift) and something we've definitely never seen before as he jammed a 'rana, turned it into a power bomb, jammed the press up 'rana attempt, and turned it into a powerbombing backbreaker. This ended with one of the best sunset flips I've ever seen. And that's it for Aledo. Ah well. At least we got a glimpse.

Jacky Corn vs. Cheri Bibi 12/14/62

MD: Totally iconic match that tells you everything you need to know about two of the greatest characters in French Catch. Corn might be the best, most sympathetic seller we've seen, though what holds it all together is how he can turn it on when it's time to fire back. He's excellent technically, though maybe not in the top, top class, but as a total picture wrestler, he's as good as anyone in the footage. He's in those stylist vs stylist matches less because he'd almost be wasted there. You want to see him dominate on the mat early, take a beating in the middle, and them come back with thunderous, battling shots in the stretch. Bibi's come a long way as a tag worker over the years we have footage of and I think that held true in this singles match as well. He's still got that monstrous, almost ever-present look of enjoyment, a bulky way of constantly cheating and leaning on his opponent, but the timing and the purpose of what he does seems tighter and better than what we saw out o f 57 or 58 Bibi. It gave Corn one of the best possible foils to battle against here and they gave us a twenty minute or so match that was focused and pointed, that took the crowd up and brought them down again, and ended clear and clean and definitively in the center of the ring.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 24 minutes. The way I saw this described, I thought this would be like a miracle performance from Bibi in a technical clinic. It wasn‘t that, but it was still pretty great. It was pretty much a mix of tight, simple wrestling and some of the sickest slugging it out in this whole project. Jacky Corn reminds me a bit of a Shinichi Nakano type guy, not the most charismatic and doesn‘t do much fancy, but he will execute his technical moves a little tighter, crank his holds a little harder than everyone else, and engage in some disgustingly violent back and forth strike exchanges. And Cheri Bibi was just a tank here. He didn‘t do anything that made me think he was a genius worker, but he was quite impeccable here as a massive, barrel chested evil dude. The 2nd half of the match is mostly them slugging it out and it was spectacular, with some shots being thrown that would look crazy in a FUTEN match, and both guys lacing each other up with those nasty short kicks. Corn has a lot of things to dish out, at one point he was kicking the shit out of Bibi's shoulder, later he chops him in the throat. And Bibi took and gave as good as he got.

PAS: Pitched fist fight which started at 10 and kept cranking it higher and higher. Bibi looks like Bob Hoskins and has shocking Hoskins in Roger Rabbit level agility when he is taking moves. He is mostly a banger though, hard forearms to the throat, jaw and kidneys, powerful ring shaking slams, he feels like a guy it would absolutely suck to have to wrestle, you are just coming out of it bruised and sore. Corn matches him shot for shot, and even starts exceeding him in violence including some razor chops right to the throat, before finally dumping him with a fast violent tombstone for the duke. This actually felt like a Johnny Valentine match to me, which is about as big a compliment as I can give. This snatches that 1962 slot from Aubriot vs. Bernaert.

ER: You know a match is stiff when the referee works as stiff as the participants. My favorite part of the match - and the most exquisitely filmed shot of the entire match - was the referee throwing some disgusting stomps at Cheri Bibi's wrist and fingers as Bibi's hand gripped the bottom rope. It really made me notice how fearless the ref was the rest of the match, whenever he had to step in between these two to break up a skirmish in the ropes. This guy had uppercuts being thrown inches from his face and he had no problems getting his body in there. Now obviously the referee wasn't the star here, but it certainly added to the presentation for me. Bibi is our favorite Buzz Sawyer/Bob Hoskins hybrid (Buzz Hoskins?) who throws punishing uppercuts, hard combos (love his right punch to the body/left clubbing shot to the back, great rhythm), and full arm shots to the body. His body shots are basically standing clotheslines, a straight arm thrown from different angles about a broad section of Corn's body, and I suspect we'd see some mighty bruising if we had color footage available. 

French Catch tecnicos are always impress me with the amount of punishment they can take, always building to a big comeback, but Corn's selling really put over Bibi's beating. I love how both men sell in the ropes, and how they sell each strike appropriately. The bumping is never over the top, and they don't overuse the bigger bumps to put over bigger strikes. I love the butt drop sell after a particularly nasty uppercut, and each man used it once, really a great way to separate and get across the severity of a particular strike, which wouldn't be as special if they had done it throughout. The tombstone piledriver that Corn finishes Bibi with was on the shortlist of most violent things we've seen in this entire series. The drop happened below the camera line, but you can see where Bibi's head was in relation to Corn's knees, and the way he dropped down fast you can tell Bibi really got crunched. Somebody might have beaten Corn to the drop though, as Bibi's big round head is already square on top of his big round shoulders. This match takes over the crown as our 1962 All Time MOTY, in our list linked below. New champs are always a cause for celebration, and these two earned it. 

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gerber! Di Santo! Pellacani! Dula! Duranton!

Rene Gerber vs. Jean Rabut 12/13/58

MD: Back when we last saw Gerber, a few months ago now, I lamented that we only had one more match with him and it was a JIP one. At least it's one that goes about 15, though. He's a great stooging heel. There's a moment in here, towards the end, that really sums him up. After spending the brunt of the match tossing Rabut out of the ring (and getting tossed out himself) and eating revenge spots tied up in the ropes or eating torpedo headbutts in the corner, he managed to dodge Rabut getting his feet up on some shoulder thrusts. He hobbled back and tapped his head to show his smarts. There was an almost congenial moment between the two of them despite all that had occurred and he asked for a handshake. This was the third of the match, with the first being clean and the second being a cheapshot. After a moment of shared competency and luck, Rabut decided to go in for it though, and he was immediately incapacitated with his arm over the rope and punched hard in the gut twice. That was Gerber for you. Rabut had some great athletic spots we've barely seen, backflips after dropkicks and a novel handstand headcissors takeover. He didn't quite get the chance to fully shine against Gerber though. The crowd wanted more of the rapid-fire elbows to the skull or punches to the gut in the corner, instead. Gerber got great heat, all but brawling with the ref, shoving people in the crowd, having trash thrown at him. Great heel. It's a shame we don't see more of him. We do see more of Rabut though, including against Chaisne, so I'm interested to see what he'll do against a different sort of opponent.

Lino Di Santo vs. Liano Pellacani 12/13/58

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. It‘s the last sighting of Liano Pellacani (for now, who knows what has yet to be digitalized), who sure made an impression. And this was really worked as a long Pellacani showcase. He did more wrestling than usual, engaging in some greco roman work with Di Santo. He was acting like pure brawler before, so it was nice to see that he had the chops. I also totally did not expect him to just savate kick Di Santo in the throat. After that it was asskicking city as Pellacani was demolishing Lino with those unforgiving forearm smashes. Di Santo was a quite great dance partner too, as his stoic selling really accentuates the nasty beating he was taking, and his comebacks gave back as good as he was taking. This was probably the most asskicking we‘ve seen Di Santo do so far and his forearms and dropkicks looked amazing. These kinda matches can easily get repetitve, but they knew to threw in a number of interesting spots. There was a particularily great rope running sequence that lead to a nearfall, as well as Pellacanis general use of the ring ropes (the slingshot to throat is such an amazing little spot), and Lino Di Santo hitting the most neckbreaking neckbreaker. I should add that anytime Pellacani lands outside is tense as you expect him to get jumped by someone from the crowd. Both guys throwing body punches was great, and Di Santo ducking the savate kick to forearm Pellacani into another dimension felt like a spot that was 25 years ahead of its time. Nasty finish too which ended up a fitting swansong for Pellacani.

MD: Of all the footage we've seen so far, I think this might be the night I would have most liked to be there. Not the best matches but maybe the best heels in back to back matches. Both Gerber and Pellacani in the same night. The crowd was already heated at the start of this and by the end, they were more than happy to throw trash into the ring. A guy like Tony Oliver was a consummate heel, likewise Delaporte who was just incessant. Pellacani, however, had this deep understanding of himself and portrayed a sort of passive aggressive quiet fury about the state of reality itself. It wasn't his fault that he did what he did. It was the world that drove him to it. He feels like the promise of Professor Boris Malenko, like Abe Weissman's evil brother. He wrestled the early bit of this clean, things escalating until he managed two monkey flips in a row, only to eat a running 'rana for his trouble. After that, he flipped the switch, unleashing the wickedest clubbering blows you can imagine. As the match went on, he'd take his advantages and act both offended and furious when called out for them. Di Santo would come back but the cut offs were quick and vicious, merciless even. He was always in the moment, which made every second feel organic and real. Di Santo might hit an atomic drop and his trademark neckbreaker, but Pellacani was quick to grab on to the top rope and jam the second attempt, always thinking, always on. All the way to the end where he had enough and drew a DQ, and the last look we'll ever have at him in this footage, teasing an attack on Di Santo after the bell only to draw back, satisfied at the disdain of all around him, to place his robe back on and give the crowd a bow, unabashedly himself no matter what they thought.


Jimmy Dula vs. Robert Duranton 12/26/58

SR: Jimmy Dula is someone I‘ve only seen a few mentions of on tiny fan pages. I wouldn‘t have thought I‘d ever see him wrestle, let alone in a 2/3 falls match that goes nearly 40 minutes. I guess this was a reminder that sometimes the mythical guys you only see looking badass on one or two photos are sometimes just regular wrestlers. This was solid Catch, very much like the stuff we could see on WoS or IWE. Not super tricked out, but there was some intense hold for hold work. I expected Duranton to bring the heat as we had seen him doing before, but instead it was Dula who assumed the role of the shit stirrer when he took offense to Duranton kicking his way out of a hold. Next thing he did was try to pry Durantons nose from his face. The face attacks looked really nasty, and Dula had really good looking forearm smashes and uppercuts. I also really liked his constant use of the cravate, constantly wrenching Durantons head. It‘s a bit of a long match but the fact Dula kept going back to try and wrestle Duranton kept it interesting and we get lots of cool strike exchanges down the stretch.:

MD: Sebastian might have thought that this was business as usual but this was a pretty odd one to me. Duranton is one of the more unlikable guys we've seen in this project (in a good way). At this stage of his career, I don't think he's the sort to carry someone entirely though. He's been a bit more stylized so far. After a bit of clunky wrestling, Dula started to go straight for the eyes and mouth, however. He had this thing he'd do where after every break, he'd salute to the crowd as if everything was perfectly lovely. Sometimes he'd use it to stall. The crowd didn't know what to make of it. It got a reaction, but it was mainly amused bewilderment. Ultimately, this had a fairly uncooperative feel which didn't bear out positively in the holds but did with the strikes. The saving grace here was that they really beat the crap out of each other. Duranton was especially mean. We'd seen that streak before, but here he was a wall that would not break (at least not too often), and the meaner he got with his shots, the meaner Dula got in return. I think Dula's act probably would have worked pretty well against one of your more standard French babyfaces. It's just that he was paired with Duranton who modified his act to be tougher, maybe, but I don't even know if that's a good thing, as the charm of him is how haughty and arrogantly dismissive he can be. He didn't get much of a chance to be that here while his opponent was walking around and saluting no matter what had just happened.

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