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: Batman! Inca! LeDuc, Gonzalez! Mercier! Lemarre! Marsalo!

3 on 3 series: Batman vs. Inca Viracocha, Gilbert LeDuc vs. Jo Gonzales, Jean Corne vs ??? 12/20/69

La Batman vs. Inca Viracocha

MD: This was a three on three event where they drew names (or threw names) and then went one-on-one. The announcer claimed this was a brand new thing they were trying. This was the first pairing and it was very good. Batman isn't the very best stylist we've seen but he had some size and charisma and could really hit a lot of stuff effortlessly. He had some signature spots no one else did, like his up and over to get out of a headlock. Viracocha, as we're quickly learning, may not have Peruano's flair but he was a quality cheapshot artist and stooge who could hit an extra gear on rope running and feed into all of Batman's offense. Lots of little counters and jockeying for positioning. This went a little shorter than normal given the format and ended with very rare interference from Gonzales to explain how Viracocha could take the first fall for his team.

Gilbert LeDuc vs. Jo Gonzales

MD: Gonzales (who I think was Jo) was dressed like Viracocha with the pancho and similar pants. I feel like we haven't seen LeDuc for a while, but he still knew how to work from underneath exceptionally well and had the trademark headspins. They worked some long holds where Gonzales held on well, and Gonzales certainly stooged like a champ, including teasing a hand behind his back like Mantopolous only to get kicked in the face by LeDuc who was too old for that crap. LeDuc was a real crowd pleaser, especially when he put on a leglock, whacked the knee to bring Gonzales to a seated position and then chopped him as he sat up. Repeating that a couple of times got the crowd chanting. He had all of the older French spots (like the repeated body scissors drop) and the leg whacks on the rolling leg nelson and they were all used to high effect. He took the second fall, but unfortunately we ran out of time before we could get the third: Corne vs whoever he was lined up against (which was some guy with a top hat that I never caught the name of).

Jacky Corn/Guy Mercier vs. Ted Lamarre/Jo Marsalo ?/?/70

MD: Excellent, excellent wrestling here. This was nominally stylist vs stylist with guys who were very experienced. We haven't seen too many stylist vs stylist tags. It's usually singles, and that gave this an interesting dynamic where it got heated, especially towards the end, but would lead more to holds than hard shots throughout the match. Lamarre and Marsalo were more the aggressors maybe, quicker to go mean if not dirty, with Mercier and Corn doing more of the firing back. Lots of great sequences. I thought Mercier had plenty of fun stuff, lots of leverage throws and takeovers. Lamarre kept up with his opponents and worked some of the best chinlocks I've ever seen, amazingly tight, amazingly competitive. In general, they spent a lot of the match rolling all over the place jockeying for position. Marsalo was more of a bruiser, bigger and stockier with a slam to Corn over the top rope or bearhug attempts, but the tag nature of this meant that it kept moving. Instead of Corn's usual big comeback, he built to a hot tag after the second fall and a very quick third fall which was Mercier cleaning house. Top notch match of its style and now I wish we had more stylist vs stylist tags.

PAS: Yeah this was nifty stuff, this didn't have the lighting fast exchanges of the lighter weight wrestlers, but lots of cool technical wrestling including lots of cool spots working out of Lamarre's chinlocks, and an extended short arm scissors section which is one of my favorite things in wrestling. We got some solid clubbing when it broke down a bit as well. The pacing of this was a bit weird with the long first and second falls, and the 90 second third fall, but the actual work was top notch

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