Tuesday is French Catch Day: Zapata! Castillo! Aubriot! Bayle! Bollet! Delaporte! de Zarzecki! Wiecz!

Pancho Zapata/Vicente Castillo vs. Dan Aubriot/Remy Bayle 11/28/65

PAS: Zapata is Joaquim LaBarba and Castillo is Quasimodo and that is a killer pair of grotesqueries. Twin Igors clawing at faces and slamming skulls into the mat. It is a great act, although this match needed more dynamic babyfaces to really justify it's run time. Zapata seemed to slow down his nutty bumping under this gimmick, but still had great execution, as did Castillo who hit a killer rainmaker elbow along with his stalking and looking creepy. I liked Bayle targeting the growth on the back of Castillo's head. This was good overall, but more a cool look at a pair of creeps then anything that will stand out.  

MD: What a heel side here, the unholy unification between La Barba (as Pancho Zapata) and Quasimodo (Vincente Castilla here). These are, by far, two of the most interesting bad guys in all of the footage, with La Barba able to turn on a dime from being an arch stooge to the most vicious guy in the world and Castilla absolutely fascinating in the way he moves, the way he reacts, his varied and imaginative offense, how he portrays power. Here, when they were in control, they were just a cycling wave of brutality, trading off on holds and controlling the ring. Aubriot and Bayle were spirited in their comebacks. While Aubriot had the cartwheels and more rope running, I thought Bayle looked best out of the two; his stuff was just sharper and his shots were chippier. This didn't feel quite as focused and structured as some of the tags we've seen lately, but that played well into the chaotic nature of Castilla and Zapata. Towards the end, you knew it wasn't going to end clean; I figured i t was heading towards a DQ but instead, Bayle got one last comeback only to get back body dropped over the rope as his own momentum was used against him, rendering him unable to continue. I think this is it in the footage for La Barba and Quasimodo and what an absolute shame that is.

Andre Bollet/Roger Delaporte vs. Warnia de Zarzecki/Eddie Wiecz 1/9/65

MD: The fans absolutely loved this one, and it felt heated at times, but always had sort of a party feel to it that maybe meant that it didn't have the weight you'd hope it would, especially because, for once, Delaporte and Bollet got what was coming to them. I just can't get over how canny Wiecz is here. Sometimes I think I'm reading too much into it, but there are a dozen little things. Whenever someone's getting beaten on here, it's usually Zarzecki. Zarzecki eats the first fall. Wiecz is the one rushing across the ring and allowing for the distractions. He's the one who gets to take the hot tag and clean house with big shots and dropkicks. During a key celebratory moment towards the end, he hits his back flip off the top but then runs over to get Zarzecki's guy too and sort of takes his moment, that should have been equal. Delaporte and Bollet begged off from him far more than from Zarzecki and it's not like Zarzecki was some rookie or slouch. The fans don't care because they love it but watching back, it's impossible to miss. Anyway, this was an arch Bollet and Delaporte performance, as funny as ever, maybe not quite as mean, though when they were stomping and taking liberties, they were as good as anyone. There seemed to be more girls in the crowd than usual and they were horrified by Bollet and Delaporte's middle-aged transgressions and excited for Zarzecki and Wiecz and that added to the feel. This wasn't the most balanced (wrestling and comebacks and cheating and bullshit and comedy) match we've seen, but it was very fun.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bernaert! Zarpa! Bayle! Montreal! Bibi! Husberg!

Joachim La Barba vs Dan Aubriot 4/11/65

MD: Our last little look at La Barba. About five minutes. It's great for what we get. They're able to go at a high speed, full of hard hitting shots and tons of character. They'll go from a quick roll up/armbar exchange, to a double stomp, to uppercuts and forearms, to big tosses out of (and back into) the ring, right into the antics. At one point, La Barba fast counted himself on a pin, left the ring, and put his robe back on, only for Aubriot to pull him back in and trounce him. Great stuff. The finish was 1965 nuts with a really close up missile dropkick (more of just a missile kick) and then top rope splash from La Barba. What a shame we didn't have more La Barba in the footage. Ah well.

Pierre Bernaert vs Armand Zarpa 4/11/65

MD: Other than the cross body finish and slight elaboration in some of the in-and-out hold sequences, this could have been six or seven years earlier. There's nothing wrong with that but it felt like a bit of a throwback to the classic stylist vs mechant stuff we've seen a ton of so far. Bernaert is, of course a pro at this. Zarpa was either Armenia or Greek (here billed as Armenian) and he could hang. Some of the sequences looked a little off but they were all worked so competitively that things being off ended up additive anyway. Sometimes Zarpa, despite being the stylist, went to a kick or a shot to get out and the fans seemed unsure about that early. Halfway through the match, though, Bernaert got mean and they were behind Zarpa when he fired back. There probably wasn't quite enough of that and maybe a bit too much of taking the crowd back down with holds. There was a relatively late headscissors which probably wasn't the crowd needed in that moment, for instance. In general, though, it was good, baseline stuff.

Remy Bayle/Mr Montreal vs Cheri Bibi/Eric Husberg 4/25/65

MD: We've seen our share of Bibi and Bernaert but this was our first look at Bibi and Husberg and it was great. Maybe with Bernaert there was more heel chicanery, but while Pierre's hard hitting, Husberg seems to be more of a relentless, dogged, and varied striker with a craven stooging streak and interesting combos. Add in Bibi's brutal shots and tendency to be able to cut off an opponent believably at a moment's notice and they were a high bar to defeat. The more I see Montreal, the more I like him. He had a body gimmick for a babyface, but he hit hard and threw great slams and sold well, just really having a deep connection to the crowd. He was lead babyface material and a fiery hot tag or mauling worker from underneath. It helped that Bibi leaned into his every shot. You got the sense he really liked to work with Montreal, which is quite the claim for me to be making from watching a few matches, but I call it like I see it. Bayle was able to work in these cool little karate chops giving his combos some welcome variety. This was fairly back and forth, with some standout sequences like a progressive (for the time) and well worked arm control bit on Bibi that ended with Bibi rolling to Husberg and Husberg mocking his opponents for losing control only to get almost immediately blasted for his trouble. There was also a great moment where Montreal held the ropes open as Bibi went to bound off them for an illegal double team so that he just went sailing. At times they got big heat (with trash being thrown in and Husberg kicking it out) and the fans were up for all the comebacks. The finish, while not satisfying, was at least amusing and both teams could realistically claim some form of victory. It made me want to see them go at it again.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! La Barba! Guy Robin! Eric Taylor!

Michel Chaisne vs. Gilbert Leduc 9/20/57

SR: About 5 minutes are shown with much of that time spent in a short arm scissor. Seems Chaisne was getting a push at this time getting to do long technical matches on a regular basis. Of course, the crowd was silent for the holds but loved it when they started throwing strikes which lead to a very quick finish.

MD: This one feels like a real shame that we're getting it JIP. This is World Lightweight Champion vs French Lightweight Champion. Much of the six or so minutes that we get here are spent with Leduc holding Chasine in a short arm scissors and Chaisne trying to lift him up and out. We've seen this particular exchange plenty of times in the footage by now and while it was really nicely put on and Chasine did a good job with his struggle and selling, it's not really what I was hoping for with these two. The finishing stretch, after his escape, however, absolutely was, and might be the best finishing stretch we've seen yet, which is saying something.

Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Joachim La Barba 9/20/57

SR: 1 Fall match going a little over 20 minutes. The first sighting of Chemoul from the footage we have (chronologically speaking). He is already the formidable champion here. I get the sense is more akin to a Vic Faulkner type wrestler rather than some intense technician, and while his technique is stellar, I wish this match had been a little more serious. You know what you are getting from this match up, La Barba rudoing it up and Rene Ben Chemoul having the edge with technique before eating some shots and then turning the match into a bump-a-ton with Joachim stooging like crazy. La Barba is great, and while did get some shots in, I would‘ve loved to see Joachim La Barba crank up the violence and give Rene all he could handle.

MD: If we could only show people one match to sum up 1957 in French Catch, this might be the one I'd pick. It wasn't the most extraordinary match of the set and didn't have the biggest stakes or the blistering heat or the most advanced technical wizardry, but it was definitive and so complete, with sleek wrestling from Ben Chemoul, consistent and nasty cheapshots from La Barba, hot babyface fire in response, comedy, imaginative spots, clever counters, interesting bumps, constant struggle, some amazing use of the ref, visuals that most people watching wrestling had no idea existed before the late 80s, and an electric finish. This match is just memorable moment after memorable moment from two wrestlers that could obviously do a little bit of everything.

PAS: I adore La Barba, he might be one my favorite guys we have discovered in this footage, and we have discovered some legends. He is announced as being from Mexico, and while he has looked like Satanico's grandfather before, in this match he felt more like he snuck in the back door of Pirata Morgan's granny's house. He was an absolutely old school stocky bump fiend in this match, getting beeled over the top rope by his ears, flying through the ropes, and an incredible bump near the end where he got bounced stomach first on the turnbuckles a bunch of times, only to get flipped over the top rope.  He also had some nasty punches and great stooging. Chemoul is considered a legend and he is a great foil for the La Barba show, finish was one of the best rana's we have seen in this footage and this is footage full of great rana. 

Guy Robin vs. Eric Tayor 10/4/57

MD: Really happy that this one's turned up. I would have been in general, as it's Guy Robin, who is one of my favorite wrestlers in the footage so far in another singles match against a explosive young wrestler from England (remember, we've seen him against Al Hayes and the Fishers), but it turns out his opponent here is Eric Taylor, Dave Taylor's dad, at age 27 and if if Wikipedia is to be believed, just a few months after Dave's birth. As best as we know, there's no other footage o him available.

And this is a really good showing for both wrestlers. Robin is not as over the top as someone like La Barba or Kaiser, and it made sense that in the Delaporte tag, he, because of his relative smallness and more understated nature, would play second fiddle to Delaporte, but he's always a joy to watch. He has this spryness, deftness, quickness. He can dance around an opponent and sneak in a rabbit punch as well as anyone I've ever seen. His bumping is big without taking you out of what's happening and he sells everything he's hit with, both the pain of it and the emotion. Case in point here is how offended he gets every time Taylor hits a huge kneelift. It's a personal affront, and it's actually after one, early on, that he really turns up the cheating. You get the sense that, in his own mind, it was entirely justified, even when he flips Taylor on a handshake a couple of minutes later.

Because Robin is so quick to use a hairpull or cheapshot, Taylor really has to work for his advantages and he gets them by bounding across the ring and by just staying on top of things. If he makes a clean break, Robin takes advantage. That leads into the finish where Taylor is trying to hold the advantage after Robin took a big bump to the outside only to get caught by a kick out of nowhere. All in all, this was very good, and we saw some things out of Taylor we haven't seen in the footage yet, including a backslide and a full on torture rack that ended with Taylor depositing Robin over the top, and Robin using this cool inverted drop where instead of using the top rope as a clothesline for the throat, he dropped Taylor onto it back of the neck first. It had looked like we had another Taylor match later on but that had been mislabeled (maybe we'll still come across it), whereas this had been mislabeled to look like someone else, so I'm really glad that it ultimately revealed itself.

SR: 1 Fall match going a little over 20 minutes. I‘ve sort of grown to see Guy Robin as the Jim Breaks/Terry Rudge type of French wrestling. That is a pretty awesome descriptor, and he really rules as short tempered nearly bald guy who will put the hurt on his opponents and bump outrageously. This wasn‘t much worse than Robin/Hayes from earlier. Taylor (Dave Taylors father) is another not super charismatic guy, but he was sharp, up to the task and knew to drop bombs on Robin. He busted out the legbreaker – not a move I would expect in 1957 – precise dropkicks, and a quite awesome torture rack. Robin wasn‘t super expressive here, but he once again looked quite great trying to make his opponents life as miserable as possible. Kidney punches, jabbing the throat, kicking him in the ribs, even sort of proto-curb stomping him into the ropes – a stealworthy spot for sure. At 20 minutes this feels like it wasn‘t enough, but the surprise pin was cool.

PAS: This was a pretty classic 50s French catch match structure. Your cheapshotting heel gets more an more dirty, until your classic babyface gets fed up and starts wailing on him.  Taylor had a bunch of big offense, that torture rack into the hot shot was cool, and he hit a great dropkick Robin was mostly dirt, but it was filthy dirt, every heel in wrestling right now should be using quarantine to watch French Catch shit to steal. That curbstomp into the ropes is ripe for bringing back. I also love how French Catch heels find cool places on the body to punch, it is just the jaw or the forehead, you are likely to get punched in the kidneys or the side of the knee or the back of the head.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: La Barba! Inca Perano! Laroche! DR. ADOLF KAISER

Joachim La Barba vs Roger Laroche 3/7/57

MD: This was very good. You watch these matches and you get a sense that they were just mass producing absolute masters like Bout and Laroche off of some assembly line in 50s France. He was able to present this immense control over his body and his opponent's (obviously that's half on La Barba but the total effect was very convincing). One of my favorite bits was when he launched a spin-move feint out of nowhere to grab a leg. He had absolutely crushing blows too, including some pretty novel strikes like proto-Kawada kicks and a cravat-held kneelift. We'd seen La Barba as a mean, mugging heel before and that's exactly what he was here, getting whatever cheapshots he could and going for things like a double stomp at every opportunity, even if he mostly missed. His missed haymakers, for instance, were things of beauty. A lot of the narrative of the match, like we've seen elsewhere, was how he kept pushing the ref's buttons, taking advantage by cheating but losing it by the ref getting fed up and intervening. La Barba also brought excellent bumping, memorable facial expressions, and a tendency to go flying out of the ring in the most interesting ways, like when Laroche reversed a cross-arm puller and heaved him up and out of the ring with it. Everything came together nicely as they worked that theme into the finish with a brutal over the top bump onto a table leading to the count out. La Barba rushing back in after the bell only to get dropped was a perfect, giving crowd-pleasing ending.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This is a match with lots of wrestling that‘s gonna stay in your mind because of the parts where they beat the hell out of each other. Not that the wrestling was bad, Laroche looked like a classy worker, but it just wasn‘t that exceptional and as soon as Joachim kicked him in the kidney you wanted more where that came from. It‘s like you slotted Tenryu or Takashi Ishikawa into a European style grappling affair. Most of the first 10 minutes are built around Laroche evading the Mexican, with Joachim La Barba attempting some double stomps which was rather interesting. As soon as Joachim found his opening he wasn‘t letting go of the chance to beat the crap out of Laroche. He also took the chance to bump all over the place once again. It all builds to an especially big bump to the outside. Little hard to rate for me, it‘s clear that this was good shit and smokes most 2020 pro wrestling in a cakewalk, on the other hand the baseline for this French stuff is getting really high.

PAS: I loved this, I think I am higher then Sebastian and Matt. My god La Barba, he is listed from Mexico, and if he is actually a luchador, he must have been Satanico's illegitimate father. He has the whole rudo package, sickingly violent, great stooging, huge Jerry Estrada style bumps to the floor, and even some Un Foul's. I loved all of his missed moves, he was really great at whiffing at double stomps and splashes, and those big missed uppercuts were great looking, everything looked like it was thrown full force but still had this great silent comedy feel. Laroche was really good too, great hard charging foil to La Barba's wild performance, really brought the violence, and I dug all of his early grappling too. Loved the finish with La Barba getting pressed over the top rope landing hard on a table. He gets counted out, helped to the back, but reverses course and tries to jump Laroche and takes another stooging bump, what a man. 

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Warnia de Zarzecki 3/29/57

MD: This was an even better Kaiser showcase than the last match. In just a couple of matches, it's clear how good he was at walking a fine line between precision violence and a sort of manic desperation. You'll get a carefully set up arm-trap headbutt, a rolling short armscissors, and Kaiser going for the ears to get out of a hold all in the span of a minute or two. He hits a 1957 Full Nelson Slam too, in case anyone was wondering. The crowd was distracted early on by some police activity in the crowd but they recovered well. Zarzecki was competent in his role. He came off as younger and square-jawed, though ready to dole out revenge for Kaiser's cheapshots. He had the Andre the Giant kneecrushes too though I'm not sure how sound they are coming from a guy that's not a giant. It does hit home that we've seen a lot of variation of strikes in all of these matches though. I probably read way too much into the finish, but to me, there was real emotion to it: Kaiser finally was able to lock in his nerve hold that he had used with such verve in the previous match, but Zarzecki slammed his own head straight back into Kaiser's to break it. Distraught and furious, Kaiser yanked him into a 1957 Dragon Sleeper, cinched it up to a ridiculous degree and choked him out.

SR: JIP, but we get about 10 minutes. Mostly Zarzecki taking the Doctor to the pay window. Zarzecki wasn‘t kidding, he hit some pretty violent looking kneelifts and stomps. The Dr. is really fun at sneaking in cheapshots and his calculating behaviour is entertaining, he also busted out another cool double armlock. The finish has Warnia escaping the dreaded nerve hold with a nasty headbutt, only for Kaiser to spin him into a Dragon Sleeper in the middle of the ring. I didn‘t think they meshed quite that well and the match could‘ve picked up the pace a little, but it was a nice reminder that the Dr.s chokeholds will put anyones lights out.

PAS: I am the high voter on this match too, I thought it was fucking great. This match was full of really violent in fighting, with guys latching in holds, and then the other guy throwing short nasty shots, or stomps or headbutts. I am assuming Zarzecki is billed as Polish, and a Polish guy certainly has some incentive to want to stomp the shit out of a German doctor, and stomp the shit out him he does. Kaiser is being built up so great here, he gives his opponent a lot of stuff, but always has this aura of sadistic shocking violence looming. God that finish was incredible, Kaiser is able to grab his dreaded nerve hold, and Zarzecki breaks in by throwing the back of his head into Kaisers face, that back headbutt is a barfight move I can only ever remember seeing once in wrestling, when Chris Hero and Eddie Kingston started shooting on each other in PWG. Kaiser snaps and locks in this violent Dragon Sleeper, and they basically have to give Zarzecki CPR in the ring after. Kaiser continues to leave bodies strewn at his feet, I can't wait to watch more. 

Inca Peruano vs Comanche Indian 3/29/57

MD: I'm pretty certain that some of the people I went to grad school with could have used this match as a valid and loving case study for veiled homoeroticism in 50s French popular culture. They start with the rare-for-a-reason double grounded headscissors spot, go a bit overboard with the sitting-on-your-opponent stuff out of victory rolls and what have you, and even some of the positions Peruano gets punches in from were either ill-conceived or expertly conceived depending on what they were going for. Comache was fun, with a very unique way of stalking around his opponent that popped the announcer and that Peruano even mocked during a moment of his advantage. He really leaned deep into his hip tosses (utilizing the leg trip) which always looks so great in this footage and Peruano, who we saw as a face in the previous match, was a bullying heel with a bunch of flashy stuff, including the really cool handwalk headscissors spot. Not to go to deep onto the theme, but there was a sense of a lover's quarrel here, just that sort of animosity, from the initial stalking all the way to Peruano's post match cheapshot and it kept things interesting, at least.

SR: When you see a matchup with names like this, you expect everything. We ended up getting some really swank stuff. Lots of nifty throws, swank headscissors and smooth matwork, at one point both guys exchange fast leg trips. Comanche is a spindly guy with some eccentric mannerisms, and his physique adds to his matwork allowing for some cool escapes. Peruano continues to look like the real deal, at one point he does this transition where he hooks Comanches legs with his own legs and spins around almost like a double leg nelson, and his headscissor from the ropes – which he does slick and out of nowhere like a shootstylist – is one of my new favourite moves. He also busts out the Octopus Hold. Peruano eventually starts sneaking in inside shots and the bout gets chippy, with Peruano throwing punches to Comanches skinny body and Comanche firing back with neck chops. Comanche also has some cool looking non-standard dropkicks and a great victory roll. Once again, there were some intense pin attempts. Could‘ve built to a bigger crescendo, but what a neat match to watch in itself.

PAS: I thought this was weird and cool, although I am not sure if it totally nailed it as a match. There are a lot of nuts right in faces in this match, and that rolling double headscissors looked like porn. There was so much cool shit too though, that walk up headscissors was great as was a later spinning headscissors.  The whole thing felt pitched to a slightly different frequency, like this is what Peruvian wrestling in the 50s looked like, rather then a traditional French match. As always I loved the chippiness, although it never evolved into the pure wars that a lot of these matches get to. Lots of stuff here for wrestlers to steal, including a bunch of thing for Effy or Cassandro to take. 

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Inca Peruano! Joachim La Barba! Lasartesse! Van Buyten!

Joachim La Barba vs. Inca Peruano 1/17/57 - EPIC

SR: A 30 minute contest 2/3 falls contest, JIP about 7 minutes into it and both guys are already at each others throats. It‘s a battle between rather mysterious figures. We‘ve seen Inca Peruano before as a bumping rudo, although he is in the tecnico role here. Joachim La Barba is mentioned as „The terrible champion of Mexico“ on a fanpage. Genickbruch.com lists him wrestling in Germany as „Abdul Khan“ and in Mexico as „Pancho Zapata“. No guarantee about these facts since there was also another luchador named Pancho Zapata. I really wonder about the background of Inca Peruano – is he actually Peruvian? A Mexican worker with an Inca gimmick? Was he trained in France? No matter where he came from, he shows up a lot in this footage and is clearly a great worker.

This was an absolute slugfest. The kind of match you‘d never see on British or German TV at this point. But here, the announcer was cackling like a madman at these two trying to put some serious hurt on each other. Both guys were really laying in those trademark European uppercuts, cracking each others ribs with thudding kicks and using holds so they could hit the other guy from a safe position. Joachim La Barba was an absolute beast here, throwing punches to the back of the head, constantly stepping on his opponent, walloping him with kicks. At one point, he was driving knees into Inca while holding on to the ropes like a PRIDE fight. He came across as a guy it really sucks to fight, and Peruano's stoic selling performance enhanced the grittiness of the match. Between beating on each other, they work the mat (usually leading to more shots on the ground) and other nifty spots. One of the things they do that you can‘t just do in modern wrestling anymore is the use of the ropes, which were really loose to allow for tying up spots. The „tie up the other guy as revenge“ spot is a staple of German wrestling, but they did some pretty unique shit here. Peruano takes the horrifying looking spill into the ropes where he gets his head tied up and is nearly strangled, later he uses the ropes to hit several Toyota style dropkicks to Joachim's chest, there is also a really swank and well timed head scissor over the ropes. I am absolutely amazed how workers from nearly 70 years ago find unique twists on spots we‘ve seen plenty of times in other matches, such as said rope trickery or La Barba unexpectedly landing on the rope when they went through the classic „pull them off his torso-armbar“ sequence. Also, there is a real sense of bomb throwing towards the end of the match. Both guys hit some flying moves off the top rope which set up the finishes to the falls, and one guy takes a big missed back bump that is put over in a big way. I especially liked how they seemingly improvised Inca Peruano who was slow to get to the rope working a fun cutoff before Barba could catch him.

Even though this was by far the least pretty of all the matches from France we‘ve seen so far, this was a baffling and amazing match, great mix of a violent fight and some pretty unique wrestling, with state of the art finishes.

PAS: I thought this was a real discovery, Peruano had a very lucha style breaking out some headscissors and even a Romero Special. This had a lot of really unique stuff with the ropes, including Peruano getting hung Foley style in the ropes, and then paying La Barba back by locking him in the ropes and putting on a leg stretch, and then later spinning him up in the ropes and hitting some stiff dropkicks. La Barba had some fun stooging, but when he got nasty, he got nasty. He had some of the grossest backbreakers I can remember seeing, really bending Peruano over his knee, and some really great looking uppercuts and cheap shots too. I loved how he landed a bunch of body shots on Inca after he pinned him (with a great looking top rope dropkick).

TKG: Jose Fernandez shared a thing on the history of wrestling in Spain fucking ages ago…and both of these guys were regulars on the Spain scene and who fucking knows this may have been their Marek Brave v Tyler Black touring match. Barba is a real blast as the heel that keeps on getting outsmarted in first fall. He’s always sadistic in his rule breaking while Peruano is always kind of Dusty having fun with his. A bunch of the rope stuff has already been mentioned but I also liked Peruano’s series of arm drags into essentially a monkey flip onto corner ropes, Peruano’s using full nelson to slam and scrape Barba’s face in ropes, and Barba’s knees into Peruano’s back that shoved Peruano into ropes. Barba also does a bunch of landing in the ropes bumps. There was just this real 90’s singles match Bobby Eaton feel of you always knew those ropes are their for Bobby to scrape opponent’s eyes against.

MD: It's funny how we can all see these and get something slightly different from them. From me, the first fall that we have here is something of a comedy match, where Peruano consistently out-slicks La Barba and La Barba completely overcompensates for his humiliation by being a mean bastard. It's an overreaction because it basically doesn't work. He goes too mean, too hard, too brutish, and he gets taken over or down or tied up again. Where it starts to work and where the tide turns is when Peruano gets upset himself, loses his cool and the higher ground, and starts slugging with him. He can't outslug La Barba and he loses the advantage. That's what ultimately lets La Barba hit his downright cruel backbreakers and the missile dropkick to take what has to be the second fall. Peruono shortly thereafter gets over the top and gets his revenge with La Barba tied up in the ropes. After that, things are a bit more even, though La Barba always has this sense of anxious desperation to what he does. You see plenty of novel spots, not just the Romero Special, but a sort of go behind groin lift or a victory roll take over. I might have read a bit too much into the narrative, but I felt it in the moment and it felt pretty novel from a storytelling perspective even compared to even the technically sound and exciting matches we've been watching.


Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz Van Buyten 1/17/72 - FUN

PAS: This was in the middle of a swimming pool for some reason which was a really fun atmosphere. Lasartesse falls out of the rowboat to start which was a fun bit of heel shtick. There was a lot of tight nasty wrestling in this match, but it was clearly building to Lasartesse taking the big Nestea plunge into the pool, which was followed by Van Buyten tossing the ref in as well. Lasartesse had some great looking uppercuts and a big bombs away knee drop off the top which landed right into Van Buyten's throat. This felt more like a traditionally worked match then the other French stuff we have seen (outside of the swimming pool of course) I'll be interested to see when we get more into the 70s whether the style becomes less unique, or that is just related to the guys and the setting.

SR: I got stupidly excited when I saw this match in the archives. Two guys who had an awesome match series in the 1980s (when Franz was nearing 50 and had recovered from a paralyzing back injury, while Lasartesse was looking like a corpse) fighting each other in their prime, what could go wrong? However, the match was lacking focus, and didn‘t play to either guys strength. They were noticeably struggling to kill time, so I guess they did get wiser with age. Still, there was plenty to be enjoyed here: the match takes place in a ring that is floating in a swimming pool, and they send the wrestlers there in tiny little boats while a young Atsushi Onita was furiously taking notes at ringside. Of course the whole match was building to someone getting thrown into the water. For something that could have been a light hearted spectacle, the match was quite violent. After some initial feeling out, Lasartesse quickly took over the match and started working over van Buyten's throat with nasty stomps and elbows. He also busted out plenty of offense, too much offense really, he uncorked like 5 Tombstone Piledrivers on Franz which no matter how much they tried to cover up the following pinfalls should have ended the match. Also, Lasartesse is notorious for not being very good at the actual wrestling and his suplexes looked like shit. Once Franz made his comeback, a heel ref got involved to kill more time. Even when Lasartesse hit the dreaded diving knee to Franz, he couldn‘t end the match. It‘s very strange for a match between two guys who stood out before working no frills story driven matches to suffer from 2019isms such as too many finishers, but here we were. At least we got to see Franz hitting his cool in-ring topes and throwing the evil referee headfirst into the shallow pool.

MD: I wonder how much of the drama of this was taken away by Lasartesse bumping out of the boat on the way in? He started out already wet. It'd be like getting color on the way to the ring? This is obviously a fascinating spectacle, and I wish we had Van Buyten's boat ride too. There's just a weird feeling of dueling in the canals of Venice or some such to this setting. There were about five minutes of Lasartesse being in control, what with stalking around the ring and the tombstones and contentiously dropping Van Buyten too close to the ropes and I absolutely loved that. As much as I like tricked out matwork or the rope running escalation and elaborate comedy spots and everything else we've seen, the most primal element of pro wrestling is the build and payoff of a beatdown and comeback; this was a pretty glorious beatdown, with Lasartesse serving as an amazing looming presence and Van Buyten (who, might I add, we have three scant months later in Japan having an all time comedy six-man interacting with Andre) drawing tons of sympathy, but the comeback didn't reach the level it had to.

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