Tuesday is French Catch Day

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Jose Tarres 1/2/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. We are JIP‘d so far into the 1st fall that we see Dr. Kaiser putting Tarres away with the nerve hold. It rules that we still get about 30 minutes of these two wrestling each other. And this was expectedly really good. We‘ve seen Tarres , the man with the iron head, get a really good match of von Chenok, and Dr. Kaiser can do so much more than that guy. This was super simple, Tarres headbutts vs. Dr. Kaisers nerve holds, with both guys having a variety of ways to both hit their signatures and avoid the others. There was some pretty neat work around clinches, with Tarres trying to clinch and fire away with the headbutts and Kaiser having ways to get out of the clinch. We see Kaiser doing a lot of wrestling here including some pretty whacky submission holds and the announcer calls him an artist, which adds another neat dimension to this eccentric evil guy. His clawing and hair pulling was pretty insane, he looks like he is trying to pull the other guys scalp or face off. And with his strategic behaviour, including trying to work over Tarres‘ indestructible head, he reminded me a bit of Billy Robinson. Tarres was there to sell and headbutt the shit out of the evil Doctor, and that he did. Those headbutts to the back of the head are pretty crazy, he connected them with an audible thud too. We also get a good look at a deformity Tarres has on his forehead, so either the metal plate story was legit or he developed that from headbutting people for a living. Dr. Kaiser trying to methodically destroy this heavy hitter was pretty great. He also looked damn great selling the near Kos. The finish was logical but drew a lot of boos from the audience as everyone was eager to see Tarres KO the Doctor.

MD: This was very similar to Von Chenok vs Tarres, the nerve hold vs the headbutt, but where Von Chenok was more apt to dive every which way, Kaiser was inclined to try to tie Tarres up into knots. While Tarres had a range advantage, he was slow to get those hands up to grab Kaiser for the headbutt, and Kaiser was quick to grab and armbar or go low with a jab, so it was a more even contest. That made for a better match but maybe not as frenetic and entertaining as one. That's not to say there weren't fun spots, because there were (like Kaiser hurting his hand on Tarres' head or slamming him into the turnbuckle to no effect) and he was quick to writhe and spasm after the headbutts did hit. I thought they might be protecting the dragon sleeper in the match (Kaiser really only goes for it once as he took the first fall with a nerve hold with his legs inside Tarres' arm) but it petered out with a disappointing DQ finish instead.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, although with two such great characters I wanted a bit more. Tarres' scarred and lumpy head was a nice contrast to the Doctor's sniveling evil. Wrestling is so much cooler when it is populated by freaks and weirdos. I love how intent the Doctor is to get his sleeper, really cool focused attack, although he is going to get knocked off his plan by that gross head smashing him. A wilder finish would have brought this to next level, but the finish we got kind of dragged it down a bit. Still I love both of these guys and would watch anything they did.


Juan Botana vs Paul Villars 1/1/59

MD: When you watch these matches, you look for patterns. That's how you really start to figure out a style. I'm at the point, after more than a half a year doing this, where I get a sense at what at least a good chunk of the spots will be before they happen. I'm sure almost anyone who reads this could watch a WWE match right now and do the same thing. You start figuring out the crowd's reactions too. I didn't think they entirely knew what to make of Dula vs Duranton, for instance, even compared to another heel vs heel match like Taverne vs Delaporte. It was striking, for instance, how much heat Mann received relative to other people that had to work for it more. I think one element of that was when he laid his cheapshots in. Lots of guys will hit after their opponent is down, but Mann got the heat for going after his opponent right when he was about to get up but before he got there. Here, Villars definitely gets heat for the unclean stomps after the opponent is down, but when he starts to lay in the kneelifts as Botana is trying to get up, the crowd really gets after him. Some of it might simply be cumulative, but after the Mann matches, I think there might be something to this. The former is about being unsportsmanlike, but the latter is outright cheating; it's preventing an opponent from even having the slightest chance at coming back when he's supposed to have a clean path to his feet. Botana has to finally get an opening by kicking up repeatedly out of a headscissors, and then Villars takes advantage of the ref trying to hold back his revenge. By that point, though, the crowd is booming Botana's name. They went a little back and forth after that, but ultimately (after a nice bit of struggle where Villars jammed it) ended up in maybe the best leg nelson that we've seen so far with Botana just paintbrushing Villars with his leg and foot. The last few minutes had Villars dumping Botana a couple of times (the second being a counter that really took the fight out of Botana), which gave him quality time with the jeering crowd, before absolutely crushing him with a tombstone and ultimately adding insult to injury for the win and the crowd's absolute wrath and fury.

SR:1 fall match going about 15 minutes. Not a very happy new year for Botana, as he eats a pretty nasty one sided beating from Villars in this. Villars is great as he just mauls Botana with violent kicks, stomps and forearms. It seemed Botana was used to working as the rudo, as he threw the first shot, and later worked Villar with some nasty looking punches of his own. He also had the neckbreaker and a neat move where he turns his opponent around and knees him in the back of the head. There was some good work around the double leg nelson, but after that Stone Cold Paul Villar just destroyed Botana, nasty piledriver and all. It‘s rare we see a heel just stomp a guy like this and the crowd didn‘t like it at all.

PAS: I will always dig an asskicking and Villars was Finlayesque in this match. Just a brutal stomping, including a couple of gross knees to the back of Botana's head. I loved the leg nelson by Botana, it was a great little moment of offense and is something that could easily be stolen today. Outside of that flurry this was an ass stomping. Villars showed no protection on the tombstone and thumped every shot. Not sure why he hated Botana but this was a great set up for next week, what a badass.


L‘Ange Blanc vs. Paul Villars 1/9/59

MD: Well, here's our first look at L'Ange Blanc, top superhero babyface of France. As later footage of him has him unmasked, this feels a bit like us getting a rare Santo match. This seems to be his debut, and it's a rare 50s French match with a clear angle behind it. The idea is that L'Ange Blanc challenged Villars due to Villars' brutality vs Botana the week before. There's a pre-match promo where Villars says that he's not afraid as L'Ange Blanc is a man like any other with two arms and two legs.

L'Ange Blanc, here, comes off a bit more like an Atlantis than El Hijo Del Santo. What stood out the most to me was how much he gave to Villars and how thoroughly he sold. This was even before Villars started cheating. Early on, Villars took most of the holds, with L'Ange Blanc fighting out each time and then usually getting some sort of move back before Villars locked in another. For the first portion of the match, Villars had a hard time keeping him down because he couldn't figure out how to pull the mask instead of nonexistent hair. Later on, he figured that out though. Once the cheating starting, there was a lot of selling and fighting from underneath. Where L'Ange Blanc really shone was in his comebacks with big uppercuts and dropkicks. Nothing flashy but everything mostly clean and crisp and resounding. Clearly flashy, however, were his finishes: a power bomb out of the corner to end the first fall, and this great two-fingers-right-under-the-ears sleeper/nerve hold to win the match. While he wrestled clean (if tough) for most of the match, there was that tiny bit of folk hero vibe in the end when he poked Villars in the eyes twice, which the fans loved. This wasn't spectacular, but it certainly did the job.

SR: 2/3 Falls match a little over 30 minutes. Our first sighting of L‘Ange Blanc, a masked wrestler who was said to be immensely popular. With this being France and you watching a masked megastar looking like a luchador, you have good reason to expect some trippy shit. But this was a rather clinical, technical match aside from a few athletic moments from the angel. All the throws and holds looked tough and L‘Ange Blanc certainly had a palpable aura about him. Villars was quite great here. He was taking shortcuts and being vicious, but not turning the match into an all out brawl. He came across as being really determined to not lose to this masked joker. The first fall was going swell until the intensity turned up when a basic sequence of holds lead to both guys trading painful looking bodyshots and L‘Ange Blanc hitting some fantastic dropkicks which Villar sold huge. Villar soon cranked up the intensity by handling the angel by his mask and doing some nasty as hell knuckle grinding. Villars efforts were soon vanquished however when the angel put him to sleep with a weird ear nerve hold. In the 1950s nerve holds were really hot shit. I was hoping Villar would push L‘Ange Blanc a little more to the limit, although he gave it his best shot.

PAS: Amazing discovery, which works more as a piece of history then a high end match. After Villars was so dominant the previous week, he gets beat pretty soundly here. Blanc has a regal barring, moving with real ramrod grace. Great looking dropkicks and takeover and that jaw hold he finished with was brutal. He wasn't nearly the technician of the guys we have seen before, but he did have something about him, a physical charisma. I can see why ended up such a big star.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Delaporte! King Kong! Tarres! von Chenok! Humez! Debusne!

Al Arajo vs. ? 7/26/57

SR: JIP with about 4 minutes shown. Very mysterious match. The fact that these guys look alike doesn't make it easier. This was a technical affair. There was a nice Solar esque pin attempt, cool double leg nelson and a great looking arm throw, but there was also stuff that looked quite blown. The winner takes it with a nice looking victory roll.

MD: Two Spaniards here, as best as I can tell. We just get a few minutes of this and it's not quite as smooth as we're used to. There's a good leg nelson spot full of the usual whacks and a full rotation armdrag which someone should be doing now, plus what I think was our first victory roll pin for a finish, but this wasn't enough to get a real opinion on either guy.

Roger Delaporte vs. King Kong Taverne 7/26/57 - GREAT

PAS: This was an odd match to rate. Taverne had a lot of charisma, and a great look but wasn't very good. He kind of reminded me of Bugsy McGraw, his shots had a lot of windup but not a ton of force, which was disappointing. He looks like a guy who hits hard, and everyone in France hits hard. He did take some fun showy bumps, including one over the top rope. He was a good punching bag for Delaporte though, who kept getting nastier and nastier, until the finish where he just starts punching him in the neck and back of the head, and even smashes the referee. Delaporte is a great heel, and this was a fun performance around a guy who was pretty limited. Kind of what I imagine a Bockwinkle vs. Baron Von Rashke title match might look like.

MD: Very interesting thirty plus minutes of footage. This is our first look at Taverne and he's remarkable. He's a huge lumbering presence, like a George Steele, but somehow more solid. I kept picturing the world's biggest and baddest Ed Asner, just from the put upon looks he'd give Delaporte and the ref (there's a certain Mr. Belvedere thing to Delaporte by the way, but I'll let Eric delve into that someday). Yes, he's lumbering. Yes, he's stocky. He hammers and swipes and bull rushes, but he's also able to do a lot of the typical spots we've seen so far. He's able to headstand out of headscissors, and hit a headscissors takeover out of an armbar. They did a lot of snatching at legs, both a single leg takedown and a double leg from behind, and at one point he was lightning fast at getting his leg around and escaping. One of the biggest spots of the match was them trading dropkicks and doing the big double miss.

Much of this was Delaporte trying to deal with the intellectual problem of King Kong Taverne, which is always a build I love. It meant for a lot of running away and going for cheapshots, of trying a hold, be it a headlock or armbar, and Taverne just out powering (or sometimes as noted, out finessing him). Delaporte would try something cheap and Taverne would respond in kind, twice as hard, and Delaporte would stooge and sell and run. There were some really funny exchanges, like both of them going after the ears at the same time. At one point, after Taverne picked him up and crotched him on the top rope, I was pretty certain the fans were going to get behind Delaporte, but he knew how toxic even a little bit of the fans' adulation could be for his lead heel role and he leaned even harder into being despicable. He had his chance after a dodged Taverne bull charge in the second fall and biggest spot of the match, a huge back body drop bump onto the floor. That led to a nasty king of the mountain segment with some more big Taverne bumps to the floor and Delaporte going all in on Taverne's eyes. The ref repeatedly tried to stop him and Delaporte clocked him for his troubles, drawing a DQ. So far DQs have been very rare (this might be the first we've seen?) and this left both guys looking good (and nasty/vile/bad, of course). Entertaining stuff.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going roughly 25 minutes. Holy lord, King Kong Taverne is a massive, massive man. Big, bald, hairy, built like a gorilla, he had the quintessential look of a guy you don‘t want to piss off. Delaporte, in the span of 7 days, goes from hated prick to almost a comical babyface as he tries not to get squished by the mighty Taverne. Some really amusing cat and mouse play and Delaporte going for clean wrestling holds ensue. This is our first taste of Delaporte in a singles match and he looks like a really good character worker allowing both his charisma and ability to shine. Taverne, despite his size, is quite good both at scurrying out of positions aswell as stooging and working sequences. He also just runs over Delaporte when he tries to get cute and throw punches, then makes sure to forearm him in the face in the ropes. Delaporte soon gets what‘s coming to him as Taverne locks on the mother of all bearhugs before throwing Delaporte like he was 20 pounds for the fall. The match took a drastic turn in the 2nd fall, as an overzealous Taverne misses a few charges, banging his head against the steel post and flying out of the ring. Before soon Delaporte is at him just trying to rip his eye out, biting and attacking a blinded King Kong with nasty forearms and punches to the face. Quite a return to form for Delaporte to go back to being such a violent prick. Before soon he has forearmed the referee and the match is thrown out. I am going to assume that French wrestling was booked like US studio wrestling except the matches were longer, because I can see this setting up the most epic arena brawl ever for Taverne to get his revenge on Delaporte. We don‘t have such a match, and Taverne only shows up once more which seems to be the theme of this French footage, we have hundreds of matches of great forgotten workers going 20-30 minutes and it‘s still not enough. Atleast we‘ll have plenty more Delaporte, maybe we‘ll see him meeting the guy to give him his comeuppance on TV for once. The ultra vicious streak he showed in this match was some of the most intense wrestling I‘ve seen in a while for sure.

Jose Tarres vs. Karl von Chenok 4/2/59 - GREAT

SR: 2/3 Falls match going roughly 30 minutes. Karl von Chenok was another Hungarian wrestler, although he was billed as „the German strangler“ here. His son, Jörg Chenok, was a decent middleweight working the German scene in the 1980s and early 90s adn appeared on British TV at least one time. As far as evil fake-German guys with strangler gimmicks go, von Chenok sure was no Dr. Adolf Kaiser, as he reeeally liked the nerve hold, but he looked a decent grappler and his european uppercuts sure were stiff as hell. Tarres was a Spanish worker with the legend saying he had metal plates implanted in his head, giving him the nickname „Iron Head“. His headbutts in this were tremendous. This was even further removed from typically beautiful French style pro wrestling than the previous match between Debusne and Humez. It was basically scrappy and uncooperative the whole way through and built around von Chenoks nerve hold vs. Tarres‘ headbutts, with both guys having good ways to avoid the other signature moves. Tarres was really brutalizing von Chenok with those, including a spot where he had him in a surfboard and rammed into the back of his head. Tarres also did a great job fighting out of von Chenoks nerve holds and tossing him around by his bald head. Von Chenok ended up busted open and KO‘d losing the first fall. Through this we learn that unlike in a British wrestling, in France a KO doesn‘t end a 2/3 falls match immediately. If the match had continued in the vein of that 1st fall I could have seen this being really great, but instead we were subjected to a lengthy nerve hold routine from von Chenok. Tarres sold like an absolute champ and you could tell he was a superstar quality worker though. If he had mounted some kind of epic comeback against von Chenoks tactics this really would‘ve been awesome, but I guess it wasn‘t in the books that night. At least we get some more matches of Tarres, including one against Dr. Adolf Kaiser who is the rich mans evil German strangler, so that is something to look forward to.

MD: This gives us a look at some of the diversity in late 50s French wrestling. Von Chenok feels a bit like Kaiser with his nerve holds, but with a sense of survival that would make Bernaert jealous. Tarres is a relatively huge guy with an iron skull who spends the entire match going for headbutts. Chenok spends the entire first fall diving to the mat to try to avoid them and then trying to grab a limb or lock in the nervehold. Tarres is just too strong and has too long a reach advantage, however. He can elbow out of the nerveholds, or even grab poor Chenok's ears and just pull him over. Every time Tarres does get a headbutt in, it's a lot of fun, especially if he strings together a combo with one to the gut and one up high or a few to the back before turning Chenok around and Chenok's sense of desperation is palpable. He was very emotive on close-ups, especially when he did lock in the nervehold for more than a second. We haven't seen an act in this footage quite as singularly focused as Tarres and his headbutts; he seemed limited but strong and spry. He used his size and strength well, including throwing some deadlift headlock suplexes. His selling in the nervelocks during the second and third falls when Chenok did manage an advantage was pretty solid too, giving us a sense of cumulative damage. You end up wishing this went the other way with some fireworks at the end. Ultimately, I imagine Tarres would be a great foil to all of the brilliant heels of the day. We have him in another 59 match against Kaiser and I'm looking forward to that as Kaiser is more of a stooge than Chenok.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. It was guy with an iron head (literally) versus a master of the nerve hold. For this kind of simplistic match to work, you need a guy with a great headbutt and a guy with a really nasty nerve hold, and we check both boxes here. Tarres, has a bunch of different cool ways to set up his headbutts, and Chenok was really fun trying to avoid getting cracked, only to fail and eventually get busted up. I also loved those deadlift suplexes, looks like Chenok wasn't feeding him at all and instead Tarres just yanked him over by his neck. Surprised at the finish, as Chenok just nerved him down until the match ended, I kept expecting Tarres to get one more big headbutt flurry, but instead he got put down.

Charles Humez vs. Paul Debusne 4/2/59 - GREAT

MD: Humez was a famous french boxer and Debusne a stooging heel, but this was very different than the Dauthuille match. In that, it was Dauthuille going for punches and Bernaert doing anything he could to avoid them. Here, the goal seemed to be to get Humez over as a capable wrestler. He wasn't nearly as smooth as most of the other technicians we've seen but he had a counter for everything Debusne attempted and the only way Debusne could get one over on him was with a hair pull, generally. Whenever he tried anything else, Humez would put on a full nelson and turn it into a cobra clutch. That's where we saw Debusne's real strength, sticking his tongue out and mugging. Eventually, he had enough and started to lay in cheapshot knees and even a straight on foul, which was when Humez decided that he too had enough and started to unleash forearms, jabs and uppercuts that just demolished Debusne. I'm almost certain I liked the Dauthuille match more but he came out of that feeling more like an attraction that might get old quickly while Humez came out of this looking like a solid wrestler who had a secret weapon in his pocket if you pushed him enough that he'd have to use it. That was an act with more legs.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 15 minutes. Humez is one of the great French boxers. OJ theorized that this may be his debut match, and it had the feel of a debut match. It felt like French pro wrestling, but there was no overlay elaborate stuff. Feels weird to see a middle aged guy with bald spots working a rookie match. Instead the match just turns into this nasty fight with Humez reacting to Debusne's shenanigans by tagging him and Debusne trying to gouge Humez eyes. It wasn‘t a Roger Delaporte level eye gouging, but it served to get Humez sufficiently fired up. Debusne ends up busted open and Humez takes him to the pay window. Humez has these cool left-right european uppercuts and Debusne was really good doing some noodle legged selling. It wasn‘t an epic spectacle, more like a fun way to debut Humez as this no-nonsense hitter, but it was really enjoyable and not having more Humez feels like a big miss.

PAS: It was odd to watch a different style fight where the Boxer is also such a superior wrestler. These matches are cool when they are a clash of styles,  here Humez doesn't even use much boxing until the end of the match, he is too bust tooling Debusne on the mat. I did like Debusne eye gouging and ball kicking to get an advantage, and Humez unloading on him at the end was awesome. I really liked the way he would use footwork and angles to unleash those uppercuts, he would shift his feet and to get perfect position and evade anything firing back, and really twist his waste to get full torque on the shots. Last couple minutes of this were as cool as anything we have seen from this footage, I just wished Humez had shown a little more vulnerability in what should have been Debusne's strength.

ER: Most of this didn't feel like a Different Style fight at all, but I liked it for what it was. Debusne really made this with his pratfall bumps and his endless bag of nasty cheapshots, and it's fun when a guy can be so in charge and shape a match while also getting maybe 5% of the offense. This was Humez beating Debusne at every single skill, never being on his ass for long, coming back and always dominating. He lands every shot, and every fair shot that Debusne tries for sees him whiff by several feet and bump halfway across the ring. I like Debusne's missed punch bump, as it feels like the kind of bump Burt Reynolds would take in movies when his character was drunk. Bandit standing up and doing a forward roll over the corner of the bed is done with a very similar motion as Debusne striking air and power flopping onto his back. The cheapshots are what really sold me on all of this, as the whole thing has been dominated by Humez until Debusne realizes he has another in. There were a few great ones that I've never seen, with my absolute favorite being his single leg takedown followed immediately up with a kick to the hamstring of that same leg. That feels like such a natural progression and so almost obvious for a heel to do, but it felt entirely fresh here. There were some not very sportsmanlike knees and I love how the nut shot was his undoing, stepping too far over that line that leads to his drubbing at the humorless hands of Humez. The Humez final punch out would have been great on its own, but Debusne took it like a man who knew he deserved this punishment, gettin rocked by every uppercut and finishing his extremely generous role in making Humez look like a star.


La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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