Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Falempin! Viracocha! Haggerty! L'Ange Blanc! L'homme Masque

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs. Inca Viracocha/Steve Haggerty 10/8/69

MD: Energetic tag as the Celts got to shine. Corne hits hard and throws hard and sells sympathetically. There's an extra bit of oomph to what he does. I liked the heel side. They were quick to cheat, used the ref's being distracted well, really laid in shots, and stooged huge when it was time. I thought the match built to big tags and comebacks better than most French tags of the era do. The quick tags and rope running in the last few minutes was chaotic in the best way, but the fans were into this the whole way through. Haggerty fit right in as a blustery loudmouth scrapper.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 25 minutes. I wonder if they did some clipping at some point because there were some suspicious interviews of audience members. This was another junior tag with a fast, fast pace. I think this is the first time we see Inca Viracocha and while he doesn't do any neat moves like the other Inca he is another true rudo. This had the same layout as all these other tags, they work hard and fast exchange, faces shine, occasionally heels will beat the shit out of the faces in their corner. Once again, the faces didn't seem to have much trouble outside a few patches. Falempin at one point took a super nasty bump to the ring apron. It was followed up with some mean stomps to the back and I thought we were actually gonna get some limbwork but instead he hit a flying headbutt and tagged out. I prefer the exchanges these guys are working to Dragon Gate and the heels in this kicked ass stomping and punching people and bumping a ton so it was another good quality match overall.

L'ange Blanc vs. L'homme Masque 12/13/69

MD: Ok, so about halfway through the match, there's a pelican, and I don't know why there's a pelican, but it hangs out with the announcer. It's maybe the weirdest thing I've seen since the Martian was there. This is too late for L'Ange Blanc to be under further WON HOF consideration but I'm not sure it tells us a ton. He was not under the mask here. He spent a good chunk of the match getting put into a cobra by L'Homme Masque and getting out. He spent a good chunk of the match trying to cheat or get a cheapshot in or mess with L'Homme's mask to the crowd's delight, only to get chastised by the ref. That was part of the story, I guess, that when the ref chastised him, he'd stop. When he chastised L'Homme, L'Homme wouldn't. While I can't say we've seen L'Ange Blanc's star power in the footage so far, not relative in any major way to someone like Ben Chemoul or Corn or LeDuc or Weicz, I will say that the crowd was very much up for everything he did. A tecnico/rudo ref double standard is one of the more irritating ways to build a match (it can be an element, but if it's the one that drives absolutely everything, that's problematic). I will say that L'Homme Masque is entirely credible. If all he does for the first half is drive L'Ange down with a cobra hold and choke him when he can, he's so big and menacing and persistent that you buy the threat of it. In the back half, he does a little more, even if it's stomp and clubber or hit a huge tombstone. Eventually he goes to the well twice on a drop onto the top rope and L'Ange punches his way out and gets some big offense. Unfortunately, that enrages L'Homme who picks him up in an interesting way and drapes him onto the top but ends up drawing the DQ. I'm not going to say this was wildly illuminating but you did get more of a sense of what the unmasked White Angel looked like as a folk hero. 

SR: 1 fall match going about 30 minutes. The angel lost his mask. He's no longer the mysterious avenger, but he's still a formidable worker. This was WORK to the max. Everything they do in this match, they do with a purpose and to milk reactions. They work around the masked mans mask. They work around Blanc wanting to throw punches but being too valiant to do so. They work around a heel ref. Everything here is done for reaction, and they succeeded. It was the kind of work that would put tears in Tracy Smothers eye. Aside from all the bullshittery, there was some cool wrestling. Blanc still moves very fast and has really beautiful dropkicks, and the masked man really torques him with some cool upper body holds and chokes. Really trying to pop the Angels neck. He also works some nerve holds, and it was some of that trademark French "actually compelling" nerve hold work with Angel Blanc showing some impressive facial expressions (really embracing the mask loss for the better) and fighting hard to get out. Most of this was L'Homme kicking ass too, so it never felt like other French matches where the face is seemingly never in trouble for long. This stuff won't win workrate awards to those who look for super high end matches, and the shitty DQ finish underlines that, but both guys looked like wrestlers wrestlers, and it was an entertaining romp.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ange Blanc! Scarface! Bernaert! Le Magouro! Zafar! Le Mao!

Pierre Bernaert/Pierre Le Magouro vs. Armand Zafar/Henri Le Mao 11/23/68

MD: Very good, well worked tag, with strong wrestling and some big shots. It suffered from the same structural issues that all of these tags tend to suffer from (too much shine, not enough heat, too many resets and easy babyface tags, too long a first fall, too short second and third), though the wrestling was more even for the first ten minutes which helped. On the other hand, the heels never picked up a fall, which both helped and hurt. It probably cut five or ten minutes off the match which let it all flow better but it still falls away from my ideal narrative balance. Thankfully, the heat that we did get was strong, with Bernaert an all-time cheater with great looking shots and Le Magourou another in the long line of second banana stooges. Le Mao is just excellent and I wish we had a dozen more matches with him. This is it though. Just amazing headbutts from him here, too. Zafar had a nice, sweeping way of moving and putting on. While it built to a few crowd-pleasing spots, my favorite bits here (past the headbutts) were probably the announcer menacing the heels by trying to get soundbytes during the worst moments.

PAS: Le Mao is kind of a French Fujiwara, so of course I adore him. He isn't doing the shoot matwork, but is a great old man escape artist and is amazing at evading a move and absolutely open up the skull of his opponent with a headbuttt.  I am a guy who loves a good headbutt and he is up there with the greatest ever coconut clankers. Everyone else in the match was fine, slick wrestling and thumping with shots, but this was a Le Mao show and every time he was in I was engrossed. Too bad we only have three matches of his, he feels like an all time great and with four more matches I would make that argument.   


L‘Ange Blanc vs. Scarface Le Balafre 12/7/68

MD: Yeah, I'm high on this. It won't be for everyone but it's really straightforward, fundamental, primal, well-worked stuff. After so many matches that were worked evenly or with a lot of shine, I love how Scarface spent so much time leaning on L'Ange. He was a good goon, maybe not the best at sneaking in cheapshots behind the ref's back but how blatant he was just got him more heat. He switched it up too, a chinlock, a cobra clutch, a hammerlock, and so on. All the tricks like holding the rope to block the flying mare. L'ange was excellent fighting from underneath and on his comebacks would come back with a few big shots or spots and then it'd be right back into the next hold. They managed this pretty successfully for twenty five minutes or so with the heat building and the comebacks escalating until we got into the finish. Scarface tossed him out in desperation and started a King of the Mountain sequence and a nasty one at that. When L'Ange came back, he just hit dropkick after dropkick to knock him off the apron, drawing the eventual DQ since he just wouldn't stop. That started about six minutes of near-riot as he kept going after Scarface to the elation of the crowd. Eventually, things calmed down to a degree, long enough for the ref to raise Scarface's hand, but the crowd continued to be animated, seething with the same pent up energy that L'Ange, true folk hero, was radiating. I wouldn't want to be Scarface trying to get out of that building that night.

PAS: L'Ange is on the WON Hall of Fame ballot, and he certainly looked like a hall of fame level performer this night. I really enjoy big babyface performance, Bruno, Colon,  Lawler, and Blanc was clearly at that level. Scarface was a fun jerk, ugly hard hitting cheap shotting. The finish with Blanc constantly hitting dropkicks until getting DQed was a fun way for a big star to loose and the post match really did feel a little out of control. Much of the talk about the French stuff is how futuristic it all is, this is classic though nothing fancy, but very effective. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Marquez! Sola! Bollet! L'Ange Blanc

Pepe Marquez vs. Ami Sola 10/28/60

SR: 1 fall match going 30 minutes. This was some good old French pro wrestling built around two guys in trunks working some holds and beating the living hell out of each other with european uppercuts and sometimes upkicks. It was a nice change of pace to the spectacle matches of the last few weeks. Pepe Marquez was another Spanish worker and he has some sweet stuff up his sleeve here. Ami Sola had a shaved head here which made him look a bit meaner than usual and he played the aggressor throughout the match, although they made sure to shake hands so everyone knew they were cool trading beatings. Some of Solas holds were a bit more hardfought, a bit tighter than usual, including a great armbar that lead to a gnarly battle over pin attempts and some great body scissors work. They also threw some bigger bombs than usual in these matches as the time limit ran out, with Sola uncorking a nasty piledriver and Marquez using the swinging backbreaker several times before catching Sola in a surfboard hold as the time ran out.

PAS: This was a a classic technico vs. technico match which we have seen a lot of, and is almost always very good. Marquez had this cool swinging backbreaker which he used as both an attack and a counter. Sola kept using this bodyscissors as a counter, Marquez would dive for a pin and get scissored into this nasty bodyscissors which looked rib cracking. Of course it breaks down into a series of big stiff uppercuts. It is always surprising how much better the back and forth striking in your average 50s and 60s French match is then your big time Japan and Indy matches are now. Would love to see more of Marquez, he had some really nifty attacks, seems like the Spanish guys may have even been cooler then the French wrestlers. 

MD: Excellent stylist vs stylist match. I'm not sure just how prevalent these will be as we get deeper into the 60s and later so I'm glad to get one every now and again here. Marques is, I think, a Spaniard, Jose Enrico Marques who worked in the UK as well. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. He's very good here, with lots of quick spots, some creative holds, our first chronological conjuro (swinging bearhug backbreaker) and tapitia as signature spots. Sola we know well by now and this match is another feather in his cap. He's more aggressive, quicker to throw uppercuts, and we see his amazing tombstone here even if not his running 'rana. Some of the hold exchanges are very strong: the bodyscissors sequence we've seen before and is always good as they move out of it with spots and abruptly back in but there was a top wristlock struggle here where Sola was using his shoulder for leverage on the elbow and it was probably the best fight over this basic hold I've ever seen. They went to a draw but while Marques was holding the tapitia in the center of the ring, which made for one of the more dramatic time-limit draws we've seen. Good stuff all around with the right mix of spots, holds, and fisticuffs.

Antonio Montoro vs. Inca Peruano 11/18/60

SR: JIP with only the last 3 or so minutes shown. Montoro looked better here than in the Bernaert match, but he was facing the Inca, so he had to. From what I can tell Montoro wasn’t up there with the likes of Pepe Marquez let alone Modesto Aledo when it comes to Spanish workrate machines, but we’ve seen so little of Montoro that I won’t judge him yet.

MD: It feels like forever since we saw Inca Peruano but he's instantly exciting. We only get two minutes of this but it starts with a huge rana and dropkick from Montoro and never lets up. Constant action here, with Montoro unleashing this great sweeping Victory Roll and utilizing a unique wind up to his uppercuts. Peruano is the usual combination of flashy (his abrupt jump up monkey flip in the middle of the ring) and vicious (just tossing Montoro headfirst out of the ring and trying to keep him there). This is the last we'll see of Montoro but at least we have a spattering of Inca throughout the 60s. I'd hate to see that guy go.

L'Ange Blanc vs. Andre Bollet 11/18/60

SR:1 fall match going about 40 minutes. French TV has been on a roll putting the biggest stars in major singles matches. This was another spectacle match where the masked avenger takes Bollet to the pay window. I thought Bollet pretty much carried this, not only will he break every single rule in the book to get an advantage, but he will look surprisingly athletic in doing. The way such a pudgy guy busts out a spinning headscissor or flying escape is fascinating. As far as the match gos, I liked all the parts where Bollet  beat the crap out of the Angel, especially the part where he kept dropping knees on his throat. The Angel is not as interesting a wrestler as Drapp, but the crowd loved him, including a classy lady in the front row that got up cheering whenever the Angel was taking it to Bollet. It got really heated in the last few minutes with the Angel busting out his nerve hold and Bollet fighting hard not to have his lights put out, with even Delaporte being at ringside trying to build his man up after taking beatings. In the end it wasn’t enough though as Bollet succumbed to the Angel special and failed to answer the count. A sweet triumph for L’Ange Blanc and this crowd, but it didn’t last long as Delaporte in his suit jumped in the ring and he and Bollet proceeded to stomp the shit out of the Angel. The match was really long and almost all back and forth which is a bit rough, but that ending felt a pretty epic moment that most people in that audience would remember fondly for a while.

MD: This, more than almost any match we've seen so far, really depicts the clear divide between good and evil, between someone who was upright and heroic and someone who was a despicable cheater. L'Ange Blanc had been off TV for a couple of years for some reason but he'd certainly found himself within that time. The act was absolute. His posture was straight. His appeals of frustration to the crowd when his opponent wasn't acting on the up-and-up were believable and sympathetic. His righteous fire in return reminded you of Sting or Atlantis. He was an ace babyface hero, strong and brave and true. Bollet on the other hand hid in the ropes, whined, grabbed at the leg at every opportunity, snuck in punches whenever he could, demanded clean breaks but refused to grant them, and even worse, tried to take advantage of the clean ones L'Ange Blanc gave him. He hit hard but landed even harder when his attempts at chicanery fell short. So this was unquestionably primal, down to the wrestlers ' posture, and it certainly ended well with Delaporte getting involved and them setting up any number of future matches we unfortunately don't have. It was the unquestionable meeting of two absolute stars, right down the middle. It just wasn't nearly as compelling as I wanted it to be. So much of that was because it could never be one thing for long. L'Ange Blanc would sell, quite well in fact, but would always come back after a few blows. Bollet was so good at sneaking out of holds and finding those opportunities. Against almost any other opponent, one force or another would dominate and thereby create a narrative. It would have led to a constantly stooging heel or a babyface that sold and sold building to big comebacks. These two, however, so equally matched and such dominant, definitional, forces of good and evil, never allowed the other to build up enough momentum to actually make the match interesting for what actually was happening as opposed to the sheer clash of these two elemental forces.

PAS: This felt like a big deal of a match. The kind of thing which would headline 60s French Wrestlemania. Blanc isn't as skilled as most of the wrestlers we have seen, but he knows how to conduct himself like a star which matters more. It's why the Rock is the Rock and say Cesaro isn't. Bollet is a hell of a villain and lands the big shots you needed. Out of context this doesn't work as well as some of the other stuff, although I think I enjoyed it as much as the Sola vs. Marquez match, although it was clearly very different. It is funny how similar the Angel special is to Santo's finishing move for such similar wrestlers. The angle at the end also felt like a big deal, I am sure they filled arenas with Blanc getting his revenge on Bollet and Delaporte.

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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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