Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Henker! Siki! Masque

Gilbrt Leduc vs. Der Henker 7/31/71

As best as I can tell, this was for Leduc's Light Heavyweight Title, though I don't think Henker was at all a Light anything. I'd call it a very good title match and go further to that to say that Henker might have been the best pure wrestler of the monsters we've seen, in as he made the gimmick work while still wrestling the sort of title match you'd expect out of the footage. That meant early on Leduc couldn't get an edge on him due to Henker's superior strength but that Henker couldn't keep Leduc down in holds for long given Leduc's prowess and his amazing headstand escapes. As the match went on, there was a sense of both wrestlers wearing down. Leduc, especially, was able to pry off a hand and hammer it repeatedly, though he lost focus occasionally between feuding with the ref and trying to get Henker's mask off. At around the twenty-five minute mark, Henker really opened the match up for the first time with a huge fireman's carry gutbuster and a tombstone, but Leduc mounted a bit comeback by reversing a second tombstone and scored a pretty triumphant win. We haven't seen too many matches outright billed as title matches in the footage and while this isn't going to hold up against a Tony Oliver vs Bert Royal sort of match, it was very good for what it was.


Mammoth Siki vs. L'Homme Masque 8/21/71

MD: Often they'll present other wrestlers before the match and they'll shake hands and wave to the crowd. The most interesting of these was when we first saw Andre and Petit Prince. Here we get the Hippy and some others but actor Michel le Royer as well, who will guest commentate. I mainly mention because unless I'm mistaken, he died just a week or two ago. I've gotten the sense over the last few months that they've made a real effort to mention celebrities or athletes in the crowd. It's probably an attempt to stay relevant but I'll be honest, from a totally textual examination, things don't seem less hot in 71 than they did in 61.

I'm not sure how much we know about Siki. His name sounds more familiar than the internet record would leave you to believe. He worked in Germany and Japan in the 70s and does, in fact, feel like a pretty great Inoki opponent (they wrestled in 74). Save for his dropkicks, nothing he did was particularly spectacular, but everything was backstopped by his size, presence, and charisma. He came off as someone who was a wonderful attraction but that you wouldn't want to see every week. The first third of the match was L'Homme Masque, who was of course massive, trying various holds and Siki reversing them, driving L'Homme into the ropes. He finally found an achilles heal with a grinding leglock in the second third but Siki continued to escape and press his own advantage with a headbutt or dropkick or an arm driver. Basically, Siki had an answer to everything L'Homme could do. The last third was crowd pleasing as Siki went for the mask again and again until eventually getting it, leading to the ref being used as a ranged weapon and Siki scoring the win. The novelty here was the size and by doing simple things but making it seem like a lot of effort was going into them, the match more or less worked. I'm just not sure I needed twenty five minutes of it.

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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: Mercier! Montourcy! Yokouchi! Kiyomigawa! Masque! Drapp!

 Guy Mercier/Claude Montourcy vs. Chati Yokouchi/Kiyomigawa 2/20/66

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. Mercier and Montourcy looked like dynamite here. The Japanese guys, not so much. Kiyomigawa has these fun swinging chops and they both cheat, but that‘s it. Mercier and Montourcy have lots of great throws and technical moves. Merciers backbreakers ruled. They looked like they required zero cooperation, and he was ragdolling Yokouchi. Dug the pretty arm throws and his deadlift belly to belly, too. Bit long for a match where one side added very little, but by the end Montourcy and Kiyomigawa were busted open and some fun chops vs. forearms battles occurred.

MD: On paper, this one sounds pretty good. Our chance to see Chati Yokuchi, another look at Kiyomigawa. Legitimately good stylists in Mercier, who we haven't seen in ages, and Montourcy. Some fire, a little bit of blood, an engaged crowd. And it's ok, but it doesn't live up to a lot of the tags we've been seeing. The Japanese were dogged and persistent and mean, but mainly chopped, chinlocked (often with a face rake) and snuck in chokes. They tagged in and out quickly, played up the chops well, and fed though. Mercier and Montourcy were a lot of fun, fighting back from underneath and with plenty of "stuff," Mercier's triple variation backbreakers (one-armed, bearhug, waistlock) and Montourcy's submissions (a twist out of a sunset flip type position and a literal leg nelson where he got the legs behind the head). Mercier fighting out of the corner with forearms or clearing house after a tag was more than solid. The problem? The faces were able to come back a little too much so while the heels drove things, it was never sustained. It was a rare two fall match, with the faces taking both and the second one being very short. Maybe a little too much on the choking and chopping from the heels. Even the blood from the chops was more of a tease than anything else. The action was okay but this one needed a little more drama relative to the excellent tags we've been seeing week in and week out. Speaking of week in and week out, we have a sense of the different arenas now: The Winter Circus, The arena named after Leo Legrange, and this was at the Wagram Room, and someone more attentive than me might be able to speak to the different crowds at each but I loved that they interviewed some regulars here between falls and they said that they came every Thursday because they lived in the neighborhood and knew all the wrestlers by their first name.

L‘Homme Masque vs. Andre Drapp 3/4/66

SR:1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. This started out fun with both guys going hold for hold before Drapp decides to light the Masked Man up with some tough looking punches. It got pretty meandering after that, though. Lots of time killing working over a guy in the ropes and corner. Drapp starts hitting some fun jumping headbutts before L‘Homme connects him with a foreign object for an easy 3 count. Not very exciting match sadly given the talent in it.

MD: Drapp's an old friend we haven't seen for a bit, the valiant Lion of Lorraine. The last time we saw L'Homme, he was sans mask. He has it again here and is unmistakable either way, a towering behemoth who Couderc claims is a mix between the Phantom and Superman. I liked this as a heavyweight slugfest with a lot of character. Drapp carried himself like a main eventer, never backing down despite L'Homme's size. They started out with an almost shoot-like competitiveness, but as the match went on, there was a lot of stooging, that sort of dissonance of a giant needing to (or wanting to) cheat despite his size. He would go from tossing Drapp all around the ring to rolling this way and that as he was getting his comeuppance. Probably the most enjoyable bit here was when L'Homme got stuck in the ropes and Drapp arranged the mask so that he couldn't see and then just dropkicked him like he was in a shooting gallery. The bit at the end where L'Homme loaded his mask with a coin was a pretty distinct bit as well, as was Drapp getting the coin himself and running him off with a loaded punch. There was a bit after the mask twisting and L'Homme tossing Drapp out so he could restore his mask where Drapp's foot got stuck on the way in and L'Homme turned to target it that I wish, by 66, had turned into more consequential selling, but in general, this, while hardly technically smooth, was a perfectly fine heavyweight outing.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: L'Homme Masque! Delaporte! Al Hayes! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Lambert! Laroche!

L'Homme Masque vs. Roger Delaporte 3/6/59

MD: So far, 1959 has been the year of the masked wrestler. This is the third we've seen and not L'Homme Masque's debut, but he'd only been around for a bit, apparently, even if he was the first. They bill him from Texas, with 3 wives who had all ran away. If he ever loses, he would unmask. He was presented in the announcing, more so than than Le Bourreau (who worked for another promoter) as the opposite of L'Ange Blanc and we do have a match with them but not for another ten years! This was a match in three parts, with some amazing comedic performing from Delaporte to start. The first five or six minutes were all him ducking away from L'Homme and trying one thing after another: top wristlocks, headlocks, a bearhug. Each time he was shrugged off, or with the bearhug, put into a giant headlock causing his arms to crumble. Each time his reactions were hilarious. L'Homme didn't do much here, but he didn't have to. He, given his massive size, was a perfect prop for a stooge like Delaporte. If Delaporte even got touched, he'd sell it huge. Eventually he got caught and things were a little disappointing for this middle section. You'd hope he'd get tossed around and really it was fairly disappointing, just a grounded wristlock with Delaporte flailing about a bit. I did like the knees to the kidneys L'Homme utilized in taking him down though. The last third was far better though. L'Homme kept going to the ropes, wrenching Delaporte's arm around it, and there was nothing he or the ref could do. It was a great visual and, expanded to include a few arm-trapped beales, played up as brutal. Delaporte would get a comeback or two (and did drop the arm selling but that's 50s French wrestling for you; selling tended to be immediate), really slamming L'Homme's head into the turnbuckle. That just made him angrier though and L'Homme jammed him with the most amazing monster spot, the thing we'd been waiting for the entire match: he picked him up over his shoulder with a gutwrench and just slammed the back of his head over and over into the turnbuckle, before dropping him and locking in a sleeper (which he wouldn't break) for the win. Ultimately, he had presence, but this was Delaporte directing traffic. It's a testament to the talent in the 50s that they were able to put these masked attractions against guys like Villars, LeDuc, and Delaporte to give them real credibility and entertaining matches. I think this would have been better if L'Homme had tossed him about or clubbered him the first time he really caught him instead of just sitting in a hold, but otherwise, it definitely did the job.

SR: It's... the masked man. This was a complete squash at 18 minutes length. Poor Delaporte, although the crowd took quite the delight in his demise. He really is the Louis De Funes of wrestling. What a weird character to be Frances major heel star, although I guess it speaks to their culture. It's so strange to see him going from being a vicious bastard brutalizing faces to stooging around as he is himself brutalized by this comical giant. Did Louis De Funes ever do serious movies where he is a corrupt cop breaking fingers? This was a good 7 minutes of Delaporte bouncing off of L'Homme Masque in such a comical fashion that John Tatum looks like Lance Storm in comparison. Followed by 7 minutes of the masked man hanging on to an arm lock with the referee getting increasingly involved. And then, a 2 minute section where the masked man uncorks the repeated turnbuckle powerbombs before wringing Delaporte to sleep. The masked man certainly had a menacing physique, looking like something out of a comic book, but his control section aside from the insane repeated drops to the turnbuckle wasn't super hot. Will be interesting to see him going against the likes of L'Ange Blanc, though.

PAS: Delaporte certainly met his match here. I agree with Matt and Jetlag about how Masque's armbar was a bit dull, although I did appreciate the dominance. I think this would have been better served just cutting the middle part entirely, and just had the match be Delaporte's stooging and that crazy turnbuckle powerbomb combo. I am mixed about the masked invasion, I appreciate the changes in style they bring, but I just wish they were all more compelling workers.  It is a bummer we don't have any footage of Tony Oliver or Karl Gotch's masked characters, I imagine they would be more compelling

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Karl von Kramer/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 3/6/59

MD: We have about 17 minutes of this before they run out of time and I lament the loss of the other 20+ that the match would have probably contained. We have one lone Hayes/Hunter match left, but it's against the Delaporte/Bollet combo, which should be quite the show. We have one more look at Kaiser (tagging with El Strangulador Lamban) and two or three more Von Kramer matches. So no need to say goodbye to anyone now. I do, however, lament that we don't get to see more of Von Kramer and especially Kaiser against Hayes. The last times we saw Judo Al, he really ate up his opponents and the first few minutes are Kaiser and Von Kramer putting their foot down to the best of their ability to prevent that. It doesn't meant they can stop Hayes but it does make for some great, extremely high end struggle. Hayes is very interesting as he will sell, unquestionably, and he will give, but you have to cheat to get up on him. He'll drop for a cheapshot or sell an extended cheating sequence (as he does here where he limps around the ring after they work his leg over using the rope and ref distractions), but if you wrestle him straight up, he's going to not give an inch. In some ways, it's a little unfortunate he's paired with Hunter, who has such a size and reach advantage against almost everyone he wrestles that he's nigh impossible to move. You try for a hold and he'll just bonk you on the head and there's very little you can do about it. That means that Kaiser and Von Kramer are stooging and bounding across the ring and trying and failing to cheat for a lot of this. Hayes and Hunter are also a little more apt to cheat here themselves than we've seen before, which I attest to the fact they're wrestling Germans. All good but not enough; never enough.

SR: We get about 20 minutes of this. No finish, and it appears that was only the 1st fall. That is pretty bitter, as the von Kramer/Dr. Kaiser duo is about the most high end when it comes to monocle wearing fake Germans in wrestling. Here they had matching outfits, they were bumping, stooging, cheating, miscommunicating, doing some pretty fun wrestling, along with their eccentric demeanour, they had everything you want from an entertaining heel team. There was an especially funny bit where the Dr. did his spider walk only to accidentally end up running into von Kramers boot. You get the sense either of them (but especially von Kramer, god what a freaky wrestler that guy was) against Hayes in a singles would've been dynamite. "Rebel" Ray Hunter is probably the least of the faces we have seen, when everyone else is uppercutting the shit out of the bad guys, a tall guy lightly tapping people in the head with chops isn't quite doing it. Still, maybe the full thing is laying around somewhere.

PAS: Yeah this is a real tease of a match, on paper this is a total gem, but we get to see the foreplay with none of the climax. Hayes is always worth watching, he is so skilled and I loved the whole section of him trying to bridge out of a face lock while von Kramer kept punching him in the kidneys. Dr. Kaiser was a little subdued here, we got all of the stooging with none of the maniacal evil. When we are all done with what got, I think we are planning on checking back with the archive, maybe the full version of this is still in the vault.


Henri Lambert vs. Roger Laroche 4/30/59

MD: This one took me by surprise. We had seen Laroche in one of our very first matches in this project and that was primarily to get beat upon by La Barba. I think a commenter previously said that Lambert was the ref in the Mann vs Montourcy so I wasn't sure what to expect here. However, this was, yet again, one of those matches, that if we had nothing else from 50s France, would have blown our collective minds. I wouldn't say that either of these two were dynamic and memorable characters, but there was a real contrast, both in their physical attributes and how they wrestled. Lambert seemed younger, was incredibly athletic, very spirited, quite dynamic. Laroche was (as i said last time we saw him) off that unassuming French maestro assembly line. He seemed older, more reserved. At many points in the match, he stayed low and took the count in order to slow Lambert down and recover, which is not a tactic we've seen much in the footage so far. There was a real but subtle sense of him trying to absorb punishment at times to blow Lambert up so he could take over with a hold, or to draw Lambert out so that he'd get impassioned and make a mistake.

The first few minutes of this had Lambert eating Laroche up with holds, and Laroche's response was to step on the foot. The first time he did it, Lambert brushed it off. The second time, he returned the favor and followed up with a clubbering blow. Taking Lambert off his game allowed for Laroche to get an arm, headbutt the wrist, and use the knee to drive him down, leading into almost SEVEN (7) minutes of Lambert dynamically trying to escape an armbar. We've seen this, of course, with the person in control holding on through armdrags and bodyslams and hip tosses, and blocking headscissors, but this was remarkable both for the length of it and for the fluctuating desperation from Lambert. He'd sell the hand within the hold more and more, trying to keep feeling in it, but he'd also launch lightning quick combinations of hip tosses, only for Laroche to hang on and Lambert to wear himself out. It was seven minutes and it was never boring, in part due to the energy of Lambert and in part due to the sheer audacity of length.

Much of the rest of the match pitted Lambert's athleticism against Laroche's skill, with a lot of great bridges and quick bits of punishment from Lambert and reversals upon reversals. Increasingly, Lambert, in frustration, would go into blows, more emotional than underhand. Laroche on the other hand, would be the sneakier of the two, dropping down and cutting off with a grab of the leg. Lambert, an actor on the side, had a lot of stuff but could also sell very well, and as the match went on both wrestlers really portrayed the weight of what they'd been through and the sheer exhaustion they were facing. There's a long strike exchange towards the end where they're barely standing by the end of it. They were ultimately working to a draw here, though given the tenor of French matches, you can't always tell. This could have had a finish just as easily. It didn't really need one though as the draw was both escalated to and completely earned.

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was a stiff technical match built around armlocks and european uppercuts peppered with some athleticism. It's kind of the French house style, but after weeks of seeing masked dudes running wild on French TV, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Laroche is balding and stocky, while Lambert has a mustache and looks like someone out of a squashbuckling movie. Sometimes, you just want to watch two gentlemen forearm the shit out of each other for 30 minutes, and this delivered in spades. Laroche was a real punisher here, not an outright villain, but taking his shortcuts when they appeared and thus heating up the match. I can't emphasize enough how hard these guys were peppering each other, big kneedrops, kicking their way out of holds, hard shots to the ribs, at one point Laroche blocks an escape attempt so he eats a knee to the head for his troubles. There was a lengthy section built around Laroche keeping an armlock, twisting and throwing Lambert to the mat over and over, often making him land awkwardly on his shoulder. When Lambert gets out, he is slow to get up, clearly favouring that arm, then, when Laroche tried to go back to that same arm hold, he kneed him right in the face. The match was full of "fuck you, you are not doing that spot" which always helps keeping these matches fresh, and enough cool athleticism thrown in at the right moments to keep this from being a sheer slugfest. Still, it's all about them rolling out those forearms and uppercuts. Last couple of strikes exchanges were downright crazy.

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