Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gerber! Di Santo! Pellacani! Dula! Duranton!

Rene Gerber vs. Jean Rabut 12/13/58

MD: Back when we last saw Gerber, a few months ago now, I lamented that we only had one more match with him and it was a JIP one. At least it's one that goes about 15, though. He's a great stooging heel. There's a moment in here, towards the end, that really sums him up. After spending the brunt of the match tossing Rabut out of the ring (and getting tossed out himself) and eating revenge spots tied up in the ropes or eating torpedo headbutts in the corner, he managed to dodge Rabut getting his feet up on some shoulder thrusts. He hobbled back and tapped his head to show his smarts. There was an almost congenial moment between the two of them despite all that had occurred and he asked for a handshake. This was the third of the match, with the first being clean and the second being a cheapshot. After a moment of shared competency and luck, Rabut decided to go in for it though, and he was immediately incapacitated with his arm over the rope and punched hard in the gut twice. That was Gerber for you. Rabut had some great athletic spots we've barely seen, backflips after dropkicks and a novel handstand headcissors takeover. He didn't quite get the chance to fully shine against Gerber though. The crowd wanted more of the rapid-fire elbows to the skull or punches to the gut in the corner, instead. Gerber got great heat, all but brawling with the ref, shoving people in the crowd, having trash thrown at him. Great heel. It's a shame we don't see more of him. We do see more of Rabut though, including against Chaisne, so I'm interested to see what he'll do against a different sort of opponent.

Lino Di Santo vs. Liano Pellacani 12/13/58

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. It‘s the last sighting of Liano Pellacani (for now, who knows what has yet to be digitalized), who sure made an impression. And this was really worked as a long Pellacani showcase. He did more wrestling than usual, engaging in some greco roman work with Di Santo. He was acting like pure brawler before, so it was nice to see that he had the chops. I also totally did not expect him to just savate kick Di Santo in the throat. After that it was asskicking city as Pellacani was demolishing Lino with those unforgiving forearm smashes. Di Santo was a quite great dance partner too, as his stoic selling really accentuates the nasty beating he was taking, and his comebacks gave back as good as he was taking. This was probably the most asskicking we‘ve seen Di Santo do so far and his forearms and dropkicks looked amazing. These kinda matches can easily get repetitve, but they knew to threw in a number of interesting spots. There was a particularily great rope running sequence that lead to a nearfall, as well as Pellacanis general use of the ring ropes (the slingshot to throat is such an amazing little spot), and Lino Di Santo hitting the most neckbreaking neckbreaker. I should add that anytime Pellacani lands outside is tense as you expect him to get jumped by someone from the crowd. Both guys throwing body punches was great, and Di Santo ducking the savate kick to forearm Pellacani into another dimension felt like a spot that was 25 years ahead of its time. Nasty finish too which ended up a fitting swansong for Pellacani.

MD: Of all the footage we've seen so far, I think this might be the night I would have most liked to be there. Not the best matches but maybe the best heels in back to back matches. Both Gerber and Pellacani in the same night. The crowd was already heated at the start of this and by the end, they were more than happy to throw trash into the ring. A guy like Tony Oliver was a consummate heel, likewise Delaporte who was just incessant. Pellacani, however, had this deep understanding of himself and portrayed a sort of passive aggressive quiet fury about the state of reality itself. It wasn't his fault that he did what he did. It was the world that drove him to it. He feels like the promise of Professor Boris Malenko, like Abe Weissman's evil brother. He wrestled the early bit of this clean, things escalating until he managed two monkey flips in a row, only to eat a running 'rana for his trouble. After that, he flipped the switch, unleashing the wickedest clubbering blows you can imagine. As the match went on, he'd take his advantages and act both offended and furious when called out for them. Di Santo would come back but the cut offs were quick and vicious, merciless even. He was always in the moment, which made every second feel organic and real. Di Santo might hit an atomic drop and his trademark neckbreaker, but Pellacani was quick to grab on to the top rope and jam the second attempt, always thinking, always on. All the way to the end where he had enough and drew a DQ, and the last look we'll ever have at him in this footage, teasing an attack on Di Santo after the bell only to draw back, satisfied at the disdain of all around him, to place his robe back on and give the crowd a bow, unabashedly himself no matter what they thought.


Jimmy Dula vs. Robert Duranton 12/26/58

SR: Jimmy Dula is someone I‘ve only seen a few mentions of on tiny fan pages. I wouldn‘t have thought I‘d ever see him wrestle, let alone in a 2/3 falls match that goes nearly 40 minutes. I guess this was a reminder that sometimes the mythical guys you only see looking badass on one or two photos are sometimes just regular wrestlers. This was solid Catch, very much like the stuff we could see on WoS or IWE. Not super tricked out, but there was some intense hold for hold work. I expected Duranton to bring the heat as we had seen him doing before, but instead it was Dula who assumed the role of the shit stirrer when he took offense to Duranton kicking his way out of a hold. Next thing he did was try to pry Durantons nose from his face. The face attacks looked really nasty, and Dula had really good looking forearm smashes and uppercuts. I also really liked his constant use of the cravate, constantly wrenching Durantons head. It‘s a bit of a long match but the fact Dula kept going back to try and wrestle Duranton kept it interesting and we get lots of cool strike exchanges down the stretch.:

MD: Sebastian might have thought that this was business as usual but this was a pretty odd one to me. Duranton is one of the more unlikable guys we've seen in this project (in a good way). At this stage of his career, I don't think he's the sort to carry someone entirely though. He's been a bit more stylized so far. After a bit of clunky wrestling, Dula started to go straight for the eyes and mouth, however. He had this thing he'd do where after every break, he'd salute to the crowd as if everything was perfectly lovely. Sometimes he'd use it to stall. The crowd didn't know what to make of it. It got a reaction, but it was mainly amused bewilderment. Ultimately, this had a fairly uncooperative feel which didn't bear out positively in the holds but did with the strikes. The saving grace here was that they really beat the crap out of each other. Duranton was especially mean. We'd seen that streak before, but here he was a wall that would not break (at least not too often), and the meaner he got with his shots, the meaner Dula got in return. I think Dula's act probably would have worked pretty well against one of your more standard French babyfaces. It's just that he was paired with Duranton who modified his act to be tougher, maybe, but I don't even know if that's a good thing, as the charm of him is how haughty and arrogantly dismissive he can be. He didn't get much of a chance to be that here while his opponent was walking around and saluting no matter what had just happened.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mann! Montourcy! Black Salem! Pellacani!

Tommy Mann vs. Claude Montourcy 10/17/57 - GREAT

PAS: Another week, another pair of awesome guys I have never heard of. Pretty classic French Catch heavyweight style match, with some really cool matwork a nasty cheating heel, and a finishing run full of violence. We even get a countout finish off a big bump, which seems to be a finish used a lot. I like well done formula wrestling, and this was very well done. Montourcy really works over the arm, including a great spot where he climbs Mann's back to clasp an arm. Mann is a guy with stiff cheapshots, and he had especially good looking uppercuts, landing right in the mandible. He looked like he was going to dislocate's Montourcy's jaw. The finish bump by Mann was a pretty big one, and I liked how he sold his arm like he cracked his forearm on the chair.

MD: Despite being billed as American, Mann is definitely British. He was on Benny Hill. He's a stocky grizzled, hard-nosed character and we're lucky to have any footage of him. Montourcy is a quick and fiery (when pushed) French babyface. I had some concerns in the first few minutes as the chain wrestling seemed okay but not particular dynamic relative to what we've been watching, but then Mann forearmed him out of nowhere and everything was okay once more. Mann either really understood or adroitly adapted to the crowd. Much like British rules, you have to chain your offense together in French Catch. If you knock someone down, you can't then go in and lock in a hold if bodily contact was broken and it wasn't all one movement. If you do, the ref will break the hold. Mann, however, kept going for unattached chinlocks, getting big boos each time. It's one of those things that probably wouldn't have worked in front of any other crowd of any other era but it made him reviled here. This turned into a good mix of slugging blows (including Montourcy affronted comebacks and bits of revenge) and punishing holds; Mann was especially good at turning one hold into the next as Montourcy shifted positions. Given the length of these matches, there are generally a lot of momentum shifts, which makes each individual comeback somewhat less memorable then it might be in a shine-heat-comeback formula, but there was a beautiful stepover (with the leg hooked every so slightly under the arm to give the flipping torque) cross-arm breaker with the leg clapping down over the face repeatedly, that really got the crowd up, including the Martian at ringside. Anyway, things escalated to some bumps out of the ring and a countout/TKO that protected Mann well enough while putting over Montourcy. We'll see the latter a few more times but Mann only once more I think.

SR: 1 Fall match going almost exactly 20 minutes. Tommy Mann was a British grappler who was looking quite lumpy and aging in this, while Montourcy is a slender young technician. Odds that this was gonna turn into a brawl were high, but they engage in some quite good grappling. It soon became apparent Montourcy would have the upper hand, so Mann decided to crank up the viciousness with nasty forearms and clubs. Really liked his backbreakers and the finger bending that he did which is exactly what you‘d expect from a crusty old veteran carny. Montourcy was slick as hell and looked like one of the better workers around. Predictably good match.

Jacky Corne vs. Rafael Blasco 11/29/57 - FUN

MD: This was something. We just get ten minutes of it but Blasco, who is a Spanish Light Heavyweight who I don't think there's any footage of but this, is an amazing striker and just pounds the hell out of Corn. He has this high torque twist out into a forearm or a punch that's brutal and he does it again and again. He also picks Corn up and charges him into the corner multiple time. Corn is a fighter as always and comes back to the crowd's delight, but ultimately it's too much. I liked the gamesmanship here: when Corn was coming back, Blasco tossed him out; when Blasco used the same tricks too many times, Corn was able to dodge away or deflect, but really this was all about the strikes and how much heat Blasco was able to generate from the crowd.

PAS: I am not going to complain about a match where a guy brutally punches another guy until the towel gets thrown in. It was pretty one-dimensional, but that is a hell of a dimension. The rainmaker into a punch was really cool, and it is fun to see how many 50s French Catch guys have cooler Rainmakers than Okada.

SR: About the ending of what looks like a pretty heated match. Mostly Blasco beating on Corn with nasty forearm shots until his corner man throws in the towel. Blasco also really likes a move where he puts Corn in a japanese strangelhold and spins him around like a Rainmaker. I would‘ve liked more Blasco as he came across mean and tough but this is his sole appearance.

Black Salem vs. Liano Pellacani 11/29/57 - GREAT

MD: Pellacani is one of the greatest heatseeking villains we've seen. Remember, he's the guy we saw someone throw a lit cigarette in one of our first matches. Here, he's not just facing Black Salem, but the ref and the crowd and the world itself. Ultimately, what that means is that we don't necessarily have a great match, but we do absolutely have an amazing performance. Salem was fairly big, with a great headbutt and some questionable strikes (kicks especially) and and throws/holds. He reminded me a bit of King Kong Taverne, where he could do the moves of the day, but not nearly as smooth as others. I get the sense that some of the technical masters we've seen could walk him through a really interesting match. That's not what Pellacani was there for though. He was there to enrage everyone in the crowd, especially the lady wearing the giant cross that may or may not have been a nun. Oh and the guy that pounded him when he was on the apron at one point. And the ref (though that was worked) who kept kicking him in the head repeatedly when he wouldn't break a hold. With almost every heel we've seen, there's a Tully-ian moment of at least trying to wrestle before going to the cheapshots. Not with Pellacani. He rushes right in at the bell and never looks back. If the ref hits him to break a hold, he makes sure to kick Salem in response. He jaws with the ref or the crowd as a distraction so he can lunge in at his opponent. When he hits something he's happy with, he'll do a little strut or a finger motion with a smug look on his face. Sometimes he even feigns contrition, as if it was an accident. And his shots all look nasty and brutal and sound even worse. Pellacani was truly the best at being the worst.

PAS: Pellacani continues to be great. You really don't need much on the other side, he is going to throw those big shots and try to fight everyone in the audience. He has some real shoulder separators for forearms, and knows just when to cool a crowd down and to heat them up.  I enjoyed Salem, his stuff didn't always land but he timed his stuff really well and that headbutt was class. I also like the spin kick, it didn't always land great but it looked cool.  Pellacani was the story though, he is really an all timer.

SR: With a name like Black Salem, you hope for some kind of esoteric mat wizard, but this turns into a brawl pretty much from the get go with Pellacani barraging Salem with his stiff forearm blows, punch combos and thudding kicks. Black Salem fought back with good looking dropkicks and big headbutts. Pellacani looked good in the Takashi Ishikawa role of psychotically potatoeing a guy, at one point he even started doing these stiff low kicks. Also liked Pellacani taking swings at the audience which gave the whole thing a vibe like something was about to break out. Pretty short at about 15 minutes and felt like it could have been more. Atleast we got a rough looking end sequence leading to the pinfall.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Finlay! Gilmour! Mercier! Mitchells! Pellacani! Bout!

Jean Bout vs. Liano Pellacani 2/15/57

MD: I'm exceptionally high on this. It's my favorite match out of the lot so far. Very straightforward contest where you have an absolute master in Bout vs. an uncouth scoundrel in Pellacani. Bout stood out in a sea of great talent. He reminded me a bit of the promise of Dean Malenko fulfilled, an unassuming looking wrestler who started out cool and collected but that could light up with righteous fury when wronged. He had, however, this sort of physical charisma that tied it all together.

It wasn't enough that he'd do a hip toss. He had to hook you deep with his leg and whip his opponent around. It wasn't enough that he did a mare. He had to bridge up to torque his opponent like you've never seen. His dropkick? Angled up and in to come up at a chin. A headlock escape? He'd flip his way out somehow. Monkey flip? Low and deep and tight to make it a head bump. That's before he unloaded, too. When he went at his opponent in fury, it was with fists and forearms, jumping knees and charging knees. When it was time to finish a fall, he did it with two slams and the punctuation of driving his opponent's head into his own knee like a deranged modified shoulder-breaker. Then he sold the knee which made it matter all the more.

Pellacani was just as committed, quick to go to a hundred shortcuts, ranging from hairpulls to biting to those all time great resounding clubbering blows. He espoused a wicked frustration but instead of making him sympathetic, it made the crowd loathe him for tarnishing Bout's exquisite wrestling. I've never seen a crowd go from relatively apathetic to trying to set a guy on fire so quickly. Then, as Bout made comebacks and punished Pellacani for his crimes against art, the fire transferred from the exploding cigarette projectile back into the crowd. The banana peel finish was something you'd see a lot later in the UK, an unfortunate stoppage due to an overzealous blue-eye and a lucky, tenacious villain. This was absolutely excellent, the middle point between technique and ingenuity and character and story and fierce fighting, and everyone should go out of their way to see it.

SR: 2/3 Falls match over 30 minutes. Really heated, intrigueing piece of TV. Pellacanis birthplace is listed as Italy, and supposedly he won the heayweight title of Europe at one point. I cannot stress enough how awesome it is to get a long glimpse at workers like this. Bout is a stoic babyface, and he really dominates with athletic wrestling ability typical of French wrestlers. Pellacani has no real answer but to clock him with thudding forearms. While Pellacani didn‘t show much wrestling, pretty much anytime Bout had him in a hold he would scurry for the ropes, but he was absolutely bumping his ass off, really good pinballing performance. By the second fall Bout was really making minced meat of Pellacani, throwing punches, dropkicks to the face and cranking a nasty sleeper, all of which the crowd loved. By the end Pellacani looked overwhelmed and was taking frustrated swings at the crowd who threw lit cigarettes at him. It looks like another 2-0 blowout like other 2/3 Falls matches we‘ve seen so far, but then a huge, potentially crippling apron bump happens and things turn around. Really in our modern world apron bumps have become so meaningless that the way they put it over here stands out as really memorable, and what a ballsy move to go from Pellacani being outgunned to going over.

PAS: This was really fucking great, I loved the story of this, with Bout as the slick tough wrestler and Pellacani as heater. Early stuff with Bout landing these cool judo throws was dope, and Pellacani was just crushing Bout with hard forearms, some of the better clubs I think I have ever seen. French matches often break out into slugfests and I loved how Bout got more and more violent as it went on, his choke sleeper looked like something that would end an MMA fight, and I loved how he mixed in body shots and headbutts. 95% of strike exchanges in modern wrestling look like crap, and every strike exchange in 50s French wrestling is incredible. Loved the pair of big bumps to the floor, the first one taking over all three guys, leading to a pretty heated brawl on the floor. The second has Bout taking a big backdrop right on his tailbone on the ring apron for the ref stoppage. Add another pair of awesome guys to the list of new wrestlers we are discovering with this footage.

ER: Another week of Catch, two more guys I've never heard of who are apparently total legends. The setting for this is great, and the crowd really stood out to me as different from other Catch crowds we've seen. This really felt like more of a working class crowd, which added to an actual real fight atmosphere the longer the match went on. We've seen matches in front of men in suits and wives in coats, we've seen matches in front of a more kid friendly studio audience, but this crowd felt like it was filled with guys who all had bread or produce routes. Late in the match when Bout and Pellacani spill over the top to the floor and take the ref with them, things get heated as hell, and you can physically see that this was absolutely real to these fans. Pellacani threw these great clubbing shots that seemed to keep landing harder as the match went on, and he also bumped wildly for Bout. Bout didn't need help looking like a killer, but Pellacani certainly helped. Bout had a really great sleeper and one of those great upward angled dropkicks, and we get some big slow release Argentine backbreakers for good measure. This is maybe the least "pretty" match we've seen so far from French Catch, and instead it was memorably ugly.

Fit Finlay/Ian Gilmour vs Guy Mercier/Alan Mitchells 9/25/80

SR: 2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. Browsing through hundreds of French matches, and just out of nowhere a 22 year old Dave Finlay pops up in what is maybe his first ever televised match working like a seasoned veteran heel. Pretty cool. The saying about European tag wrestling is that they didn‘t quite know how to do it, but this match had pretty much the kind of structure you want: Fun babyface shine segment, followed by a heel beatdown before a series of cut offs before a comeback succeeds and then a finish. They fool you a bit here by doing a really long shine with the heels making several attempts at starting the beatdown and being cut off, but in the end the structure is there and even the 2/3 Falls formula is integrated well. This was a bit more holds and takedowns based and less about armdrags and ranas, similiar to what we know from British wrestling, but don‘t be fooled the pace in this match was lightning fast. These guys really do an absurd amount of stuff even in a long match, but everything is executed effortlessly. Guy Mercier is a former European champion and legit Greco roman wrestler with a look and aura that just screams tough old man, and while there wasn‘t a ton of extended wrestling in this match he looked like a classy worker. It speaks for the creativity of these old workers just how much they could do with moves like a body slam or hip throw. Finlay also did this cool thing where he misses a big splash in about the first minute of the bout and spends the next few minutes scurrying away while the faces twisted up his leg and launched him into the ropes. It didn‘t pay off in the long run, but it was a fun bit of selling to make the opening minutes more interesting. Once the heels got something going after what felt like 15 minutes of highly entertaining bumping and stooging, they basically focussed on getting the faces to the corner and stomping the crap out of them. Really simple and effective stuff that made me wish modern workers paid more attention to making simple things like a stomp look good, because Finlay had damn great looking stomps here. Another layer to the match was Michel Saulnier, who was grey and a referee by now. The match had some heel ref antics and comical amounts of babyface retaliation against Saulnier, while that is something that can ruin a lot of these Euro matches it was actually executed in a really fun manner here. The thing I loved most how delighted the fans were at the trick the heels used to get a pin here. No hard feelings, it‘s all good fun in France.

MD: Thankfully, we're lacking familiarity because in this case, I think it would breed contempt. We had a combination of heel in peril and a heel ref that made himself the center of the show. I had no problem with the 80s WWF heel-in-peril style as a kid, not until I saw a lot of it to evaluate. The first time I saw a heel ref doing his antics in lucha, I was probably delighted.

This was fresh enough to still be delightful. Gilmour was the star of the show, charismatic and bold, a real villain who knew just how to be the center of attention at all times. Finlay came off as his muscle, Otis to Gilmour's Lex Luthor, Chumley to his Tennessee Tuxedo. He was in there to bump and stomp and hammer, but it'd just be a few years later that he'd be playing Gilmour's role with Princess Paula at his side.

What they did here wasn't bad by any means. They filled time well. Everything hit, with a lot of it being complex and compelling. Mercier and Mitchells were very good and Gilmour was somehow everywhere at all times filling the screen. The heels got their comeuppance in satisfying and amusing ways during the long shine, but you kept waiting for the switch to flip while watching. Not every bit of wrestling has to follow the same formula but when the faces dominate for the first 2/3 of a long match even good work tends to tire you out.

PAS: This was primarily noteworthy for our earliest look at Fit Finlay. He had a real explosive athleticism about him here, he actually remind me a bit of Dynamite Kid, which isn't a comparison I would have made before. The speed he got up to the top rope for the missed splash was really noteworthy. Gilmour isn't a guy I had heard of before, and he was really great as the Alpha of the team, he didn't do a ton of really noteworthy individual spots, but he really could fill the screen with his presence. I agree with Matt that we could have really used more of a Southern tag structure, this was a lot of the babyfaces on top, and an occasional fire back by the heels. I did really enjoy Mercier taking his shots at Saulnier, I wonder if that is an old feud being dredged up, we have a ton of Mercier in this footage, going all the way back to the 50s so it will be neat to see a big sample size of his career.

ER: When the neverending pile of French Catch was discovered, it never actually crossed my mind that FIT FINLAY would turn up in the footage. Finlay is arguably my favorite wrestler of all time, a wrestler responsible for really taking my specific brand of fandom to a new level. He set such a high standard of quality execution and time management that I'm not sure I could name 5 people better. I've never been disappointed in a Finlay performance, ever, and I have watched an absurd amount of Finlay. But the thing is, before now the earliest Finlay match I've seen is probably from 1985 or '86. For me seeing Young David, 5 years earlier than I ever have, was tantamount to us getting to see 1968 Andre (which was at least 3 years earlier than any prior Andre footage we had). So here's this young man with a buzz cut, already showing a shocking amount of polish for someone so young. Part of me was looking forward to Finlay looking like a not very good wrestler. I've seen hundreds of instances of Finlay looking like an all time great wrestler, I wanted to see a green as grass Finlay who had flaws. But this motherfucker was apparently good from go. He's different than the Finlay I would later love, but even if *this* was the best he ever got in the ring, he would still clearly be an awesome wrestler. I loved Mercier locking in the Santo headscissors and the absolute arms waving feet stamping panic that Finlay sold it with, loved the big bump he took off the apron when Gilmour got run into him, loved his wild missed splash early off the top (which I believe is the only time I've seen him attempt any kind of splash off the top), and it was amazing to see him throw his all time great bodyslam with the exact same motion and follow through that he would still be using to perfection 30 years later. The match had other joys, including kids and adults squealing with glee every time Saulnier would physically get involved, or the fact that maybe 60 total awesome uppercuts were thrown over the length, or the young French version of Sean Young in a ship n shore blouse being briefly interviewed before the match. But this match got bumped up this early in our review process for Young David and it's just insane how much he was already delivering.


La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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