Tuesday is French Catch Day: McTiffin! Guettier! Mountourcy! Gastel! Mantopoulos! Ricetti!

Marcel Parmentier vs. Bob Plantain 6/19/59

MD: As always it's a travesty we don't have more Parmentier footage. He was such a nasty striker with a surly face and tons of heat. This is just a minute or two. No one in the footage is quite as big a tease.

James McTiffin vs. Roger Guettier 6/19/59

MD: McTiffin is Gwyn Davies, of the great Veidor match. He was working an affable Scottish giant gimmick here, kilt and bagpiper, and maybe didn't have quite all the pieces together yet. Guettier was mean and frustrated, full of high class comedy as he couldn't deal with McTiffin's size advantage. My favorite bit was a pumphandle armbar where he couldn't get any leverage and just gave up, but there was more. This went pretty short for 50s Catch, just around ten minutes, seeming to surprise everyone. Remember the first time you saw George Steele's flying hammerlock and how painful it looked? That was the finish here which was a flying double inverted knucklelock, which would only work given a size differential like this.

PAS: This was fun stuff, much more of a wacky comedy match then serious Catch. Guettier was flummoxed by the size of McTiffin, and had a bunch of different ways to seem flummoxed. That finishing flying knucklelock was awesome looking and totally redeemed McTiffin from otherwise seeming a bit stiff. Babatunde should steal that shit.


Sergio Reggiori vs Jacques Bernieres 6/19/59

MD: This was the TV time remaining bonus match after McTiffin made short work of Guettier and while it's cut off as they had to give the feed back to the station, what we get is actually very good. I get the sense that these two knew that this was their big chance to shine in front of a television audience and they really went at it hard. This included a few extended hanging-on-to-a-hold sequences, a lot of struggle, some aggressive shots, and at least one dive through the ropes on a missed charge. Unfortunately, I don't know if it did either of these guys any good because we don't see them a ton in the footage.


Claude Montourcy vs. Robert Gastel 6/26/59

MD: We'd seen Montourcy before, both in the Mann match, which was really mostly about Mann, and in the 60 minute match where he had a lot of interesting showcase moves. Here, though, it was all about him, working a judo gimmick with taped up feet instead of shoes. Gastel was the straight man here, throwing his headbutts and big bumps, and hairpulls, and yes, the tombstone. This was about Montourcy using his feet in odd ways (especially to escape) and having big takedowns and contorted stretches, including the one that kayfabe popped Gastel's shoulder out to end it, causing Montourcy's Japanese Professor (?) to come out to fix it. Also of not here was a wrestler at ringside, which, along with an overly exuberant fan, subtly distracted Gastel post-tombstone, which theoretically gave Montourcy time to come back. This was another short one like the week before.


Vasilios Mantopoulos vs. Roberto Ricetti 6/26/59

MD: Yet another high end lightweight match in the late 50s style, where they don't quite go as over the top with acrobatics as we'd see a few years later, but instead did a lot of what we've seen already faster and with more impact. Lots of long holds with reversals jammed (even the ones that might work elsewhere). Ricetti had some really great bridges. We had, I think, our first giant swing too. There were a couple of moments where they were almost going too hard to make things work (and I'm tempted to pin that more on Mantopolous, as great as he'd be later and as good as he still was here, but that may not be fair), but it didn't necessarily feel unnatural, just less smooth than it might have been. They were competing so hard that it didn't hurt the match at all. The finish was really strong, a perfect reversal to the idea of someone going to the well too many times.

SR: 1 fall match that goes a bit over 30 minutes. Mantopoulos is billed as Greek. We are going to see quite a bit of him. Ricetti is billed as Italian and this is about the only time he shows up. This was a clean match, no heel shenanigans, but the crowd was calling for them to throw European uppercuts, so both guys soon did that. They stuck to mostly basic holds, peppered with that French brand of athletic escape attempts. Mantopoulos wasn‘t as flamboyant and flashy as in later clips, but you could tell he was a wrestling machine. Ricetti looked good also, aside from seemingly not knowing how to bump for Mantopoulos headscissors. This was going solid and they worked in some surprisingly hot nearfalls, including an awesome O‘Connor Roll and some plausible rope running exchanges later. Great finish, too. The thing that stands about these guys running the ropes and hitting improbable moves is not the athleticism, but the great sense of timing.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Marcel Parmentier! Al Hayes! Rogers! Rene Ben Chemoul! Bob Anthony!

Marcel Parmentier vs. Jean Frisuk 5/24/57

SR: JIP with about 8 minutes shown. Not getting a full match of Parmentier is probably among the biggest misses in this footage, but at least we now know he existed. Frisuk is a good looking babyface and has good fire. I imagine if we had the build up this would be a really good match because they were both happily dishing out receipts and inside shots. I am still getting used to how violent French wrestling is compared to the British stuffs. I mean British heels are nasty but they won‘t full on running punt a downed opponent like Parmentier does here. Love Parmentiers rugged aura and these two guys killing each other with massive elbows was awesome to watch briefly.

MD: It's a crime we don't have a full Parmentier match. They beat the heck out of each other here and we can only ever assume why. It's not hard to assume, mind you, given how scummy Parmentier is, though. He was the absolute master of the leg dive out of nowhere, just throwing his body at Frisuk's legs almost every time he gets knocked down (Well, at least three). You have to love how he plays to the crowd here, when he gets the better of Frisuk (through hook or crook) and especially after he eats the loss. After that punt Sebastian mentioned, Frisuk does the absolute meanest thing we've seen yet, just ripping at Parmentier's hair and clubbing at his skull, alternating between one and the other.

PAS: What we got of this was really great, Parmentier was a scuzzy creep, and Frisuk was throwing heat at him for sure. I really liked Frisuk's headscissors takedowns, before it just broke down. Parmentier has amazing looking elbows, he just throws his whole body into each shot and land the point right on the upper jaw and ear, elbow smashes are one of the most trite things in wrestling these days, and it is cool to see them throw so well and so nastily. If we got more of this I imagine it might be in the upper tier of stuff in this footage.

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Roger Delaporte/Roger Guettier 5/24/57

SR:2/3 falls match over 30 minutes. Hayes & fellow Englishman Ray Hunter are apparently introduced as „Australians“. There is also a giant robot watching the match from the crowd whom the announcer calls a „martian“. And the French team of Delaporte (champion of France, even!) and Guettier gets a big heel reaction. All the absurdities aside, this was a very good match. The last time Hayes showed up he was a real highlight, and he is really fun here again coming up with fun counters to all the holds. It‘s funny how you can watch a ton of old French/British wrestling and still see new things. Hunter is really tall and likes to upside down chop people, so he‘s basically Baba in this match. The two Rogers won‘t blow you away if you‘ve been keeping track of all the awesome heel workers we‘ve seen in this project so far, but they did a good job working over Hayes back with Fuchi-like rope stretches, big backbreaker moves and knee drops to the spine. It builds to a pretty hot 3rd fall with the Brits masquerading as Australian going for near finish after near finish with the Frenchmen breaking up pinfalls as much as they could. I‘m not sure whether it cut off before the finish or if the deciding pinfall simply came out weird, but since that‘s all there is of this match we‘ll have to go with „came out weird“.

MD: Great tag match. Hayes did everything right here, super technical at the beginning, standing on the ropes and working the apron, being the recipient a hot tag where he got to clear house to set up the end of the first fall (more on that later), then playing face-in-peril for the rest of the match, with escalating limb-focused selling. Very complete performance. Hunter was larger than life, just towering over his opponents, especially Guettier (who was portrayed, even by the commentator, as Delaporte's little crony). We got a clear picture of Delaporte as a heel's heel here, but maybe not a complete one. There will be time for that. I really liked the bouncing leg lock off the ropes when they cut Hunter down to size, and the double teaming that followed. The heels cut off the ring well when in charge and the backwork on Hayes in the second and third falls was just picture perfect. We have a lot of tags ahead of us and the later ones we've seen haven't been so pinpoint focused. Lots of backbreakers and kneedrops and grinding over the top turnbuckle. A little more variation might have been nice but they were only developing it, so you forgive it. It's just a shame we don't get a finish (unless Delaporte running out of "public warnings" on pinfall breaks was the finish). I'm looking forward to the handfull of Bollet and Delaporte tags we get later.

PAS: Really enjoyed the Rogers here, frantic focused attack which isn't something I have seen a lot of in wrestling. They really key in on the back and work it over really well, but execute that attack with wild intensity, they were a mix of the Sheepherders and the Andersons. Loved their bouncing rope step over toe holds and all of the jamming of Hayes back into the turbuckle bolt. Hunter reminded me of Baba too, and I loved how impassioned he got going after the heels. Feels like were are missing the last minute or two, which is a shame, but what we got is really class stuff.

Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Bob Anthony 4/7/61

SR: 1 Fall match that is a little over 30 minutes long. Bob Anthony is someone we saw before in the twilight years of his career working World of Sport, and here he is in his mid 20s only a few years after making his debut. Although he didn‘t look green at all here and was doing many of the same spots as 19 years later, so I guess back then in European wrestling things changed slowly. This was a clean contest for the purists with no unfair tactics from Anthony. I‘ve noticed that while the athleticism is quite high end, French wrestling didn‘t get as brainy as the British stuff when it came to matwork. That is minor complaint though when you get 30 minutes of classy back and forth technical work. Ben Chemoul is probably at his best when he is being charismatic and uppercutting the fuck out of a stooging heel, but of course he is also a maestro and this type of match fits him like a glove. This didn‘t really kick into next gear and the finish looked a little too easy but I enjoyed it greatly.

MD: This was Sebastian's pick and it's the best AWA face vs face match you're going to see this month. Lots of working in and out of holds. The more we watch, the more familiar some things get, like using a step-over flying headscissors to get out of a long armbar. The first time we saw it, it was like lightning, now it's a familiar and welcome part of the syntax and diction of their storytelling. That said, these two had a bunch of stuff that was cool and novel, like Anthony's rolling bodyscissors and the amazing deadlift cradle slam that Ben Chemoul used to get out of it. Or Ben Chemoul's backflip out of a backhammer right into a roll up, or his escape from another one where he got his foot behind Anthony's leg and just tripped him. So simple. So good. And yeah, then there was the rolling cradle stretch. While things never got too fiery, they did escalate into strikes. Anthony as a faux Australian had this great jumping kangaroo double knee, whereas Ben Chemoul would throw these crazy combos from every angle. You wish it would have went over the top for the finish but ultimately it was just a great, hard hitting, cleanly worked technical match with more than enough sights to see along the way.

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