Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Mychel! Dumez! Cohen! Montoro! Tejero!

Gilbert Leduc vs. Bert Mychel 4/16/73

MD: This is a rematch to a very good match from a couple of years earlier. Mychel was a two time Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling. We come in late, maybe ten minutes in, but by this point, everything is gritty as hell and it never, ever lets up, not even once, over the next twenty-five plus minutes. One of the first things we see is Leduc powering Mychel over with the tightest cravat you'll ever see, just torquing his head around. As the match escalates, they'd escalate to throwing forearms, just pounding each other, both in holds and on their feet, but it never felt unsportsmanlike. It never felt craven or underhanded. It felt like exactly what they needed to do to contest each other. That was the level of skill and grit and determination and power and precision. They rolled around the ring, and it was everything Leduc could do to keep Mychel in a hold. Even with the slightly deteriorated film stock, you'd see it in his face, the exhaustion and frustration. He would catch him with a fake out, would take a leg, would snatch an arm, would get him down but there was no rest, no respite, no real control. Mychel was always grabbing for a limb, locking arms around a waist, and as the match went on, kicking or smacking, doing anything he could to escape.

Meanwhile, Leduc, even deep into his 40s, was an absolute warrior, always back up on his feet to fight, always pushing forward, giving his all to escape each hold, but sometimes not how he'd prefer. He was able to get his trademark headstand spin out of an arm puller, but for the headscissors, he couldn't manage it; they were just too tight. He had to squirm his way out through splitting the legs, through doing anything else he could. Maybe that's why he did strike first once or twice, but you never held it against him. It was what he had to do; the stakes were that high, his opponent that deadly. It was just business. Towards the end, he was the first to pick up speed, to escalate things further, but a high cross body went awry and he tumbled over the top rope. He climbed back in but was felled by three consequtive fall away slams by Mychel, able to pull himself up after the first two, but not the third. You can jump into any moment of this match and watch the two of them push each other up against the limit. Even when they were striking one another back and forth, they seemed to cut the gap so that they were almost face to face. There wasn't an inch of give there and there wasn't an inch of give anywhere else in this one. An amazing thing, maybe more so considering we've been watching Leduc go at it for almost two decades now and that he was able to create an equally exceptional but very different, gaga filled match when he teamed with Corn against Henker. What a struggle.

ER: We've seen a lot of stiff, well-executed matches in the 20 years of Catch, but this might be the match with the best fight feel we've seen. I don't think we've covered a French match like this. This felt like bad blood, but bad blood between two real entertainers. It all ended in Leduc being helped to his feet, but the 25 minutes before that sportsmanship was filled with potential hamstring injuries or broken jaws. This was Gilbert Leduc working as smooth as Santo but more violent than Finlay. Leduc's headspin escape should at minimum put him some sort of respected-in-the-right-circles Breakdancing Progenitor role. There was a real missed opportunity to have a Street Stylin Jacques Tati short feature with a Frenchman in a well tailored suit breakdancing on the L Train. Leduc could have started in a Spike Jonze video in a slightly different life. 

But in this life, he's trying to break Bert Mychel's hands by snapping at them with his strong grip (see how vice grip Leduc applies a cravat and picture that grip pinching into your hamate bone. Leduc pounds Mychel's hand into the mat, knuckles going into the soft spot of the palm. Michael takes the hand breaking in stride and sees where Leduc wants to take this, and starts colliding with him on every strike. Once we built to strikes, I'm not sure there were any strikes that only made contact in one spot. They start throwing their whole body into uppercuts, throwing a shoulder into the clavicle while throwing a forearm across a length of jaw. As the striking got more intense, the matwork got more intense. Leduc had an escape where he grapevined Mychel's leg out of a hold and rolled through so hard that it made my hamstrings sore. And the more intense the matwork gets the harder the strikes keep landing. Mychel rings Leduc's bell with one of the loudest open hand slaps, and the crowd reacts in more of a DAMN! way than with pro wrestling heat. It all builds to Mychel fallaway slamming Leduc to death repeatedly, throwing him over the top rope to the apron, then throwing him more onto the ring until the ref stops the damn match. It's pretty incredible the different ways that French Catch has continued to outdo itself, and I don't think there's another Catch match like this one. 

PAS: This was great stuff, it felt like a Billy Robinson or Terry Rudge match more than any other Catch match we have seen. We have seen other matches with great mat wrestling, and other matches with big striking, but this kind of hard gritty mat wrestling was a new thing. Every bit of grappling felt incredibly painful, and the spots with Leduc pounding Mychel's hand was iconically sick shit, it looked like he was torturing an enemy agent. Loved the finish too, with the multiple big fallaway slams. This footage just keeps delivering. 

Maurice Dumez/Georges Cohen vs. Antonio Montoro/Anton Tejero 4/30/73

MD: I think we have four matches with Montoro in the collection. This is the last. He has a rep of being one of the best Spanish workers, up there with Aledo, and he's so good and so versatile in what we have of him, especially his 70s work, that you can really see it. If someone who had lived through this period and watched these matches told me that he was the best they'd seen, I'd believe it. We just don't have enough footage to make that claim ourselves. He's taller, lankier, but can keep up with everyone in rope running and quick exchanges. He's hugely imaginative, using the conjuro backbreaker, a ripcord into a spinning tombstone, complex and intricate rope-running spots. He works those spots into callbacks, winning the first fall with a leap back body press off the top and losing the second by having Cohen catch him while attempting the same move. He has just enough personality throughout it all, raising his hands to deny cheating, sneaking in shots, having his arms flail about as he's getting punched. He bases for all sorts of offense, including a really tricked out headlock takeover exchange by Dumez, and bumps all over the ring, including a mad leap backwards on a miscommunication spot where Tejero crashed into his gut to set up the finish.

Tejero, of course, given his girth, bumps like mad as well. Dumez and Cohen were more than up to the task to face them here. I wish some of the comebacks had a little more dramatic oomph to them, as the beatings were solid and the heat was good, but when they came, they came a little too easy and didn't have that perfect flash of lightning to make them possible. Still, you watch this and marvel that Dumez and Cohen could take and hit all of Tejero and Montoro's stuff and equally that Montoro and Tejero could take and feed for all of Cohen and Dumez' stuff. You can't fault a second of the action in this one.

ER: We did not have a 1973 match on our All Time MOTY List, and none of us have seen a better contender from 1973 than Leduc/Mychel, so that match is now our 1973 champion! Peep the rest of our All Time MOTY List at the link below: 

ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Kamikazes! Dumez! Cohen! M'Boba! Bernaert! Cohen! Trijo!

Kamikaze 1/2 vs. Maurice Dumez/Georges Cohen 10/4/71

MD: Our list had this listed as Guy Mercier vs Kamikaze but it seems like we don't have that one, which is a shame since Mercier vs Aledo sounded pretty great. That's not to take away from this tag though. If it was just the first fall, it'd be a real classic. Even with all three and the match getting thrown out at the end for the Kamikazes brutally cheating and tossing the ref around, it's still up there. That first fall, though, had the sort of shine/heat/comeback format you often find yourself longing for when watching the French footage and four absolutely game wrestlers.

At any point, I could make at least a healthy guess on which Kamikaze was Aledo. He'd be the one who was rolling around the ring and coming off the top more while the other one leaned more into the strikes and bruising and tossing people out. That's just a guess though. Both could base for Cohen and Dumez and both could rope run when necessary; one just seemed better at the latter than the other. Cohen and Dumez had a lot of the skills you'd expect from turn of the 70s French junior heavyweights, going up and over, or down and around on holds. Dumez was spry, following recent Bordes matches by springing his legs off the ropes while holding a headlock, and having some amazing bounding escapes from headscissors for instance.

They wrestled clean for the first ten minutes or so, but once the Kamikazes started to go dirty, they were great at it. They cut off the ring, used ref distractions now and again (and the ref, who was antagonistic to the stylists, apparently had recently suffered an eye injury, which justified some of it), and came off the top frequently for double teams. Aledo (I imagine) had a great wrenching double arm submission that looked nasty, and both guys used the hangman's noose choke over the shoulder. The quick comeback in the first fall and the more extended celebratory spot-heavy one early in the third were both very good. While the finish sort of stunk, even if it let the Kamikazes keep their heat, this had pretty much everything else you would have wanted from a 71 French tag.

M'boba Les Congolais/Pierre Bernaert vs. Vasilios Mantopolous/Jean Claude Trijo (Trichet/Trigeaud) 10/18/71

MD: This got a lot of time, though it was primarily situated in the first fall. It was probably better as a total package than just one fall though since some of the biggest spots and moments were in the last few minutes. Trichet (or Trijo or Triguad, I'm not sure) was ok in his role and had this one nice little bit where he locked in a hammerlock, leapt over his opponent's head and turned around with a dropkick. Bernaert, a true veteran and master, even countered it late in the match. Otherwise, Trichet was there to get beat on a lot so Mantopolous could make big comebacks. He also had assembly line uppercuts from stooging opponents fairly late that were pretty over. Bernaert was more than happy to stooge throughout, including trying to ape Mantopolous' trademark hand-offering draw-in and turtling for instance. Mantopolous was his usual star self. By this point, he was established and his act was incredibly over with the crowd but he constantly added in new bits, or escapes, or counters. He could do these big sweeping flourishes of headscissors takeovers or bounding through his opponents' legs but also head close-up precise counters to holds. M'Boba's act had advanced quite a bit since his first appearance too. He now took a boa constrictor out to the ring and put it into his mouth repeatedly. Fransizka the handler who discovered him was now his wife. He constantly wore that put upon look on his face but also seemed as likely to be found lounging with a cigar as biting his opponent. Anyway, this had a good balance of the stylists outsmarting and out-maneuvering their opponents and the heels cutting off the ring and drawing heat by working over Trichet's legs with some of those big set piece spots with all four wrestlers at the end. Bernaert is the steadiest hand in all the footage and Mantopolous remains amazing to watch.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Richard! Peruano! Dumez!

Jacky Richard vs. Angelito 6/29/71

MD: This was our first look at Angelito who was billed as the son of L'Ange Blanc. It was another look at Richard who was a great base that could be really mean when called upon. Maybe what made the match most interesting however, was the debut of Babette Carole as the "First woman referee in France." The match was structured with Richard digging in with holds and Angelito working a number of escapes. You got the sense that Richard was probably directing traffic and setting up the spots. He could definitely go, even if the commentator seemed to doubt the shape he was in for the weight class. Angelito seemed a bit unsure at times, but had some very slick escapes, including an extended leg springboard to escape a hammerlock and a pretty nice rolling leg pick at one point. The match built to a couple of big moments, the first being Richard, who had cheated more and more as the match went on, getting Angelito's mask off only to fire Angelito up leading to a number of dropkicks. The second, which really got the crowd going, was Carole having enough of Richard and launching him with an arm drag. Gimmick stuff between the debut of Angelito and the female ref getting so much focus, but the underlying wrestling was pretty solid.

L'Ange Blanc vs. Robert Duranton (JIP) 7/5/71

MD: This was attached to the Van Buyten vs Gastel match that we had covered ages ago. We had around five minutes of this. It's worth noting L'Ange Blanc's connection to the crowd and how he'd bask in a moment before hitting a shot; Duranton's absolutely amazing jabs which I don't remember being a big part of his act previously and dropped L'Ange again and again, including one right to the eye; and the fact that Duranton actually got a relatively clean win here which felt surprising. Post-match, they interviewed Delaporte who basically indicated he was retired but had all of the promoting to look after.

Inca Peruano vs. Maurice Dumez 7/24/71

MD: This one had been mislabeled but it's definitely Dumez vs an aging Peruano. This isn't the Peruano of the late 50s, but he was still very good. Remember, we're in 71 now, only five years until he'd be wrestling on WWWF shows as enhancement talent Rocky Tomayo. Dumez apparently was 25 and had a greco-roman background but you wouldn't really know it from this. He had some interesting stuff based around headlocks, and stepovers into armdrags and what not, and a really nice entry point takedown into the rolling leg nelson in the end. He also spent the first two thirds of the match coming back and scrapping no matter what Peruano did, maybe too much. Peruano didn't hit his hanging headscissors takeodwn but he had a great rana and did that body splash onto the shoulders of a sitting opponent that's so good. Dumez returned favor later on with some elbow smashes down onto the back of the neck as Peruano was sitting. At that two-thirds mark, however, Peruano had enough and started a long sequence of choking him with his palm and his foot pretty brazenly. Then he tossed him out repeatedly. Even into his WWWF run and 1980, Peruano wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring so he didn't ask Dumez to do anything he wouldn't do but given how close the chairs were to the ring it was a good visual. While Dumez kept coming back down the stretch after that, he seemed a half step behind due to the damage. Some of that late rope running came off as a little sluggish but that could be selling. It was believable enough when Dumez got a lucky body press for the win.

Peruano is such a fascinating figure throughout this footage. I think we came in looking to learn more about a figure we knew of, a Gory Guerrero or Santo, and we have gotten some of that, with Lasartesse and Van Buyten and Carpentier and Kiyomigawa and certain British wrestlers like Hayes, but Peruano was someone that was hiding in plain sight that we had no idea about. You can watch a Rocky Tomayo match from Hawaii against Sam Steamboat or at MSG vs Larry Zbyszko or even into the 80s in Puerto Rico against Gino Della Serra. Maybe someday we'll get some of his early 70s AJPW work as Joe Soto. Even in those late matches when he was broken down and didn't do much, he had such great timing and personality and crowd interaction. He was always on just like he was always on in 1957, even if he wasn't interspersing those moments of character with unique and innovative spots. Definitely one of my favorite wrestlers to have come out of this project.

Read more!