Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Leduc! Ramirez! Boucard! Mercier! Asquini! MacGregor! O'Connor!

Walter Bordes/Gilbert Leduc vs Paco Ramirez/Daniel Boucard 7/25/77

MD: We get a solid 20 minutes of action here, so while this is incomplete, there's a lot to see, and a lot of enjoy, and a lot to learn. For one, it's Leduc, the wrestler of the 60s, teaming with Bordes, who may well be the wrestler of the 70s. Ramirez, working sort of ebullient yet cowardly matador gimmick, was a great heatseeking heel and Boucard, more of a mugging, clubbering one. Leduc still had it, able to slug it out and do all of his signature spins and Bordes had such amazing energy, both when he was charging headlong into his own offense and eating Ramirez' charging headbutts to the guts. Sometimes, he went so fast that it went haywire, like when he tried to flip up into a 'rana off, but they always recovered; here it was with a nasty power bomb. The structure of this makes it a bit of a shame we dont' have all of it, as Boucard and Ramirez, after shaking hands politely, staged and ambush and actually pinned Leduc in the first minute. We only get the brunt of the second fall before the video cuts off, unfortunately, but it was very complete in the action we do have, exchanges and bits of heat and comebacks and the occasional slugfest. This will be our last look at Leduc so I saw it as something of a passing of the torch to a more than game Bordes.

Guy Mercier/Bruno Asquini vs Alan MacGregor/Marc O'Connor 8/1/77

MD: Michel Saulnier was an exceptional wrestler and trained Andre and Petit Prince if I'm not mistaken but he was an outright heel ref here, as heelish as we've seen, and while it absolutely got everyone in the crowd angry, especially as this was a crowd filled with more kids than usual, it ended up being a bit much in this one. Let me put it this way. It was okay this one time, because it certainly worked for what they were trying to do, but as someone watching 45 years later, hopefully they don't go back to the well again. On a social level it was interesting to see the announcer laughing and dismissing Saulnier's antics as good fun and patronizing the kids in the audience for taking it all too seriously. That gives you some sense of how all of this was taken in France on a macro level maybe?

It was all so over the top and comedic (with the comebacks being about Mercier and Asquini attacking Saulnier as much as attacking the Scots) that you really have to take it as its own thing and it makes it hard to compare to more conventional matches. That's almost a shame because this had more straight up heat than most French matches we see. The heels dominated almost the whole thing, mainly through control of Asquini's arm, cutting off the ring, some very credible offense, and of course, Saulnier missing tags and holding Mercier back. MacGregor had size and hit hard and O'Connor was a real mean mugging goon type. Asquini, older but spry, did very well as face-in-peril including setting up and paying off his hot tags rolling across the ring and Mercier, unsurprisingly, was able to knock everyone about when it was his time to come in. There wasn't really any meaningful selling of the arm but it still made sense as a was to control things. The celebratory last fall was shorter than usual though you got glimpses in the second and so much of it was about Saulnier getting his comeuppance. It was certainly fun, no question about that.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Saulnier! Cabrera! Renaud! Genele! Falempin! Ramirez! Batman! Gonzalez!

Michel Saulnier/Pedro Cabrera vs. Teddy Boys (Guy Renaud/Bobby Genele) 6/7/73

MD: This is a runback of a match we saw and loved in 71, and it was still certainly top notch juniors tag action. This time it was in more of a studio style setting and just one fall. Genele was an all time jerk and Renault could work super smooth, very fast, very complex exchanges with Cabrera and Saulnier, the sort of stuff that makes you look at Malenko and Guerrero and realize that things weren't all that novel, just forgotten. They wrestle pretty clean for the first ten minutes and then less than clean but with the stylists coming out on top again and again for the next ten. Every time it starts to really pick up on a heat level, they come back. The last ten has more considerable periods of control by Renault and Genele, including some great tombstones by Renault and just as good, if not entirely different, cheapshots by Genele. The hot tag, therefore, does feel rather hot and the comeback fiery. It's all good stuff, but it's stuff we've seen a chunk of. This is one of those matches where if you'd never seen any French footage, you'd be absolutely blown away but it serves here more now as just more evidence of what we already know: the standard quality of the work in French juniors tags was absolutely exceptional.

Michel Falempin vs. Paco Ramirez 7/19/73

MD: We get the last four and a half minutes out of an almost 25 minutes match. Good action with plenty of heat. Ramirez was billed as Andalusian, unless I'm mistaken, and had a gimmick where he wanted to be a matador but ended up wrestling instead. We'd seen him team with Batman before but he was working rougher here. He hit hard with some big corner whips, using his size. Falempin, of course, was one of the Celts with Jean Corne, and the crowd was behind him and his comebacks. There were a couple of near-falls I bought but they were primarily to make sure someone landed on the ref in the kickout before a quick rope running sequence led to the actual finish. We haven't seen a ton of high cross body blocks in the footage and Falempin put a bit of extra oomph into his here. Shame we didn't get this whole one.

La Batman vs. Jose Gonzalez 7/19/73

MD: We've seen Gonzalez a few times now, but it's been hard to place him alongside guys like Peruano/Montoro/Tejero/Viracocha. I'm not saying they're all interchangeable, but we usually see them in tags so it takes a few matches for a guy to stand out. Gonzalez, however, does stand out. He's one of the best stooges we've seen in the footage, up there with Delaporte and Bollet, with Bollet's energy when it counts. Early on, when Batman was winning holds, he'd whine and wheedle and retreat to sell. He's the sort of guy who'd ask for a handshake and then kick you in the face twenty seconds later and then go to show off a bicep to the crowd like he had performed a feat of strength. He also had a high dropkick and some good rope running and, in the last big comeback spot missed a charge towards the ropes and ended up choking himself in them. Batman looked a bit smoother than last time I saw him, hitting cartwheels and dropkicks clean. He had a great sense of timing, of playing to the crowd, of knowing when to make a big comeback shot matter, of getting tit-for-tat revenge spots that would lead to a big pop. He was technically sound but a big showman as well, probably up there with Wiecz/Carpentier and Ben Chemoul towards the top of the stylists we've seen along those lines. This match was good on its own but important personally in solidifying Gonzalez' strengths to me. We'll see him a few more times before the end. 

ER: Gonzalez is great. He has the straight posture of Richard Harris with the face and hairline and mustache of John Astin going on 70s game shows without his piece. We've gone through a lot of hairstyle phases in the last 50 years, but the one that doesn't appear to be coming back is for balding dudes to just grow their remaining hair long. Watch any cop drama from the 70s and you'll find a dozen different example of male pattern baldness with every one of them coping with it in different, increasingly wild, ways. Combover ridicule no doubt lead to bald men mostly accepting their fate, but few bald men are brave enough to let their remaining strands grow and fall where they may. Maybe the acceptance is more of a French thing, as the Rick Rubins of the world are hard to find, and Jose Gonzalez understands that. He has a kind of combover but his attempts are not serious. He is not Charles Nelson Reilly or George Kennedy, starting his part just above his ear. No, Gonzalez just kind of sweeps his remaining top strands to the side and lets the rest of it hang long to his shirt collar. I think his hair really adds to the smug buffoonish way that he takes bumps, and he bumps great for Batman. Gonzalez took a big bump over the top after getting dropkicked in the back, and took a phenomenal bump when he missed a torpedo charge and wound up trapping his own neck in the ropes. Batman had one of the coolest cartwheels I've seen, done with Gonzalez at point blank range. Alex Wright used to kick guys in the head all the time when he did a short arm cartwheel, and Batman just defies physics as he avoids Gonzalez. I enjoyed watching this in the bathroom at work. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Lagache! Grelha! Saulnier! Renault!

Brief programming note: I've updated the Master List. It should be easier to search for a wrestler, or, once we get past the first year or so, to see things mostly chronologically. Feel free to share it widely and reply if you think we have any name or date or anything else wildly wrong.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs Pierre Lagache/Grelha Le Portugais 7/17/72 

MD: This isn't my favorite Ben Chemoul/Bordes match. It was one fall, which is often a plus but this was a long fall without a lot of drama and having the heels take a fall might have actually helped here. You can't judge these French matches against southern tags. It's a different thing in a different place from a different time in front of a different crowd with a different style. It becomes less about transitions and the tension between hope spots and cutoffs and the build to comeback then and more about ebbs and flows and how compelling the action is. It's about the engagement of the wrestlers with one another, the engagement of the crowd, the struggle of the holds, the cleverness of the spots, the personalities and skill and snugness.

Some of that worked out here, but some of it didn't. Lagache comes off as a smaller Bernaert to me, capable, able to base during fast action and for acrobatic escapes to holds, with the right put upon and sour attitude, especially in how he interacts with his partner and the crowd. He was fine. I wasn't overly impressed with Grelha (Maybe Grella?) though. He had the look right, a sort of caveman Mocho Cota (not quite Barbaro Cavernario unless he was the drunken mall Santa version of him). He'd bump over the top eagerly, would stooge well, occasionally had some good clubbering or stomping, but it just wasn't enough. The commitment wasn't fully there, the offense wasn't interesting enough, and he was too low on the overall weirdness scale. I've seen Lagache team with N'Boa against Ben Chemoul and Cesca and Grelha here was no N'Boa, at least not on this night. He paired better with Ben Chemoul who had a bit more theatricality in what he did and there were a couple of fun and unique spots like a catapult into the ref or Ben Chemoul and Bordes tying his hair into the ropes to trap him. In the end though, the stylists probably took too much of this and were never quite in enough danger. The one time the bad guys took over was due to drawing a public warning with blatant cheating and I liked that, and in some ways, it did set up them getting DQed at the end for running out of chances, but this either needed more drama or more shtick over all.

Michel Saulnier vs Guy Renault 10/9/72

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. They wrestled for a big golden trophy in this, and damn the wrestling here deserved a trophy. Beautiful beautiful match. Saulnier is certainly making an amazing case for himself with every appearance. The wrestling didn‘t have the kind of flips or whackiness like the more attention-drawing catch, but their movements were poetry in motion, each throw and running sequence executed to perfection. It‘s really amazing what you can do with armdrags, headlock takeovers and headscissors and varying them slightly. They worked all these really fast throws and ran the ropes, then settled it working control segments building to more elaborate counter sequences, then back to throws and rope running, all seamless. Just the kind of ebb and flow structure you want from a mat classic. Saulnier seemed to overwhelm the taller Guy Renault initially, so Renault worked a segment controlling him with a headlock which has to be one of the greatest headlock control segments I‘ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Renault started hitting Saulnier with these flying headbutts and drew some boos from the crowd, then Saulnier fired back with a tope of his own that knocked both guys down and felt truly epic. Saulnier made beautiful comebacks and went for broke when it was time to hit european uppercuts. Tempers flare a bit with guys ending up in stalemates and in the ropes and taking offense, but they kept working a clean match but amping the stakes building to the eventual conclusion. These two really looked like masters of the style here, never a slip up in anything they did and they worked this with such a pace that I have serious doubts any two workers in the world right now could rival them. Great great match, every once in a while I go back to check in on French Catch and end up being immeasurably happy that we have this stuff.

MD: This was a title match for a European Super Lightweight title. It felt more special for it and for the fact that Renault's wife and kids were at ringside. They cut to them a few times, though the kids didn't seem super interested and the wife was spoken to fairly deep into the match when Saulnier was grinding his face into Renault's cheek on a hammerlock. Renault was billed a Teddy Boy and was bigger, but he wrestled this more cleanly than we'd seen him in the past. While it got intense at times, it did have that traditional title match feel.

And for the first half of it, I got a little worried we jumped the gun on the 1972 MOTY as it was really sharp action, holds worked in and out of, just excellent stuff. They'd build to faster and faster spots and more and more complex escapes and then fall right back into the hold. That included a lot of fast pin exchanges and rope running, high level stuff of the sort that felt novel with Savage vs Steamboat if only because people hadn't seen Saulnier vs Renault. Some of these were put together with clever and meaningful bookends that utilized repetition in a way you don't usually see in this footage. They may have actually overdid it a bit because it was somewhat evident that they were low on gas by the midway point. At that point, there were some leglocks by Renault that weren't nearly as compelling as what they had lead with. They both picked the pace back up and got a lot chippier in their shots by the end but it was a title match worked clean and it never quite boiled over, instead ending on a series of quick pin attempts. Still this was very, very good and fairly different to what we've been seeing at this point in the early 70s.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Doukhan! Les Blousons Noirs! Petit Prince! Saulnier! Genele! Renault!

Jacky Corn/Gass Doukhan vs. Blousons Noirs 10/18/71

MD: Really good match that oscillated between heat and comebacks. I think at one point the Blousons got too deep down the rabbit hole after an extended period of cutting off the ring and sneaking in cheapshots because a fan started to go after the ref. They let the stylists have some more control after that, including some feel good stooging from the heels. Gessat might have looked a bit older and couldn't quite rock the black jacket the same way he did a decade before, but they were picture perfect in the ring. Manneveau had this great belly to belly toss over the top and wasn't afraid to bump into the second row either. I loved this bit they did where Manneveau had Doukhan in a grounded armbar in the corner and Gessat kept stepping on his other hand from the outside. The finish involved the Noirs begging off from some celebrity to the delight of the crowd but by that point Corn had already beaten everyone around the ring in his final comeback so it was fine.

Petit Prince/Michel Saulnier vs. Bobby Genele/Guy Renault 12/14/71

MD: The usual good stuff from d'Éricourt and Saulnier with Renault and Genele serving as bases and bruisers depending on what the moment called for. The VQ here was a bit rougher than usual but with a bit of work you can tell the difference between everyone. The first ten minutes, before the heels started to cheat, was as good as you'd expect but maybe not novel in any particular way. The most interesting holds actually came in the back third, with a long short arm scissors bit by Prince and subsequently a hammerlock he had to work out of. His act where he gets knocked out of the ring repeatedly and has to fight his way back was compelling and over. Saulnier was very effective as a hot that that would rush in and hammer everyone, despite his relatively diminutive size. There was always a sense of struggle here despite the complexity and sharpness of spots. There was a moment where d'Éricourt came in low on Genele and he just jammed him and power bombed him and it came off as incredibly uncooperative. In general, we're quite used to matches like this, but it's like watching a magician manage to repeat a difficult trick: it reaffirms what we know about the greatness of these juniors.

PAS: Prince is really a special talent, really all of these guys are, but he is so unique and incredible to watch. It is crazy that we discovered this guy, and get to watch him perform his magic in so many different ways. I am a huge short arm scissors fan, and this had one of the cooler short arm scissors spots ever. Saulnier is great too, and is a bit shortchanged by tagging with the Prince, it is like that WCW Nitro dark match where Blitzkrieg did all of the same spots as Super Dragon, just higher and faster, if Blitzkrieg wasn't their Super Dragon would have gotten his spot, Saulneir is also a transcendently talented athletic technico, it's just that he isn't the Prince

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Drapp! Dula! Genele! Renault! Saulnier! Cabera!

Andre Drapp vs. Jimmy Dula 4/26/71

MD: Mean, chippy fight where both sides used up their public warnings. It feels like the first 30 minute draw we've seen in a while. We also haven't seen much of either Drapp or Dula lately. Dula, especially, seems to have come a long way in ten years. He was a unique bruiser before who would appeal to the crowd after every move. Here, there was very little of that and more aggression as he was always moving to the next attack. They were really going from the get go, just great lock ups and jockeying for position with very little given, all the way throughout. As the match went on, Dula would cheat more and more but Drapp would then get admonished as well as he'd bend the rules while getting his revenge. It was definitely impressive that they kept it at the level that they did for so long.

Bobby Genele/Guy Renault vs. Michel Saulnier/Pedro Cabrera 5/7/71

MD: Exceptional juniors tag. I'd say the 20 minutes of the first fall was one of the best single falls we've seen in the entirety of the footage. They started by wrestling clean and fast, with Saulnier's low center of gravity giving him an extra bit of torque on every mare, Cabera showing off with the cartwheels, Renault basing like a champ, and Genele adding a bit of spice with his reactions. There was a buzz every time he came into the ring, and it wouldn't become apparent until later on just why. From there, they settled down into well worked holds and counter attempts for a bit until Genele started with the inside shots. It'd still be another round of holds before Renault really joined him. At that point, Genele shone with that sort of chip on his shoulder attitude and mean forearms and stomps that justified the reaction he had been getting. They took over on Cabrera's arm, creating an actual, genuine tag heat segment where they cut the ring in half, had hope spots and cut offs, and built to a big hot tag and Saulnier clearing house with faster and faster exchanges as they escalated to a finish. The rest of the match was still good, as Genele and Renault worked in another heat segment using holds, where the individual escape attempts felt more like hope spots than in almost any match we've seen. It's French tag wrestling so the second and third falls were far shorter and to the point, but the last one was celebratory and the fans got sent home happy like usual. I focused so much on the narrative that I was underselling how good any single individual exchange was. This was the high end junior style of the time. People will be able to make gifs of Cabrera going up and over and around to lock in a short arm scissors or some of the super fast rope running exchanges. It was just grounded in a structure that let the crowd really care about what was happening and that made the big moments resonate more than usual.

PAS: This was great stuff. Both tecnicos really threw some fun stuff, Cabrera especially was just flying around the ring. GIF makers can definitely get some shit to tweet at Jim Cornette. Genele is a real shithead and while I think the focus will be on all of the fast cool shit the babyfaces did, lots of credit to heels for making it look good and adding some real nastiness to the process. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Asquini! Manneveau! Saulnier! Torres! Kaiser! Mercier

Bruno Asquini vs Marcel Manneveau 5/2/70

MD: As best as I can tell, this was at an outdoor venue in Chantilly. There's talk repeatedly of a national wrestler's collective putting on the show. I'm fairly sure the venue drove the format, but this went around 12 minutes and is really one of the most watchable, accessible matches we have on the set so far. If you want to show someone some French Catch, this is a great choice. We rarely (if ever) have gotten to see Manneveau on his own and here he was able to stretch a bit more. With Gessat, he's relegated more to stooging. This moved quickly but I wouldn't call it a sprint as they worked holds, blocked counters, a push over the top, moving into hard shots and big spots, then back into holds. I'm not kidding when I say they were hard shots either. Asquini was a hell of a striker and Manneveau was really laying in the kicks and knees. They weren't out there for long relatively so they worked every hold and escape attempt with everything they had. In the end, Manneveau stole one with the ropes and I swear it's the first time we've seen such a thing in a decade and a half of footage.

PAS: Yeah this was really cool, it was like a TV studio version of the much longer matches we normally get. I really liked the leglock spot with Manneveau smacking Asquini every time he tried to raise up, only to get felled by a nice ax kick. I also liked all of the spots where they tied each other in the ropes. It was strange to see a grab the ropes finish, it is such a classic wrestling spot, but have matches end on straight cheating is really rare. 

Michel Saulnier vs. Ricardo Torres 5/2/70

MD: If Manneveau vs Asquini was a middleweight war with technical holds and big shots, this was absolutely a lightweight sprint. These two were constant motion. There were holds but they were reversed quickly often in the most spectacular way possible. There was something I had to go back and watch three times, where a slip through the legs was followed by a trip and a headlock attempt, but where Saulnier was able to pick out an arm for a wristlock at the attempt. The match was full of little moments like that and for the most part they didn't feel cooperative. Everything switched at the ten minute mark when Torres ended up accidentally choked in the ropes. Saulnier was quick to help him out in a sportsmanlike manner, but things went a lot chippier after that even as they kept the crowd up with pin attempts and spots as they rushed to a finish. Ultimately, this was another 15 minutes and another great match to show people, as it was a snapshot of the breathtaking French lightweight style.

PAS: This was the kind of style which really blew us away when we first saw French Catch. Lots of super fast counters and and great looking ranas and armdrags. Saulnier hits a fast handstand into a rana which would be the coolest highspot on a PWG or AEW show, much less something from the 70s. The flip into the rope choke was really cool looking too, unclear how Torres's head didn't pop off his body

Kurt/Peter Kaiser vs Guy Mercier 5/2/70

 I think this was set up as a different show, but it's likely the same venue. Kaiser's now called Peter instead of Kurt (maybe one by the ring announcer and one by the commentator actually). They reference him previously winning in less than two minutes against Bayle and note that this is a catchweight as he's much bigger than Mercier. Mercier got a few of his really great leg picks in (some spinning and some just dropping down and one as he was rolling backwards out of a hold), his spin out headscissors, as well as some fun holds like a short leg scissors. He probably took a little too much of it actually, even though Kaiser was good at coming back with slams or a looming nervehold at every point. It was a banana peel finish where Mercier got over-exuberant on a comeback and Kaiser was able to side step him. They never really went for big heat here, even shaking after the match. I'm not sure if that had to do more with the venue or what but it wasn't quite the follow up to the Bayle squash I was expecting.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Saulnier! Rabut! Manneveau! Bernaert! Zarpa! Straub!

Michel Saulnier vs. Jean Rabut 6/20/65

SR: 1 fall match going a bit under 30 minutes. There was some blindingly fast wrestling in this match. The kind of French Catch you can show to someone who has never seen French Catch before and just watch their jaw drop. There was a nice hard-fought feeling to it too thanks to both guys never letting their guard down and struggling fierce over the holds. Both guys getting upset and shoving each other around made the match, but they kept it clean and we even got a finish. Depending where you stand those animosities not boiling over into a full scale war may or may not have detracted from the match. One thing is for certain: these two put on a high end technical match which we haven‘t seen in a while.

MD: A real masterpiece of a juniors match. The announcer starts by calling them "Lilliputian," when comparing their heights, but there's not a single person in the crowd that holds that against them as the match moves forward. Rabut was pushing 40 here and Saulnier maybe around eight years younger and that played into the match, both for the chip on Saulnier's shoulder and, as the announcer speculated late into the match, the idea that Rabut might be tiring out first. The holds were very much what we've been used to in these settings, but faster, sharper, full of more oomph, with an additional twist or two at the end, one more escape reversal than we would have gotten a couple of years earlier, one sure tight reversal cut off and reversed itself. As the match went on, they got more mileage out of the casual shoulder slap to signify a release of a rope break than any match in history. It started congenial, but built to one or the other returning the favor and, generally, Saulnier getting hot over it. They ran parallel spots around it. At one point, Saulnier annoyed Rabut, who immediately put him down with a headbutt to the gut off the ropes (one of the first actual shots in the match) only for Saulnier throw one back the first chance he had. 

There was an excellent extended headlock sequence mid-match which felt driven by Rabut wanting to cool off Saulnier whose shoulder chip was becoming a fiery chasm. Later on, when Saulnier took it a little too far and Rabut was unleashing stuff on him, he too went for a headlock to try to cool things back down, driven by a sense that maybe he took it all too far. It never quite went over the top. They'd throw uppercuts and forearms and unleash knee crusher, but they always took it back down to holds or to the side for rope running and pin exchanges. The close-up work was brilliant throughout, little manual repositionings of one's foot in order to get leverage to escape a hold, a fake up high to set up a rolling leg pick (when Saulnier got really hot towards the end he outright swiped at Rabut's head to drop down for the leg), Rabut's tendency to slap away a hand to get the advantage on a lock up. They worked every hold, constantly looking for an escape or some way to keep it on. I imagine by the twenty-minute mark, the crowd envisioned a 45 minute draw with the two swiping at each other or going for fast pin attempts as the bell rang, but around 30, Rabut missed his opportunity to get a pin off the ropes and Saulnier came back with a deep (and deeply worked) jackknife pin for the win. Post match, despite the emotions that flared throughout the match, Rabut seemed pretty pleased with what they accomplished. As wrestling-as-sport goes, this was top notch, believable, emotional stuff. We'll see Saulnier switch roles over the next few years and Petit Prince enters the equation, but he was excellent here as the fiery upstart, with Rabut the skilled journeyman steering the ship.

PAS: This was really skilled impressive stuff. What really struck me watching it was the speed in which they would get up on their feet after taking ranas and armdrags, it was like watching a glitch in the Matrix. The actual grappling was also really class, with both guys doing minor tweaks and adjustments to holds which were a couple of degrees off from what you are used to watching in pro-wrestling. I kept waiting for this to break down into rough and tumble violence, and the uppercuts which were thrown here had really meat behind them, it never really got there though and thus didn't have the escalation of the truly tip top catch matches. That keeps it out of 1965 MOTY for me, although it was really breathtaking high end stuff for sure.

ER: I do think the greatest strength of this match is that it makes a really great primer for new French Catch fans. I think we've covered plenty of French Catch matches that could be described similarly, but this is the French style that might pop out more to a casual viewer due to its speed and pace. The French Catch style is one that rewards all levels of audience engagement, and this is one that has enough eye popping moments to catch the attention of someone focused more on their phone than the match, but also has enough micro-aggression build leading to bigger stuff that will pay off for a more focused viewer. It didn't escalate as violently as the great Catch, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a banging juniors match. The speed was really the highlight for me, as it's one of those French matches where you think you're watching something in an entirely different framerate, defying physics with oddly timed kip ups and headscissors and the type of Catch armdrags that wind up in a different direction than the one you expected. The grappling was strong and had several cool leverage moments, and the match also had several bizarre moments. I've said since we started reviewing Catch that there is always at least one thing that stands out as original in every match, and the moment that jumped out most to me was Saulnier faceplanting (intentionally?) himself into the mat after swiping at Rabut, just swinging himself face first into the mat, only to grab an ankle pick while he was down there. I genuinely have no idea if that was the plan, or the cover up for the failed plan, but I love that Catch is always making me ask questions like that. 

Armand Zarpa/ Luc Straub vs. Marcel Manneveau/Pierre Bernaert 7/2/65

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. This was your typical French tag with lots of rudos beating on faces and faces making a fool of rudos. Manneveau was quite the vicious bastard here, and Bernaert did his thing. I thought the match needed better tecnicos. Straub, the judoka, didn‘t even do any judo moves and instead did a bunch of foot attack bullshit and Zarpa was technically competent but not very charismatic. As a result the match felt a bit dragging und unspectacular, although the crowd was hollering. Bernaert and Manneveau were pretty violent, but that‘s nothing outstanding.

MD: This isn't my favorite tag that we've seen, but it had some things working for it. First and foremost, there was a throughstory of Manneveau being afraid of Straub. He'd refuse to be in the ring with him at any point, would refuse to tag in if he was there, etc. Manneveau is such a wormy, emotive stooge that he absolutely made it work, and thankfully, mercifully even, they made it pay off in the final fall when, upon being tagged in, Straub immediately knocks Bernaert off the apron so Manneveau can't tag out. He then gets thoroughly trounced in a satisfying manner for a couple of minutes. Past that, Zafar, while not being spectacular, was solid, technical and fiery when needed. The judo guys are probably my least favorite French stylists and Straub may be my least favorite of all of them. I swear this match had the most chinlocks we've seen too, which is a trend for 65 maybe? Chinlocks can be great if the crowd knows how to get behind a babyface in them, but that wasn't the case yet here. The second fall also ended with the old "face puts his head down for a back body drop and gets kicked" spot, which I don't remember seeing in this footage so far, no matter how rote a cut off/transition it is for us in 2021. There were two great tag spots, the first being Manneveau charging in to interfere only to accidentally put Bernaert in a headlock, and the second being Straub and Zarpa hitting simultaneous armdrag slams as the heels rushed them, but the match probably needed a few more given its length. There was nothing technically wrong about this, and the underlying story was fun, but we've seen a lot of more compelling tags.

ER: I liked this more than the other guys, even if it didn't reach the levels of our best tags. This had a great heel performance from Marcel Manneveau, a posturing buffoon who only wanted to avoid Luc Straub, a story that lasted 30 minutes and was paid off in the final minute. Manneveau carries himself like a French David Young, and cheats from the apron the entire match. I love a good apron cheat, and Manneveau was always quick to run in with an eye rake or the most blatant chokes (I'm not sure how much control the ref had over this match), and him flexing at Straub after the second fall was my favorite part of this. Bernaert often was left to pay for Manneveau's cheating, but I also loved all of Bernaert's attacks on Zarpa. Bernaert's knees had a homing device aimed squarely at Zarpa's forehead, and I loved how he made them connect. I thought Straub was fun, a large guy who perhaps worked a bit too small (felt like he was always working as undersized against the smaller Bernaert) but had some unique attacks and kept them moving. I didn't get the same slow down vibes, I thought he was smart at moving from a chinlock to something new, my favorite being the way he locked Bernaert's arm behind his back before hooking Bernaert's arm in his knee crook, moving him into an excellent pin. He did a couple things I haven't seen, like getting out of a headscissors by running in place on Bernaert's chest. The finish payoff of Straub finally getting his hands on Manneveau, elbowing Bernaert off the apron to prevent a tag, doing a kind of kappo kick after tying Manneveau in the ropes, all of it was great. The only crime this tag committed was maybe being a bit too long and then kind of rushing through the three falls, but I liked all of the work we got. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: BILLY CATANZARO! Duranton! Chaisne! Le Magorou! Mantopoulos! Louis!

 Michel Saulnier vs. Jetty Coster 06/03/60

SR: JIP match where get the last 8 minutes of a time limit draw. Jetty Coster, what a name. Saulnier was young and lean at 24 years old. Coster was bigger, but Saulnier was relentless and seemed to be tiring him out. Some quite amazing fast moving sequences here, including Saulnier backflipping and then popping up with a headbutt, and some neat pin attempts. This about served the point of being a fun scientific wrestling exhibition while folks sat there waiting to throw cigarettes at Robert Duranton.

MD: We get around 8 minutes of this. They'd already gone 22 or so. It's good action with a clever callback or two even in what we have. There's were a couple of great bursts of speed and complex spots, including Saulnier hitting a leap up to a victor roll though he had to grab the rope to do so. My favorite bit was a little later when Coster dodged another Victory roll but sort of shifting himself between the raindrops so Saulnier had nothing to hang on to. I've never quite seen that before. Otherwise, this could have used a little bit more focus. As it went towards the time-limit draw, there was a little bit of escalation with forearms but it was mostly Saulnier containing Coster by hanging onto an arm. This was our first look at Coster and he definitely hung with and based for Saulnier. We won't see him again so that's going to be my only impression of him.

Robert Duranton vs. Michel Chaisne 06/03/60

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Last time we saw Duranton he was flamboyant. Now, he has returned with a bleach blonde head, a robe and an equally arrogant male valent. I would say it feels novel compared to his earlier appearance if we hadn‘t seen a murderers row of whacky characters ranging from masked hangmen to literal Quasimodo and motherfucking Spartacus on TV in the last few months. This was another heated match with Chaisne bringing the wrestling and Duranton bringing the cheapshots and swaggering. There were some interesting moments around his valet who had a few audience members going at him and even got into the ring to get thrown around by Chaisne one time. There was also one well executed ref spots that stood out because I am used to ref spots coming across as really fakey. Really liked the backbreakers Duranton would hit followed by those nasty short kicks. Chaisne doesn‘t sell on the level to make this an epic match but we get Duranton finishing him off in a quite brutal way. France sure wasn‘t afraid of having nasty bomb throwing for a finish.

MD: We've seen this exact match up back in 58 and at that point, it was entertaining but Duranton hadn't quite worked it all out. Here, his act was complete. He now had a valet in a tuxedo that he worked into his match as a prop. He was haughty before, but it was turned up a notch or two. And maybe most important of all, the wrestling was smoother and he didn't do anything outside of his physical limits. Chaisne is just an excellent stylist: right place, right time, right moves. He also had a familiarity with Duranton and played into his opponents gimmick: escaping holds by mussing his hair, going tit for tat with revenge spots mimicking Duranton's cheapshots or backbreakers, coming back from Duranton's peppering kicks with a big face twister. This was over 25 minutes over the two falls and through a mix of familiar spots and new ones, through working in the valet and the ref, through Duranton's reactions and general meanness and Chaisne's superior prowess and perseverance, it's entertaining the whole way through. You almost can't imagine it not being so. When the valet is finally most fully involved, as Chaisne whips him into a tied-in-the-ropes Duranton, you can see the delight on the faces of the fans. Duranton gets a lucky reversal towards the end of the first fall, dumping Chaisne over the top on a third monkey flip attempt, and that's basically the match, but it was fun while it lasted.

PAS: Chaisne is a bit Vanilla but a really skilled wrestler who can deliver some pop, which really makes him the perfect opponent for over the top characters like Kaiser or Duranton. Duranton was so great in this match, he was like Adrian Street's daddy, a flamboyant prancer who could turn into a vicious killer at the drop of a bow. There was some great stooge spots, Duranton walking away from a dropkick attempt to pose, only to get dropkicked in the mush, and some really nasty stuff like Duranton sitting on Chaisne's face and smashing him with body shots. I thought the finish felt a bit flat, we have seen some vicious beatdown finishes, and while the exchanges were great the actually moves which put Chaisne down weren't at the level I expect for French Catch KO blows. Still this had a ton to love, and I am all in on Duranton. 

Billy Catanzaro/Gilbert Le Magorou vs. Vasilios Mantopoulos/Francis Louis 8/19/66

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. Billy Catanzaro, baby. Regrettably we only got about 4 more matches of the man who started the craze in the French archive, but Billy Catanzaro is really making every single one count so far. This was right on the awesome match train. It was basically the worlds greatest IWE juniors tag with a bunch of elegant arm lock throws and takeovers interspersed with guys kicking the shit out of each other. Catanzaro was already a grimacing veteran heel here and while you’d love to see him work more straight matches like the Cesca bout, he is fantastic in the Finlay role. He does about a 100 awesome things in this match. The nasty face stomps, the stiff short kicks, the unexpected bitchslaps, a super fast spinning armlock that looked like it would pop your shoulder, some nasty face grinding, the way he got his foot stuck in the ropes when he tried breaking up a pinfall... at one point he just went and punched Louis in the face to break up a pinfall, which is a sure mark of an all time great. I also loved his missed european uppercuts. Gilbert Le Magorou felt a bit like he was Catanzaros trainee, as he looked a bit younger and did similar things to Catanzaro but a bit less extravagant. That said he was extremely solid and never a let up, but this was the Catanzarro show through and through. He looked just great at both the actual wrestling as well as the stooging and bumping for his opponents. 

Mantopoulos and Louis on the other were a great pair of tecnicos. Mantopoulos is of course someone with a million tricks, but I also really liked his elegant wristlock reversals early on. That kind of opening wristlock work is is hard to make compelling when you’ve seen geeks like Zack Sabre Jr. doing it to death but it looked classy here. Mantopoulos also has some of the more esoteric moves you’ll see in this project including that awesome swinging backbreaker that Julien Morice did in a World of Sport match once and  the GIF of it became semi-famous on certain image boards. Francis Louis was the more straight forward side of the technico team and while not as flashy as his partner I really appreciated his dedication to just wrestle and throw brutal European uppercuts when it was needed. The match had a few heat sections that were extremely well done, particularly all the interference spots from Catanzaro/Le Magouru, and a great moment where Catanzaro took a fall with a tombstone piledriver, immediately going for the same move in the next fall with his opponent barely escaping. The match built to some brilliant quick rope running exchanges, and most importantly there was a ton of asskicking going on. I have no idea how these guys just clubbed each other with thudding European uppercuts straight to the jaw and nasty short kicks for +30 minutes and never slowed down but I loved every second. For a fast workrate-like match it got pretty nasty towards the end with Gilbert looking like he was about to get KO’d by Louis. I would’ve liked Louis to finish the match as he was looking like the toughest skinny lightweight on earth as he kept smashing dudes with those uppercuts. But instead he tagged in Mantopoulos and the match ended in a pretty esoteric way. That said the journey is the destination when it comes to European wrestling and this match was a 35 minute monolith of brilliant wrestling. Which begs the question, excluding BattlArts and Futen is France the greatest place for junior tag wrestling of all?

PAS: Damn did this rule. It is such a bummer we have so little of Catanzaro, with almost a decade in between appearances. He is a very different wrestler here, much more of a trick veteran than an athletic marvel, but he is tremendous in every variation we have seen him. Mantopoulos is a fancy dude, his spinning wrist lock reversals, actually looked fast and violent, and that back breaker variation Sebastian mentioned was totally dope looking. Both rudo were great at feeding for the fancy tecnico offense, and would unload when they got a chance.  I loved the different ways the heels would get tied up in the ropes,  great bit of stooging stuff and a great way to for the faces to get their revenge. We get our traditional violent uppercut exchanges, with Le Magouru especially really getting great torque with his hips before throwing them, it was like a Joe Frazier left hook. Finish was a bit silly for a match with such violence with both heels getting tied up in balls and counted out, but this was still an all timer. 

MD: Thirty-five minutes of brilliant pro wrestling. At times, this had some of the fastest, most consistent, most elaborate chained spots we've seen as the heels keep feeding for Mantopoulos and Louis' takedowns and holds. It was often so quick and creative that the camera didn't know what to follow. That sums up the match as well as anything else. The heels weren't in charge much but they made the most of it when they were. Catanzaro was such an amazing jerk, one of the greatest characters in wrestling history, dancing and prancing around with excitement, making elated faces, as he laid in forearms, kicks, and stomps (immediately to beg off if he lost the advantage). He could go from sheer brutality to getting his foot caught in the rope on a dime. Le Magorou had a slightly out of shape junior goon look to him and he made for a great whipping boy for Catanzaro whenever they get foiled or clowned. They hit enough of their cheating and double-teaming to make it all credible and to make it matter all the more when it didn't work out for them. Louis always looks good, but Mantopoulos just goes above and beyond. He possessed great physical awareness in how he ducked a forearm or spun out before a takedown. It's as if the world moved half a step slower than him, which worked not just for wild spots but for seizing a normal advantage. Honestly though, they all went so fast when it was warranted that most exchanges started with a believable little fake out attempt. They went little with the fake-outs or Catanzaro's mean mugging, but they went big too, whether it was Catanzaro hitting two full nelson spins into backbreakers only for Mantopoulos to tag in and reverse the third with a Robinson backbreaker and then hit conjuro style spinning trapping backbreakers on both guys or when they trap both heels in the ropes and hit multiple alley oop body splashes on them. The back half of the match contained more of those elaborate set pieces and the crowd loved all of it, building finally to one of the more unique finishes you'll ever see.

ER: I loved this, and how could you not!? This is just the pinnacle of athleticism and personality through pro wrestling. I genuinely don't think there is any acrobatic wrestling better than this, nothing today compares to this. There are great athletes today, but none of them can work with the unpredictability and creativity of the men here. The unpredictability is the key, as you just never have any real idea of where some of these guys are going with their material, and yet nobody ever seems lost, nobody ever seems to be waiting too long in position, nobody does anything with their face or body to indicate they know what is happening next. Their misdirection skills are incredible, nothing in sight is telegraphed. It's incredible. 

This was such a thrill, with an excellent rudo team and two incredibly fun and capable tecnicos. Catanzaro is a legend of ours at this point, and it's great we now have two matches of his, a decade apart, with such different aspects of his abilities on display. This was like a hyperdrive William Regal house show performance from him, stooging around while throwing uppercuts so hard they looked like Louis and Mantopoulos weren't leaping to sell them, instead being lifted by force. He and Gilbert Le Magorou are such an excellent team of single strap stooges, and it feels like Catanzaro is so magnetic that he kept outshining the also excellent Magorou. Magorou looked and wrestled like the best possible Oliver Platt in Ready to Rumble. He had a belly and great floppy hair and Catanzaro knew a ton of different ways to fall into the ropes. Each seemed like they had cool ways to fall on the bottom, middle, and top rope, and knew a few ways to get tangled in the ropes (two heels both tangled by their ankles in the ropes is the kind of thing I picture a John Tatum/Buddy Rose team doing). Mantopoulos is a tecnico who is impossible to take your eyes off of, with some of the most beautiful step up headscissors, hardest dropkicks, has a few of these incredible pendulum backbreakers (like Norman Smiley's pendulum bodyslam, but ending on a backbreaker), and a killer spot where he vaults off Mantopoulos's knee, kicks over his head, and lands in front of him on his back just to hit a wicked upkick. We haven't really had a disappointing batch of French Catch yet, but getting brilliance like this match is rare. 

Unsurprisingly, we are adding this tag match as the 1966 representative on our All Time MOTY List. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Robin! Rene Ben! Cesca! Saulnier! Marconville!

Guy Robin vs Al Araujo 11/27/59

MD: This show was out there but I don't think we've covered it. It's our last look at a personal favorite of this footage in Guy Robin. He didn't disappoint. Robin's constant motion in his matches, one of the most hyper wrestlers I can think of. He's always sneaking a shot in (especially a kneedrop to the throat), always arguing with the ref or the crowd, always stooging back. Pure entertainment, this guy. Araujo, who we've only seen briefly and won't see again, had this great rolling leg pick takedown, a really fun seesaw leverage submission that's hard to explain and which he turned into a catapult late in the match, and a cavernaria. He was working from underneath for a lot of this though. I'm glad that my last image of Robin is going to be him missing a knee drop off the rope and getting DQed for having a violent hissy fit over it as people throw trash at him. That's probably how he'd want to go out.

Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Gilbert Cesca 11/27/59

MD: This was out before, but no one who had watched it previously could compare it to the Arroyo vs Chaisne match from a week prior, and that is 100% the natural point of comparison. Both are stylist vs stylist. Both go about 30 minutes. The match from the week before was more clever in its spots and escalated to something that was harder hitting, but this one might have had a bit more energy and verve at times, with a few more spectacular spots and dives. Both Cesca and Ben Chemoul wiped out big at times. Ben Chemoul went sailing through the ropes to nowhere to start the last third of the match. Before that, they worked long hold sequences with frequent escape attempts (including an absolutely beautiful flying entrance into a short arm scissors from a top wristlock that I had to go back and watch three times). After that, the match really took off with some great back focus by Cesca and subsequent revenge by Ben Chemoul. The end sequence, likewise, had Cesca totally wipe out and clothesline himself on the bottom rope. Post match, Ben Chemoul talked up Cesca and the fans were very appreciative of what they just saw.

PAS: Man was this great. This wasn't at the level of Cesca vs. Cantanzarro, but it was in the neighborhood. I imagine if this was the first French singles to show up, it would have achieved a similar level of acclaim. Some of the counters and twists and turns were as cool here as anything we have seen. Cesca had some really nastiness to his attack, grinding the spine with his knuckles in a way which felt a little past the congenial level of the rest of the match. This also had two of the crazier bumps in all of the footage. Chemoul takes a bump to the floor which was functionally a tope to nowhere, and Cesca massacres himself on the bottom rope before getting pinned. These guys show up later as a cool tag team, but it is awesome we get to see them matched up in a top flight singles match. 

Cheri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert vs. Warnia de Zarzecki/Ami Sola 12/11/59

MD: We get about 11 minutes that constitutes the last fall of this match. It gives us a concise unit with a lot of action up front as de Zarzecki and Sola make quick tags and beat on the heels. Best spot in this was Bibi shrugging off a Sola dropkick only to miss a charge and go diving through the ropes and eat a bunch of dropkicks (with Bernaert eating them as well) after he made it back in. I like Bibi more in these last few appearances than in the early ones. I don't know if he's gotten better of I've just gotten more used to him. He's just a bruiser and a goon, but he has a pretty good sense of when to give and when not to. At one point, Zarzecki tried to slip behind into a hammerlock from a headlock, and Bibi just jammed him and fell backwards with a quasi-German. Despite that, he was still able to work the style and hit an up and over headscissors out of a top wristlock. He was also a looming presence with his ever-present grin and a lot of bits of interference from the outside, especially on pins. Bernaert was a cheapshot artist as always, and he and Bibi made a good unit. We'll see them again. Zarzecki seemed off once or twice but hit more than he missed, including a giant swing, and catapulting Bernaert into Bibi in the corner. Sola didn't get to do his 'rana in this fall, but he had great strikes and maybe the first 10-count punch in the corner we've seen (which in this case was just three nasty elbows but you get the idea). He also did a tombstone which seems more prolific as a move at this point than it was half a year prior. Good stuff but we miss something for not having the whole match.

Michel Saulnier vs. Jo Marconville 12/11/59

MD: It's our first chronological look at Saulnier, trainer of Petit Prince and Andre and just an excellent junior all around. It's our last match of the 50s. This feels a little transitional. I don't know if that'll play out in 60, but this match felt like an evolutionary step from French juniors wrestling being the same as the heavyweight style, just quicker, to having more of the complex spots and acrobatic flourishes we'd see later into the century. Little things chained together that we hadn't really seen earlier like following up a monkey flip with an immediate dropkick or some new bits of athleticism like Saulner's victory roll late or one of his up and over escapes having a few extra bits of mid-air hooking and turning. He was a little clunky about 10% of the time, but what he hit made it worth it and his selling, which really stood out in the era, absolutely made you look past it. There was definitely a sense of general damage and weight as the match went on. Marconville more than kept up with him but he was forced into the role of base, whether he wanted it or not, just by Saulnier's skill. It would take him three kip ups to get out of a hold (normal for the era) and Saulnier just one. Occasionally he'd get frustrated and a little violent or tease something untoward, but he never dipped far in that direction. When he got a solid advantage, he might show largess with a handshake. It all came off as very human given the situation. Good match but it felt more a preview of what was to come than anything else.

PAS:  This was full of feats of skill, but never really came together as a match, kind of like a neat Nitro match which didn't come together but had three cool Super Calo things. Saulnier was slick as seal shit in here, flying all around the ring, constantly looking for headscissors and victory rolls. The only thing which will stand the test of time here, was the finish with Saulnier kipping up directly into a vicious headbutt for the win. Totally awesome spot, and something that an indy wrestler should totally jack. We have seen and assuredly will see better Saulnier and this was a nice tease. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Le Petit Prince! Michel Saulnier! Pierre Roinet! Jacky Corne!

La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 1/1/68

SR: JIP with about 10 minutes shown. Apparently, Michel Saulnier was the Prince's maestro, so I guess that explains the Rey/Psicosis nature of their matches. This was similiar to their 1967 encounter but different enough to be highly enjoyable. It seems their movements got even faster. Just some beautiful stuff on display here. The rope running, the armdrags, the emphasis on basic headscissors and pin attempts between all that, Petit Prince solebutting Saulnier in the face when you least expect it… it‘s all highly enjoyable and make me excited for having their next encounter in full.

MD: The JIP Saulnier vs Petit match we get is very similar to the back part of the full match, just with a different camera angle on some spots (which is a relief, actually, because we miss some of the best spots with the longer one due to the art overlay, like the hang-on-to-a-hold-as-they-go-over-the-ropes spot) and some more comedy ref interactions. They obviously had their travelling act down but so did Rey and Psicosis and Flair and Magnum and it's hard to fault something that people would so obviously want to see again and again. Where it diverged it was pretty much the same idea, just with a different way of getting there or things in slightly different order, but it's not worth focusing too much on that.

PAS: The clipped version of this made it feel like the WCW Pro version of a Rey vs. Juvi match. They kept the big stuff and we didn't see some of the build and interstitial stuff you get in the longer match. I really love WCW Pro matches and thought this was a total blast. Prince is such a unique wrestler,  he is basically Gallic Rey Mysterio Jr. 20 years before Rey. It is pretty crazy that you had a spectacular guy working this style in France, and nothing really like it anywhere else and then it bounces up again in Mexico, its like the wrestling equivalent of Newtown and Leibinz both inventing calculus. Prince had a bit of nasty in him too,  that spin kick looked awesome, I also loved the Saulnier kickout which sent the Prince to the front row.

ER: This did have a touring match feel to it, but it's a good routine. I really liked the beleaguered referee in this one, a guy working practically as hard as Prince and Saulnier due to the unpredictable movements of both. The ref's timing had to be exact as it would be far too easy to get clocked with a boot when either man was doing a sudden back handspring or floatover. There was a lot of timing that was similar to ref spots in midget matches (one midgets kicks out and sends the other into ref's arms or onto the ref's back, midget runs behind back and through legs of ref), except these guys are moving at 3x the speed. I loved the spot where Prince is rolling through an armlock and both start to spill to the floor, the hapless ref keeping them from hitting the floor, revealing that Prince kept the armlock held during the entire struggle and begins rolling again. He even rushed perfectly between them at the finish to break up the action, and if his timing were any worse he would have eaten an uppercut to the ear. And you never knew when Prince would break something wild out like his spin kick. I didn't see that coming and it played great, and when they broke out those uppercuts at the end I thought that was important, showing that all of their hopping around and dramatic shove off kicks from the back could lead to some real blows being thrown.


Pierre Roinet vs. Jacky Corne 1/1/68

SR: 1 Fall match going about 15 minutes. That is like a studio squash compared to the average French match length we‘ve seen so far, but it‘s fine to get a condensed version. Roinet sure had a tough guy look, with his Ahab beard and flannel patterned trunks, but Corne was just walking through him during the wrestling sections of this. It almost made me wonder if there was some legit animosity there, because Corne even forcefully executed moves like a shoulder pin in a way that didn‘t look pleasant. When they engaged in their first strike exchange, Corne just clocked him with the european uppercut. Roinet doesn‘t get much in during the early phase besides a nice bearhug, which Corne quickly worked his way out of anyways. I was starting to suspect a squash, but then Roinet was able to get something going hammering at Corne with kicks and forearm smashes. Some disgustingly thudding shots here. Corne quickly went back to business and finished Roinet off with a rope assisted move that really feels like a heel spot but the fans didn‘t take offense. Short and it got good when it got violent. I guess this does a really good job of making me want to see Corne vs. A high caliber technician or Roinet getting revenche on his opponent, but the more logical explanation for this going short is that they had to keep room for the main event of this show which was Andre vs. Scarface.

MD: I insisted on this one as a palette cleanser for the two Prince vs Saulnier matches as it was the second part of the JIP show. I think I ended up with more sympathy for Roinet than any wrestler we've seen so far in this project. A lot of the heels we've seen so far were just outright villains. This guy held his own for the early going but got outmatched midway and started to resort to whatever he could, mostly frustrated illegal attacks while Corne was grounded, targeting the back or really just anything he could get. It'd work for a minute or so but then Corne would come back twice as mean and twice as mad. It ultimately ended as a mauling. Some of his stuff seemed promising, like a bearhug exchange where he'd toss Corne against the ropes and back into it, but it ended with a cannonball headbutt to the gut. He'd hit a dropkick but then miss the second one. Or he'd just stomp and kick and pummel and uppercut, but then Corne would come back and brutalize him. At one point, Corne won a strike exchange with a spinning kick that sent Roinet sailing out of the ring. When he came back in Corne just grabbed him and sent him out the other side of the ring. So ultimately this was a slight contest but an enjoyable exercise in mastery, brutality, and frustration.

PAS: This kind of nasty fist fight in very much my shit. Having this follow the Prince match is liking having an Ultimo Dragon match lead up to Ashura Hara and Takeshi Ishikawa beating the bricks off of each other. You might buy the tape for Ultimo, but its Hara who sticks with you. This match starts off like a violent Finlay squash, and then turns into Finlay vs. Regal as Roinet powered up and started firing back and was bringing as much heat and he absorbed early. It was a cool story as Roinet was outmatched but was going to go out on his sword. Those forearms he was landing had some concussive thuds and the corner exchange between both guys was pretty thrilling. Man was Corne a beast, Matt and Sebastian mentioned him chucking Roinet out of the ring, but they did mention his knife edge chop to the throat and the face, that was the kind of thing that would make Wahoo McDaniel cringe.

ER: Unfamiliar with both men, I saw the sinister bearded Roinet and thought he was going to murder Corne. What I didn't know was that Corne was one of the hardest hitting motherfuckers that any of us have seen in a ring. And sometimes, after getting knocked to his knees by another Jacky Corne combo, it looked like Roinet himself had no idea how hard he was about to get hit. There was one point where Roinet was on his knees buckled, right arm clutching at his ribs, and I thought he wasn't going to get back up. But eventually he got up and fired back, and it was one of the stiffest matches we've seen from this French footage. I still couldn't get over Corne's combos, as sometimes they looked like they wouldn't have much on them, but they landed flush. Corne doesn't have exaggerated wind-ups or punchy follow through, he comes in short and close and he gets incredible impact from such close range. His chops are among the best chops I've seen, thrown high up by the throat - much too high for my comfort - instead of to the broad of the chest, and they land quick and sharp. He had a body shot that was also a real scene stealer, used as the mic drop moment of a few exchanges, and between his chop and his left to the body it felt like he had enough for a 1-2 finisher. I love how this all broke down, loved Roinet's big bump to the floor and the way he threw himself into a hotshot for the finish, and especially loved Corne's violence which lead to our big slug out. 

La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 10/4/69

SR: 1 Fall Match going 30 minutes. For some reason, they kept overlaying this match with classical music and paintings, which adds to the flair of what you are seeing. I honestly thought this was another borderline masterpiece that easily stands up to any other level of highly respected wrestling match we've known before. Sure, it‘s transparent that these two had their routine and their go-to spots, but you have to keep in mind that back then people couldn‘t rewatch matches and their previous match aired over a year before. This match was more ground-based and didn‘t have the same level of crazy elaborate spots the 1967 match had (although there were still a few spots that any modern audience would shit their pants at if two current workers pulled them off as clean and fast as they did here) but I think the best part about these matches is not the flippy shit they do but the way they will chuck each other hard to the mat with arm throws and headlocks. And there was plenty of that here. Saulnier really wanted to beat that fucking Prince this time and was grinding him down with headlocks and armlocks hard, which lead to some great subtle selling from the Prince as Saulnier was just wringing his head off. It probably says a lot about me that my favourite moment in all this was Saulnier catching the Prince with an extremely well timed and vicious looking headlock takeover in the middle of a criss cross running spot. Saulnier also has a really great crossbody. People probably won‘t like that none of their matches have a finish but I guess that was kind of the point.

MD: This was tremendous, providing real substance to the spectacle that we've seen with the JIP matches. After seeing the second JIP match, I was impressed, but I sort of wondered if what we saw was all that it was: a bunch of spirited, expert amazing spots, without anything to really ground it or give it meaning. I was already wanting to see both of these guys against bases instead of each other. I was worried about diminished returns watching three of basically the same thing though.

Then this match came and blew me away. The first twenty minutes are basically three extended hold sequences where Saulnier just hangs on no matter what Prince does. We've seen that as a narrative tool in a number of these more serious French matches but nothing like this. They just build it and build it and build it, weaving in more and more elaborate escape attempts and Saulnier either cuts Prince off or just hangs on no matter what. By the time they're going full blast for the part of the match we were more familiar with, that entire crowd badly wanted what the came to see, the lightning quick spots and acrobatic athleticism that they only had bits and pieces and tastes of for the first twenty minutes. That's the joy and the heartbreak of this footage. We don't have another full match between the two. Without this match, we would have never known that they set up that grand finale fireworks display with something so disciplined yet imaginative. Without another full match we have no way of knowing if it was something they always did or something just for this weird art special. But we're so, so much better off for having this match in full, so we swallow the unknown and be glad for what we have.

PAS: It is really cool that we get to see the unclipped version of their signature match. I remember when we would all get clipped NJ TV where we would miss the first six minutes of the NJ Juniors stuff and you always imagined how great it was. When we finally started getting unclipped versions later, it turned out the first five minutes of matwork in NJ Juniors matches kind of sucked. That is the opposite of what happens here, as we get the clipped section and it rules. Saulnier was a hell of flight grounder, and I loved all of the great work he did to keep the cork in the Prince. That grounded headlock takeover Sebastian mentioned was truly a thing of beauty. I also though the Prince was cool on the mat; his two big holds, the headscissors and the keylock were really great to watch. He would use his speed and athleticism to hold onto the holds, every time Saulnier saw some daylight, Prince would close the blinds. I do think it is a little weird that these matches seem to never have finishes, but it is hard to argue with the beautiful stuff we got. Excited to see how both guys work with other opponents.

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La Petit Prince is Having the Prime Time of His Life

La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 9/30/67 - EPIC

PAS: This was worked like is Godard directed Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko. Saulneir had these nasty cauliflower ears and would try to ground the Prince with tight headlocks and hammerlocks , and be countered by the Prince who was flying all over the ring with absolutely crazy backflips, headscissors and reversals. When Saulneir got on his feet he would move really quickly too, but the Prince was really next level with his speed and acrobatics. There were a couple of very cool unique spots, including a great sequence of reversals and counter attempts built around a short arm scissors, and a fun spot where Saulnier tries a bodypress and gets caught by the ref. Only minor flaw was kind of a flat draw ending, where the ref just kind of stops them mid lock up, no real drama or build to the draw, they just do stuff until it ends. It was super cool stuff though.

ER: And here I just copy and paste from every other French catch match and talk about how it's some of the most mind bending athleticism I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. These guys are like Cirque du Soleil (I'm casually proud of myself for not needing spell check on that one) performers with their balance and movement and spacial awareness, always coming up with new tricks and always taking exchanges a different direction that I expect. Petit Prince is adorable, in the ring with his little cape and his eye glasses, and Saulnier is a bit more of a brute, and I loved the longer the match went on the more brutish Prince worked. Prince had this amazing ability to grab a headscissors out of nearly any position, and there were no cheapies where Saulnier had to go over for a headscissor that wasn't quite locked in. Prince would catch Saulnier in one so snug that he wouldn't have any choice but go over, and that's kind of the greatest thing about this stuff: We get tons of hyperspeed hold exchanges (seriously, some exchanges look like the frame rate is sped up, but then you see the brie-baked ref slowly walking by in the background and you are reminded that these men are just super freaks), but they all look strong, never look like one of the workers is bumping something too early or going through a rehearsed sequence, which seems flat out impossible. There are no shortcuts taken with these moves; snapmares look like they're going to pop a guy's head off, same with the headscissors, backdrops look natural and headlock takeovers look violent.

Fans get really excited when Prince makes his comeback, puts niceties aside and starts taking it to Saulnier. Prince suddenly starts throwing in these dickish gestures, scraping his heel across Saulnier's chin, throwing in an absolutely brilliant spin kick right into Saulnier's chin, a spin kick that came so fast and landed so precise that I don't know if I've seen one better. What's amazing is these guys don't often strike, so you wouldn't expect them to just have this rarely used amazing strike hidden in their cape. We get a couple fantastic, unique moments, down the stretch: The two men start choking each other and wind up in the ropes, the ref attempts to get in between the choking and the two just continue choking each other around the ref. We get a fun missed crossbody where Saulnier flies into the ref after Prince ducks, with the large ref catching him and setting him down, like the most natural occurrence of a silly midget match spot. The draw finish was disappointing, but it didn't make me think the 20 minutes of wrestling was any less spectacular. And I disagree that there was no build, as the moves clearly ramped up down the stretch, with Prince especially working more big shots. It came out of nowhere to us, as there were no traditional announcements of a time limit, and these matches aren't built around going for a lot of nearfalls, so we don't get a ton of "cues" that a time limit is imminent. But I think the work definitely built, and really could have kept on going.

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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