Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mercier! Kamikaze!

Guy Mercier vs. Kamikaze (Mitsui Dozan - Modesto Aledo) 10/4/71

MD: This is a historical match but ultimately a disappointment. At the start of the match Kamikaze unmasks. They claim this is because there are as many as 11 fake Kamikazes running around France wrestling and I believe it from some of the other things we've heard. We had seen Aledo in this get up one later time and it's striking. He was shaved bald and either had parts of his face taped back or makeup on to look unique to say the least. Mercier is a higher weight class and they note that both at the start and after the match when Mercier is interviewed and notes that this must be the real Kamikaze after all and he'd know after wrestling him. 

Either because of the weight difference or just to get over the gimmick (I think the latter), Aledo completely loses himself in the character. For such an agile, technically sound wrestler to do so is a skill of itself and worth noting and respecting but were we to get one more Aledo match, I would not want it to have been this one, historical or no. There really are no long holds, though there are a few clever takeovers. There are a lot of karate chops, a lot of cheap shots, some hair pulling, a lot of mugging. There is a taupie (I always miss the "i" I've been informed) escape by Mercier and even a very short giant swing. Mercier even does this really great press slam gutbuster, and at one point he does fire back with some big shots. Most of this, however is Kamikaze skulking around and chewing the scenery. Eventually, he hits too many throat shots and tosses the ref away and that's the match. A couple of good individual exchanges and you have to respect how intensely they wanted to establish the bankable character and push back against the fakes, but knowing what Aledo is capable of, ultimately disappointing.  

SR: There's a bit of irony in how Modesto Aledo is this legendary grappler, but most of what we have of him is him doing the Kamikaze act. It's grade A pro wrestling bullshit, but I can enjoy some bullshit pro wrestling. There's a lot of cool things about Kamikaze. The way he moves, the creepy demeanour and appearance, the throat chops and nasty chokes. That thing he does where he gets flung over the top rope and somehow holds on and slides back in through the middle rope is amazing. And Guy Mercier is a real wrestlers wrestler type who I think probably can't have a bad match. It makes for some fun unique wrestling to watch, although you do end up wishing they had archived Guy Mercier vs Modesto Aledo proper at some point. 

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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.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gastel! Williams! Remy! MODESTO ALEDO~!

Modesto Aledo vs. Bob Remy 7/29/67

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. Not a superclassic like the other Aledo match we've seen, but pretty good technical work. Of course Aledo is ultra smooth and looks a step above. His standing headscissor is just insane. Remy is stocky and another solid French technician. They didn't seem to be super familiar, but most of the wrestling was slick and the gnarly bits were cool. Dug Aledos backbreakers. Remy launched a nice assault on Aledos arm, throwing him around and then locking in some tight short arm scissors. Aledo sold it pretty nicely, collapsing after hitting a forearm. It was one of the better bits of selling we've seen so far and made the ending more dramatic. Elegant finish.

MD: I thought this bit of footage was lost but it turned up and we're glad to have it. It's another look at Aledo, though one that shows a slightly different side of him than before. He still could be lightning quick, imaginative, and moved across the ring with confidence and mastery but he worked this much more from underneath, almost basing for Remy to really make him shine. That's not to say Remy wasn't bringing stuff to the table. He kept his holds interesting, including the back half where he grounded Aledo with long short arm scissors and then hammerlock exchanges with some great selling between holds. My favorite thing he did here was a neckbreaker though, where he just wrenched Aledo's face to get him into position for one of the meanest ones I've ever seen. They didn't quite take it into the gear that we knew Aledo could from our previous look at him, but it was nice to see this as contrast to really show off his range.

PAS: Aledo is one of those super maestros who you know was incredible because of reputation, and I was happy to get another surprise chance to see him. Like Matt and Sebastian said, this is an all time classic like the Teddy Boy match, but you could definitely see some of what made Aledo a legend. French Catch is a style with a lot of smooth movement, but Aledo is really on another level, just simple stuff like a armbar reversal is awesome. His deep roll up pin to win the match was about as great looking as I have ever seen that move applied. Remy was a real grinder, trying to keep Aledo bottled up with short arm scissors and hammerlocks, everything he did looked like it really hurt which is something I am always going to have a ton of time for.  

Frank Valois vs. Jacky Wiecz 8/2/67

MD: JIP, a little less than three minutes here. Valois was big and bruising, trapping the arm and sneaking in cheap shots and later tossing Wiecz out. Wiecz was billed as Carpentier's nephew and we'll see him once again in 68 in a longer match against Bollet and he was spirited and fiery with the crowd very much behind him. The big turning point was him grabbing Valois' foot to cut off the King of the Mountain and the fans went nuts for it.

Robert Gastel vs. Eddie Williams 8/2/67

MD: I liked the back half of this more than the first half, probably because Williams got to do more in the back half. That's not to say that the early stuff was bad. It was just by the books with holds, Gastel starting the inside shots early, and the ref being more of an annoyance than usual in cutting off Williams' comeback attempts. There were times where I think Gastel was even telling him to lighten up so that he didn't steal his heat, though a lot of that would pay off later on with a big collision spot with the ref that the crowd loved and then Williams just getting fed up and clocking him. Williams brought vulnerability and intensity and some strength spots and of course the headbutt towards the end. By the last few minutes there was a real sense of his momentum and the crowd, which we knew from the last match was a good one, was very much behind him. Gastel's the guy I could watch again and again though. He lives on that perfect line between mean and credible bruising and being a brilliant, reactive stooge. All of his stuff looks so good and all of his reactions and facial expressions and feeding is just so spot on. He's larger than life while just being this dumpy, nondescript lump of a guy. This might be our tenth match with him, but I feel like I know him in the ring as well as I know Dick Murdoch or Buck Robley. Just a great, great pro wrestler and I'm glad we were able to meet him through this footage. I'm also glad the ref in this one got clocked.

SR: 1 fall match going about 30 minutes. Man, Robert Gastel is such a joy to watch. Even when he is doing super simple stuff, he is supremely entertaining. This had simplistic grappling, armlocks and headscissors, but they kept it interesting. Eddie Wiliams is really athletic - super height on his dropkick - and has nice headbutts and forearms. And I just love Gastel. I'm sure if he popped up more he'd emerge as a Satanico-like superworker. This was more of a houseshowish match and a bit long here and there, but I enjoyed it. Worth watching for Gastel grimacing and punching Williams in the face.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Bibi! Aledo! Dula! Monsieur Montreal!

Jimmy Dula/Jean Martin vs. Monsieur Montreal/Leon Minisini 11/16/62

MD: Long tag that we miss the start of, and it's good. The last time I saw Dula, I wasn't 100% sure what to make of him. He hit hard but seemed to appeal, ironically, to the crowd after each shot. Here, he held that to between falls and it was pretty funny when he did it and made poor Martin do it with him, plus some fanning antics with the two of them as well, but otherwise, he remained fairly focused and helped to make a 40+ minute tag almost constantly entertaining. He just had this odd way of coming at you, weird angles, a lot of charisma, but hit super hard with his clubbering and headbutts and whatever else, while still being able to work holds. I think he'd improved since last time we saw him. Martin was a persnickety bully, no question, feeling like a guy trapped in a world he didn't make, just being swept along for the ride with Dula and taking it out on his opponents. Big stooging power when he was taking offense too. We won't see more of him, which is a shame. Montreal continues to show me a bit more than I was expecting out of a muscle guy. He works well in this environment, is more than willing to take his opponents' offense, but has some big set pieces to come back with, whether it's a belly to belly toss over the top or big catapults out of the ring. This is it for Minisini too and he was fine and fiery, with big shots when warranted, but a little bit interchangeable with all the others we've seen. Anyway, they kept this moving, kept it entertaining, with Dula almost constantly finding ways to keep himself involved and active. It felt unique in a sea of great, long, hard-hitting tags.

PAS: I thought this was totally excellent. Martin and Dula are cool looking guys, they look like a pair of Sam Cooke bodyguards, and made a really fun team. With Dula as the big bruiser and Martin as more of a frenetic ass kicker. I loved Martin's low angle in ring topes, and he took some fun bumps where he missed them and flew into the crowd. These long tags are very long, but the Martin and Dula team had a bunch of different ways to work exchanges so the time flew by. The finish got super exciting, including an all time great slugfest exchange between Martin and Montreal, it was Lawler vs. Dundee level stuff, with the combos and feints and variety of shots, blew me away. 

Jean Rabut vs. Modesto Aledo 12/14/62

MD: You look back at this footage and it's Modesto Aledo and Tony Charles we really, really wish we had more of. This is it for Aledo though. 3 glorious minutes of he and Rabut really going at it, with clever call back spots (turning the second knee crusher into a shin breaker, turning the second headbutt to the gut off the ropes into a knee lift) and something we've definitely never seen before as he jammed a 'rana, turned it into a power bomb, jammed the press up 'rana attempt, and turned it into a powerbombing backbreaker. This ended with one of the best sunset flips I've ever seen. And that's it for Aledo. Ah well. At least we got a glimpse.

Jacky Corn vs. Cheri Bibi 12/14/62

MD: Totally iconic match that tells you everything you need to know about two of the greatest characters in French Catch. Corn might be the best, most sympathetic seller we've seen, though what holds it all together is how he can turn it on when it's time to fire back. He's excellent technically, though maybe not in the top, top class, but as a total picture wrestler, he's as good as anyone in the footage. He's in those stylist vs stylist matches less because he'd almost be wasted there. You want to see him dominate on the mat early, take a beating in the middle, and them come back with thunderous, battling shots in the stretch. Bibi's come a long way as a tag worker over the years we have footage of and I think that held true in this singles match as well. He's still got that monstrous, almost ever-present look of enjoyment, a bulky way of constantly cheating and leaning on his opponent, but the timing and the purpose of what he does seems tighter and better than what we saw out o f 57 or 58 Bibi. It gave Corn one of the best possible foils to battle against here and they gave us a twenty minute or so match that was focused and pointed, that took the crowd up and brought them down again, and ended clear and clean and definitively in the center of the ring.

SR: 1 Fall match going about 24 minutes. The way I saw this described, I thought this would be like a miracle performance from Bibi in a technical clinic. It wasn‘t that, but it was still pretty great. It was pretty much a mix of tight, simple wrestling and some of the sickest slugging it out in this whole project. Jacky Corn reminds me a bit of a Shinichi Nakano type guy, not the most charismatic and doesn‘t do much fancy, but he will execute his technical moves a little tighter, crank his holds a little harder than everyone else, and engage in some disgustingly violent back and forth strike exchanges. And Cheri Bibi was just a tank here. He didn‘t do anything that made me think he was a genius worker, but he was quite impeccable here as a massive, barrel chested evil dude. The 2nd half of the match is mostly them slugging it out and it was spectacular, with some shots being thrown that would look crazy in a FUTEN match, and both guys lacing each other up with those nasty short kicks. Corn has a lot of things to dish out, at one point he was kicking the shit out of Bibi's shoulder, later he chops him in the throat. And Bibi took and gave as good as he got.

PAS: Pitched fist fight which started at 10 and kept cranking it higher and higher. Bibi looks like Bob Hoskins and has shocking Hoskins in Roger Rabbit level agility when he is taking moves. He is mostly a banger though, hard forearms to the throat, jaw and kidneys, powerful ring shaking slams, he feels like a guy it would absolutely suck to have to wrestle, you are just coming out of it bruised and sore. Corn matches him shot for shot, and even starts exceeding him in violence including some razor chops right to the throat, before finally dumping him with a fast violent tombstone for the duke. This actually felt like a Johnny Valentine match to me, which is about as big a compliment as I can give. This snatches that 1962 slot from Aubriot vs. Bernaert.

ER: You know a match is stiff when the referee works as stiff as the participants. My favorite part of the match - and the most exquisitely filmed shot of the entire match - was the referee throwing some disgusting stomps at Cheri Bibi's wrist and fingers as Bibi's hand gripped the bottom rope. It really made me notice how fearless the ref was the rest of the match, whenever he had to step in between these two to break up a skirmish in the ropes. This guy had uppercuts being thrown inches from his face and he had no problems getting his body in there. Now obviously the referee wasn't the star here, but it certainly added to the presentation for me. Bibi is our favorite Buzz Sawyer/Bob Hoskins hybrid (Buzz Hoskins?) who throws punishing uppercuts, hard combos (love his right punch to the body/left clubbing shot to the back, great rhythm), and full arm shots to the body. His body shots are basically standing clotheslines, a straight arm thrown from different angles about a broad section of Corn's body, and I suspect we'd see some mighty bruising if we had color footage available. 

French Catch tecnicos are always impress me with the amount of punishment they can take, always building to a big comeback, but Corn's selling really put over Bibi's beating. I love how both men sell in the ropes, and how they sell each strike appropriately. The bumping is never over the top, and they don't overuse the bigger bumps to put over bigger strikes. I love the butt drop sell after a particularly nasty uppercut, and each man used it once, really a great way to separate and get across the severity of a particular strike, which wouldn't be as special if they had done it throughout. The tombstone piledriver that Corn finishes Bibi with was on the shortlist of most violent things we've seen in this entire series. The drop happened below the camera line, but you can see where Bibi's head was in relation to Corn's knees, and the way he dropped down fast you can tell Bibi really got crunched. Somebody might have beaten Corn to the drop though, as Bibi's big round head is already square on top of his big round shoulders. This match takes over the crown as our 1962 All Time MOTY, in our list linked below. New champs are always a cause for celebration, and these two earned it. 

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: LeDuc! Lamban! Modesto! Teddy Boy!

Nikolai Zigulinoff vs. Robert Gastel 10/30/58

SR: JIP match. Zigulinoff is some Bulgarian sheepherd. He had that kind of aura only some mythical figure can have. Robert Gastel wasn‘t quite Les Matraquer du Rings at this point, he was actually quite the blue eye, although he sure had his dirty tricks already. He reminded me a bit of Dick Murdoch. He was dealing some serious hurt on the Bulgarian madman, who just walked through the punishment. Fascinating little clip.

MD: We get about seven minutes of this. We've seen Gastel before, much older, and he's the same guy here back in the 50s. Mean punches, meaner headbutts and hairpulls (including standing on his opponent's giant fro). Stooging. Zigulinoff is quite the character. Crazy hair. Big stocky body. Bulgarian shepherd gimmick. Bearhugs and overhead clobbers and not too much else. At one point Gastel ties his hair to the ropes, as if he was Octagon. This was pretty goofy but the fans seemed to enjoy it and I don't mind our JIP slots being taken up by a few minutes of this sort of thing where we get to see the variety of the characters that were around in the late 50s.


Gilbert LeDuc vs. Rocco Lamban 10/30/58

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. Rocco Lamban, El Estrangulador~! It‘s a testament to the greatness of the Spanish workers that pretty much anytime one of them shows up we get a great match. Lamban, like Adolf Kaiser, uses the Dragon Sleeper as a finish. While he is not quite as comically evil as the Doctor of Philosophy (though he does look like a sophisticated fellow), he sure was willing to do every despicable thing not in the rulebook to get the advantage. He could wrestle, too, and that makes this such a compelling match up. They go from some nice wrestling exchanges with Lamban earning the respect of the audience with a nice hip throw to Lamban punching the shit out of Leducs ear and Leduc stepping on his face nicely. Leduc is impeccable as a gentleman technician who will forearm the shit out of you in these matches. You can say it about almost any face worker in France, but damn did this guy have great european uppercuts. We also get to see him play Bridge between the falls and that was really cool and now I‘ll forver dub Leduc as „The Gambler“ in my mind. I loved when Lamban decided to try and bite his way out of a hold, Leduc went Tyson on him biting his ear. Lamban is good enough that he doesn‘t have to rely on choking all the time. When they do get to working around the Dragon Sleeper, its some really compelling work thanks to both Lamban having a variety of ways to get the hold and Leduc having a variety of ways to get out of it. When Lamban finally sinks the hold in deep and chokes Leduc out it‘s gritty as hell. One thing I like in these old French matches is even the referees will get violent to get a heel to break a hold, usually facelocking them like riot cops pulling off protesters, in this case the referee just decided to punch Rocco in the face. The 3rd fall was really great and probably the best build to a finish we‘ve seen in this entire project with Lamban trying everything to get the Dragon Sleeper again and Leduc, being clearly wobbly, throwing body punches and left-right forearms. Actual finish was a thing of beauty.

PAS: This was tremendous. We have seen LeDuc before, he is the master of La Toupie (his Santo style spinning headscissors) and there is some really cool stuff early with Lamban blocking and countering his attempts to put it on. This had some of the most vicious breakdowns into violence that we have seen with LeDuc hitting these incredible one-two short forearm combos and Lamban trying to rip, tear and punch off LeDuc's ear. All of the stuff around the Dragon sleeper was elite, with Lamban just brutalizing him with it to win the second fall, and some really cool spots with him trying to get it on and LeDuc flipping and countering out of it in the third fall. Such a cool match, with Lamban being a great villain and LeDuc looking like an all time great babyface.

MD: This is a match where El Strangulador, Rocco Lamban, another master of the pre-1960 Dragon Sleeper, tries to cheat and shove the ref away for cheapshots, and just outright strangle his way to victory, with Gilbert LeDuc just having none of it. At one point LeDuc has him in that revelatory hold, the double leg nelson, and is just slamming Rocco's face into the mat. Rocco escapes with a bite to the leg. So what does LeDuc do? He bounds up and takes a chunk out of Rocco's ear. Immediately thereafter, Rocco uses harsh whips against the ropes into a knee to the stomach, once, then twice, then a third attempt despite the ref's admonishing. LeDuc catches the leg the third time and takes him down. A little later Rocco grinds a knuckle in LeDuc's eye, so LeDuc punches Rocco directly in his. He's got no time for any of this. He was the sort of guy who would attack first on a heel handshake attempt after a cheapshot. That said, later in the second fall, he didn't, and that's when Rocco really locked in his dragon sleeper. There are certain structural advantages of a 2/3 falls match. Having something win an earlier fall can build the drama of it reoccurring in the next fall. By the time the third fall started, Rocco's dragon sleeper was the most dangerous thing in the world and that let them really struggle over it. Rocco would do anything in his power, including rabbit punches and using the top rope as a weapon to lock it in; LeDuc would go so far as to pull the hair to get out. In the end, Rocco went too far to achieve his objective and the ref would break it at key moments. It was, ultimately, Rocco's only viable path to victory, and that certainty let LeDuc finally counter it for another great, 40 years before its time finish.

ER: Loved this, a match that looks like another fun Catch romp before taking a sudden violent left turn at the end of the 2nd fall. LeDuc came out of the gates showcasing all of his great arm strikes, quick forearms, hard elbows, hooking uppercuts, all thrown with different timing. Sometimes he would do a simple 1-2, next time he'd do a 1-and-a-2-3, next time he'd just come in with one hard uppercut. They all looked great, and what really put it over the top was the incredibly strong selling from Lamban. He had that Finlay-like knack for anticipating how hard he was going to be hit and bumping accordingly. Modern strike bumping has turned into bad stand in place selling or fast back bumps, but Lamban treated each strike appropriately. He would get staggered by some shots, get dropped to a knee on others, fall into the ropes, always looking like he was reacting to the strike being thrown. That has to be incredibly difficult, as you have no idea how well your opponent is going to throw a strike, and yet all of his movements felt like the perfect call and response. Lamban's selling was really important to the pace of this match, as LeDuc was so aggressive that this really could have turned into strike overkill. Instead, Lamban was providing space and breath with his selling, making strikes mean more. He had a couple other unique bumps (is there any 50s French Catch wrestler who doesn't have a couple unique bumps?), with my favorite being his belly flop bump after getting bucked from a full nelson. LeDuc popped his hips back, Lamban flew back and flopped on his stomach. It felt like a slightly straight take on a bump Candido would do.

This was shaping up to be a real LeDuc showcase, until Lamban choked the life out of him with his dragon sleeper to take the 2nd fall. And with excellent selling being the theme of the match, LeDuc sold the dragon sleeper as if he had been waterboarded. He was leaning forward, drooling, coughing, rubbing his throat, while ring attendants rubbed his shoulders and toweled him off. All of them were acting like their fighter was just waking up sitting on a ring with no memory of how he got there, and LeDuc's selling made that dragon sleeper hang heavily over the entire 3rd fall. Seeing how decisively LeDuc was put down, it made a quick 3rd fall finish a possibility every time they came into contact. Lamban had cool downward strike elbows, and every snapmare battle felt like something that could quickly end LeDuc. The finish was innovative and unexpected, a snap reversal of a suplex leading to a reverse suplex, a Sliced Bread finish during a time where actual sliced bread was not yet common. I loved the pacing of this match, a match that felt like it was going to be a LeDuc showcase but turned into so much more.


Janos Vadkerti vs. Roland Daumal 10/13/60

SR: About 12 minutes of this were shown. Largely technical bout, and they had some good stuff going on. Vadkerti was a Hungarian wrestler, and that‘s nice to see. Daumal, who was in the veteran role, looked like a good worker. He had a leg stretch that was either cool or stupid depending on where you stand, and his ranas were slick as hell for a guy who looked to be balding and aging. There was also some nice body scissor work. Vadkerti was here to hit explosive dropkicks and he was good at that.

MD: This was the semi-finals of a lightweight tournament, with Aledo vs Teddy Boy the other semifinals. It was an international affair as one might expect. Vadkerti is Hungarian and we only have one more JIP match with him later. I hope it gets some time. This did, about 12:00, JIP. Daumal is French and I don't think we see him again, and in both cases it's a shame since this was a really solid pairing. Athletic, hard-hitting, with some good holds and escape attempts, especially a Daumal leg nelson that Vadkerti was really fighting to get out of and, of course, this amazing but admittedly ill-conceived leg-splitting mutilation thing by Vadkerti that I've never seen before. Even just the bodyscissors and leg-splitters had a lot of fight to them. Vadkerti was so lean that every time his strained you could all but see his skeleton putting up a fight. There was a running, twisting 'rana by Daumal early on that was jawdropping and another attempt right at the end that led to a completely compacting power bomb and the finish. We are somehow both spoiled and starved by this footage.


Modesto Aledo vs. Teddy Boy 10/13/60

SR; 1 Fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. Another reason why this is the greatest footage find ever: Getting to see a guy like Modesto Aledo. Aledo was a Spanish lightweight champion whose claim to faim is fighting George Kidd in a holy grail match in England. You can easily see how he was world champion material. The holds and moves he used weren‘t a ton different from what everyone else (in France) did, but he moved in a sublime way and had a cool unique way to do things. This is also Teddy Boys first appearance, and he gives a rather impressive heel showing. Aledo is a wrestler who just keeps moving and moving, giving his opponent no breaks, so while Teddy Boy got in some slick moves of his own it soon became clear that he would have to use rough tactics to get the advantage. And that‘s just about what he did, punting Aledo with some hard kicks and then doing the unthinkable and overhead throwing Aledo over the top rope. To say that those apron bumps were insane would be an understatement. Boy pulled that move several times and you could tell the crowd was getting really unruly as he kept attacking Aledos spine. Aledos selling was great, not to mention the insane bumping, he was moving hunched over like someone who had trouble moving. Aledos eventual comeback was like the Euro version of a Jerry Lawler strapdrop as he seized the advantage and blasted Teddy Boy with everything he had before a dramatic finish. Really amazing match that went from graceful to super intense. Just insane that pro wrestling 60 years ago was like this.

PAS: Wow was Aledo impressive, he reminded me of some of the all time great grapplers, like watching Blue Panther or Terry Rudge. He spent the first part of the match showing his skill, just countering and tooling Teddy Boy with all of his counters. It was some all time slick stuff that kept Teddy Boy on his back foot, and he responds with vicious results. His belly to belly throws over the top rope were truly shocking, the kind of crazy shit you would expect to see in a crazy indy match or an All Japan 90s match. Super dangerous, really violent and a hell of an escalation. I loved the finish run too, with Aledo throwing big forearms and ducking under Teddy Boy's legs with an upkick. Then he gets tossed one more time to the floor, only to get tossed back in and press slammed for the pin. Great stuff, super skills, crazy bumps, and a wild violent finish. The hits keep coming.

MD: This was absolutely excellent. It was the second semifinal of the tournament. Aledo, the Little Bull of Valencia, is Kamikaze I, who's considered, by rep, to be one of the best Spanish wrestlers of all time and who we had no real footage of. He's a wizard. I thought Teddy Boy was awesome. He came out with a leather jacket with his name on it. He had this Rebel Without a Cause greaser vibe and was just absolutely cruel. Just pure attitude. He also seemed apt to target a body part more than almost anyone we've seen in the footage, though it wasn't the story of the match or anything. Aledo took the early portions with finesse. There were some roll up exchanges which we'd say were well before their time but by now we know that was obviously just a perception issue due to lack of footage. Aledo did one cool thing after another, with my favorite maybe being his cavernaria style straightjacket submission, but he had some breathtaking through the legs spots too, the best of which being tied to a takedown. When Teddy took over, the match changed completely. For the most part he targeted the midsection: front, back, and side, with stomps and rib-breakers and the ref desperately trying to hold him back. There was a point in the midst of this where I thought he was going for a bear hug but he leaned against the ropes and launched Aledo with a belly to belly suplex over the top instead. Then he did it again. And, following the rule of three, he got jammed on the third only to hit a gut punch and actually get it. Mindboggingly brutal. Obviously the fans were going to be engaged after that (not that they weren't given Aledo's slickness and Teddy's unfurled attitude). The finish followed from everything that came before, with Aledo too exuberant in his comeback and Teddy launching him out one last time so that he could pick at the bones after the overeager crowd helped him back in for an easy pin. Just great stuff.

ER: This was so good! And I would have loved it even if they hadn't had that wild gear shift that lead to Aledo flying over the top to the floor several times in between having his guts dented. I mean, really, the match won me over before it even started once I saw Teddy Boy in his cuffed dark denim jeans and black leather ring jacket. Dude looked like the coolest possible Squiggy or like a cool Sha Na Na bassist. Aledo quickly won me over with a ton of gravity defying headscissors and armdrags. I must have skipped back 10 seconds a dozen different times in this match, trying to figure out how they got into the positions they got into, trying to figure out the physics and who was lifting who. Some of them I couldn't even figure out how they wound up where they did, even though every single moved looked to be executed exactly as planned. There was a sunset flip where the man I predicted would come out on top, was the man who wound up being pinned. It's been 25 years and wrestlers are still aspiring to Malenko/Guerrero roll ups, when there was THIS out there 35 years before THAT! Dream bigger, modern wrestlers, there's a world of possibility on French Catch. Now, the best part of these armdrags and headscissors is that there doesn't appear to be any cheating. They aren't going through with a bump if the move isn't delivered properly, they are bumping according to the move being delivered, and it makes the implausible feel and look plausible. Teddy was a great base for all of Aledo's tricks, but when he took over this got crazy.

Teddy was real mean and threw some punishing strikes to the gut, and just started working over Aledo's core any way he could, really softening him up. But nobody could have expected those belly to belly suplexes. As he gripped Aledo in a bear hug it looked like Aledo was purposely walking him to the ropes to force a break, and instead Teddy just launched him straight overhead to the floor. Aledo slowed his momentum somewhat by getting a hand on the ropes on his way down, but nowhere close to enough to break the fall. And then it happened again. Then, it happened again...except Aledo blocked it...only momentarily, because Teddy Boy punches him right in the liver and throws him anyway. I loved Teddy's punches to the liver, and a hard front kick that Aledo sold like it had ruptured his spleen. I loved how those big bumps over the top played directly into the finish, with Aledo going over one last time before getting pinned. When the violence gets to an unexpected level, it's cool when that violence actually results in the finish. We often see matches where things get violent, but the wrestler taking the violence just goes back to his early match strategy and wins anyway. That didn't happen here, and that made it look even more amazing 60 years later.


PAS: Another big week, and we decided to make Teddy Boy vs. Modesto Aledo our inaugural 1960 champion on our Ongoing All Time MOTY List.

ER: The committee also decided to place LeDuc/Lamban as our NEW 1958 champ, bumping off the Royal/Hessle team after just one week! Two matches placed on our All Time MOTY List the same week is cause for celebration, and these two matches are incredibly easy to celebrate.

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