Found Footage Friday: COLT~! WRIGHT~! MARTIN~! DUK~! SHAFT~! CHALL~! DIETER~!

9/12/80

MD: Here's the first two thirds of the Land Patreon Germany drop from last month. The last third has a few random matches that I'll hit later on. This was all from a show on the above date.

Steve Wright vs. Francisco Ramirez

MD: I've got a soft spot for Paco Ramirez because he was in the French Footage. There he was almost always a stylist and here he's a bad guy of the sort he'd often be up against in France with the big hat and all. This was almost the perfect Steve Wright match to show someone who'd never seen one. He absolutely ate up Ramirez to start, with cartwheels out of every throw attempt and jerk bowing to the crowd's delight. When Ramirez did get him over, he'd shoot back up and shoulder block him. When Ramirez got a shot in, he'd kip up and fire back. He'd pick Ramirez up out of a headlock, deposit him on the apron, and pat him before withdrawing. When Ramirez made a clever escape and went back into the ring, he'd kick up the rope on the way in, nailing him in the groin with it. That's Steve Wright for you. 

Ramirez did get the better of him mid match and leaned on him hard, lots of nasty European Uppercuts. They gave that part of the match enough time too, it spanning rounds as Ramirez charged in right at the bell. But eventually Wright fired back with these interesting sweeping shots, and got in a bridging roll up, keeping it not just for three but for six or seven, just because he could. So very technically sound and a nice example of Wright stretching his skills, beloved jerk that he was.

Takashi (Sumo) Ishikawa vs. Amet Chong

MD: Not much to this. Chong was (  think) Peruvian working a Chinese gimmick. His karate strikes looked fairly lame. They'd do a deal where Ishikawa would out wrestle him and he (bald) would go for the hair. That led to a series of indignities where his goatee got tweaked by Ishikawa or the ref. Then he got mad and fired off shots. Ishikawa would fire back with a shot out of nowhere. His stuff was both more theatrical AND looked better. Start of the second fall had Chong charge in but Ishikawa got him with a sumo shove out of the ring and caught him on the way back in for a fairly quick win. It wasn't NOT entertaining but so far as it was entertaining it was due to Ishikawa and his connection with the crowd. He felt like a star here, or at least an attraction.

Kim Duk vs. Axel Dieter

MD: I've seen rough Duk matches, even on this tour, ones that I'd call more boring than anything else, but he was a guy who clearly got it. Lots of size, a willingness to stooge and base and play the fool. And with this crowd, against this opponent, he had a really good match. Dieter had a lot of what I'd call "French Catch" stuff, the headscissors up and over, the armdrag slam, the headstand headscissors takeover, etc. And Duk fed into all of them well. He'd stall early and when he was in charge, do the count along with the ref and honestly got a lot of heat with the crowd chanting at him the whole way through (and him occasionally going out to the apron to yell at them).

The match opened up in the second round as Duk caught Dieter with a cheapshot and just went relentless at the skull with karate chops. Not all that different in theory than Chong's offense, but his looked so much better due to the rapid fire nature and how small and targeted the shots were. Dieter bled. He'd come back big at one point, even firing up through a tombstone, only to fall again to another series of woundwork shots. The time ran out on this one though and even though Dieter didn't have one last big comeback, you got the sense he had a moral victory just for surviving Duk's onslaught. It was good stuff.

Salvatore Bellomo vs. Chris Colt

MD: This is going up the weekend of DEAN 3 and I wish that I could have sent this to Dean. This would have been the perfect match buried in one of the DVDVRs. He would have done justice to Chris Colt here in a way I never could. Electric isn't the word. Itchy is closer to it? Sometimes people wrestle exactly as you'd expect them to. Ashura Hara always wrestles like a guy with a lot of gambling debt. I can't exactly explain it but the next time you watch a Hara/Tenryu tag, keep it in mind. You'll see what I mean.

Colt here wrestles like a guy who .. look, I don't want to do ill by the memory of Chris Colt but then I'm not sure you can. It's an amazing performance, so amazing that you're left wondering if it's a performance at all. He embodies this remarkable paranoia, and the crowd is certainly against him. Usually in a Bellomo match they're chanting for Sal but it felt more like they were chanting against Colt. He sold it. He sold everything. And there's just the way he moved. Abrupt, erratic. There's one spot where he went for a running big splash and ate Bellomo's feet where it feels like the tape skipped because he's in one spot and then another and I can't figure out the physics of it, but the tape, blurry as it is, was fine. It was Colt that somehow skipped. And pro wrestling was somehow all the better for it. 

Tom Shaft vs. Michael Schneider

MD: I haven't actually seen much Shaft. I don't think we have a ton of footage of him save for working prelims in Dallas in the 80s. I've read that he bested Watts in a fight once and gave Hayes the "last house on the block" line and that Thunderbolt Patterson may or may not have taken some of his shtick from him. His nickname was Boogaloo and here he did, in fact, come out to the Shaft theme. 

And he was ok. Lots of clubbering, some hiding of shots. Had presence, knew what he was doing and what would get a rise from the crowd. Aggressive, but nothing really stood out. At one point he was choking Schneider in the ropes and Scheinder did Franz Van Buyten's deal where he mares the guy over the top. But then Shaft came right back in and chucked Schenider way over the top in return. Finishing stretch was a bit rough as Schneider hit one of the worst "too close" dropkicks I've ever seen and slammed him for the win. On the one hand, this needed another round. On the other, I'm not sure if it would have mattered.

Achim Chall/Caswell Martin vs. Klaus Kauroff/Grand Vladimir

MD: Light, crowdpleasing stuff. This had none of the matwork that you'd want out of Martin though a few good headstand escapes and what not. He and Chall were more conducting the crowd in chants and turning Kauroff and Vladimir into fools. Lots of little comedy bits and moments of comeuppance, with the occasional high impact dropkick or rana thrown in (especially by Chall). Vladimir and (especially) Kauroff could turn things around in a moment, just by tossing their opponents to the ground, but they could never capitalize for long and eventually they just got frustrated and tossed them over the top for the red card DQ. Fun stuff but not exactly what I wanted here. If nothing else, it would have felt more substantial with the heels in charge for a while and a big comeback.

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Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1980~! DESTROYER~! UFO~! COLT~! MARTIN~!

MD: More Richard Land Patreon finds. I like to be able to share links with everyone of what we're watching but the simple fact of the matter is that these Germany drops are the most exciting thing in wrestling footage right now, probably. So I'm going to keep covering them and people should just seek the patreon out when so inclined.

 

The Destroyer vs. UFO (Bob Della Serra - Date Unknown but around September/October 1980, maybe 9/8/80?)

MD: 20+ minutes of lost Destroyer footage and more than that, getting to see him in a completely new environment, working a European rounds match in 1980 Germany. UFO was over (lots of chants) and very game. Destroyer has a unique stocky way of walking and they were playing into it hard. He would try something like a full nelson; UFO would get out of it in a specific way such as a reverse monkey flip, and then when Destroyer tried it, he'd get jammed, then UFO would mock the stocky walk in a sort of strut and the fans would go nuts as Destroyer tantrumed around the ring furious.

They'd do bits where Destroyer would control with pretty nasty armwork or by hiding an object and going for the eyes masterfully but the nature of the rounds meant that UFO would be able to come back and make Destroyer stooge some more. He had some nice rolls ups to (including one out of a fireman's carry). I think they ran out of time in the end and it was a draw, but it was entertaining the whole way through. Great find.
 

10/3/80 

UFO vs. Klaus Kauroff 

MD: This was inconclusive but really good while it lasted. Della Serra looked as good as i've ever seen him here and came off as one of the best in the world maybe? Maybe that's a stretch but he was real good here. Karoff was quite good as well. They started with strength spots vs finesse where Karoff would bully UFO only to get wound around at the last second. That lasted right until Della Serra ran into Karoff's fist and it was really an amazing moment. Just a great visual which Karoff than milked for all it was worth because he knew what he had. From there we had around or two of Karoff absolutely bullying UFO, with Della Serra throwing his arms all over the place and really selling it for the back row in a compelling way.

The big comeback was ducking another one of those clothesline punches off the ropes and UFO came back strong, just brutalizing Karoff with these massive haymacker European Uppercuts/Lifters. One after the next as Karoff went down big for them. He'd dodge shots and just keep them coming for a round or two before Karoff started to comeback and everything sort of just ended. Another one that was real good while it lasted though. Simple stuff but so well executed.

Caswell Martin/Karl Dauberger vs. Chris Colt/Francisco (Paco) Ramírez

MD: This was an absolute blast. From the moment Colt came down to the ring, dancing by hooking Ramirez and pulling him towards him and then doing the robot, he was pure entertainment, such a sleazy brilliant heel. Constant reactions to everything. Martin and Ramirez paired off well, with all of Martin's usual spots (landing on his feet out of a mare, the cartwheel counter, the leg splitter where he keeps spreading his feet wider). Once they started the tandem comedy spots, they never looked back. I don't even want to list them all because if you do see this, I don't want to spoil it, but they played the hits (just a taste: the pumphandle switch, the four man headlock into the double headlock charge, an estrella, etc). There wasn't really an ebb and flow here, just one entertaining spot after the other with Colt bumping huge into the corner or having it out with the ref or begging off after the fact. Not a ton of drama here because even when the heels took over, they couldn't keep it for long, but the audience (and German audiences laugh as well as any audience I've ever heard) were in stitches the whole time. Great look at Colt for anyone who's never seen him with a game cast of characters alongside him. Martin, for the footage we have of him, always looks incredible.

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Found Footage Friday: Hanover 1981

Hanover 1981

MD: Another Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers on twitter) find. He has a ton of these from a recent haul that he'll slowly go through. We've already seen the next and it's full of great stuff. If you are, however, let's say the biggest Adrian Street fan in the world, do feel free to reach out to me. Some things really need to be seen.

Achim Chall vs. John Quinn

MD: Quinn had a size advantage here and could pepper in shots from almost any angle whenever he wanted. Chall was obviously skilled, both generally and in kayfabe, presented as such. He was able to score clever takedowns and get in jumping knees. The problem is that Quinn gave him no room to breathe. He was constantly being admonished by the ref for picking Chall up too early or kicking at him while he was down or stepping on him. When he hit moves, it was dropping him throat first on the ropes. He would put illegal holds on and hide punches with a headlock. You could hear the announcer mention some slight he did every few seconds. Eventually the ref had enough and red carded him, awarding the match to Chaim. It wasn't satisfying but because of those little glimpses of Chall's skill maybe it was effective in getting Quinn heat for the tour overall, allowing Chall to beat him without hurting Quinn at all (even if it didn't help Chall a ton) and reinforcing the rules, always important in the grand scheme of things.

Adrian Street vs. Francisco/Paco Ramirez

MD: Street's song is so effective at making him stand out, even in 1981 Germany. It just transfers anywhere and is so unique relative to everyone else's presentation even though people tend to come out to music here. But he was going to stand out anyway. This was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen. He was a babyface at times in the States but he was still the Other and it was much more about seeing the heel get embarrassed in the South by someone who you'd never invite to dinner. This was different. It was celebratory in the most German way. It was Cabaret. There was pure elation for everything he did, whether it was using Ramirez' arm to mimic sexual acts while in an armbar or dancing with high kicks between falls or menacing the ref. Street may or may not have been the best wrestler in the world on this night in 1981 but he was the most appreciated and maybe the most alive. I've never seen him quite so free to be this over the top in everything he did but the fans absolutely ate it up. It was on Paco Ramirez, one of our old friends from the later French footage to play the straight man. Yes, Street was over the top, but it took incredible skill and understanding of pro wrestling (including, yes, the mechanics) to make this all work. No one could have done it quite like him and we've never had footage of him doing it quite like this.

PAS: Killer stuff, the decadent Weimar Germans are eating up his act with a spoon, really reminded me of a crowd super into an all timer lucha exotico like  Pimpinela or Cassandro. Really made me wish we had an epic bloody lucha Adrian Street apuestas match. Not a ton of actual wrestling in this, but you could tell that Street was a master of that part of it all as well.  This was a couple of years after Bowie moved to German, but it had that Bowie spirit. This isn't the kid of thing which encourages a lot of written scrutiny, bit what a delight.

 

Alex Dieter vs. Moose Morowski

MD: There's a noted classic 1980 match between these two that I'm not nearly familiar enough with, but I can say safely that these two were familiar with one another here. Dieter attacks right from the start and controls for the entire first round and the fans chant his name and love it. You get the sense that Morowski deserves it as well. Nothing flashy but a thorough beating. Then Morowski returns the favor in the second round with violent, rudimentary offense incensing the fans. After tossing Dieter out of the ring, a fan decides to take matters into his own hands and tosses a chair in. Morowski immediately beelines towards the ropes and charges at him and that's basically all she wrote for this one. We see the camera trying to track what's going on but it's hopeless. Completely unexpected. Totally wild. True heat and immediate consequence. Pro wrestling, everybody.

PAS: I loved the 1980 match

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2016/11/all-time-moty-list-head-to-head.html

This felt like a house show version of the epic 1980 match, and clearly had some building to do until the fan chucks the chair at Moose ending the match. Would have loved to see the beating Morowski clearly put on that dude, and that is certainly a legit memorable finish. 

Grand Vladimir vs. Caswell Martin

MD: Pretty enjoyable stuff! Vladimir is very funny at first, doing everything over-the-top sporting to Martin and the crowd's surprise. A lot of raising his hand and shaking his hand and really making a show of it. Martin returns the favor by holding on to a cravat for the entirety of the second round despite every attempt by Vladimir to escape. One idea executed perfectly. In the third round, Vladimir goes for another handshake and then hits a gutshot and tosses Martin out as the ref is distracted and it's lovely payoff to all of the build. He ultimately gets disqualified but then is run off post-match. 

Goro Tanaka (Tsurumi)/Kengo Kimura vs. Cowboy Ed Wiskoski/"American Football Star" Jim Neidhart. 

MD: Goro totally gets it. He does a big sumo introduction including a split where Kimura bounces on his back. Wiskoski comes out with a cowboy hat and to "Some Girls" by Racey which is not a song I had ever heard before but it's quite the entrance overall. This is two out of three falls but none of the falls get a lot of time. Tsurumi is working for the last row and Neidhart is a tank. He catches Kimura off the ropes for a stampede to end the first fall. Second fall ends with them doing a bunch of silly karate moves on Neidhart, with the third ending abruptly with a dropkick to reverse a bodyslam into a pin. Things were simple and straightforward here, with one inversion instead of six, but it was all very effective. Just a weird match on paper and in practice though.

Moose Morowski vs. Pat Roach

MD: Roach took the first quarter of this by controlling the arm with a double wristlock and all sorts of other offense. But once it opened up, they absolutely pounded on each other and never looked back. Just a total war of attrition. It spilled out multiple times and came back in. There were cheapshots at the end of the round and then cheapshots to counter the cheapshots at the end of the next round. I don't think there's a whole lot to say about it, but that it's just great pro wrestling, blurry, gritty, full of animosity, with the most believable late match selling you'll see. Of course they were exhausted. Of course they could barely get up. They'd been going for minutes upon minutes just laying it in on one another. You could get parts of a match like this today but not, I think the total sum of it.

 

Achim Chall vs. Bret Hart

 

MD: This being on the tape was why it was prioritized and I'm glad it was for the Morowski matches and the Street match, but there's not a lot here. Chall is obviously very skilled at doing simple things extremely well. This is all Bret working the arm and Chall countering with some fun cravat stuff. They'll work up to their feet and crash into each other and go back down into the holds. Perfectly solid stuff. The highlight was probably Bret doing one of those bridge arounds to keep the hold that always look so slick and that I've never seen him do before. It ends just as simply with Chall falling on Bret for the pin.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Siki! Zarak! Bayle! Eagle! Ramirez! Wherle! Schmid!

Mammoth Siki vs Zarak (JIP) 9/28/82

MD: Not nearly as good as the Siki vs Calderon match from 79 but not as bad as I thought it might be either. The big problem was that Siki didn't want to sell anything, so Zarak would get him in the corner and throw three chops into his throat and Siki would just come out hammering. The hammering itself wasn't so bad. He had a bunch of stuff, a chancery suplex, a drop down/leapfrog/dropkick, headbutts. And the strikes were substantial if nothing else. Zarak fought more from underneath throwing kicks into kneelifts, strutting about, carrying the emotional weight of the selling for the match certainly. In the end, Siki went for the mask one too many times and as the ref pulled him off, Zarak snuck in a low blow. It's a finish we actually haven't seen a ton in the footage so far. My gut says that if we had the first few minutes of this and more Zarak antics, it would have gained some points.

Remy Bayle vs Golden Eagle 9/28/82

MD: Another masked man against a strong guy but this had a different feel. Here, Bayle would have to use his strength to come up from underneath and he did so with quite a lot of verve, actually. They had built the idea of the mask being taken off in the last match and it's paid off here, with Bayle finally getting it after his big comeback, to the crowd's delight. There were some of the nice fire-ups out of a chinlock before that, the fireman's carry lift up and then just tossing the opponent over his shoulder out of the ring. Finish had Eagle angry about losing his mask and making mistakes. Straightforward stuff here but certainly not bad. I almost wonder if these two singles would have worked better as a tag though.

SR: These seem to be in the exact same building as the tag the previous month (or 3 years earlier?).
Anyways, these matches were mostly heavyweights beating on each other in not very exciting ways. The men mostly grinding these matches down were Siki (really like slazy chinlocks) and Eagle (really likes nasty chokes). I liked Bayle who looks like a Soviet grappler with his singlet and body hair. Anyways, these are for the "At least it was short" category.

Daniel Schmid/Remy Bayle vs Paco Ramirez/Gilbert Wherle 7/1/83

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. Paco Ramirez was apparently working EMLL as "Lawrence de Arabia". That was the most interesting thing about this bout. The wrestling was okay, but the face/heel dynamic was executed kind of poorly and you could tell they didn‘t have the kind spark of brilliance you usually expect from French wrestling. Worst of all, the match went needlessly long when these workers just didn‘t have much to offer. 

MD: I begrudgingly agree here. As best as I can tell, Schmid had an injury/accident in the late 70s and turned into a fan favorite after that and, as the parallel to him is Buddy Rose, it does remind me a bit of the Buddy face run. And he's fine in this role, even impressive with some of his flipping escapes given his size. But he was an entertaining bad guy and this would have worked better if it was Bayle/Wherle vs Ramierz/Schmid. We've seen very little of Wherle in the collection but he had some real expert arm/wrist manipulation and the best part of the match was when he was firing back and forth with Schmid. Ramirez had become quite the character with the bullwhip and matador gear and his preening theatrics. Bayle leaned into his strength again. The big problem here was just that the stylists were never in much danger. There was one bit where Ramirez and Wherle worked together to cheat for maybe a minute but it wasn't enough. There was the long technical first fall and the quick second with some comedy like usual but there was no drama in the middle. It meant things couldn't boil over and there was nothing to get emotionally invested in. That said, and as noted above, the work was still good. There was just nothing to sink your teeth into except for Ramirez being punchable and good exchanges for the sake of good exchanges.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Hassouni! Angelito! Richard! Herve! Ramirez!

Kader Hassouni/Jean Corne vs Jacky Richard/Angelito 3/11/79


MD: We've got one more match after this in the decade, but this was a beautiful way to end the 70s. It was a swimming pool match. Delaporte was the special ref. Corne and Hassouni are two of the great medium-sized wrestlers of the period. Angelito is flashy and entertaining. Richard is one of the best stooging, bullying heels and bases.

For the first quarter or so, Angelito plays stylist too, which made Richard a bit of the odd man out. He would clap and bow. They had a fun bit where everyone was rolling safely on mares and throws except for Richard, who was getting increasingly more frustrated. Things started to turn a bit after a series of very long, complex, entertaining and very skilled wristlock sequences with both Hassouni and Corne controlling Angelito who was doing everything he could to escape. Shortly thereafter, he went full bad guy and seemed to revel in the role, posing and preening, doing flips just to taunt, teasing getting tossed into the water only to catch himself at the last second. Eventually he took it too far and Corne gave him an outright jackknife power bomb for his trouble.

The combo of Angelito and Richard controlled much of this. Hassouni scored a roll up in the midst of a beating for the first fall but ultimately misstepped (literally) and knocked Corne off the apron and into the water, leaving him open for a slam (and Richard had huge slams) to be pinned. The third fall was all the heels until they took it too far, knocking Hassouni out, then Corne when he was checking on him, and then Delaporte himself! He came back in leading the charge for the final comeback and after the heels were vanquished, he got his pound of flesh on them in a pretty wonderful celebratory moment with the old gruff grump standing tall. Pretty good all around here. Obviously you have to accept Delaporte's role in the finish but Richard and Angelito both made excellent and very different foils for the stylists.

Gerard Herve vs Paco Ramirez 11/18/79 

MD: An incomplete 18 minutes or so but we get the gist of this one. It's very fitting that the last two matches of the 70s focused on Delaporte the ref in a swimming pool match and had Gerard Herve's debut (and with Saulnier as ref). For good or ill, we'll be spending a lot with Gerard in the 80s, as he becomes Flesh Gordon. Here, I get the sense that Ramirez was driving the ship but that Herve was a game passenger. He took a beating, was fiery in his comebacks, could be in the right place at the right time for holds and counters, which were fairly even, was overall athletic and coordinated, and had some charisma as he looked to the crowd for shots that would never come as Saulnier cut him off. Sometimes he took two moves to get to a certain point when one would be smoother, but in general, there was plenty of potential. Ramirez was excellent here, combining a matador flair and some big cutoffs like a flying tope headbutt, and mean, controlled shots. He's not afraid to bump and stooge towards the end when Herve has a comeback. We miss the end but you can pretty much figure it out as Saulnier is losing his cool and Herve is tying Ramirez up in the ropes. This is the first time we see names on the screen when introducing the wrestlers (even if they're in the wrong place) and it reminds me how far we've come through the years of the Martian and classic art and music interspersed and Luna Catch 2000.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Bouvet! Payen! Boucard! Ramirez! Menard! Di Santo! Zorba!

Walter Bordes/Gerard Bouvet vs Pierre Payen/ Daniel Boucard 8/28/78 

MD: I missed this one last week (the footage at the end of this decade is a little harder to organize) but it was another match in front of the Breton folk group, pipes and all. Long first fall, short second fall. Not a ton of drama as the stylists took most of it and even when Bordes got trapped in the corner late in the match, for instance, it was just to set up a comeback spot and another tag. That said, there were some really good individual exchanges in here, especially when Boucard or Bouvet were in the ring and especially against each other. That's not to say Bordes or Payen weren't good too but there was just more smoothnesss and imagination from the other two. One standout was Boucard pressing himself up into a very unique dropping headbutt (as opposed to a bridging knee drop for instance) and then immediately missing a dive to the outside. Just that level of imagination and energy. He also had a nice flurry of strikes at one point and stooged later on when it was time to take offense, very complete wrestler from this look at him. Bouvet had more of Ben Chemoul's flare to him, using Leduc's headstand headscissors (and the announcer invoked Leduc by name), and having a number of slick takedowns and spots. So this was enjoyable and probably gif-able but hardly weighty enough to stand against some of the other tags we've seen lately.

Paco Ramirez vs Jean Menard (JIP) 11/12/78

MD: We get the last 9 of this one. It's a swimming pool match but that really doesn't come into play except for Ramirez trying to push Menard out a couple of times. After a brief flurry of dropkicks by Menard earlier in the footage, the rest of this is all Ramirez. His stuff is very credible, but not terribly dynamic. Even when he lifts Menard up, it's really just to press him into the corner and hit him some more. Again, nothing we necessarily have a problem with, and they worked in some more direct and clear hope spots and cutoffs than what we usually get, as matches tend to be more back and forth than this. Ramirez pressed the advantage and ultimately got DQed as he pressed the ref (apparently Bollet's brother) just a bit too much. Post match, he had a staredown with the arriving di Santo, so maybe that was to build to another match.

Michel di Santo vs Zorba 11/12/78

MD: Zorba's sporting quite the look, another masked monster, but this one in blue and red superhero garb (looking a decent amount like Atom Smasher, actually). Michel di Santo, on the other hand, reminds me a bit of Greg Gagne, kind of lanky, not his dad, still perfectly decent. Zorba mostly threw hammering blows and tossed di Santo around the ring, but he had some big strength spots as well, a press up gutbuster, a tombstone. I'm not sure about the look for a monster heel, even in 79, but he had size and presence, very imposing in the ring once he got going. The ref called it after the tombstone but the beating continued and when he tried to get in the way of it, Zorba tossed him in the drink and di Santo soon after. At that point, they made a pretty big deal about him ending up in the water when he had been knocked senseless and the danger of it all. Pretty dominant introduction for the masked man, even if there's nothing particularly Greek about him. I'd have paid to see Bordes try his luck against him, for instance. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Roberts! Bond! Bordes! Doukhan! Viracocha! Ramirez! Ben Chemoul! Plantin! Lagache! Caballec!

Pete Roberts vs Dave Bond (JIP) 2/27/78

MD: We get the last nine minutes of this draw. Roberts and Bond were both in from the UK though Bond was billed as American. This was a mix of gritty cravats, rope running, and a lot of trading of Roberts' forearms and Bond's headbutts, which were a nice piece of business. They were sportsmanlike but really went at it, and Roberts wasn't afraid to bump out. Good stuff with a nice nearfall or two. It's a shame we don't have more of them in France. 

Gass Doukhan/Walter Bordes vs Inca Viracocha/Paco Ramirez 2/27/78

MD: Lots to love here. Very fun tag with double heat and some new tricks from Doukhan and Bordes, even if the heels never picked up a fall. Doukhan is a great partner for Bordes. Bordes is a little tallier and lankier and his stuff is clean but a little stilted and Doukhan is smaller but very smooth. Viracocha is, of course, an ideal base, who can take everything with a put upon stooging face. Ramirez was leaning into his strength on certain spots and was excellent at interjecting himself from the outside but that just made him getting his comeuppance when they went wrong all the better. Bordes took some nasty catapults to the floor to justify the heel control in the middle. They did the RnR spot of the partner blocking an irish whip into the corner by putting his body in the way, which I'd never seen before in France (or, I think, in the States before 78?) and the second fall, while short had some fun build up and payoff with the heels lifting up Bordes in a double drop until he landed on his feet to flip and make the hot tag and then some heel miscommunication to set up the finish and send everyone home. These tags don't often reach the slugging or pure mat wrestling levels of the ones from twenty years earlier but they really had a good, compelling, crowd pleasing act down. Like Ben Chemoul, you can't really question that Bordes, a guy who felt almost completely unknown in our circles before we'd picked up this footage, who still doesn't have a cagematch entry, was one of the best tag workers ever.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Bob Plantin vs Pierre Lagache/Rene Caballec 4/4/78

MD: A lot to cover here. This was in Coubertin handball stadium, with the ring right in the middle of the court, so it was a bit of an odd look with maybe some strange acoustics. The Mamadou singing worked its way in midway through the match but it was never as loud as you'd expect. This is the first match which had some slow motion instant replays too, so technology marches forward. This match was in part to celebrate fire fighters based on some previous heroics in France. It has friend to all followers of French Catch, Bob Plantin, and he stated in the bits and pieces of this one that had been on youtube that both Ben Chemoul and Caballec had been former fire fighters.

Caballec very likely might have worked as a stylist otherwise, and he had those skills, a backflip off the top, a body press, the headspin headscissors takeover, as well as some big power moves when on top like a backbreaker and a signature slam out of a suplex position (remember, we've still never seen a standing vertical suplex in the footage by 78!).

This is it for Ben Chemoul, a swan song to an amazing career, and even in a 40+ minute match, albeit a tag where Plantin could come in a lot, he could still go. He knew all the tricks, could execute them so smoothly. Something like a rolling legpick or a flip through on a full nelson to bring up his mule kick looked so good and so smooth. He'd go up to the top for a missile dropkick and turtle so he could duck in and out to enrage Lagache until he could grab an arm.

Lagache was called "the striker" here, and he lived up to that with stomps and cheapshots mainly. He fed into all of the stylists spots and came back with mean shots but he was there for contrast mainly. Plantin had a lot of youthful energy and exuberance, and while some of his stuff wasn't as precise as Ben Chemoul's, the way he through himself into everything brought a lot of value, and he garnered plenty of sympathy working from underneath.

Like I said, this went 40 and the structure is, as I'd said recently, something I've finally learned to live with. About half of the match was fairly even exchanges, good wrestling, holds, rope running, with a slight stylist advantage. At right around that halfway point, Lagache took over with a hairpull in the corner, beating on first Ben Chemoul and then Plantin; in this it's a bit like an All Japan tag match (or lucha in general) where they make the tag but the momentum stays with the team that had been dominant. Not a hot tag then, but one that doesn't change the plot. The second fall had a big comeback, revenge, and bombs from the stylists and then the third, quite short, had a brief tease of the heels taking over before Ben Chemoul rushed them from the outside and we got a series of celebratory high spots and tandem bits with the stylists firmly in charge and the heels getting clowned. It might not maximize drama but it really is wonderful in its own way and Ben Chemoul was as good as anyone at it.

He, more than anyone except for maybe Delaporte and Bollet, is simply the perfect French Catch wrestler. The ideal. He carried with him technique, mirth, cleverness, innovation, a deep, deep connection with the crowd and the ability to conduct them. There was elements of the theater or the circus to him, but such deep athleticism and that extra gear that he could take it to when he was getting revenge. He could draw sympathy and could elicit deep belly laughs. He's not going to come off as quite as tough and hard hitting as someone like Corn or LeDuc. he's not as spectacular as Petit Prince or as technical as Saulnier or Mantopolous, but he encompasses the glitz and the glamour and the sheer showmanship of it all, while still possessing all of the skill.

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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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