Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Le Boulch! Delaporte! Villars! Amor! Gueret!

 Jean Corne vs. Robert Le Boulch 9/3/59

SR: 1 Fall match going about 16 minutes. Robert Le Boulch is short, has a massive skull and is balding, and he has a funny little mustache. He decided to cheap shot Corne some, and Corne outwrestled him easily, then Robert threw some more cheapshots, and Corne unleashed a full blown retaliation that had Robert Le Boulch flying all over the place. Le Boulch was a bump machine and a fun enough discovery to carry this short match in which Jean Corne showed even less character than usual.

MD: To make sure everyone's clear on this, Corne is not Corn, though he was already middleweight champ and is announced at 22 years old. I don't think he was quite as smooth as many others we've seen so far (Corn included) especially when it came to his timing, but we have a lot of him so we'll see him come into himself later. There were some rope-running bits that seemed weird, and he didn't stay down quite long enough to draw excitement for his comebacks. At one point, le Boulch put his head down and Corne dropkicked him head on and that didn't quite seem right. Despite Le Boulch getting plenty of heat, there weren't big pops for the head twists, for instance, which was out of the norm since the French crowd loved those. I thought Le Boulch was great. He's another in the line of those Jackie Gleason looking put upon, stooging heels. He was congenial enough in the beginning, pulling hair but offering handshakes, as if it was just a job, you know? When Corne started to get fiery, he started to get mean back. He had a lot of fun stuff, like tying Corne's shoelaces to the ropes and yanking on the other leg, of having a sequence where he missed a few dropkicks in a row. Probably the most memorable bit here was Corn dropkicking him into the ropes and following it up with a monkey flip repeatedly. It wasn't that the crowd disliked Corne, but the story of this one was le Boulch, his performance, and how he got under their skin by the end.

Roger Delaporte/Paul Villars vs. Yves Amor/Georges Gueret 9/5/59

SR:2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. You look at this match up and you know exactly what you are getting. 4 guys who have no problem being bastards and trading massive beatings, doing just that. That being said, this had a pretty clever layout. Most of these matches start like a house of fire but kind of fail to build to an epic conclusion. Here they start slow with some fun wrestling and build really well to all hell breaking lose. We‘ve seen Amor & Gueret as heels before, but they work this pretty much as straight faces. All their shots come as retaliations to heel tactics from the mustached superduo of Delaporte/Villar. They won‘t do anything athletic, but they sure knew their way around the holds. There is a fun structure with the 1st fall ending early and much of the 2nd fall being spent working face in peril sections before Gueret and Amor are able to stage their comeback. Gueret once again looks pretty great here, he is great as a tough bad guy beating the shit out of good guys, and he is great as a tough good guy beating the shit out of bad guys, and the same goes for Amor really. The 3rd fall is pretty intense with some really great Mantell/Lawler feeling exchanges, including Amor and Delaporte beating the shit out of each other on the floor with the police having to get involved, and of course these guys were hitting each other so hard they make pretty much everyone in the world right now look like pussies. Delaporte deciding to take out Amors leg was another instance of his sudden brutal assaults that he has a real knack for. Another entry in the stream of great French tags.

MD: Another high quality 50s Delaporte tag. We've seen Gueret and Amor before, but they were both heels then. I thought they brought a lot in this role. Amor was relatively giant, but able to get down and wrestle. He had a lot of presence in general. Gueret had a tough, rugged look and for the most part, he backed it up. Villars was, as always, the perfect, resonant goon for Delaporte, and Delaporte, is basically the Satanico of France, if Satanico was 10% more a coward and a stooge. Rudo numero uno, basically, able to direct traffic, to beg off and prevaricate only to come back in with an earnest, merciless brutality. This one sung the loudest when they were dismantling Amor's leg, which was both well executed and made perfect story sense. Though it led to a transition as Gueret was able to convince he ref he tagged as he was breaking it up, the tandem STF was a thing of vicious beauty. Amor's selling was excellent and lingered on to the finish where he re-damaged his leg during the great brawling on the floor. Delaporte and friends walked the balance between conniving and opportunistic and outright dangerous exactly as a lead heel carrying a territory should.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Gueret! Delaporte! Villars! Said! Minisini!

Jacky Corne vs. Georges Gueret 7/9/59

MD: One thing I love about this footage in general is that it's almost never predictable. We get new wrestlers every few weeks or wrestlers that we've seen before in different settings. We only get a few looks at a lot of them so surprises come up all the time. That said, we pretty much know what we're getting with a Jacky Corn match by now. Crisp holds, throws, and escapes. Long sequences with hang-ons and attempts. The heel getting mean/frustrated first. Corn selling excellently in that sort of "full body" exhausted sort of way I always give Bockwinkel credit for. And then finally, as the match goes on, Corn coming back with righteous indignation and fury and it becoming an absolutely brutal slugfest. Corn wrestles beautifully and he fights valiantly and it's never unwelcome even if we've seen it before. Here, Gueret was sort of a bruising Larry Hennig sort (though in better shape), swarthy and expressive, especially when he was in a hold or begging off. He gets frustrated at the end of the first fall (including inadvertently hitting the ref) but Corn is able to capitalize with a sunset flip. Even though he beats on him a lot in the second fall, it's not until the start of the final fall that Corn really starts firing back. Just great striking here, including one exchange on their knees. Corn ultimately takes it with a very slip through the legs takedown and bridging pin. Of note here, from a format perspective, they had Roger Lageat, promoter and Corn's father, providing insights before the match and between falls.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. It‘s George Gueret, baby. He had grown a beard here, which adds a bit of personality, I guess, and he was quite hated. This match had a surprising amount of wrestling that built really well to the 3rd fall where they just explode and beat the shit out of each other. The wrestling was really fun as you‘d expect, but you want these guys to throw down and uncork their forearms and uppercuts, and they knew exactly that this is what their audience wanted from them really. Really good slow build to the eventual explosion. Gueret only had to throw a few cheapshots before audience members threatened to jump into the ring. Corn is pretty bland but he can wrestle and throw down, and he earned his paycheck here. And Gueret just has about the greatest forearm smashes you‘ve ever seen.

PAS: Corn is a technically sound babyface and Gueret is a heat seeking bruiser, and that is classic professional wrestling contest. What makes so much of the Catch standout is how good the bruisers are at technical wrestling, and how nasty the technicians are at bruising. The early wrestling sections are solid stuff, I love a good headscissors, and they had a great headsicssors section, and then of course it breaks down with fans jumping on to the apron and big shots being exchanges. We say it over and over again, but the baseline of this stuff is so high.


Serge Francille vs Pierre Bernaert 7/16/59

MD: We get this JIP, but you definitely get the gist of it in the fifteen minutes we have. I don't remember Bernaert leaning as much into the Kirk Douglas look but he was still the same cheapshot artist as before, always reaching for a leg when he's on the ground and sneaking a punch or hairpull in. His punches, forearms, and knees were particularly mean. Francille was yet another judoka guy. I think that's the third we've seen in 59 so it was obviously some sort of zeitgeist. While barefoot, he had less goofy foot escapes and more throws and interesting trips. He was fiery in answering Bernaert's cheapshots at least. The match absolutely knew what it was and never deviated, down to the finish where Bernaert got a little lax in his beating, tried the same thing twice and got outslicked for his trouble.

SR: JIP, but we get about 13 minutes. Francille seems to be doing a martial artist gimmick and I think the announcer calls him a judoka. He is barefoot and wears those ankle-length pants, which weirdly seems to be the go-to look for wrestlers with a judo gimmick at this point. Did judokas wear those kind of pants in the 1950s? Francille has a mustache and slender physique and looks very old time. And he has those funny open hand chops. This was just going along, Bernaert cheats some and Francille retaliates. Then suddenly Bernaert starts unleashing a really violent beating only to be cut short and pinned seconds later.


Roger Delaporte/Paul Villars vs Arabet Said/Leon Minisini 7/16/59

MD: Another long Delaporte/Villars tag, though this one went closer to 30 than an hour. Delaporte remains one of the greatest stooges. Villars, on the other hand, is absolutely brutal, and when the heels were in control, this was excellent. They cut off the ring and kept most of the action right in their corner, even as the ref tried to stop them. When they won the second fall, it was really because of that sort of attrition over time, just hacking away at Minisini until he couldn't fight back. The first fall, by the way, was lightning quick with a flash pin out of a full nelson reversal and that happened in just the first couple of miniutes. What I liked about it is that it was against formula. I don't think we've seen first falls go like that much in the footage. There was also an early moment where Delaporte refused to throw a cheapshot on a Villars full nelson in the corner but the faces did instead and had some miscommunication because of it. That felt very lucha-esque where the tecnicos (stylists in this case) cheated when it was unwarranted and feaced cosmic justice because of it. It was our first look at Said and Minisini. Said had solid fire when it was called for but when in charge, he mainly did a lot of inner armdrags and crosslegged headscissor spots, the latter of which I've had my fill of recently. Minisini played a valiant face in peril, including fighting out of the corner early only to get overwhelmed later and had an interesting bridging escape or two. The crowd was up for this, like always for a Delaporte tag, though they were more into the comeback than the heat, I'd say, and so much of that was on Delaporte's stooging and Villars bumps to the floor. Another banana peel finish utilizing Delaporte's one smooth offensive maneuver and that made the crowd hate him all the more.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. With names like Arabet Said and Leon Minissini, you get giddy just wondering what these mysterious dudes will bring. The answer was that they were both pretty wirey dudes who could both wrestle and put serious punishment on their opponents, so they match up very well against the mustached super heel duo of Delaporte and Villar. The interesting thing about this was the early finish to the 1st fall, which set up a kind of heel in peril section as Said & Minisini kept showing them up and the heels had to try and get a handle. Kind of a weird way to structure a match, and I kind of had the feeling it was since Delaporte & Villar were technically the stars, as the focus was on them. The 3rd fall cements this as Delaporte and Villar, after playing some of their shenanigans got banged up badly by pissed off Said and Minisini before a punch-drunk Delaporte got the pin with a pretty perfectly timed rollup. It was almost like a reverse Rock n‘Roll express finish. That being said, this isn‘t better or worse than any other Villars/Delaporte tag we‘ve seen, as they all kind of all blend together, but you always end up getting some fun wrestling and lots of guys putting big damn beatings on each other, so it‘s all good entertainment, anyways.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Jose Tarres 1/2/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. We are JIP‘d so far into the 1st fall that we see Dr. Kaiser putting Tarres away with the nerve hold. It rules that we still get about 30 minutes of these two wrestling each other. And this was expectedly really good. We‘ve seen Tarres , the man with the iron head, get a really good match of von Chenok, and Dr. Kaiser can do so much more than that guy. This was super simple, Tarres headbutts vs. Dr. Kaisers nerve holds, with both guys having a variety of ways to both hit their signatures and avoid the others. There was some pretty neat work around clinches, with Tarres trying to clinch and fire away with the headbutts and Kaiser having ways to get out of the clinch. We see Kaiser doing a lot of wrestling here including some pretty whacky submission holds and the announcer calls him an artist, which adds another neat dimension to this eccentric evil guy. His clawing and hair pulling was pretty insane, he looks like he is trying to pull the other guys scalp or face off. And with his strategic behaviour, including trying to work over Tarres‘ indestructible head, he reminded me a bit of Billy Robinson. Tarres was there to sell and headbutt the shit out of the evil Doctor, and that he did. Those headbutts to the back of the head are pretty crazy, he connected them with an audible thud too. We also get a good look at a deformity Tarres has on his forehead, so either the metal plate story was legit or he developed that from headbutting people for a living. Dr. Kaiser trying to methodically destroy this heavy hitter was pretty great. He also looked damn great selling the near Kos. The finish was logical but drew a lot of boos from the audience as everyone was eager to see Tarres KO the Doctor.

MD: This was very similar to Von Chenok vs Tarres, the nerve hold vs the headbutt, but where Von Chenok was more apt to dive every which way, Kaiser was inclined to try to tie Tarres up into knots. While Tarres had a range advantage, he was slow to get those hands up to grab Kaiser for the headbutt, and Kaiser was quick to grab and armbar or go low with a jab, so it was a more even contest. That made for a better match but maybe not as frenetic and entertaining as one. That's not to say there weren't fun spots, because there were (like Kaiser hurting his hand on Tarres' head or slamming him into the turnbuckle to no effect) and he was quick to writhe and spasm after the headbutts did hit. I thought they might be protecting the dragon sleeper in the match (Kaiser really only goes for it once as he took the first fall with a nerve hold with his legs inside Tarres' arm) but it petered out with a disappointing DQ finish instead.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, although with two such great characters I wanted a bit more. Tarres' scarred and lumpy head was a nice contrast to the Doctor's sniveling evil. Wrestling is so much cooler when it is populated by freaks and weirdos. I love how intent the Doctor is to get his sleeper, really cool focused attack, although he is going to get knocked off his plan by that gross head smashing him. A wilder finish would have brought this to next level, but the finish we got kind of dragged it down a bit. Still I love both of these guys and would watch anything they did.


Juan Botana vs Paul Villars 1/1/59

MD: When you watch these matches, you look for patterns. That's how you really start to figure out a style. I'm at the point, after more than a half a year doing this, where I get a sense at what at least a good chunk of the spots will be before they happen. I'm sure almost anyone who reads this could watch a WWE match right now and do the same thing. You start figuring out the crowd's reactions too. I didn't think they entirely knew what to make of Dula vs Duranton, for instance, even compared to another heel vs heel match like Taverne vs Delaporte. It was striking, for instance, how much heat Mann received relative to other people that had to work for it more. I think one element of that was when he laid his cheapshots in. Lots of guys will hit after their opponent is down, but Mann got the heat for going after his opponent right when he was about to get up but before he got there. Here, Villars definitely gets heat for the unclean stomps after the opponent is down, but when he starts to lay in the kneelifts as Botana is trying to get up, the crowd really gets after him. Some of it might simply be cumulative, but after the Mann matches, I think there might be something to this. The former is about being unsportsmanlike, but the latter is outright cheating; it's preventing an opponent from even having the slightest chance at coming back when he's supposed to have a clean path to his feet. Botana has to finally get an opening by kicking up repeatedly out of a headscissors, and then Villars takes advantage of the ref trying to hold back his revenge. By that point, though, the crowd is booming Botana's name. They went a little back and forth after that, but ultimately (after a nice bit of struggle where Villars jammed it) ended up in maybe the best leg nelson that we've seen so far with Botana just paintbrushing Villars with his leg and foot. The last few minutes had Villars dumping Botana a couple of times (the second being a counter that really took the fight out of Botana), which gave him quality time with the jeering crowd, before absolutely crushing him with a tombstone and ultimately adding insult to injury for the win and the crowd's absolute wrath and fury.

SR:1 fall match going about 15 minutes. Not a very happy new year for Botana, as he eats a pretty nasty one sided beating from Villars in this. Villars is great as he just mauls Botana with violent kicks, stomps and forearms. It seemed Botana was used to working as the rudo, as he threw the first shot, and later worked Villar with some nasty looking punches of his own. He also had the neckbreaker and a neat move where he turns his opponent around and knees him in the back of the head. There was some good work around the double leg nelson, but after that Stone Cold Paul Villar just destroyed Botana, nasty piledriver and all. It‘s rare we see a heel just stomp a guy like this and the crowd didn‘t like it at all.

PAS: I will always dig an asskicking and Villars was Finlayesque in this match. Just a brutal stomping, including a couple of gross knees to the back of Botana's head. I loved the leg nelson by Botana, it was a great little moment of offense and is something that could easily be stolen today. Outside of that flurry this was an ass stomping. Villars showed no protection on the tombstone and thumped every shot. Not sure why he hated Botana but this was a great set up for next week, what a badass.


L‘Ange Blanc vs. Paul Villars 1/9/59

MD: Well, here's our first look at L'Ange Blanc, top superhero babyface of France. As later footage of him has him unmasked, this feels a bit like us getting a rare Santo match. This seems to be his debut, and it's a rare 50s French match with a clear angle behind it. The idea is that L'Ange Blanc challenged Villars due to Villars' brutality vs Botana the week before. There's a pre-match promo where Villars says that he's not afraid as L'Ange Blanc is a man like any other with two arms and two legs.

L'Ange Blanc, here, comes off a bit more like an Atlantis than El Hijo Del Santo. What stood out the most to me was how much he gave to Villars and how thoroughly he sold. This was even before Villars started cheating. Early on, Villars took most of the holds, with L'Ange Blanc fighting out each time and then usually getting some sort of move back before Villars locked in another. For the first portion of the match, Villars had a hard time keeping him down because he couldn't figure out how to pull the mask instead of nonexistent hair. Later on, he figured that out though. Once the cheating starting, there was a lot of selling and fighting from underneath. Where L'Ange Blanc really shone was in his comebacks with big uppercuts and dropkicks. Nothing flashy but everything mostly clean and crisp and resounding. Clearly flashy, however, were his finishes: a power bomb out of the corner to end the first fall, and this great two-fingers-right-under-the-ears sleeper/nerve hold to win the match. While he wrestled clean (if tough) for most of the match, there was that tiny bit of folk hero vibe in the end when he poked Villars in the eyes twice, which the fans loved. This wasn't spectacular, but it certainly did the job.

SR: 2/3 Falls match a little over 30 minutes. Our first sighting of L‘Ange Blanc, a masked wrestler who was said to be immensely popular. With this being France and you watching a masked megastar looking like a luchador, you have good reason to expect some trippy shit. But this was a rather clinical, technical match aside from a few athletic moments from the angel. All the throws and holds looked tough and L‘Ange Blanc certainly had a palpable aura about him. Villars was quite great here. He was taking shortcuts and being vicious, but not turning the match into an all out brawl. He came across as being really determined to not lose to this masked joker. The first fall was going swell until the intensity turned up when a basic sequence of holds lead to both guys trading painful looking bodyshots and L‘Ange Blanc hitting some fantastic dropkicks which Villar sold huge. Villar soon cranked up the intensity by handling the angel by his mask and doing some nasty as hell knuckle grinding. Villars efforts were soon vanquished however when the angel put him to sleep with a weird ear nerve hold. In the 1950s nerve holds were really hot shit. I was hoping Villar would push L‘Ange Blanc a little more to the limit, although he gave it his best shot.

PAS: Amazing discovery, which works more as a piece of history then a high end match. After Villars was so dominant the previous week, he gets beat pretty soundly here. Blanc has a regal barring, moving with real ramrod grace. Great looking dropkicks and takeover and that jaw hold he finished with was brutal. He wasn't nearly the technician of the guys we have seen before, but he did have something about him, a physical charisma. I can see why ended up such a big star.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Delaporte! Villars! Nelson! Cody! Mercier! Le Foudre!

Al Araujo vs. Marcel Parmentier 7/25/58

SR: Only about 1 minute of this, but any Parmentier is must watch he clobbers Araujo while exuding his trademark miserable charisma and the crowd seemed excited for this.

MD: Shame we only get a minute of this. Honestly, I knew we didn't have much more Parmentier but when I saw the video was 48 minutes long, well...


Roger Delaporte/Paul Villars vs. Gordon Nelson/Bud Cody 7/25/58

MD: We've seen a few Delaporte tags now and we have a number left and they definitely fell into a simple formula. He, as much as any wrestler I've ever seen, had quite the sense of ring positioning. The game, the entire game, is keeping the opponent in his corner, cheating as much as possible, and then showing ass for multiple comebacks. He (and his partner, generally), is a constant looming presence on the outside, always ready to grab from the apron or leap in. There are times here, where he forces the breaking of a hold on Villars just by stepping in, preempting the interference, because the babyface knows what's coming. When he's on top, he's inscrutable and cruel, kicking, hammering, launching great strikes. When he's underneath, he's cowering, hiding, refusing to get in. He takes a great deal. He gives a great deal, always just a little more which is easy to do when you win so much, and the crowd absolutely loves to hate him. We had some of the hits we've seen before, like the leglock assisted by bouncing off the ropes and some new ones like a tandem Fujiwara armbar.

Here, Villars was a lot of the same, not quite the contrast of someone like Guy Robin, but doubling down on the Delaporte formula isn't a bad thing. Nelson was more of a stiff upper lip babyface, occasionally getting furious and taking out both wrestlers, but usually just a constant presence. Cody, who was billed as a distant relative of Buffalo Bill as these were fake Americans, on the other hand, was a powder-keg, a fireplug, throwing fists with abandon. Whenever the faces really fight back, it's an air of chaos, and so much of that is on Delaporte's reactions. Great finishes to the falls here, too, the first being a novel rope gut clotheslining off a whip due to Villars pulling the rope, the second being this crazy up and over press into a pin by Nelson, and the third being full on chaos with a ref bump, everyone being tossed, and the third being a Delaporte cheapshot on a slam to let Villars fall on top for the win. Forty entertaining minutes that felt like twenty, that's the Delaporte formula so far.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going close to 40 minutes. It‘s legendary tough guy Gordon Nelson in a complete match, so that‘s exciting. He was only in his 2nd year as a pro wrestler, but had the look of a grizzled balding veteran, and the commentator kept joking about nelson holds and calling him Admiral. This follows as the same basic formula as most of these matches, it starts out with some basic holds and then they slowly start cranking out nastier and nastier beatings on each other. The heel team of Delaporte & Villar was spectacular here essentially holding the match together. Villars is quite the fucker here kneeing people in the spine and uncorking these nasty punt kicks that I used to think only WAR and BattlARTS guys did. Delaporte has quite an outstanding sense of what to do when in these overly long matches, such as rolling up Nelson while he was busy with Villars only for Nelson to pop up and smash Villars in the mouth anyways, or jawing with the crowd. I have no idea how these 40 minute matches were laid out in the back but I imagine they were built around these types of cues and the faces took them well. Cody held up his end throwing fists and just beating the shit out of the French guys to the crowds delight. Ending was really good with the crowd getting rowdy as hell.

PAS: I really dug this as well. Delaporte clearly has a great formula in tags and it is as great a formula as anything the Andersons or the Midnight Express had. Villars was a great running buddy, really vicious and cheap shotty. I want to double down on the greatness of the Nelson body press which won the second fall. It didn't have any refinement to it, but it was wildly athletic and really spectacular to watch.

Guy Mercier vs Allen Le Foudre 1/24/70

MD: It's funny to watch European wrestling of any sort and see anything experimental in the idea of rounds, but that's what this was. Five rounds of dubious length with short breaks (40 seconds?) in between and a judging at the end. At one point, the commentator asks Mercier about how it's going in between rounds and he indicates it's harder than a normal match. Anyway, this was really, really good. We've seen Mericer once before, in the Finlay tag ten years later, and he maintained that sort of greco-roman vibe with his approaches and some of his throws here. Verhulst was Johnny Londos on the NJPW set; to brush up I watched him vs Fujinami and Mile Zrno this weekend. The Zrno match is great and the Fujinami one very interesting since it's almost like Fujinami facing off against the spirit of French Catch: a lot of things we're quite familiar with. I suggest people track them down. Here he brought a lot of that same energy with really deep throws (over the shoulder and using the leg across the hip and lots of quick twists from both guys). They worked some extended holds, with the Verhulst headscissors (with long headstands by Mercier) and some of the cravates with lots of hanging on as highlights. Some of the throws (Verhulst deadlift front facelock suplex, a belly to belly by Mercier that dropped Verhulst on his head, a really deep bridging on towards the end) were just great. They picked up the pace believably in the last round, really jockeying for position and building things towards the bell. I wish we had another twenty Verhulst matches, but we don't. We do have more Mercier to come though.

SR: 1 Fall match that goes about 25 minutes. For some reason, this had rounds, maybe due to this being for Guy Mercier's European title, or maybe because this was somewhere in the countryside where things were done in a different way. Anyways, Allen Le Foudre is Charles Verhulst (which the announcer also points out), who some people may remember as Johnny Londos from the NJPW set. He also had a handful of appearances in IWE and a nice handheld match against Mile Zrno. Verhulst was a former freestyle wrestler on the Belgian national team and had a reputation for being a top notch technician who couldn‘t quite put his character together. Once again, it is immense to get more footage of a guy like Verhulst from all this footage, in addition to footage of guys no one has heard of or thought about in decades. This match was strictly for the purists, but I enjoyed it a lot. No flashy spots or escapes, no story besides two guys wrestling the fuck out of each other, but I thought it was tremendous. These guys have really beautiful array of armdrags and hip throws which they execute with serious force, all to set up elbow joint popping top wristlocks and chanceries. The camera is really good because the close up really enhances all the little things these guys will do in order to try and escape a hold. All of which makes the eventual escapes more rewarding. I think there wasn‘t a single rope running spot or dropkick in the match. Guy Mercier had some cool greco roman suplexes – not something you see a lot in euro matches. This followed the typical pattern of two technicians working to a draw – mostly technical work and escapes before things flare up a bit in the last round and European uppercuts are thrown and the time runs out. Nothing surprising, emotional or mindblowing here at all, but I thought it was a great little hard fought contest.

PAS: I thought the rounds kind of screwed up the pacing here, but the actual work was really great. I adored the throws here, these deep armdrags and powerful throws from both guys that reminded me of Victor Zangiev in New Japan. There were some cool escapes from the mat and the forearm exchanges were very Catch, but a lot of this match felt different in style then what we have seen before. It didn't really go anywhere as a match, the rounds killed the momentum and we didn't get a finish, but man there was some stellar individual stuff which is as memorable as anything we have seen so far.

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