Tuesday is French Catch Day: Genele! Cabrera! Mercier! Taysse! Gonzalez! Renault!

Bob Genele vs. Pedro Cabrera 3/21/74

MD: Interesting setting on this. Apparently they're somewhere on the Riviera, in a shopping center, with the ring up on stilts in a fountain in a plaza. There are palms about and occasionally we get an interesting camera angle from above. Usually, you'd see these guys in tags, but this was a singles lightweight match that went about twenty with clear face/heel leanings. The first few minutes were generally about Cabrera having advantage despite Genele's best efforts, so you knew he was going to turn things and start heeling and cheating soon enough. Genele was a Teddy Boy and had a real mean streak that got a lot of heat. As the match went on, he'd get some shots in but Cabrera would control with a headlock or short arm scissors or armbar, which they'd work in and out until Genele would have to pull the hair or get in a forearm to escape. He'd get some shots in and they'd repeat. Straightforward stuff but well worked with some quick flourishes and rope running bits and a nice repetition reversal finish. A match like this going twenty instead of thirty isn't a bad thing by any means. Cabrera was slick and this felt like a pretty good example of what a standard lightweight match of the time might be.

Guy Mercier/Gerard Taysse vs. Jo Gonzalez/Guy Renault 3/21/74

MD: Another match from the same show in the fountain. At the very end of this they teased a couple of spots where Renault almost went out, but he didn't quite. As it went on, I really thought the ref (our old friend Michel Saulnier) was going to go but nope. He did eat a lot of offense considering and he deserved it too. The first minutes of feeling out was solid wrestling, with Gonzalez working tight cravats and Mercier with headstands and even a short leg scissors at one point, but obviously the heels were going to start to play dirty. When they did, it was deep southern tag, with Mercier hot on the outside and Saulnier distracted and stopping the babyfaces to the point of putting too much heat on himself. Still, there was heat and Gonzalez and Renault were excellent at grinding down even through a couple of tags where they kept control with the numbers advantage and by distracting the ref. Occasionally here Saulnier would eat a dropkick or a punch from the babyfaces but the heels kept control through the end of the first fall. 

When it was time for Mercier to come in hot, he blew the roof off the place (if it even had one), with big shot after big shot and huge whips all around (including to Saulnier). One of the best hot tags we've seen in this, though they never go to a finish right after. Still, from that point on the stylists were definitely in it and they were able to clown the heels more and more as time went on. Mercier was one of the great French stylists, no question there, another one of those guys who knew all the tricks, hit hard, really wore his heart on his sleeve in the ring. Gonzales was one of the great stooges and villains; that's become apparently as we've gotten into the 70s. Taysse played face-in-peril well and got a few good shots in on comebacks but he and Renault were both capable but not nearly as memorable second bananas for their partners. They also had to fix the ring between the second and third falls due to its odd set up in the water. That hurt momentum a bit. If that didn't happen and if a bit more of the heat ended up on the heels and not the ref, this would have been over the top great. As it was, it was still very good.

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

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

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

Michel Falempin vs. Paco Ramirez 7/19/73

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

La Batman vs. Jose Gonzalez 7/19/73

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

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

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

Andre Drapp vs. Jimmy Dula 4/26/71

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Weicz! Cabrera! Sanniez! Martino! Caclard!

Jack de Lasartesse vs Bernard Vignal 8/24/68

MD: Just two minutes here and a chunk is taken up talking in the crowd. A shame as Vignal probably matched up well against Lasartesse. He's doing well here until he misses a drop kick. Anyway, we don't get to see much before the bombs away and Lasartesse tying him up for shots in the corner until he shoves the ref in the most casual, irritating way possible to draw the DQ.

Andre Bollet vs Jacky Weicz 8/24/68

MD: The last six or seven minutes of this were really good. Bollet was laying it in, leading to Weicz coming back big. It all built to a perfect block of a punch and Weicz firing out of the corner and getting satisfying revenge by tying Bollet up in the corner. Bollet's a crafy one though and things ended with him getting legs up and hitting a big flip senton and slam. Unfortunately, the twenty+ minutes before that went on a bit too long. Weicz wasn't his uncle ("uncle?") who was apparently back in America at this point, but he was a capable enough stylist. Bollet's expressions while being choked were spot on, and his reactions after eating something as simple as an armdrag are all-time-great, but this just didn't have the manic energy and vileness I've come to expect out of him. It picked up now and again but for too long it was them trading holds, with Bollet using whacks and hairpulls to keep Weicz down and Weicz coming up with solid and sometimes creative counters. Either chalk this up as a perfectly fine match with some diminishing returns on a personal level or trust me that if you chipped ten minutes off of this in bits and pieces, it'd be a really great one. Still, if you're going to spend a solid 30 minutes with someone, Bollet, with his expressions, isn't at all the worst pick.

Pedro Cabrera/Albert Sanniez vs Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard 8/31/68

MD: This was more of a slugfest than the last Martino/Caclard vs Sanniez/Partner match we saw. Just a ton of great shots all around. That said, this had both less energy and less heat. The heels were excellent here but they just had too much of a tendency to knock Sanniez and Cabrera into the wrong corner, leading to all-too-easy tags and comebacks before any real heat could register. There were a lot of great individual exchanges, spots, and performances though. Caclard had a great headlock suplex and was a good base and stooge all around and we'll see him again. This is our second and last look at Martino who was just a tremendous cruiserweight bully and one of those guys we unfortunately only get two looks at like Tony Oliver. He must have bumped to the floor six times and had an interesting bodyslam variation which went up and over differently. So good action but kind of goofy structure. Caclard and Martino got heat whenever they tried to cut off the ring or especially drag someone back to their corner because you're not supposed to touch a guy before he gets up, but ultimately, they got clowned a lot, and the third fall was really all comedy where they'd get a spot or two but have it reversed in a big way on the repeated attempt and crowd-pleasing miscommunication, especially after a giant swing. Sanniez feels like an all-timer with amazing bridges and crazy handsprings and big spots and big shots and we'll see him again. Cabrera was young but hung well for the most part. The match would have been better served with them really beating on him for a while though.

SR: 2/3 Falls contest over a little over 30 minutes. The elusive Tony Martino shows up again! His presence in this match, along with Sanniez also being there and Sanniez & Caclard later becoming a heel team themselves, it makes me wonder whether Tony Martino was their maestro. His and Caclards tendency to not outright cheat and instead proving their wrestling ability without the typical overt cheating certainly stands out. This was in the same style as the fantastic Martino/Caclard vs. Sanniez/Sullivan match from years earlier. The first fall of this had some beautiful, beautiful work. I loved the basic throws Martino whips out and  there were some awesome flexibility spots. Of course, there were some beautiful ranas and dropkicks as well. The match soon became european uppercut city though and turned into the fiery hot mix of hard hitting blows, heel roughhouse tactics and athletic babyface moves that was clearly these guys speciality. Martino is so clearly an awesome worker that it‘s hard not to be sour over his lack of tape appearances. He basically turns into a more nimble Terry Rudge with a boxing stance when he puts on those hammerlocks and starts clubbing away. Cabrera is said to be another Spaniard, and while he is cleary less interesting than Sanniez he does fine in this. He certainly ate a lot of stiff looking uppercuts which made me think a bit that he was paying young boy dues here, but who knows. Another great match that falls just slightly short of being classic due to the finishes coming a bit abrupt, but I‘m not complaining. Any chance to see these guys go to work is awesome and the fact that they probably had dozens of matches with this kind of workrate is amazing.

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