Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gordon! Hassouni! Marquis! Shadow! Primitiv! Jessy Texas? Cohen! Tejero! Lagache!

Flesh Gordon/Kader Hassouni vs Marquis Richard Fumolo de la Rossignolette/Black Shadow 7/14/85

MD: I'd call this one surprisingly good, pretty well put together. By this point, the good Marquis (now mentioned as Richard instead of Edouard) had figured out a better balance for the act. It was still getting a lot of heat on the valet (a Paul Butin-Fluchard; your guess is as good as mine), which involved him having to stand on the apron and go all the way to the center of the ring at every opportunity and contrived ref distraction, but he was better at knowing when to bump and feed and work rope running spots and when to slow things down and pose and preen. They were all moving pretty well in there actually, surprising for Richard since he'd been more of a lump recently and for Black Shadow because he took so many big bumps and dives to nowhere. I thought Gordon looked quite good; Hassouni probably hit things cleaner and moved faster but Gordon had more of a star's sense when to appeal to the crowd and really milk something. This followed the old structure with exchanegs and stylist dominance in the first fall, cheating leading to a straight up beating in the second, and all of the celebratory bits of comeback and humiliation in the third, including the valet getting what was coming to him. The ref leaned heel which was kind of necessary for the valet act to work but made it all a bit much but the fans were into it, the action was good save for a few flubs, and the production team certainly had a lot of fun putting quasi-blasphemous phrases up on the screen to highlight the Marquis' antics. We're deep into 1985 now and while Flash Gordon isn't Jacky Corn or Petit Prince or Gilbert LeDuc, and while he'd turn into whatever he would turn into in the years to come, you do get the sense from the footage we do have that he did do a fairly admirable job helping to anchor things in the 80-85 period.

Mambo Le Primitif vs Jessy Texas 7/21/85

MD: I have no idea who Jessy Texas is but he's around off and on through the end of he footage and after. Mambo has his drummers back. It's crazy that we have more Mambo matches than L'Ange Blanc matches, right? And over the span of a few years here. his was fairly spirited, I guess. Ol' Jessy (billed from America and with a fun shirt with his name on the back) had a lot of the tricks (dropkicks, the up and over top wristlock reversal, monkey flips, a very nice heaving back body drop type throw), and Mambo bumped all over the place, including his signature chest first miss off the ropes splaach bump. Eventually, he got biting and clubbering and despite a fiery comeback from a bloody Jessy, one big shot to the gut ended his hopes. Mambo finally more or less figued out how to do the Alabama Jam too, so good for him. This didn't have he spectacle of the handicap match or the strap match but it was probably the best darn Mambo Le Primitif match I've ever seen. Oh and since everyone needs to know this, pop star "Billy" was there for the last match and singer Francois Deguelt (who represented Monaco at Eurovision!) was sitting on commentary for this one. Important stuff.

Georges Cohen & Kader Hassouni vs Anton Tejero & Pierre Lagache 7/21/85

MD: I'm going to miss these sequences. Up and over into headscissorss. Amrdrags where they hang on and hang on. Rolling back wristlock takedowns. Cohen and Hassouni were stylists' stylists. Tejero and Lagache were expert bases, stooging and feeding and bumping out of the ring (the old Tejero special). They were all older now but the technique was the technique and they were masters. Maybe Hassouni didn't get as high up on his cartwheel. Maybe the rope running just lasted a few spots instead of a full minute, but they were able to get a lot of mileage out of teasing the wrenching of an arm or slipping a shot in to the gut or the ref preventing Cohen from getting in while Hassouni was getting double teamed. That meant when Tejero went sailing through the second and third rope to the floor on a missed charge or was tossed over the top afer Cohen's eventual hot tag, it just meant all the more. What can I tell you that I haven't already? In 1965 or 1985, these guys were good.

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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: Corn! Malmoa! Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Asquini! Lagache!

Jacky Corn vs. Frank Malmoa 11/9/73

MD: The good thing about being this deep into the footage is that we really do know some of the wrestlers. I can write a lot about Gilbert LeDuc or Rene Ben Chemoul, and yes, about Jacky Corn. He's the sort of guy who will outwrestle you to start, that will dive you to nasty tactics, will survive them, and then will forearm you in the face three times, toss you out of the ring, and get you in a hold just so he can stomp on your fingers. He did that here. He also elbowed Malmoa's skull repeatedly while holding him in a Fujiwara arm bar. I liked Malmoa but I don't know if I need to see him more than this. He had a way of getting ahead by doing something dirty, appealing to the crowd, and then getting annoyed and admonishing him when they didn't give him the credit he deserved. It's a simple act but an effective one. I liked how they could do similar exchanges, primarily things like top wristlocks into headscissors into headstand escape attempts and have them feel different and mean something different at the three minute point and then the eighteen minute point of the match because of what had transpired in between. My favorite Corn matches are probably the ones where he's beat down for a while and then comes back in a big way and this was more of smaller slights that were quickly avenged, with the idea that Malmoa was never a huge threat, but it was still fun to see him fire back and to see Malmoa get what was coming to him.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Bruno Asquini/Pierre Lagache 12/7/73

MD: Asquini had previously been a stylist and he had some clunkier than usual exchanges with Bordes and Ben Chemoul though they were still quick and effective. When it was time for them to take over, primarily through cheating and controlling things in the corner, he did a lot better. He could put on a competent beating. Lagache stood out more for stooging and complaining and it was great to see his carefully coifed hair become more and more wild as the match went worse and worse for him. There was extended heat on the end of the first fall through a tag between Ben Chemoul and Bordes and Bordes really took a mauling getting tossed over the top repeatedly and then kept out of the ring with kicks and hard shots. The comeback came a little too easy in the second fall, but Bordes' finishing sequence of the three cartwheels, the two headscissors takeover, and the leap up victory roll remains one of the best trademark sequences in all the footage. The third fall had some more beatdown and another comeback which was just a little too easy, but it all felt more balanced and maybe a little less celebratory than usual. It was still nice to see Bordes and Ben Chemoul against some new opponents.

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

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

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

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

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

Michel Saulnier vs Guy Renault 10/9/72

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

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

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

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gastel! Di Santo! Noebreui! Legache! Edery! Cohen!

Robert Gastel vs Lino Di Santo 10/9/66

MD: Gastel and Di Santo were both exceptional at what they did. Everything was worked well; everything hit hard; everything had struggle. Gastel was cruel and mean and mugging, with compelling, varied, nasty offense. Di Santo came back with skill and fire. Despite all that, this felt a little long in the tooth. It had the feel of a mid-90s Tito vs Greg Valentine (or Wahoo vs Greg Valentine) indy match: two guys who were obviously masters but a little bit older, maybe on a somewhat smaller stage, maybe going through the motions just a bit, even if those motions were the right ones and quality was still high. You're still glad to see it, because you'll watch Gastel headbutt people and Di Santo get revenge forearms all day, but it doesn't quite spark like it might have ten years prior. That said, it's all relative. If this was the only French match we had, we'd rave about the nasty shots and tight holds and how well these two fill thirty minutes. It didn't help that the most interesting thing in the whole match, Gastel tying up Di Santo's head in the ropes and unleashing a barrage of knees from the apron led to the very unsatisfying DQ finish. Still, it's impossible to question just how good these two were and I'm glad we still have a few more Gastel matches ahead of us.

PAS: I agree with Matt that this felt like a pair of guys a bit past their prime, but to me that is a feature not a bug. I love a pair of old guys stiffing each other, I am a Bestia del Ring fan, a Kurisu nut, a Gypsy Joe fanatic, and that is what that felt like. Two old grumps who aren't going to take a step down, they might not have the wind they used to but the have the grit. I thought the finish was pretty great, with Gastel hanging Di Santo in the ropes and just cracking him in the temple with hard knees until the ref threw it out. Totally nasty looking stuff and a great way to end a match. Certainly not an all time Catch classic, but I enjoyed every second.

Le Vicomte Joel de de Norbreuil/Pierre Lagache vs Abraham Edery/George Cohen 10/16/66

MD: Another high end 60s French tag, this one flavored differently by the fact they were all junior heavyweights. It went a little faster, and some of the spots, especially the stylist comeback ones, were snappier. Instead of a body charge when a heel is tied up in the ropes, you'd get a dropkick. That sort of thing. What made this work was just how absolutely vicious the heels were. They were going for heat instead of just builds to triumphant comedy. When they tossed Cohen and Edery out to the floor, that was one thing. When they went out after them, you got the sense they were going for a riot. Beloved rotund referee Mr. Marshall was assigned to this one, but these guys were quite literally running around him. It got so chaotic at the end that we basically miss the finish because there was so much else to see.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Wiecz! Rene Ben! Cesca! Lagache! N'boa!

Andre Bollet vs. Eddy Wiecz 9/21/65

MD: This is the finals of the Salon Cup, or at least it's for the cup, and it's primal and personal and violent and fun. There's a certain familiarity here that we don't usually get in the footage. It almost feels like a big blowoff match in a feud as opposed to the sporting match of the week, which is how it usually goes. There's a little bit of wrestling to start, with Wiecz able to hang on to holds or go right back into them and Bollet, as always, able to stooge his way right out of small, skillful victories in the most entertaining fashion possible. When it starts to pick up (with Bollet throwing the first blow), it never really settles back down. They're constantly abusing the ref whenever he tries to intervene and while he gives public warnings, he's suitably bullied by them and likely afraid to throw the whole thing out considering the importance of the match. Bollet will choke and grind and hammer, but then Wiecz will come back with just huge shots mixed in with a little bit of his athleticism, like the backflip off the top, or fun moments like catching Bollet's foot in the ropes and then tying the ref up too when he tried to stop him. They do a very good job of selling the attrition as the match goes on, with Wiecz flopping on shaky legs and Bollet needing to lean on his seconds or hang on to the ref. Ultimately it spills onto the floor and they have a last thundering exchange before Wiecz is to put him away definitively in the center of the ring. Just a real classic slugfest. If you told me this was the most watched and remembered French match-up of the 60s, I'd believe you.

PAS: I agree this felt like a classic. We have had better matches in this footage, but nothing which felt bigger. Bollet is a real thumper in this, landing hard big blows through out, Wiecz (who is Eduard Carpentier) has a much more theatrical striking style, big winging hooking blows, which really land, I also liked his Anderson Silva like push kicks. When they combined to wail away at each other it really built to something special. Wiecz tying Bollet's foot into the ropes and then tying up the ref was a nice bit of table setting business before they really unloaded on each other. I really liked Wiecz, flipping sentons, he got some real snap on them and they landed with some real chest compression. 

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Pierre Lagache/N'boa Le Congalais 10/3/65

MD: What to even do with this tire fire? N'boa was Bob Elandon who we saw not too long ago as a real heatseeker. Now he's a savage from the Congo with a handler (a woman dubbed Franziska Von Biesen dressed like Kim Chee without the mask and with a whip). Elsewhere, he'd come out as N'boa the Snakeman with a giant python. So, basically Kamala, right? Most of us can watch Kamala matches, no problem. What makes this one different? It's the crowd. I don't think I've ever quite seen a French crowd like this, not with Bollet and Delaporte, not with Quasimodo, not with Von Kramer or Kaiser, not even with Elandon the last time we saw him. Likewise, as good as Cesca and Ben Chemoul were (and they're just a really great team), I've never seen the crowd so behind them, not against Bibi and Bernaert or the Black Diamonds or the Teddy Boys. While the commentator was going on about how, if N'boa lost, he'd be sent back to the jungle to live in his trees, this crowd wanted their countrymen to put the savage in his place more than I've ever seen them want anything. We're ten years in now, have seen so much, and it's the comparative view that damns this so thoroughly. What else to even say? The wrestling was very good?

PAS: I guess I am the counterpoint here, which isn't really a place I am comfortable being. I mean jungle savage gimmicks in wrestling are clearly racist, but in the spectrum N'boa wasn't Kamala level of subhuman, or even as racist as something like Crime Time. Between the ropes he basically worked like he worked as Bob Elandon, big hard hitter with some athletic stooging. Lagache played the role of the wrestling foil, and Cesca and Chemoul have their tag stuff as polished and down as any tag team ever. Racial heat is clearly a thing, from Puerto Rico vs. Mexico feuds, to the Caribbean Sunshine Boys to the Gangstas, and it did seem like an especially hot crowd, but the heels were also pretty great at cheapshotting and milking the crowd. I also don't think this was the hottest crowd we have seen, we saw people swing on Lio Pellicani and pelt Cheri Bibi with garbage.  I could enjoy this as a match, and while this wasn't the tip top level of some of the Cesca and Ben Chemoul stuff, it was in the mix.

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