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: Weber! Salah! Don! Trujillo! Bordes! Bouvet! Samurai! Payen!

MD: As a heads up, the audio on the first set of matches is a bit messed up. For me, it worked best if I just listened with my left earbud and not the right. The footage is the footage.

Arpan Weber vs Artif Salah (JIP) 6/14/76

MD: We get the last seven minutes of this. I don't think we have much more Weber but he's looked very good in the two matches we've seen so far. A real slugger, with a tendency to bounce back off the ropes with big shots. He has a lot of stuff: a butterfly suplex (one of the first we've seen?), a backbreaker with a grind, his fall away slam with a float over follow-up, and of course chops and headbutts and an ability to take all of his opponent's stuff. Good presence and I would have liked to see him against LeDuc or Corn or Bibi or any number of other wrestlers from the footage. Salah was game to fight back against him, having more stylist tools like dropkicks and headcissors takeovers but going shot-for-shot when it was called for. They were fighting for the draw here and showed but it was still good hard-hitting action for the seven minutes.

Juan Gil Don vs Tomas Trujillo 6/14/76

MD: This was a totally different animal than the last Don match. It started off much the same with Trujillo feeding into all of Don's traps and spots. Trujilo had his own climb up armdrag which he used here. It looked like it was going to be another straight up Don showcase like the Tejero match. Then it turned hard left as Trujillo tossed him out and posted him, opening him up and taking a real advantage. From there, Don had to use his tricks and savvy to come back again and again as Trujillo leaned on him. It gave the match plenty of drama and made it feel like a complete match, all heightened by the blood, by Trujillo being a good bully, by Don's spectacular stuff (including those flipping mare that someone, anyone has to steal! I never do this, but here's a gif. Steal them!:

You get the sense that they wanted to get him over in the Tejero match and once he was they could do more fleshed out encounters like this. 

Le Samurai/Pierre Payen vs Walter Bordes/Gerard Bouvet 7/18/76 

MD: We had this back in 2014, but it was only the first two falls. Now we have it complete. That's a great word for it, for it really is a very, very complete tag, going a few minutes longer than a lot of the ones we've seen lately. The first ten-fifteen minutes is one of the best shines we've seen, just the stylists pulling out all sorts of spots and clowning the heels again and again. The last six minutes are hugely celebratory with the fans singing and chanting and having a wonderful time. In the middle there are about three separate face-in-peril sequences and comebacks, including one stemming from Bordes absolutely wiping himself out on a missed top rope move.

Bordes and Bouvet made for a great unit. Bordes always kept up on the new moves and spots of the time and here threw a chancery suplex followed by a German suplex, for instance. He also worked the apron quite well showing excitement for his partner on big spots. Bouvet had a lot of fun little variations, leg picks and nice escapes, including a sort of skin the cat headscissors takeover that was deep and measured and popped the crowd huge, and a fallaway slam that almost caved in a skull, but also did a dropkick variation on the bit where both heels are tied up in opposite ropes and the stylist charges in again and again. Because this got so much time, everything felt fairly balanced, even if the drama was done by the end and they were into full on partying. You wish that they had worked out exactly how to time and maximize the hot tags with some of the ref distractions and out of position tags that didn't count, but Bordes and Bouvet always came in fiery and the crowd went up for it. Samurai didn't have too much in the way of complex wrestling, but I thought he was properly theatrical (and Payen properly mean), working very big with chops both missed and hit and doing things like getting into a shoving match with the announcer. Very worthwhile tag and I'm glad we have it complete now.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Arroyo! Husberg! Dos Santos! Louis! Bordeuax! Payen!

Jose Arroyo vs. Eric Husberg 12/27/57

SR: 1 Fall match going about 35 minutes. This was a bit „hot and cold“, but when it got hot, it got hot. Arroyo is a bald headed Spaniard who gets to be the face in this, while Husberg is your typical heel of the era who will wrestle a bit only to forearm you in the back of the head unexpectedly. The wrestling was basic but servicable, of course the juicy parts are when they start trading blows. Arroyo has really great looking european uppercuts and I liked how Husberg looked just disgusted with Arroyos retaliations. Heels thinking faces should be above their tactics is great. This also had a ref stop finish, which I believe is a first in this footage.

MD: This was a good match and had a invested crowd that seemed much more into cheering for Arroyo (who was presented as a handsome Yul Brenner sort here) than booing Husberg. In some ways, it's not bad that this match finishes 1957 for us because it was very typical for the brunt of face vs heel matches we saw during the year. They had a couple minutes of clean wrestling before Husberg got frustrated and laid in the blows. He controlled with holds and cheapshots behind the ref's back and Arroyo came back with technical reversals and punishing blows. If we had watched this four or five months ago, it'd have stood out. Really, though, it was a lesser version of a lot of what we've seen. I wouldn't call it lifeless: Arroyo was fiery when he ought to have been, almost always going farther and more violent than other faces we've seen and Husberg had this passive aggressive attitude where he seemed put upon and almost annoyed to be in this situation and he certainly was invested in the cheating. Arroyo's offense just wasn't as crisp or interesting even if the crowd was going wild for the sheer depth of violence in his comebacks or the finish and Husberg just didn't have the verve as a Tony Oliver or Pellacani; he came off as subdued, pissy or stoic. He did the right things, but they weren't nearly as enjoyable to watch as usual. Which again, might have been ok for a shorter JIP affair, but we had 38 minutes, straight with no fall breaks, of this one.

PAS: I agree with Matt that this would have stood out a lot more earlier in this project, we have seen too much elite stuff for very good to register. It is also a lot to ask to invest nearly 40 minutes in two guys with out a ton of real flash. I thought there were a couple of standout mat spots, including Arroyo rolling a leg lock into a bridge pin, and Arroyo was laying in the shots, including a finish where the ref had to stop the match (although it also looked like Husberg may have legit messed up his shoulder.) Still this need more to justify the time invested in watching it.


Mota Dos Santos/Pierre Payen vs. Francis Louis/Jean Claude Bordeuax 6/19/71

SR: JIP 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. 3/4 of these guys did the insane moon wrestling match a year later. I wanted to see what they could do in a regular match. The answer was a pretty standard match that ended up being pretty fun. Dos Santos & Payen act as heels, stooging and cutting off the ring.. While they don't do anything super evil besides kicking a few people when they're down they gathered tremendous heat. The wrestling won't blow you away if you've been watching the French stuff, but it was the kind of fun solid light weight action nearly everyone can enjoy. The standout was easily Mota Dos Santos. He was really fun even just threatening to swing punches. He also had a great mlitary press and a a nice German Suplex (probably the first time we've seen one in this footage). I also noticed how insanely stocky is for the first time here which makes his fast movements look even more awesome. True to form, this is the only regular match this mysterious supposedly Portuguese wrestler ends up showing up in.

MD: We only have two dos Santos matches. One is the space catch with the trampolines. Here's the other. It was much more grounded and much better for it. They still moved quickly. They still did fantastic stuff. There were a ton of bumps to the floor off of dropkicks, lots of slugfests, tons of headscissors takedowns and clever rope running. Dos Santos bounded into the ring every time he was tagged and had a cool little rolling dodge at times (including to get heat after a fall so he didn't have to start the next one). But it was a much cleaner and clearer heel vs face narrative with cutting off the ring and build to some real payoff for the faces getting revenge. Dos Santos' normal partner was out with a knee injury; I get the sense Payen was normally a face but he comported himself excellently as a heel here, with lots of mean blows, cheating the first moment we see him with a hairpull to the outside. Robert Charron, who had been a boxing champion in the 60s was the ref but he wasn't a huge factor, only getting involved once or twice. Bordeaux played face in peril for a lot of this with Louis really dynamic on his comebacks with just huge uppercuts. There were some spectacular individual moves, like dos Santo's crazy dangling German Suplex and the press-slam gut punch combo that finished the first fall, and quite a bit of heat, much, much more than we had for the trampoline match. The biggest highlight was probably the wild brawl on the floor. I thought the finish was just a little flat because it was too similar to how the faces won the second fall, but in the end, this was a great combination of flash and substance.

PAS: I thought this was a blast, did a great job of melding the super athletic style of French wrestling with the more smash mouth stuff. Dos Santos was the stand out, a pint sized power guy throwing awesome looking press slams and german suplexes, and still whipping out super fast headscissors. Louis was a great hot tag, really coming in and steamrolling people. The brawl on the outside was super heated, they were wildly tossing hands and even shoving fans in the crowd. I would have also liked to see a more dynamic finish, but that was really a quibble, overall I thought this was just excellent.

ER: Loved this, total superstar performance from Dos Santos, but everyone had their moments. Either Dos Santos just had this real improbable strength, or Bordeaux is a master of body manipulation and making himself fly. Now, both of these things could be true. We've seen the acrobatics these guys can pull off and it's some real Cirque du Soleil kinda jazz, crazy body manipulation leading to unnatural feats of strength. And here's Dos Santos doing one of the most impressive and unexpected press slams I can ever remember seeing. He was running around the ring with Bordeaux like he was Bigelow deciding which part of the crowd to throw Spike into, except he's barely bigger than Spike. Bordeaux has a real beautiful headscissors and I'm glad he got to show it off a few times here. It's one of those optical illusion headscissors where he leaps up high enough to grab guys in a huracanrana but falls back to earth and snares them at the last minute with his ankles. It always looks like he's going to whiff or he just missed a dropkick, and then at the very last moment he hooks those ankles. It's so good. Bordeaux clearly has next level body control and it's one of the things that makes me want to see Dos Santos pull off a similarly impressive press slam with someone the same size as Bordeaux, but not Bordeaux's weigh distribution talent. The crowd brawl really stood out as it's not something we've seen a ton of here. We've had guys take wild bumps over the top and into the close seated fans, but this was a cool spirited brawl with guys throwing in a tight space. It's more jarring to see that in what is a much more professional setting, the same way you don't see World of Sport crowd brawls in front of mums in their house coats. Great stuff.

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