Found Footage Friday: BREMEN '83

November, 1983 Bremen 

MD: We're a few months behind on the Germany stuff now and this is a Bremen November 83 tape that doesn't have some of the foreigner appeal as the 80 and 81 stuff, but that makes it almost all the more important to dig in and see what we get.

Indio Guajaro vs. Steve Paersey

MD: Paersey is Stephan Petipas (a Maritimes star). Guajaro could be a great stooge when he wanted to be. The first round is all him getting one-upped. He'd get thrown and then when he threw Paersey, he'd do a cartwheel. He'd get a top wristlock only to have Paersey take him over with a headscissors. He'd try for a monkey flip but Paersey would land on his feet and do one to him. The crowd was happy for all of it. Second round had Guajaro trying cheapshots or pulling the hair only for Paersey to get the better of him, including a recoil shot off the ropes, some big uppercuts, and stepping on his hair. Third round had Paersey hit a headbutt and take over with some mean stuff. Paesery came back and hit a back body drop and won it on that. This was a crowd pleaser that didn't outlive its welcome.

Wolfgang Saturski vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I mostly know Wallas from some mid 80s tours, but we do have other Europe footage of him. He was the heel here. This was chippy early with Wallas having an advantage (maybe not entirely clean) until Saturski dropkicked him out and did a Rick Rude like taunt (pre-dating Rude, of course). He ended the round with an endless full nelson slamming his head into the corner again and again. He took over in the second with a cheapshot in the ropes and controlled with bulldog like chokes and then ultimately a nervehold, slipping the choke back on anytime that Saturski tried to fire back, using the ropes when needed. Saturski had a big comeback culminating with him doing a catapult back off the ropes onto his knees and things sort of just petered out with Wallas deciding he was done and Saturski being declared the winner. They had the crowd but this ended up being a lot of the same with a few good moments.

Steve Casey vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: We come in JIP here. This is face vs face and they play into a lot of comedy bits where they roll around on pins or both pin each other and a very fun one where they do mares, hang on, roll around, and roll up the ref who was able to leap over them once but not twice. Good imaginative technical stuff all around. Casey hit a headbutt to the gut. Morgan hit his recoil headbutt in response. Casey won it with the arm drag slam out of nowhere after a few rounds of the back and forth. This was a fun one even if it never boiled over.  

Steve Paersey vs. Tony St. Clair

MD: Another gentleman's contest. Clean breaks and holding the ropes open. Cute exchanges early with cartwheels and rolls and placing the opponent to the apron either by lifting them or throwing one's own body. They moved into grittier stuff from there, with St. Clair controlling on the arm. That didn't mean we wouldn't still get the occasional cartwheel as he got out of the way to take back over a hold though. Overall, a lot of hanging on through attempts to escape like body slams, though Paersey finally got free with one to work the leg. St. Clair had a way of doing these sort of nonchalant nothing escapes where he just jammed a slam or popped out of a hold and it almost always got a laugh. Speaking of those, at one point, Paersey went for a roll up and St. Clair went right into lady of the lake position and got rolled around. Anyway, the tape cuts out right before a finish. This was fun overall but a little long, maybe wearing out its welcome just a tad. 

Dave Morgan vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: More of the same. Paersey had a spot he did where he tried to legdrop the arm and missed. He did it in the last match too. Fans seemed to like it. Second round (presuming we came in during the first) picked up the pace a bit. Morgan's recoil headbutt really is a cool spot because it's heatseeking. He won't just do it the same way every time but he'll go halfway across or around the ring to find you, hitting from all sorts of angles. He also had this sort of sweeping kickstand type kick I've never seen anyone else do where he brings the foot up and then back. Paersey just dropkicked him in the face for his trouble. Then Morgan returned favor with this really cool bit where he did the drop down and loop in like he was going to go into a cross legged headscissors and do a handstand but he just whacked him in the shoulders with his feet. Paersey somehow won this one with an atomic drop after all of that. This had sort of a WoS feel of course, but it was all a little looser, more of a house show, which makes total sense.

Mal Kirk vs. Rene Lasartesse 

MD: When I saw the card, this was definitely the weirdest looking match. What weird body types, Kirk lumpy and Lasartesse a skeletal figure, tall and looming. Kirk is the babyface and this is, of course, clipped to incoherence. A shame. We get a Kirk comeback which leads to Lastartesse escaping. A lot of action between rounds as music was playing which gave things a violent Benny Hill feel. Lasartesse takes some liberties on the outside and Kirk comes back in with a chair and clocks the ref with it and that's basically that. If we had more of this I bet it would have been interesting.

Steve Paersey vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I almost wish we could get this to Pettipas' family. He's all over this footage. And he's good. He really is. This was a draw. Wallas worked heel. He had a lot of stuff. A back brain kick, a neckbreaker, lots of chokeholds/chinlocks, a low blow down the stretch while he was being pinned and the ref was looking at the count, which you never see, and plenty of shots in the ropes. Paersay took it all well, had a great bump in the corner where he took a headstand on the top of the turnbuckle pad, mean comeback shots, and a good ebb and flow of working out of things and getting the crowd behind him. For all the matches to go long, this was a good choice. They had armwork and legwork that didn't really go anywhere but it was more about immediate comeuppance for Wallas than anything else.

Mike Shaw/Col. Brody/Wolfgang Saturski vs. Barry(?) Douglas/Tony St. Clair/Dave Morgan

MD: I'm not convinced all these names are accurate. This was fairly clipped too but it was novel for being a six man and for having Mike Shaw, who was already 26 or so. He was spry, had a decent sense of what to give and what to, and could taunt and work the crowd. This was chaotic and crowd pleasing for the most part. There was a fun bit early where the babyfaces traded off neckbreaker style holds one after the other. Brody got the biggest laughs/pops when he missed charges, first into the corner and later at someone who was tied up in the ropes. The babyfaces were constantly ending up beat down in the heels corner but then their partners would come in to toss the heels over the top. It was that sort of match but it cuts off before we get a finish.

Jon Harris vs. Wolfgang Saturski 

MD: This stuff is so stylized. Big sweeping, swooping folk hero wrestling. Just so over the top and bombastic with the shots. Everything is a big clubbing shot. Harris had an underhand sort of punch I've never seen before. It almost felt like the stooges deal where you hit the top of the hand and it goes all the way around to whack someone. They looked painful at times but not in conventional ways, but you just rolled with the fantasy. The crowd sure did. Harris got a few licks in but mostly he got his comeuppance again and again to everyone's delight. He'd get stuck in the ropes and charged at, catapulted back onto the knee, etc. Toward the end, after a round break, Saturski actually did the Franz Van Buyten bit where he launches himself across the ring to leap into a tencount position and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else do that. Anyway, this is one of those matches I'm going to try to force Eric to write about because he can do it more justice than I can. You wouldn't want to spend all the time with a match like this but it's fun to visit now and again.

Col. Brody vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: Brody looked very good here. The chain wrestling as they fought over arm advantages was excellent. Eventually it got more stoogy and Brody got comeuppance, but everything before that was slick. And Brody was quite the stooge (at least in 83) too, going over the top three or four times and the crowd loving it each time. He'd take liberties with a hairpull or cheapshot but the rounds nature of this meant that he never had advantage for long, even if they did get chippy between rounds once or twice. Things built to a big airplane spin which Paersey got the worst of (despite doing it) and everything spilling to the outside for some brawling and a slam as the tape cuts off. Nothing groundbreaking here but a very high level of craft and skill.

Dimitar Dimitrov vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: Excellent technical babyface match. These two were really going at it on the mat. I'd say this stuff would have stood up well to some of what we got from UWF the next year. Gritty, full of struggle, lots of clever technique and escapes. At one point Dimitrov put on a cloverleaf so quickly and from such an askew angle that you blink and you'd miss it. The roll up exchanges they did were really good because they were so deep. It didn't feel collaborative like almost every other roll up exchange I've ever seen. But they were also playful with the way they'd shoot an arm out to get out of a pin.Morgan showed a very different skill set than some of the other matches on the tape, even the clean babyface ones.They traded some great suplexes too including Morgan taking him over with a German that was hugely uncooperative and Dimitriv doing maybe the earliest fisherman's suplex I've seen? Finish had the first real rope running of the match and Dimitrov caught Morgan doing a leapfrog taking out the knee mid-air. He couldn't beat the count and that was that. There have been a ton of great spots and exchanges on this tape but you go so deep into these to find a match like this that no one would probably find otherwise. I did some digging and Dimitrov was "Don Kolov" who might have even trained Santino Marella? Anyway, I think this was a find.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Wolfgang Saturski

MD: Lasartesse is amazing. He's one of the only wrestlers in history that can get real true heat just by... walking slowly around the ring. And he has this sort of dispassionate passion. Saturski started the match by rushing over and clapping his ears and he was shocked but then decided to just ignore it, as if it was beneath him and it is its own form of selling. Then he did a bit where he hammerlocked Saturski and punched him in the gut and then pretended his own gut was hurt. That happened twice and then finally Saturski nailed him in the gut and pretended his was hurt and the fans loved it. 

Lasartesse has fascinating offense too. He uses every part of his body, slaps, punches to the gut, knees, kicks, stomps, chokes, but it all seems credible but also outlandish, like getting hit by a skeleton. His slap makes a huge noise. It's hugely credible as he's slamming Saturski's head into the turnbuckle connector over and over. Everything builds to him lurking behind Saturski in the corner waiting for the ref to leg him get his hands on him, lurking and lurking, a looming specter of death. Then Saturski gets him with the most obvious mule kick in the world in the groin and starts choking him with something (maybe the tag rope?) and the place goes nuts for it. Then he takes Lasartesse outside and starts hammering him (really hammering him) with the ring bell and it's quite the sight overall. Saturski apologizes his way back into the match but Lasartesse is able to take the advantage and tombstone him for the 10 count KO and boos.

Brody/Wallas/Guajaro vs. Gaetano/St. Clair/Rocco?

MD: We get a decent amount of this. It wasn't listed on the tape. We get to see all of the babyfaces play face-in-peril including Rocco which is just weird. Brody and Guajaro are experts at swiping at people from the outside which is something I think should happen more in six-man matches. Gaetano is a very interesting wrestler too as he has a lot of stylized flourishes but they're all a half step slow and sweeping and nothing is as tight as you'd want. But they're crowd pleasers. They did the bit where St. Clair grabbed Brody's mustache and Gaetano went off the top to whack it. Then he followed it up by making a hand-talking-yap-yap-yap motion to the ref when he complained which got a big laugh.The footage cuts after Wallas gets a cheapshot on St. Clair and then clocks him. Anyway, babyface Rocco is just strange (big corner bump and some nice missile dropkicks from him and St. Clair here, but strange).

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Found Footage Friday: DANIELSON~! SUWA~! PIRATENKAMPF~! VAN BUYTEN~! LASARTESSE~! VERNE~!

Verne Gagne vs. Bobby Nelson NWA Chicago 1955

MD: Another @pwoloss unearthing we're just getting to. Always nice to see a new match with young Verne, and he was his usual dynamic self here, feigning headlocks for quick decisive hammerlocks, hitting (and dramatically missing) that signature dropkick, ready to fire back against Nelson's shenanigans. 

And Nelson was full of them. I really liked how he moved in general. If he was going to eat a Gagne shot, he did it by getting caught up in the ropes for a second and then sold it with a full spin. Just full effort before, during, after. When he took a mare, he almost went flying out of the ring. Likewise, when he went for a front facelock, he kept putting his foot on the bottom rope to push off and send things back to the middle of the ring. Little things like that when it came to positioning and trickiness. Lots of sneaking in punches, but he'd sneak them in right in the eye in the nastiest way. 

It meant that when Verne did come back, the clobbering he could put on and the technique he used was more than warranted and the fans went up big for it. The old Gagne sleeper that he used to end it was at a slight angle and looked particularly nasty. Just a good short match up with enough contrast to make things work.

Franz Van Buyten vs. Rene Lasartesse (Piratenkampf) Germany 10/84

MD: Another month, another uncovered classic that Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers) dropped on his patreon from the German haul. We only had a few minutes of this previously, and what we had before was blurry and gripping, a fight for every inch in the corner midway through the match. The whole thing is a far more minamalist affair, with some really great high points surrounding the climbs in the corner and Van Buyten especially putting his entire body into halting them. 

It still has the sort of grueling mood that you'd expect from these matches, with a lot of wrenching at the face with the chain, scraping it against teeth with a yank from behind, but the video quality is almost too crisp for such an affair and the blood doesn't flow quite as freely as one might like. It's still tremendous how much they accomplish just by making every small movement matter as much as possible and Van Buyten's comeback is all around brutal. He's one of the greatest babyfaces of all time for a reason; his body language is as good as anyone's ever, and unique on top of that. No one moves like him, the way he throws limbs and frame into everything he does. That's especially present in the comeback. The finish is cheap as can be with Lasartesse escaping the chain and capturing the flag while getting pummeled in the ropes, but in the ensuing, heated chaos, order is restored and no matter what was written on paper, the fans at least got to leave feeling like Van Buyten was the victor.

Bryan Danielson vs. SUWA 1PW 8/19/06

MD: We don't talk a lot about SUWA. This is less known then their ROH match which happened a few days earlier but it was a lot of fun. I didn't love the opening stretch, if only because I didn't feel like they were entirely in sync. Everything was clean but SUWA was messing with the cameraman and the timekeeper and Danielson didn't really play off of it. He took a really nasty double snot rocket just by reversing a whip and hitting his next few spots; yeah one of them was a dive but I wanted a little more. He did throw some toilet paper back at SUWA after he chucked it from outside the ring towards Danielson, so that was well appreciated.

When they got into the heat and the comeback and went down the stretch, I liked it a lot more. SUWA had extra oomph to everything he did. If he took Danielson up and over for a backbreaker, he went way up and over with him. Everything looked good. Danielson, on the other hand, had a really nice looking twisting European uppercut off the second ropes and a tight chicken wing. When they went to strikes and headbutts, everything felt impactful and was sold as such. When Danielson finally locked in the Cattle Mutilation in the center of the ring, it really, truly felt like there was nothing SUWA could do. That's how you want it to feel. I'm glad @aspiranteanegro sent this our way (via Tom).

ER: Matt says we don't talk a lot about SUWA but I think it's more that we don't write about SUWA enough. That's what he meant, but I think the difference is important enough to note. Because, even though we've only written about a few SUWA matches over our existence, SUWA is one of my very favorite wrestlers. He was my favorite Toryumon guy and a completely unique presence in NOAH, and then he was gone. An always eventful 10 years and then he was out. He was one of our last great punchers and last great heels. Nobody else in NOAH was a heel the way he was, with a truly heel face that everyone wanted to see punched. He has pock marks and could have worked any US territory in the 80s and been a legend. There were so many incredible SUWA matches that we did not get to see, but now we have tape of the other SUWA/Danielson match. 

SUWA worked so well with Danielson, fully understanding what the other was capable of. The match had a great build, making it feel like a really complete match. I was surprised that it was "only" 11 minutes long. It felt longer, in a good way, because the nearfalls down the finishing stretch felt well earned. SUWA comes off so authentic. He's tough, but a great stooge. He has no interest in winking as part of his heel routine. He does not ever show any interest in people liking him. He is committed to being a heel and has a moveset that fits him perfectly. There's a great bit where he toe kicks Danielson in the balls and then does full pantomime for the ref, hitting the inside of his leg and doing one of the best ball sells I've seen in showing the ref Danielson was just faking it. SUWA has great kicks. He is not a kicker, but he has great kicks. Nobody wrestling today has better stomach kicks than SUWA, and his John Woo dropkick to Danielson's stomach looked like it caused the bump Danielson took into the buckles. SUWA has a finisher worthy clothesline and throws an overhand chop across Danielson's face, his quebradora looked fully controlled and violent, and he's so good at kickouts that he made it look like Danielson could still beat him four different ways. I don't know why we don't write more about SUWA. I've wasted so much time. I haven't seen any 2013 NOAH SUWA. There are 2000s NOAH SUWA matches I have not seen. I should write a lot more about SUWA matches.

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Found Footage Friday: BREMEN 1984

12/84 Bremen Part 1

MD: Again this is gated behind Richard Land's patreon but it's worth covering at length and there's a good chance more will keep dropping so best just get through it in two goes.

Billy Samson vs. Stephan Paersey/Petitpas

MD: Most of the footage here is quite complete but this is cut and we don't get a finish. instead, it's about nine minutes overall, but it's nine minutes of pretty good wrestling. Paersey is Stephan Peptitpas, mainy known for his work in Canada. These two match up pretty well, mainly contesting over control over the arm. Tight holds, very little given. Petitpas had a neat little dropkick to the held arm that looked good. Samson had a nice cross armbreaker takeover and this great little bit where he couldn't get Petitpas over with a cravat so he patted him on the back and teased a handshake and then went right back to it and got him over. Hard to say where this would have ended because the finish is cut off. They were pretty good at what they did though.

. .
Hans Roocks vs. Rene Lasartesse

MD: Speaking of good at what they did... I love watching Lasartesse. No one moves like him. The sheer confidence it must have taken to moved so woodenly but still be able to exude the amount of malice, just boggles the mind. He's like Yul Brynner in Westworld or something. Just always pressing forward, imposing, taking the air out of the room. Roocks is an absolute tank, big and thick and hard hitting. This almost felt like Wahoo vs Lasartesse in its own way. Early on they just laid into each other, Lasartesse with the height/reach advantage and Roocks throwing big meaty shots. The middle had Lasartesse control with holds meant to take the air away from him. He hit one bombs away kneedrop and had this sort of thumb on the throat headstand flip he did which I've never seen elsewhere. Roocks eventually fired back by swinging for the fences with European uppercuts and they hammered at each other until Lasartesse missed a second knee drop off the top and Roocks just scooped him over with a big pendalum power body slam for the win. Just mean stuff all around.

Dave Morgan vs. Caswell Martin

MD: Very, very good. Lots to see and take in. I tend to like Martin wherever I find him. This was absolutely a showcase for his great escapes. Headstands, sneaking through the legs, cartwheels and flips. Just interesting, imaginative stuff with Morgan setting everything up well. Martin controlled for a lot of this, hitting the armdrag slam (which got countered on the finish as he tried for it again), a neat front single leg dropkick, but mostly controlling through a top wristlock. Eventually, Morgan was able to get the up and over headscissors takeover, but he earned it, as he earned a rolling escape from an arm puller into a headlock. Good stuff. He leans towards comedy sometimes and they had a couple of funny moments here including a false start on rope running and him getting deposited on the top rope by Martin. Quite a few gif-able moments here but it all worked within the confines of the match.

Hans Steinblock vs. Giant Haystacks

MD: Steinblock is not well regarded but a lot of that is due to one famous Warrior match and being a promoter with a tendency to put himself over for years. Maybe when he was younger there was something there? I'm sad to report there was not. More than anything else, he moved and hit like Brutus Beefcake. Against almost anyone else in this footage, that might have still worked. Here, not so much. He had some hair and beard pulling and a big, crowd-pleasing knocking of Haystacks over the top rope. Haystacks was pretty good at knowing what to give and when but this wasn't the guy to give against. When Steinblock finally charged in one too many times and got caught, it felt like a mercy all around.

Otto Wanz vs. Giant Haystacks

MD: Primarily this made me appreciate the Studd match more. They hit hard at times. Haystacks got pretty good heat at times with cheapshots. They teased some of the stuff that actually got hit in the Steinblock match (like Haystacks going over the top). But this never came together for me at all. Too much of just wandering around and throwing their weight around ploddingly. I didn't feel any real sense of weight or gravitas. Things didn't build and payoff. They just kind of happened. It was just two giant behemoths encountering each other in the wild and crashing up against one another. Not a bad spectacle maybe but without the story and drama underpinning it. Even the finish seemed weird ad Otto got Haystacks down and went for a splash or went to go for one only for Haystacks to roll. So Otto just casually slapped on an arm bar and the ref called for it. It wasn't a Clash of the Titans because for that you need to have an actual Clash.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Caballec! Richard! Sanniez! Lasartesse! Mercier!

Jacky Richard/Albert Sanniez vs Jean Corne/Rene Caballec 9/8/80

MD: Caballec is someone we've seen a few times in the footage, going all the way back to the early 60s. Last time we saw him, he was positioned as a bad guy but I noted that he seemed to have stylist skills. He certainly showed them off here. Sanniez, of course, had been an arch stylist but he'd worked out how to be a bad guy in his time in a role. He and Richard were perfectly balanced, the stooging, bruising, slamming, jawing Jacky and the slick, bumping, technical, rope running, and constantly trying to interject from the outside Sanniez. Between the two of them, you had just about everything you could want two stylists to go up against. And of course, Corne was one of the very best at what he did; by this point, it feels like the Celts were as iconic and as much of a staple as the Rock'n'Roll Express, even if Corne was the constant and partners moved around him. In between them was that old walrus, Delaporte, gruff and even more aged than we last saw him, but beloved and one of a kind in his reactions.

Richard comes off again and again as one of the best wrestlers in the entire footage. He's not going to be one that casuals who drop in for trampolines and Petit Prince headlock spots are going to notice, but he's a base's base and a stooge's stooge and a mauler's mauler. He's the glue. He's the reaction that gives meaning to the action. He's the consequence ready to strike and capitalize on an opportunity. Here he's gotten even better at working with Delaporte, working with the crowd (and hating the music from the Celts' fan club), while still being able to take everything and keep up enough to make it all work. They work this to a draw, though that doesn't really make the first twenty minutes much different than what we'd be used to in a long 2/3 falls tag. What it means, as much as anything else, is that Richard and Sanniez are quick to rush into break up pinfalls and earn Delaporte's ire. At one point, after Richard snuck something and the fans called him on it, he pointed to him with the most perfect "J'accuse!" imaginable. They got the heat that they did did by running circles around him, attacking a downed opponent while he was stuck admonishing the other. He got the last laugh as after the time ended, he declared the stylists the winner anyway; he's the promoter so he can do that.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going 30 minutes. If all 80s French wrestling is just gonna be quality workrate tags like this involving lumpy maestros, I‘d be fine with that. The opening exchanges were just ridiculously fast and intricate. It was like watching Navarro/Solar on speed. I also enjoyed Albert Sanniez a lot here, who may be the best of the French rudos. He just makes everything look great. The structure was a bit weaker than in the previous tags as it seemed like the faces were never really in trouble and there wasn‘t an extended heat segment. Roger Delaporte was the referee here and for some reason he keeps this in order. Being a legendary TV villain and then turning around to be a good guy referee is weird. The time limit ran out, but Delaporte declares Corne & Caballec the winners anyways. The work here was very good, but I could see some people being annoyed or confused with the match layout.

Guy Mercier vs Jack de Lasartesse 10/5/81

MD: And suddenly we're in October 1981. The wrestling in 1980 was good! So it's a shame that we're basically a year later without much to show for it. This is our lot though. We shall meet it with dignity. There's still quite a bit left after all. They say it's been thirteen years since we've seen Lasartesse and the footage bears out at least 11, I think. Delaporte is the ref. I'm with Sebastian that the big issue on this one was that Mercier's comeback just wasn't hot enough. Lasartesse had taken over fairly early by working the back and he did it well, with hard shots, pulling the corner protector down for whips, backbreakers, butterfly suplexes. When it came time for the comeback, it was sort of an eyerake out of the bearhug, which led to legwork and the duel selling of the leg and Lasartesse's ears as I think he was doing the Mongolian Stomper gimmick of the crowd noise hurting him. He's such a unique character, with his lanky limbs and gum chewing and the way that he always sells and strikes while he's just constantly walking, like a shark who can never stop. When he sells late in the match by writhing and not walking, having lost his swagger, that's when the fans know he's in trouble. Before that, he's always a long-reached hairpull away from escaping any hold. Mercier does a good job selling the back and then coming back with leglock after leglock and Lasartesse does take back over later, leading to a fairly fiery comeback and strike exchanges towards the bell, but it's just not as primal as a Van Buyten (or Jacky Corn for that matter) match would have been. Great build, but the payoff sputtered too much.  

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. Lasartesse was sporting blonde hair here and hadn‘t fully morphed into the evil grandpa looking guy yet. This had the weird Lasartesse match problem where he did a ton of offense, but the match wasn‘t as smartly laid out as his better matches. His offense looked good, especially the knee drops and throat jabs, but Mercier wasn‘t able to stage some kind of epic comeback against that like a Van Buyten type worker would have. I thought Mercier was too small to fight Lasartesse (seems there was a lack of big guys on the French scene), and while he does fine, he doesn‘t do a ton of interesting things here either. He was mostly hogging Lasartesses leg which
didn‘t lead anywhere. There was also the thing where Lasartesse hits his sick ass knee drop off the top rope followed by the tombstone piledriver which is a finish if I‘ve ever seen a finish in French catch, but Mercier just kind of gets up and they move on with the match. Guys will get pinned following a bodyslam or hip throw, but for some reason everyone survives the Tombstone Piledriver. This also goes to a draw and again, referee Delaporte declares the face the winner which feels like it completely eliminates the purpose of a draw. I‘m probably making this match sound worse than it was, the work was good and especially Lasartesse had a good showing, but the baffling layout choices prevented this from being more than that.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Kurt Kaiser! Lasartesse! Calderon! Mercier! Kiyomigawa

Kurt Kaiser vs. Remy Bayle 2/21/70

MD: I was wondering when this episode was only 27 minutes and this match wasn't joined in progress. This was one minute and twenty-seconds of outright murder. Even when they've debuted monsters in the past, whether they were the cerebral sort like the good Dr. Kaiser or outright monsters like Quasimodo, it was usually in extended matches where they got to show a lot and their opponents at least tried to fight back. Here, it was a series of haymaker forearms, a series of slams, and one double underhook suplex. They certainly built him up for a big match against some stylist or another.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Gaby Calderon 2/21/70

MD: On paper, I didn't love the look of this as a little bit of the judokas goes a long way, but it was actually a great matchup. Lasartesse supplied the contrast and force required and Calderon went at him with a different intensity and less of a spirit of exhibition than usual. It was a contest between Lasartesse's size, strength, and unrelenting underhandeness and Calderon's skill. Lasartesse would strike down upon him, would go for slams and backbreakers, and would sneak in eyerakes, chokes (most especially while in the backbreaker position), and would even undo the corner ring guards, and Calderon would come back by catching or redirecting the arm, laying in shots like knees, and unleashing varied submissions, including a great stretching double armbar and a 1970 Crippler Crossface of all things. Ultimately, Lasartesse chipped away at him by going after the throat, but drew the ref's ire in the process and earned himself a DQ by launching his signature bomb's away kneedrop straight down upon Calderon's windpipe. This was absolutely the matchup Calderon needed.

Guy Mercier vs. Kiyomigawa 4/11/70

MD: They'd introduced rounds matches earlier with Mercier vs Le Foudre early in 70 and this is the second match in the footage that follows the style. They still announce it as new and try to explain Kiyomigawa refusing to break in that he's unfamiliar with it. Before the match, he has a plate breaking demonstration and he has a couple of Japanese valets or observers at ringside but there's a communication gap between them and the announcers. This ends up being six rounds of around five minutes and the pacing works out better than the Le Foudre match. Kiyomigawa was as stereotypical worker as you might with chops and nerve holds, but I like the chops generally. They look good and he has some combos with them. Mercier is quick to get a leg pick and work a toehold but there's never any selling from Kiyomigawa to give it any weight. Kiyomigawa's always able to go to the eyes or the ropes and get a break so he can chop and choke again. Mercier tries for a bearhug and maybe a belly to belly a couple of times and usually pays for it; even when he gets it late in the match, it's without weight (back to the eyes, back to the nerve hold and chop). There are a couple of rounds I liked a lot, 3 where Mercier really got to fight back from the chops and 4 where there was a bit of a role reversal with Kiyomigawa going for the toehold and Mercier the chinlock but this was all quite a bit of the same, even if the same was generally good. If you're going to have a fairly repetitive match instead of push for an escalating boiling over, the rounds probably do more good than harm.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Boucard! Demon! James Brown! Apollon! deLasrtesse! Hess!

Daniel Boucard vs Red Demon 2/6/66

MD: This was something. I'm just not sure what. Red Demon, in his ill fitting costume, definitely got an A for effort. He reminded me of a Chris Champion or Brady Boone, one of those guys who had bigger ideas than they had athleticism. He'd land on his feet off of mares and monkey flips, but just barely and never gracefully. He'd bound up to the top rope and somersault off onto Boucard but it looked neither smooth nor entirely painful. I liked his attitude. He kept returning to this attentive position, presumably to throw off and taunt his opponent and the crowd. Every time he landed on his feet early on, he'd charge right back in with a flying headbutt to the gut. When Boucard started to get some offense, he tried to keep him outside the ring. At one point he took a powder when things got too hot. And he had interesting stuff, an armhook takeover or a cavernaria and those flips off the top. He just couldn't really execute any of them well. I liked the layout too with Boucard really struggling until he either wore Demon down or figured out how to solve the puzzle. When he started to hit a few revenge charging headbutts of his own, it was a nice moment, and then a nice callback at the end as he got too overzealous on it and took a nasty bump to the floor (not his first in the match) and couldn't answer the count. Most of all, this made me look forward to was 1968 and the arrival of Kamikaze into our footage.

James Brown/Ray Apollon vs Jack de Lasartesse/Hans Hess 2/11/66

MD: I'd say that this had some of the better hope spots and fighting from underneath we've seen. Really, I thought Brown was excellent here. His shine stuff, the dropkicks and 'ranas and strikes were very good. Watching him land on his feet out of a cravat into a mare perfectly was a breath of fresh air after our masked friend from the last match could barely manage it. He had good fire and the crowd was behind him. Lasartesse and Hess were a very good team, with Lasartesse's reach just a brilliant tool for tag wrestling. When he had Brown in a chinlock and he started to get out, he could reach over to Hess from almost anywhere in the ring, it seemed, and get pulled back to their corner. Long tags too, of course. The heel side were great at cutting off the ring too. Plus, of course, you would have Lasartesse doing an arm trap suplex or swinging bearhug backbreakers (Brown had a great pendulum backbreaker too). 

Apollon was a crowd pleaser but a little of him went too long if you ask me. His primary mode of attack would be to bully his opponent in the corner and hit these swinging hammers to the gut as the fans counted along. In and of itself, it wasn't a bad act but that was the entire act. He'd thereafter seem lost and almost immediately tag out. That meant that Brown would get some revenge shots in, but he was almost always put in a tough situation, even after he'd make a big, valiant tag. It was the right call for the match since the quality was loads higher when Brown was battling against Hess and Lasartesse and I could see Apollon working well as an attraction that fans only saw occasionally, but that's not exactly how this footage works. This was the best we've seen Brown look and next time we see him, against Bibi and Husberg later in the year, he'll even have a proper partner in Jean Corne. Oh, in case anyone was wondering, here it is too, before the match, our first look at the giant Jean Ferre, who got to shake hands with the aforementioned Cheri Bibi. He looked almost unrecognizably young at 19.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Spartacus! Schnabel! de Lasartesse! Gamain! Debuf! Rouxel! Peruano! Daidone! Charret! Frisuk!

Spartacus vs. Hans Schnabel 1/7/61

MD: We went back and found this batch which was on the list but with a labeling issue. This is one of the best five minute matches I've ever seen. Schnabel was just awesome here, super aggressive, unsportsmanlike from the get go: refusing a handshake, refusing to engage, launching kicks from the double knucklelock position, quick to go to the ropes for a break. I loved his little stooging spin sell on Spartacus' uppercuts and forearms. Spartacus was the wrestling specimen that he always is. They had a great, brisk armbar spot where Spartacus kept shrugging off Schnabel's escape attempts, and it was a lot of square-jawed revenge for Schnabel's antics past that. The finish was pretty definitive with Spartacus hitting two of those flip bombs, the second tossing Schnabel across the ring, before KOing him with one of the best shots we've seen. Five minutes of perfect pro wrestling.

PAS: This was great stuff, like an awesome WCW Pro match. You have Schnabel as this honey badger, chewing on the leg of the big boy and getting thrown around. I loved those hard headlock takeovers by Schnabel, and his slappy strike combos. Spartacus just kills him dead with the flip powerbomb, including the second one which looked like Sid killing a jobber. I also liked the one shot uppercut combo, which left Schnabel flopping like a fish on a pier. Good stuff, and I want more of both. 

Jack de Lasartesse vs. Al Gamain 1/7/61

MD: Long, complete, excellent match that leaned into Lasartesse's strengths so well with Gamain a solid and persistant foil for him. Lasartesse was a heat magnet owing to the swagger and the commitment and also to the dissonance of towering over his opponent, of being dangerous enough to cut his opponent off with a single strike at almost every moment, of being able to bully him with constant slams or toss him neck first on the top, but also being so quick to disengage, to hide in the corner, to go for a hairpull, to take over with a punch to the gut that he'd claim was an open hand. They ran a number of spots at the start where Lasartesse would use a hairpull or shortcut repeatedly only for Gamain to show him comeuppance with the same hold, ending with Gamain finally slamming him. This is the sort of heel ace vs local babyface stuff we'd see from Flair or Bockwinkel or Buddy Rose but we haven't seen it quite as much in this footage. As the match went on, it was Lasartesse using his size and scumminess to lean on Gamain and Gamain coming back big. Lasartesse was sure to sell the effects of these comebacks, favoring an arm or leg for a few minutes. Eventually, he started sneaking in the strangleholds, wearing Gamain down and battering him at every opportunity. Due to Lasartesse jawwing with the fans on the apron, Gamain got one last big comeback but rushed in too much and got tossed over the top. The fans, so incensed at Lasartesse, helped him up and tossed him back in, but it was more or less over from there, ending with the bombs away and Gamain unable to answer the count.

Jean Debuf vs. Jack Rouxel 11/10/61

MD: This was a pretty well executed sub-ten minute strongman vs jerk upstart match. All of Debuf's escapes in the first half were fun and definitive with Rouxel flying across the ring for him. He'd be quick to rush in and grab the next hold only for Debuf to completely clown him. Eventually, Rouxel had enough and just unloaded, laying in relentless shots and kicks as the ref screamed and gave him warnings and tried to pull him off. Debuf would try to get the ref out of the way but Rouxel would take advantage of that momentary distraction and hammer down some more. Eventually, Debuf got a huge bearhug out of nowhere and though Rouxel went to the eyes in the most grisly manner possible to escape once, he couldn't the second time. Nice compact, thematic match with Rouxel leaning into his role and definitely getting Debuf over as an attraction, but I disagree with Sebastian that it was better than the Spartacus vs Schnabel one. Still, we have a Rouxel tag vs Ami Sola upcoming and a singles match down the line vs Mantopolous and I'm curious to see both of those.

PAS: Very similar structure to the Spartacus match, and it is a great structure. Debuf is cut up like coke, abs, arm definition big shoulders, and early in the match he rebuffs everything that Rouxel tries, I loved him just flexing his way out of the arm bar attempt. Rouxel tries a bunch of cheap shots to take a little bit of an advantage, including a nasty headbutt and some gross eye rakes, but ends up getting ragdolled by a bearhug for the finish. I think I liked the Spartacus match a bit more too, but they were both very entertaining bits of business.

Inca Peruano/Giuseppe Daidone vs. Michel Charret/Jean Frisuk 11/10/61

MD: Nice, long example of the standard French tag with underhanded heels and fiery faces. Frisuk had more slugging blows and a great spinning toehold, while Charret seemed both more technical and more apt to just throw himself at his opponent. Peruano was, of course, the most talented guy in the world, able to come at you from any angle. In the tag setting he didn't have quite as much flash, but he made up for it with meanness and by being involved in just about everything. The heels cut off the ring and made frequent tags and involved one another in what they were doing. Daidone came off as a mean jerk who would just lean on you. Plenty of double teams and then heel miscommunication leaning to comeuppance. The bombs were big, one literal as Frisuk one the second fall with a straight up power bomb with a flipping bridge and Daidone hitting a pile driver towards the end. When the heels took their falls, it was more due to persistence and grinding down than anything else. This was good, but what you'll generally keep with you was the babyface fire (two variations) and Peruano being a constant presence.

PAS: I really liked this, French tags are of a pretty high average quality, and this had some moments which stood out above that. Peruano is a goddamn wizard one of the slickest most unique wrestlers of all time. This isn't the match you are going to show someone to sell him on Peruano, but he is almost like Negro Casas, even when he isn't a focus you can't keep your eyes off of him. Daidone was a brutal prick of a heel too, at one point he was landing these gross looking forearms to the back of Frisuk's head, and his piledriver was really nasty. Charret had a fun spot where he kept flipping out of armbars, and could also bring the heat when needed, and Frisuk was nearly spinning heads around with his uppercuts. I would have liked to see the match end on the piledriver in the third fall, it was such a huge move that anything after it felt superfluous, but that was a minor quibble in an excellent match.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: James Brown?!? Kovacs! Quasimodo! Rabut! Costella! Allary! Lasartesse!

James Brown vs. Robert Gastel  1/14/60

SR: JIP match, but we get about 20 minutes. I think James Brown was a US guy stationed in Germany and became a wrestler there. If his performance here is any indications of the standards of German wrestling, then it wasn‘t much worse than French wrestling at the time. Brown was super athletic, both in terms of agility and strength. At one point he did this straight lift from a headlock into a torture rack which was inspiring. He seemed a little green here and there, but overall he looked a good babyface. And Gastel is really good opponent for that kind of worker. Gastel really is the Dick Murdoch of Catch, working opponents over with a variety of punches while demonstrating impeccable timing and crowd control. It‘s European wrestling so the punches are to the body but the point stands. His sell of a simple headbutt to the mid section was a thing of beauty. I also loved how he pushed the referee. Really fun match.

MD: I didn't love this. I thought Brown was super athletic and had a lot of skills and tools, but he just needed to let Gastel lean on him more. He'd let Gastel get an advantage through chicanery but it'd be gone a moment later. Because of that, there was never really any drama to this except for whether or not Gastel might get some sort of banana peel win after giving up most of the match. Gastel's a great stooge and a great heel and to see him get knocked around and stymied by Brown was entertaining at times but even with some good spots it was just too much of the same.

PAS: I agree with Matt that Brown took a ton of this match, but I was really enjoying the hardest working man in French Catch doing his thing. Countering a headlock with a deadlift into a torture rack is one of the coolest spots I have seen in all of the French Catch and there have been some amazing spots. I also really liked how he landed on his feet on every throw. I expected James Brown to have more splits based offense, but what he did was very cool. 

Josef Kovacs vs. Quasimodo 1/14/60

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. Two guys whom we saw on different matches on TV before face off. I guess it was a bit of booking that just made sense. Kovacs is big and towering and he reminded me a bit of Pat Roach here, which is a very good thing. From British wrestling I am used to Hungarians being brilliant technicians, but Kovacs was a bit more blunt force in his style. He did some cool wrestling around blocking Quasimodos throws, and when the little freak got too uppity with his dirty tactics he was made with some big European uppercuts. He wasn‘t kidding around with his bodyslams, too. Kovacs is not as charismatic and fiery as Gilbert Leduc so the match wasn‘t as exciting, but it was a good match, and that spinning torture rack drop sure is one hell of a finish.

MD: This was a war of two very different monsters, an unrelenting and bitter winter rainstorm and the hulking, groaning inevitability of a slowly rolling boulder. Kovacs is announced as the Eagle of Budapest here instead of the Butcher, but he's still a big nasty behemoth. We'd seen previously how Gary Calderon's judo skills couldn't chip away at Kovacs' strength. Quasimodo, however, is a dogged wrestling machine, rusty, jagged, oddly shaped and creaking, but a wrestling machine nonetheless. He's like a festering ooze that creeps around Kovacs, looking for an eye, a throat, a leg, hair, anything that would give him an advantage. He adds to this a low center of gravity and surprising wiry strength, able to sneak in these nasty gutbusters and an electric chair drop onto the ropes. What I like the most about him is how he's able to create advantageous situations, turning a top wristlock into a backbreaker, things like that. The problem is that it's impossible to press an advantage against someone as strong and impenetrable as Kovacs for long. All he has to is get his hands on him and Quasimodo goes flying across the ring. Quasimodo does chip away at him as the match goes on, grounding him with a nervehold, flipping him over the ropes to stomp on his head, but all Kovacs has to do is catch him, which he ultimately does with his torture rack whirlybird. I thought the mismatch and the heel vs heel nature of this was going to make for a poor match but I ended up liking this a lot.

PAS: This was cool stuff kind of like when Yokozuna would beat King Kong Bundy or Nash would beat Wrath. Establish a monster by having him take down another monster. I am an unabashed Quasimodo mark, so I wish my dude would have gotten some more shine, but he did deliver some really creeper offense. I like his backbreakers and clawing, grasping offense, but eventually the beast was going to catch him.  I agree that finishing move was a finishing move, big time impact for sure. 

ER: I love Quasimodo, truly the role this man was born to play. He wrestles with a hunch (which is really no different than the freestyle wrestler's hunch that someone like Mark Schultz had), he's ripped like gassed old man Kurt Angle, but he has the face of Rondo Hatton. I thought he looked super impressive here, especially with the size of Kovacs. He used that low hunch to muscle him into corners, and was always pawing and clawing around his face and shoulders. He takes big bumps when Kovacs does get ahold of him, getting tossed especially far on a Biel throw, but he was plenty punishing to the bigger guy in the killer one strap singlet. He had cool gutbusters and backbreakers and a single leg crab that really looked like it was cranking Kovacs knee. Towards the end of the match Quasi powered Kovacs over the top rope, flipping him over and catching his neck over the bottom rope, then started standing and jumping on Kovacs' neck as it was over the rope. It looked like some sadistic Greg Valentine tough guy offense. 

Jean Rabut vs. Ventos Costella 1/22/60

SR: JIP match with about 10 minutes shown. This was in that fast paced French lightweight style. Not everything was tightly executed and I thought nothing they did topped the initial sequence built around a kip up headbutt (probably my favourite uniquely French spot), but they knew they had to have matches like this to contrast with all the heel spectacle main events.

MD: Even in the context of what we've been watching, this felt a little like seeing Blitzkrieg for the first time on Nitro, or watching that Brian XL/Divine Storm vs SAT/Red match using Real Player. In both cases we could sort of see where things were trending, but this felt like fireworks flying over the heads of it. The sheer speed that they were working, how quickly they got back to their feet, how quickly the momentum shifted, the rapid fire pin attempts and reversals, and just the constant motion. Everything wasn't always smooth but there was always a sense of competition and struggle. There was never any winking. Sometimes after a reversal or a recovery, they'd take a second to catch their breath, but then they'd be slamming their bodies into each other once again. All of the sunset flips were the leg-hooked sort which feel so much more impressive than the standard model. It wasn't all rope running and up and overs and sunset flips. Costella had a great forearm and Rabut did this amazing torpedo headbutt to the gut in the ropes, but what you're going to remember about this is the sheer movement about it. I wouldn't want every match to be like this, but by this point, the richness of the French footage is the overlap between constant variety and constant quality.

PAS: This was more of an exhibition of speed and execution then a structured match, but man were they moving fast. A ton of really cool sunset flip roll ups and ranas, and that kip up headbutt is an absolute killer spot.

Jack de Lasartesse vs. Michel Allary  1/22/60

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. It‘s the debut of Jack de Lasartesse, who went on to be kind of a phenom. And he may very well have been in his prime here. He was a bodybuilder before turning Catcheur, so he didn‘t have the kind of skill other wrestlers we‘ve seen have, but he had no problem going in a long heated slugfest. His swaggering, self assured mannerisms here were certainly a sight to behold. It sure got the crowd riled up good as people were looking to storm the ring 5 minutes into the match. There seemed to be 300 people in that building but they sure wanted to see Michel Allary beat the shit out of this arrogant bleach blonde aristocrat. And that he did. Tons of nasty uppercuts and forearms in this match. It didn‘t develop any kind of story but they sure knew how to keep the heat coming which is what counted at this point. Lasartesse had fantastic body language and excellent sense of timing which can totally carry a match like this. It was funny to watch him do a few things he would still do as a crusty old corpse 25 years later in Hamburg. Anytime he was eating shots from Allary he would throw a punch or just jab him in the throat. All the throat work felt super violent and the throat knee drops were just insane. Brutal fucking finish too.

MD: And here we have Lasartesse, finally. The announcer says he's been in the States buying cowboy outfits and cadillacs, but he comes out in his cape with its royal seal on it, the very picture of a guy who'd lose his head in the Terror. What a perfect heel for 1960 France. We've seen him off and on through the years, of course, but here he's everything you'd want him to be. Lanky, using his size to the utmost advantage, both on offense and as a tool for drama and emotion. Deliberate, filling negative space as well as almost anyone in the history of wrestling, chewing gum, strutting around the ring as he has to wait for Allary to get up, it almost becoming a dance as the crowd chants at him. This has some elements we've been slowly starting to see creep into the footage, both focused segments on a limb with a lot of various offense targeting it and a couple of top rope moves, Lasartesse first missing and then later, to end the match, hitting the bombs away kneedrop. Allary is yet another fiery babyface with great strikes but I do wish he sold the bodypart work a bit more. Instead, he opts for more revenge. Lasartesse attacks the back; Allary does the same in revenge when it's his turn. Anyway, as I said, Lasartesse was everything you'd want him to be: menacing, stooging, infuriating, imaginative, petulant, smarmy, vicious, and craven. We're endlessly lucky to get to see him in his prime.

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New Footage Friday: HAMBURG!! LASARTESSE! VAN BUYTEN! REGAL! RUDGE! ANACONDA?

Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz van Buyten Hamburg 9/19/84

MD: It's the contrast that makes these matches. Lasartesse is stagnation and Van Buyten is motion. Lasartesse is the immovable object controlling the center of the ring and Van Buyten is a dervish of momentum leaping in with blows. Lasartesse is entropy, the old regime drawing heat just by taking off his cape, reminiscent of death with his odd physique and how you can almost see his spine as he moves. He lumbers forward with measured steps and a certain inevitability. Van Buyten is energy, a representation of life and its perseverance, renewing and regrowing even in the face of unimaginable oppression. There is a cost to all things and thus Van Buyten is also prone to over-exuberance: Lasartesse is able to take over mid-match, turning a vaulting leap across the ring into a bump to the outside. Subsequently, he dissolves the ring itself, turning the corner into a weapon to pick apart Van Buyten's back. Even the bell calling for the end of a round can't stop his creeping assault. Van Buyten's comeback is spurred by a reversal to a tombstone, energy flowing through his body to emit almost spasmatic kicks to break the hold. His resurgence, even in the face of the healthier Lasartesse's consistent clubbering blows is the triumph of chaos and rebirth over unchanging order. The finish, where an out of control Van Buyten drives his body into Lasartesse, knocking him over the top and drawing the DQ, is yet another manifestation of its ultimate consequence.

SR: We had this before, but the version we had was black and white and like 20 minutes worth of clips. This gives a much more complete image of the match, and it‘s nice to have that. These two, at least in the 80s, had damn great chemistry together. This also has the advantage that it‘s 1984. While Lasartesse was already crusty and looking like your grandad, Franz was still a stud rather than an aging maestro. Aging maestro is cool, but stud is really compelling. This was fast paced but also had a lot of gravitas, with Lasartesse leaning in on nasty chokes and Van Buyten decking him almost immediately with resounding uppercuts. Van Buyten is incredibly compelling doing basic stuff. He makes the spot where he struggles for a snapmare to Lasartesse awesome like it‘s a real sport. He is also predicably great selling the inevitable beatdown where Lasartesse jabs him in the throat a bunch. One of the cool things that happens in these small arena 80s Euro matches is when the heel removes the turnbuckle pad, the fans will try to put it back up to protect the face. Lasartesse sure had people made as hell at him. We also get Lasartesse working over van Buytens back resulting in a typically great selling performance and some really fun Tombstone reversals.

PAS: Nifty match. I loved the early snapmare fight, Lasartesse is a great stonewall, refusing to go over and barreling forward like a Rhino. Van Buyten was at his prime and moving like a dervish. I loved the multiple in ring topes leading to the huge for an old dude Lasartesse bump. It is really cool that this feud has been unearthed in the last couple of years, and we get to see so many versions of it. This was one of the oldest versions and it was great to see Van Buyten with a fresh face.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz van Buyten Hamburg 1991

MD: Familiarity and expertise drives this match. These two are old rivals, old enemies, archetypes. Lasartesse is the villain, a hamming, hammering Snidely Whiplash in the twilight of his years, still smug, still prideful. Van Buyten is evergreen, ever noble. Lasartesse is a master of utilizing space, of using the ring as a palette, always framed in the right place as he lays in his punches and chokes and stomps. Van Buyten is a master of using his own body, sweeping blows from every angle, throwing his full self into a dropkick or a bound back off the ropes, assisting the overall effect even with his prone form in a drag across the ring, arching his body either to invest the crowd in his attempt at the flag or attempt to pull Lasartesse off. And they're with him all the way. It all sort of devolves into an unsatisfying chaos in the end, but what we had before that was pure and distilled, a type of wrestling familiar and primal yet also alien to what many of us grew up with. We're fortunate that the world eventually became small enough that we were gifted it as well.

SR: Lasartesse was 63 years old here. Van Buyten is 50. You see a corpse-like Rene Lasartesse entering the ring and then you notice that this goes 30 minutes. But this was, honest to god, the best Piratenkampf I‘ve seen from 1991 so far. That is not to disparage the South and Wallace matches, but this simply stepped up to a different level of intensity. Lasartesse despite being barely mobile was still really over and to make up for his state van Buyten was super fired up. Lord knows why van Buyten was beating the shit out of Lasartesse worse than anyone else in 1991 so far, but I guess having a 2 decade long rivalry will make you do that as you really get the sense Van Buyten was going to finally put the pillow on his evil old bastards face. Van Buyten was smart enough not to sell a ton for his corpselike opponent and instead beat the shit out of him while scrambling away from any possible chain related awrygoings. Needless to say that didn‘t work out the whole match as Lasartesse acted very savvy and soon found his openings. Lasartesse did some cool chain related shit – raking the chain across the back, chain punching the kidney, but mostly he was about working over Franz with nasty punches and stomps. He throws his punches like a guy with no hip, just straight fists and uppercuts, he looks like his knuckles are hard as stone, and Van Buyten sells getting unexpectedly punched in the eye extremely well. I have no idea how but it builds to a really great crescendo with head stomping galore and some Kill Bill level nasty chain choking, and Lasartesse takes an incredible „I just blew the entirety of my legs out“ bump off the top. For some reason this one has a time limit and they do one entire damn minute of tugging on the chain with Franz balancing on the rope before the time runs out which feels like one of the definite excruciating spots in wrestling ever. After the match Lasartesse challenges van Buyten to another Piratenkampf and van Buytens response is to jump him and beat the shit out of him some more. There actually is the beginning of another Piratenkampf between these two at the end of the video so keep your fingers crossed that will drop eventually as I‘m totally on board for another 30 minute match between a 63 year old Lasartesse and a 50 year old Van Buyten because these guys are the absolute masters of this stip and they showed here that age won‘t stop them from killing each other.

Dave Morgan/Steve Regal vs. Anaconda/Terry Rudge Hamburg 5/6/91

MD: Chaotic southern style tag with clear roles that didn't settle in like it should have, in part because of the ref. Regal was the quick, technical youngster (a veteran in years but still around 21). Morgan was the tough veteran mentor babyface. Rudge was the grizzled veteran heel directing traffic. Anaconda was the traffic. They inverted it a bit by having Morgan play face-in-peril while Regal kept getting missed tags and coming in to allow for double teams, but the ref was consistently out of place which forced people to stand around too much. All the action was good and all the roles were played well. There were some good spots, comedy and otherwise, but it was all a bit too chaotic to make sense of at times. I'd be all for a Morgan vs Rudge match though. Those two seemed almost to be made for each other.

SR: It‘s a pleasure to see Terry Rudge go to work. Unfortunately, his partner was a pretty dull kick and punch type of guy and this match was marred by some confusing clipping going in. Thankfully, Rudge did almost all the ring work. Him vs. Regal is known quality and we also get to see him tear up Morgans leg a bit. That is about the one thing this had going for it as it even ends in a confusing fashion.

PAS: Regal and Rudge are two of the all time greats, and any bit of new footage from either of them is a blessing. We got a couple of fun Regal vs. Rudge exchanges, although much of the match was the heels working over Morgan. Anaconda was a big guy in overalls, possibly a lost WWF Hillbilly and kind of wrestled like that. Had some moments, but never really came together.

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New Footage Friday: LASARTESSE! VAN BUYTEN! AMERICAN ALPHA! REVIVAL! CAIFAN! HECHICERO!

Rene Lasartesse/ Double Trouble vs. Franz Van Buyten/Scott Casey/Boston Blackie CWA 1992

PAS: Lasartesse vs. Van Buyten is an all time legendary feud and this maybe one of their last matches opposite each other. This is a really fun house show style six man tag. Van Buyten kind of reminds me of the Bullet as he has some really fun old man dancing, monkey flipping and armdragging. Lasartesse struts around the ring like a total dipshit and stooges great. Really enjoyed Double Trouble, they were a totally ok roidy tag team, sort of a heel High Voltage and they should have had a solid WCW Pro run. They even hit an assisted flip senton, which is a pretty big highspot in 1992. Lots of jazz and misdirection and hot tags, exactly the way you want to see legends showcased in their declining years.

MD: Watching this, I'm not sure what I'd rather see, late 92 Lasartesse vs Lawler, with both of them letting every little moment sink in or 92 van Buyten doing that headscissors (or step over) counter to the armlock vs old man Nick Bockwinkel. We've hit a point where we've seen that counter so many times that it doesn't quite have the same zing it did before, but if it was really so commonplace, why aren't people using it in matches today? Anyway, this was a tale of two matches. About midway through, with a lot of heat and antics, Van Buyten (who had played FIP very well for a lot of the first ten minutes, so well that the camera angle/video quality really wasn't a problem at all) and Lasartesse (who had played a chickenshit old heel during that time) both got tossed and it settled down into a 2 on 2 with Casey as FIP. It was still perfectly fine, with everyone playing their roles well, but we were here for the old guys so it was a shame to see them gone. It built to a pretty amusing spot with one Trouble tied up and the second one used as a battering ram, before the heels overdid it and everything got thrown out.

ER: When I saw the name Double Trouble I thought we were getting the two big fatties who worked WWF house shows in exchange for selling the Undertaker name rights. That said, I really liked them and yes they definitely seem like a team that should have showed up somewhere. They broke out fistdrops and flying headbutts and high legdrops, each took big bumps over the top to the floor, an unexpected Drive-By, set up a great spot where one of them got tied in the ropes and the other gets rammed HARD into his gut battering ram style and yeah these are probably the actual better Double Trouble team. I liked how the first half played as the old man Van Buyten vs. Lasartesse showdown, and the second half was our Double Trouble showcase (or at least a showcase for me). Van Buyten was still super spry in his early 50s and his early headscissors is downright majestic. Van Buyten had wonderful babyface energy and I adored all the mincing and posturing from Lasartesse, the whole thing was satisfying.

Caifan Rockero vs. Hechicero Poder y Honor 1/31/09

PAS: This is the earliest Hechicero match we have on video and we get to see him against probably his greatest rival in Caifan. This was really a treat, you could tell that they had kind of a touring match worked out, and this had all of the little beats you want from these two.  They had an opening llave section with a lot of very cool twisting leg locks, the rolling leglock submissions is a Hechicero trademark, and he breaks out a bunch of cool ones here. It build to a bigger near fall section with some cool arm trap slams, a big armlock triangle submission near fall by Hechicero and a nifty top rope springboard rana by Caifan. You could see that both guys hadn't fully developed their personas yet, there was a lot of mirroring that was cool, but didn't allow then to differentiate themselves, the way they would in later matches. It felt like what it was, two super talented young guys in a garage figuring their stuff out, our boy Rob Bihari dug this one out of his crate and it was really cool to see.

MD: This is a great little piece of history and I'm glad Rob posted it. We don't have a ton of pre-2010 Hechicero online. I wrote up their 2010 match almost five years ago when I was still figuring out lucha. That was a hair vs mask match with more intensity. This had a very different feel given the sparse crowd. Hechicero didn't forget they were there certainly, but this did feel a bit like a match in a bubble or an exhibition. They had all the time in the world and a thousand things to try. It made for one tricked out hold or interesting spot after the next. I think I preferred it once they picked up the pace because they were more actively trying to foil and counter each other there. Honestly, I think my favorite thing in the whole match was Hechicero feigning not knowing that Caifan had landed on the apron after getting hoisted over the top so that he could try to launch a sneak attack. It failed, of course, letting Caifan fly in, but the set up with Hechicero tapping his head and really milking it before going for the sneak attack turned a normal spot into something with extra wrinkles just like one of his tricked out submissions.

24. American Alpha vs. The Revival WWE 4/23/16

MD: It's a little bit hard to remember just how special those first run of NXT house shows were. They didn't get around to my part of the country until Fall of 2016, and by then, a lot of the match-ups and moments I had wanted to see before had been cycled out. Top of the list was probably American Alpha vs Revival. We obviously have a number of big matches between them, southern tags turned up to 11 style, but it's nice to see one on a smaller stage.

The first fall was basically all shine, super athletic with well coordinated, complex spots and reversals, with AA looking world class and Revival being just competitive enough to make it seem like Alpha earned it. There was a transition tease at the end (with Dawson swatting down Wilder's feet from the apron to prevent a German) which really stood out.

The transition was also the end of the second fall, a set up for a shatter effect so elaborate that it could have served as a finish in and of itself. The structure of 2/3 falls tags is always interesting to look at. We have so many from Portland specifically that there are great examples. I think my ideal is when the heels takeover at the end of the first fall and the babyfaces come back at the end of the second, with a reset and second bit of heat into the third, but having an extended shine through most of the first two falls and lean into the heat for the third was a fun (and very WWF/E) house show variation here. Alpha has enough stuff and Revival stooges well enough that it worked. There were a lot of little things to like too. Dash is underrated at working the apron. Dawson doing a twenty second set up for a slingshot suplex in 2016 is how you make a move matter. I don't care whether they were just playing along or not, the fan reaction to the ref missing the tag was just what you wanted, as was the Gable chant that followed and the pop for Jordan pulling down the strap (even if maybe you wanted a bit more for the actual hot tag pop). The crowd knew that what they were getting was special and unique. Glad it popped up now.

PAS:  This was a lot of fun, I could totally see going to an NXT house show and just being engrossed with what they were doing. I was really impressed by Jason Jordan in this match, what a bummer the ending of his career ended up being. He was totally explosive, almost like Doug Furnas with better amateur takedowns, some of the better popped hips on suplexes, a total treat to watch. The Revival have their shtick down, and are really good at filling time, which is a real skill for a heel tag team in a southern tag style.

ER: I have been to three NXT house shows and all of them have been great experiences, real high bang for my buck while being set in nice smaller venues (including a gorgeous old rock venue in the middle of downtown Sacramento). By the time I got to see my first NXT house show in 2016, neither of these teams was on the tour, and this match was better than any match I saw across three shows (with a War Raiders vs. Strong/O'Reilly match from 2018 being the closest competition). This felt like an actually fleshed out (and better) version of the fondly remembered Brain Busters/Rockers tags from 30 years earlier, without ever feeling like they were aping those matches. AA just felt like such a timeless classic babyface team, a team who moved so explosively that it felt like they could be responsible for getting casual fans excited about high dropkicks and tight armdrags and classic Morton/Jannetty style headscissors (that Gable himself doesn't even do anymore). Both of them - especially Jordan - had such pop in everything they did, and this is the kind of go go go I wish had caught on as a house style instead of the learned behavior horseshit we got instead. Gable was charismatic as hell, loved him hitting an axehandle off the middle rope on Dawson, rolling through and coming up swinging at Dawson on the other side of the ring; also loved him hitting a second headscissors on Dawson right near the opposite side of the ring and pointing at Wilder on the apron while before taking Dawson over. It was like he was waving to his buddy from the top of a rollercoaster. Both teams spent their time in control wisely, and Revival particularly feel like a team that can work an interesting 5 minute or 45 minute tag match on any given night. Down the stretch we even get a perfectly timed moment of Jordan finally getting a hot tag only for the ref to send him back to the apron and admonish him for not using the tag rope. This was such a good tag, and it felt like they had material they hadn't even worked through yet. These teams worked a ton of matches throughout the Carolinas, I have no doubt that all of them ruled.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Inca Peruano! Joachim La Barba! Lasartesse! Van Buyten!

Joachim La Barba vs. Inca Peruano 1/17/57 - EPIC

SR: A 30 minute contest 2/3 falls contest, JIP about 7 minutes into it and both guys are already at each others throats. It‘s a battle between rather mysterious figures. We‘ve seen Inca Peruano before as a bumping rudo, although he is in the tecnico role here. Joachim La Barba is mentioned as „The terrible champion of Mexico“ on a fanpage. Genickbruch.com lists him wrestling in Germany as „Abdul Khan“ and in Mexico as „Pancho Zapata“. No guarantee about these facts since there was also another luchador named Pancho Zapata. I really wonder about the background of Inca Peruano – is he actually Peruvian? A Mexican worker with an Inca gimmick? Was he trained in France? No matter where he came from, he shows up a lot in this footage and is clearly a great worker.

This was an absolute slugfest. The kind of match you‘d never see on British or German TV at this point. But here, the announcer was cackling like a madman at these two trying to put some serious hurt on each other. Both guys were really laying in those trademark European uppercuts, cracking each others ribs with thudding kicks and using holds so they could hit the other guy from a safe position. Joachim La Barba was an absolute beast here, throwing punches to the back of the head, constantly stepping on his opponent, walloping him with kicks. At one point, he was driving knees into Inca while holding on to the ropes like a PRIDE fight. He came across as a guy it really sucks to fight, and Peruano's stoic selling performance enhanced the grittiness of the match. Between beating on each other, they work the mat (usually leading to more shots on the ground) and other nifty spots. One of the things they do that you can‘t just do in modern wrestling anymore is the use of the ropes, which were really loose to allow for tying up spots. The „tie up the other guy as revenge“ spot is a staple of German wrestling, but they did some pretty unique shit here. Peruano takes the horrifying looking spill into the ropes where he gets his head tied up and is nearly strangled, later he uses the ropes to hit several Toyota style dropkicks to Joachim's chest, there is also a really swank and well timed head scissor over the ropes. I am absolutely amazed how workers from nearly 70 years ago find unique twists on spots we‘ve seen plenty of times in other matches, such as said rope trickery or La Barba unexpectedly landing on the rope when they went through the classic „pull them off his torso-armbar“ sequence. Also, there is a real sense of bomb throwing towards the end of the match. Both guys hit some flying moves off the top rope which set up the finishes to the falls, and one guy takes a big missed back bump that is put over in a big way. I especially liked how they seemingly improvised Inca Peruano who was slow to get to the rope working a fun cutoff before Barba could catch him.

Even though this was by far the least pretty of all the matches from France we‘ve seen so far, this was a baffling and amazing match, great mix of a violent fight and some pretty unique wrestling, with state of the art finishes.

PAS: I thought this was a real discovery, Peruano had a very lucha style breaking out some headscissors and even a Romero Special. This had a lot of really unique stuff with the ropes, including Peruano getting hung Foley style in the ropes, and then paying La Barba back by locking him in the ropes and putting on a leg stretch, and then later spinning him up in the ropes and hitting some stiff dropkicks. La Barba had some fun stooging, but when he got nasty, he got nasty. He had some of the grossest backbreakers I can remember seeing, really bending Peruano over his knee, and some really great looking uppercuts and cheap shots too. I loved how he landed a bunch of body shots on Inca after he pinned him (with a great looking top rope dropkick).

TKG: Jose Fernandez shared a thing on the history of wrestling in Spain fucking ages ago…and both of these guys were regulars on the Spain scene and who fucking knows this may have been their Marek Brave v Tyler Black touring match. Barba is a real blast as the heel that keeps on getting outsmarted in first fall. He’s always sadistic in his rule breaking while Peruano is always kind of Dusty having fun with his. A bunch of the rope stuff has already been mentioned but I also liked Peruano’s series of arm drags into essentially a monkey flip onto corner ropes, Peruano’s using full nelson to slam and scrape Barba’s face in ropes, and Barba’s knees into Peruano’s back that shoved Peruano into ropes. Barba also does a bunch of landing in the ropes bumps. There was just this real 90’s singles match Bobby Eaton feel of you always knew those ropes are their for Bobby to scrape opponent’s eyes against.

MD: It's funny how we can all see these and get something slightly different from them. From me, the first fall that we have here is something of a comedy match, where Peruano consistently out-slicks La Barba and La Barba completely overcompensates for his humiliation by being a mean bastard. It's an overreaction because it basically doesn't work. He goes too mean, too hard, too brutish, and he gets taken over or down or tied up again. Where it starts to work and where the tide turns is when Peruano gets upset himself, loses his cool and the higher ground, and starts slugging with him. He can't outslug La Barba and he loses the advantage. That's what ultimately lets La Barba hit his downright cruel backbreakers and the missile dropkick to take what has to be the second fall. Peruono shortly thereafter gets over the top and gets his revenge with La Barba tied up in the ropes. After that, things are a bit more even, though La Barba always has this sense of anxious desperation to what he does. You see plenty of novel spots, not just the Romero Special, but a sort of go behind groin lift or a victory roll take over. I might have read a bit too much into the narrative, but I felt it in the moment and it felt pretty novel from a storytelling perspective even compared to even the technically sound and exciting matches we've been watching.


Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz Van Buyten 1/17/72 - FUN

PAS: This was in the middle of a swimming pool for some reason which was a really fun atmosphere. Lasartesse falls out of the rowboat to start which was a fun bit of heel shtick. There was a lot of tight nasty wrestling in this match, but it was clearly building to Lasartesse taking the big Nestea plunge into the pool, which was followed by Van Buyten tossing the ref in as well. Lasartesse had some great looking uppercuts and a big bombs away knee drop off the top which landed right into Van Buyten's throat. This felt more like a traditionally worked match then the other French stuff we have seen (outside of the swimming pool of course) I'll be interested to see when we get more into the 70s whether the style becomes less unique, or that is just related to the guys and the setting.

SR: I got stupidly excited when I saw this match in the archives. Two guys who had an awesome match series in the 1980s (when Franz was nearing 50 and had recovered from a paralyzing back injury, while Lasartesse was looking like a corpse) fighting each other in their prime, what could go wrong? However, the match was lacking focus, and didn‘t play to either guys strength. They were noticeably struggling to kill time, so I guess they did get wiser with age. Still, there was plenty to be enjoyed here: the match takes place in a ring that is floating in a swimming pool, and they send the wrestlers there in tiny little boats while a young Atsushi Onita was furiously taking notes at ringside. Of course the whole match was building to someone getting thrown into the water. For something that could have been a light hearted spectacle, the match was quite violent. After some initial feeling out, Lasartesse quickly took over the match and started working over van Buyten's throat with nasty stomps and elbows. He also busted out plenty of offense, too much offense really, he uncorked like 5 Tombstone Piledrivers on Franz which no matter how much they tried to cover up the following pinfalls should have ended the match. Also, Lasartesse is notorious for not being very good at the actual wrestling and his suplexes looked like shit. Once Franz made his comeback, a heel ref got involved to kill more time. Even when Lasartesse hit the dreaded diving knee to Franz, he couldn‘t end the match. It‘s very strange for a match between two guys who stood out before working no frills story driven matches to suffer from 2019isms such as too many finishers, but here we were. At least we got to see Franz hitting his cool in-ring topes and throwing the evil referee headfirst into the shallow pool.

MD: I wonder how much of the drama of this was taken away by Lasartesse bumping out of the boat on the way in? He started out already wet. It'd be like getting color on the way to the ring? This is obviously a fascinating spectacle, and I wish we had Van Buyten's boat ride too. There's just a weird feeling of dueling in the canals of Venice or some such to this setting. There were about five minutes of Lasartesse being in control, what with stalking around the ring and the tombstones and contentiously dropping Van Buyten too close to the ropes and I absolutely loved that. As much as I like tricked out matwork or the rope running escalation and elaborate comedy spots and everything else we've seen, the most primal element of pro wrestling is the build and payoff of a beatdown and comeback; this was a pretty glorious beatdown, with Lasartesse serving as an amazing looming presence and Van Buyten (who, might I add, we have three scant months later in Japan having an all time comedy six-man interacting with Andre) drawing tons of sympathy, but the comeback didn't reach the level it had to.

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