Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mantopoulous! Zarpa! Bernaert! N'Boa! Gastel! Delaporte! Zarecki! Guguliemetti

Vasilios Mantopoulos/Armand Zarpa vs Pierre Bernaert/N'Boa Le Congolais 4/5/69

MD: Super enjoyable tag, endlessly entertaining. Bob Elandon was in the (yes, super racist) gimmick of N'Boa for at least four years now and there's much more of a sense that he's in on the joke now than in earlier matches we've seen. He seems to turn it on and off as the situation calls for, doesn't have his German handler with him, and spends a chunk of this looking surly as can be. When he turns it on, the crowd goes absolutely nuts, though, both with the blatant biting and getting outsmarted and outquicked and turned around by Zarpa and Mantopolous. They didn't start with the biting either. They really build to it as Elandon could bump and stooge and work technical spots as well. This one's very creative, with a lot of the double team comedy bits we've seen up til now and some we haven't. They even have the ref miss a hot tag, though they haven't quite worked out the value of actually paying it off with a tag that is hot yet. Zarpa's good, but Mantopolous is one of the best. There's a bit in here where he blocks a bodyslam with his leg that I don't think I've ever seen before and his turtling exchange with both heels popped the crowd huge. Bernaert and N'boa had a great act here. Bernaert was used to working with oddball characters as he spent a chunk of years teaming with Bibi. There's a moment half way where Mantopolis dropkicks N'boa to the floor and dives after him and they fight on top of the crowd more than in it and that represents the wild energy and imagination of this tag in a nutshell.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes.This was the usual fun junior tag. Fast exchanges and bumping tour the force to start, heels cheat and faces get increasingly enraged. As usual with Mantopolous, it seemed there was never a real extended heat section, so the whole thing felt light hearted. I mean, there was still some really impressive stuff going on. Bernaert looked age, but he still looked like an expert stooge and he and N'Boa (Embaba? M'Baba?) bumped extremely well for Mantopolous magic. There was also a crazy bit where Mantopolous jumped on one of the guys when he was outside the ring. Overall, it was a good bout.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. Mantopolous is such a wizard at turning people inside out, and both N'Boa and Bernaert are great at getting flustered. I loved Mantopolous flummoxing N'Boa by curling up into a ball, and his half monkey flip where he drops his opponent on his belly is a very cool spot. We also get the first dive of the footage as Mantopolous jumps off the ring apron onto N'Boa. So much fun to watch a trickster play tricks. 

Robert Gastel/Roger Delaporte vs Warnia de Zarecki/Giacomo Guguliemetti 4/19/69

MD: We come in somewhat JIP here. I doubt it's too much so but we lose some of the early feeling out process. We have that 1961 tag between Delaporte/Bollet and Leduc/Gastel which was some sort of interpromotional battle. I'm not sure how Delaporte and Gastel ended up here together, but I'm happy for it. They make a pretty perfect pair. Most of the first fall is spent with the stylists in control with holds and Delaporte menacing from the outside, doing everything he can to interfere and just blatantly come in. Eventually, they catch on and do a blind switch while the ref is distracted by him. It's all pretty entertaining stuff where Gastel didn't have to do a lot from underneath since Delaporte was creating all of the interest  and excitement. Gastel might have been the best at all time of getting a single leg from a kneeling position, that old mainstay of 50s French bad guys. It wasn't enough here as Zarzecki managed a slick escape from a full nelson into a pin. The second fall was Gastel and Delaporte at their offensive best, as they trapped Guguliemetti in their corner and just mauled him: big, massive forearms and uppercuts from Delaporte and clubbering blasts from Gastel. As much as these two were mugging stooges, they could absolutely crush someone with their strikes. The third fall was pretty academic with Zarzecki and Guguliemetti pinballing Delaporte around the ring with harsh shots to the fans' delight, until Gastel was able to get a shot in out of nowhere as he was getting whipped back and forth across the ring to sneak out the infuriating (for the crowd) win. Constantly entertaining with two absolute master villains and a couple of game good guys. As we've already covered the Van Buyten match and the Williams/Barreto match which are chronologically after this one, I think that's it for us and Gastel, and I'll miss the flat-faced, grisly, clubbering lout. He was a real discovery of this footage.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. Am I seeing things, or was Delaportes mustache shaved for this!? This is joined in progress about 15 minutes in. The first fall still had some impressively quick worked sequences. I also really liked Zarzecki beating the shit out of Gastel in the corner with fast european uppercuts. This was the stuff as all these tags, fun back and forth in the first fall, then the heels turn up the intensity, in this case by beating the shit out of the faces in the corner. Eventually the faces make their big comeback and all hell breaks lose. I'd say this executed the formula in a fun way, the energy was good and the heat was big. I liked the part where they stuck a mic in Gastels face after he got thrown over the rope.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gastel! Magnier! Barreto! Williams!

Abdel Kader Boussada vs. Jean Luc 2/1/69

MD: We get maybe nine minutes of this, which is probably around half, and it's pretty good if a bit formless. Jean Luc's a fairly nasty bad guy with solid forearms and brazen stomps. Boussada comes back with headscissors takeovers and dropkicks but gets cut off with some rudimentary but solid legwork. Eventually they pick up the pace for a rope running finish. Either of these guys would probably put on a strong showing against a different opponent but this never rose above a certain level.

Guy Cavillier vs. Albert Sanniez 2/1/69

MD: Twenty minutes of pure forward motion. Sanniez is excellent and has maybe the best bridge in wrestling history and a great ability to land on his feet. This is our only look at Cavillier and he could more than hang with Sanniez. This built but never stopped, beginning with a wristlock that Sanniez did everything possible to try to escape to holds and shots, finally culminating with Sanniez with an athletic advantage, but both wrestlers sailing to the floor for an unsatisfying double countout. At times, they were almost flowing one forearm into the next, back and forth. The best part was probably a bridge so deep out of a chinlock that it first looked like Cavillier was going to break Sanniez in two until it became obvious that his trained flexibility actually gave him an edge in the exchange, ending with both guys roll into the ropes and the ref. Good stuff but it mainly left me wanting to see more.

Robert Gastel/Fred Magnier vs. Don Barreto/Eddy Williams 3/8/69

MD: Williams and Gastel are two of my absolute favorite guys in the footage. I wouldn't say they always end up in the best matches, but their performances are always excellent. Williams is smooth, has the crowd behind him, hits hard on comebacks. Gastel is a mean mug, a clubbering, stooging beast, one of the most distinct personalities we've seen, endlessly memorable. They're not always partnered with the best wrestlers, especially Williams who ends up with attractions who can't always carry their weight. Here though, they have perfect partners. I can't find much about Barreto but he could hang with Williams, able to do what was expected in France like the up and over headscissors escape, had some great shots, including an amazing corner flurry to the gut towards the end, and had a great jumping headbutt that was exactly what the crowd wanted. Magnier looked like Gastel's little brother, same body type, same mugging expression, same hard shots and mean stomps. Their favored means of assault in this one were hidden chokes while holding their opponent up, Magnier using a fireman's carry and Gastel a rib-breaker position, and then dropping them neck first over the top rope.

The heat was accordingly great, especially since the fans really wanted to get behind Williams and Barreto in the first place. While this was structured like a normal French tag (long first fall with plenty of heat, a hot tag or two, and the heels ultimately winning, a second fall where the faces come back and win fairly quickly and a third fall which is just as quick where the faces continue their advantage and either slip on a banana peel or pick up a win), the crowd was up for everything and everything worked. Towards the end of the first fall, the fans were absolutely going after Gastel and at one point, the heels rolled back in the ring just so the crowd would stop swiping at them. All the while, the low lighting gave this a fairly unique mood. The finish let the stylists keep the momentum going while still protecting the heels even if it wasn't exactly satisfying. Still, overall this was a great tag.

PAS: This was really cool, I love that we have a cool black tag team in 1969 France, I can just see Eddy Williams hanging with Josephine Baker or  James Baldwin in a Parisian cafe or nightclub. I loved how this whole fight escalated, with the heels choking and slugging and cheapshotting until the babyfaces exploded and laid them out. The spot where they were bouncing Gastel back and forth with uppercuts was awesome as was Barreto's combo punching in the corner, it really felt Lawlerish. We didn't really get a super satisfying finish, which is often the way these tags work, but I loved all of the meat. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gastel! Williams! Remy! MODESTO ALEDO~!

Modesto Aledo vs. Bob Remy 7/29/67

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. Not a superclassic like the other Aledo match we've seen, but pretty good technical work. Of course Aledo is ultra smooth and looks a step above. His standing headscissor is just insane. Remy is stocky and another solid French technician. They didn't seem to be super familiar, but most of the wrestling was slick and the gnarly bits were cool. Dug Aledos backbreakers. Remy launched a nice assault on Aledos arm, throwing him around and then locking in some tight short arm scissors. Aledo sold it pretty nicely, collapsing after hitting a forearm. It was one of the better bits of selling we've seen so far and made the ending more dramatic. Elegant finish.

MD: I thought this bit of footage was lost but it turned up and we're glad to have it. It's another look at Aledo, though one that shows a slightly different side of him than before. He still could be lightning quick, imaginative, and moved across the ring with confidence and mastery but he worked this much more from underneath, almost basing for Remy to really make him shine. That's not to say Remy wasn't bringing stuff to the table. He kept his holds interesting, including the back half where he grounded Aledo with long short arm scissors and then hammerlock exchanges with some great selling between holds. My favorite thing he did here was a neckbreaker though, where he just wrenched Aledo's face to get him into position for one of the meanest ones I've ever seen. They didn't quite take it into the gear that we knew Aledo could from our previous look at him, but it was nice to see this as contrast to really show off his range.

PAS: Aledo is one of those super maestros who you know was incredible because of reputation, and I was happy to get another surprise chance to see him. Like Matt and Sebastian said, this is an all time classic like the Teddy Boy match, but you could definitely see some of what made Aledo a legend. French Catch is a style with a lot of smooth movement, but Aledo is really on another level, just simple stuff like a armbar reversal is awesome. His deep roll up pin to win the match was about as great looking as I have ever seen that move applied. Remy was a real grinder, trying to keep Aledo bottled up with short arm scissors and hammerlocks, everything he did looked like it really hurt which is something I am always going to have a ton of time for.  

Frank Valois vs. Jacky Wiecz 8/2/67

MD: JIP, a little less than three minutes here. Valois was big and bruising, trapping the arm and sneaking in cheap shots and later tossing Wiecz out. Wiecz was billed as Carpentier's nephew and we'll see him once again in 68 in a longer match against Bollet and he was spirited and fiery with the crowd very much behind him. The big turning point was him grabbing Valois' foot to cut off the King of the Mountain and the fans went nuts for it.

Robert Gastel vs. Eddie Williams 8/2/67

MD: I liked the back half of this more than the first half, probably because Williams got to do more in the back half. That's not to say that the early stuff was bad. It was just by the books with holds, Gastel starting the inside shots early, and the ref being more of an annoyance than usual in cutting off Williams' comeback attempts. There were times where I think Gastel was even telling him to lighten up so that he didn't steal his heat, though a lot of that would pay off later on with a big collision spot with the ref that the crowd loved and then Williams just getting fed up and clocking him. Williams brought vulnerability and intensity and some strength spots and of course the headbutt towards the end. By the last few minutes there was a real sense of his momentum and the crowd, which we knew from the last match was a good one, was very much behind him. Gastel's the guy I could watch again and again though. He lives on that perfect line between mean and credible bruising and being a brilliant, reactive stooge. All of his stuff looks so good and all of his reactions and facial expressions and feeding is just so spot on. He's larger than life while just being this dumpy, nondescript lump of a guy. This might be our tenth match with him, but I feel like I know him in the ring as well as I know Dick Murdoch or Buck Robley. Just a great, great pro wrestler and I'm glad we were able to meet him through this footage. I'm also glad the ref in this one got clocked.

SR: 1 fall match going about 30 minutes. Man, Robert Gastel is such a joy to watch. Even when he is doing super simple stuff, he is supremely entertaining. This had simplistic grappling, armlocks and headscissors, but they kept it interesting. Eddie Wiliams is really athletic - super height on his dropkick - and has nice headbutts and forearms. And I just love Gastel. I'm sure if he popped up more he'd emerge as a Satanico-like superworker. This was more of a houseshowish match and a bit long here and there, but I enjoyed it. Worth watching for Gastel grimacing and punching Williams in the face.

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

Robert Gastel vs Lino Di Santo 10/9/66

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Cesca! Teddy Boys! Leduc! Montourcy! von Kramer! Gastel!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Teddy Boys (Aldophe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) 5/9/65

MD: I get that everything is high end at this point, but this still stood out more to me than it did to Sebastian. This has been out for a few years, but it's great to see it in context now that we know these guys better. Ben Chemoul and Cesca come off as one of the great tag teams of all time in the few appearances we have of them together, certainly one one of the most talented. Ben Chemoul had such verve and timing, such showmanship, working for the back row and the front row and everyone in between. He manages to do all three up and over variations off the top wristlock in a tag match at different points, and fills the match with little moments like throwing one of those no look spin kicks to a guy just hanging out on the apron. He fills the match with entertaining stuff while never losing the plot. Cesca's just as solid as they come, hard hitting especially when it's time to get revenge, sympathetic in selling, smooth in complex spots, quick with the dropkicks and 'ranas. They'd also share spots: Ben Chemoul would stooge le Boulch by turtling early and then Cesca would outsmart le Boulch when he himself tried to do it later. It all came together. The Teddy Boys were such an ideal heel unit too, with le Boulch an opportunist coward and Sevre having the hugest chip on his shoulder imaginable, though they could also switch those roles on a dime. Sevre hit hard and jawed well with the crowd while le Boulch spent a lot of his time shadowboxing. They were able to work around the ref to endlessly stomp: when the ref shoved Sevre, he'd come back and pat the ref on the shoulder. At one point, Sevre got knocked out on one of the bevy of catapult-into-partner spots in the match so he sat down in the front row while le Boulch recovered. He tried that again later and got into a fist fight with the crowd. The ending might have felt a little abrupt, but that was the general pacing of these things as much as them maybe wanting to move things to a finish before the crowd rioted, but over all, this was high end stuff to me.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This was another French lightweight tag with all that exchanges. Plenty of quick exchanges. The Teddy Boys didn‘t move me as much as other heel tandems. I mean, they were really good at making the C‘s uppercuts look great and had some nice punches and stomps, but it‘s France everyone is a GOAT, you gotta bring a bit more than that. Chemoul and Cesca as usual just had endless stuff to do. I liked Chemouls punch combo, and Cesca busting out a spinning argentine backbreaker and a back elbow combo that was like something Misawa would do. Highlight of the match was the crowd getting unruly and the police stepping in. I am probably making this match sound worse than it was, it wasn‘t top tier French stuff but there was enough entertaining stuff happening and some sickeningly stiff blows that will easily make this the best match you watch this week.

Gilbert Leduc/Claude Montourcy vs. Karl von Kramer/Robert Gastel  5/26/65

MD: Unique presentation here. I know nothing of 1965 French demographics and geography (Puteaux is in the western suburbs of Paris but I'm not about to watch 1961's The Long Absence to get a sense of it), but this felt more provincial than what we're used to. The crowd was awesome though, as much of the star of the match as the four wrestlers, as good as they were. The sound was a little off here, and it's amazing we don't see this problem more often, so it anticipated the action a bit. This was (wisely, I imagine) mostly a crowd pleaser for some sort of cup. There were moments of heat throughout, but nothing prolonged until the second fall. Even those moments felt a little perilous. The crowd absolutely hated Kramer, who looked brilliant here. He had so many interesting ways of taking someone down or keeping a hold, and just threw cartwheels around like they were nothing. I was expecting endless nerve holds (which could be fine if the heat's there, and it would have been) but he went another way with things. He stooged, but only occasionally, so when he got caught in the ropes towards the end of the long first fall, the fans went absolutely nuts. He got taken out by a catapult over the top to end the first fall, never to return. 

A stretcher job mid-match was probably the safest way to get him out of there. LeDuc more or less gave us the usual greatest hits (the headstands, the leg nelson after seeing how badly the fans wanted Montourcy to whack Kramer in a cross arm breaker, etc) but they're all great. Montourcy had a few more interesting takedowns. Gastel let Kramer do most of the heavy lifting in the first fall, but turned on the heat after he got taken out, absolutely demolishing Montourcy with headbutts, bloodying him up before crushing him with a tombstone and basically taking him out of the match. The fans were furious here. The third fall, then was just Leduc getting revenge on Gastel before they moved into a slick finishing stretch including Gastel catching a Leduc cross body block (the block itself not being something we've seen much in the footage) and planting him with a tombstone, before Leduc came back with a flip up power bomb for the win and the huge pop. I don't know if I'd feel the same about this one in a different setting, but in front of this crowd, I thought it was great. I do sort of wish they had leaned harder into Kramer getting advantages though, but they may not have lived to the next day if they did.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Karl von Kramer. Haven‘t seen him in a while. Karl looked really good here with his freak bumping and unorthodox throws. For a hard nosed evil German, he also wasn‘t afraid to make a fool out of himself and get his chest hair torn out. The first fall of this was the usual mix of fun wrestling and rough heels tactics, with von Kramer stealing the show and Leduc and Montourcy being formidable technicians. Von Kramer takes a big bump to the outside and doesn‘t make it back after that, leading to Gastel being in a 2 on 1 situation so Gastel just goes crazy with headbutts on Montourcy, bloodying him and KO‘ing with a tombstone piledriver. This leads to the 3rd  fall in which both von Kramer and Montourcey are out and Gastel and Leduc slug it out in an epic Mantel/Lawler style battle. Really cool glimpse at Gastle living up to his name and being a violent bludgeoner who ends up with his opponents blood all over him, and when Leduc hits those double elbows he‘s like Lawler doing a punch combo. Really really good match with a pretty unique layout for French wrestling.

PAS: I love how this match moved from comedy, skill and stooging to really heavy violence. It is one of the hardest transitions in wrestling to nail, and this match nailed it. The heels were masterful here, Kramer is a heat seeking pinball, getting twisted up the ropes, getting his chest hair ripped out, flying for all of the headscissors and takedowns, and hitting these deep cool looking flip throws. He gets tossed out of the ring to the floor taking a big bump and getting sent to the back. We get a Stone Cold Gastel section where he obliterates Montourcy including a fair amount of blood which is pretty rare for this era. We then got a big showdown between Gastel and LeDuc, which was pretty epic. I didn't like LeDuc basically no-selling the tombstone, it was a move which won Gastel the second fall, and LeDuc jumps right back onto offense right after taking it. Still everything else about this match was at a super high level, and while that one spot kept it from MOTY status it was still a classic. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Delaporte! Bollet! LeDuc! Gastel! Montreal! Sola! Bernaert! Rouxel!

Roger Delaporte/Andre Bollet vs Gilbert Leduc/Robert Gastel 12/14/61

MD: Great tag with four great guys. I have no idea why Gastel was on the side of the angels here but he came off as a folk hero and the fans loved to cheer for him. He would just mow everyone down with forearms and headbutts and the crowd ate it up. Leduc took a nasty bump on a fireman's carry into the heel turnbuckle early on and they just unleashed the most brutal, long beating on him with quick tags, slams and backbreakers, stomps, and even a somersault senton by Bollet that spelled his doom in the first fall. Eventually, in the second, Gastel had enough (they had done a good job goading him while in control) and rushed in to a big pop. From there it was fairly back and forth. Leduc sold his back for the rest of the match but had moments of fire. They built to a few big comeuppance spots like usual. Gastel had a way of taking the crowd back down after comebacks to set up the heels taking back over which were well and fine but he held one armbar for over four minutes without them working in and out of it and that was a bit much. Still, past that, these guys were masters and the match was masterful.

SR: 2/3 falls match. We JIP about 20 minutes into a 60 match. This is one of those matches which is heated as we join, and it stays heated for almost a full 40 minutes from that point forward. This was all about Delaporte and Bollet throwing hard punches and stomps, and our man Gastel being a real one and helping poor gentleman Leduc through the match by fighting fire with fire. Gastel being excepted wholly as a babyface by the audience is heartwarming. Bollet was doing those flip sentons to peoples backs like Tenryu being in a funny mood. This had quite a bit of back work, which didn‘t pay off in a major way. In fact the match had some unusual restholds and may have suffered a bit from being nothing but all these guys beating the hell out of eachother for 40 minutes, but these guys are great at beating the hell out of each other. The last 10 minutes or so are great though with Gastel throwing some awesome looking headbutts. I would‘ve liked to see the full thing, as these kinda heatfests suffer a bit when you don‘t get the early build. But knowing these guys, they may have gone for full on heat from the get go.

PAS: This was great stuff, it is really impressive the pace these guys can set in a 60 minute draw, we tend to mentally think of 20th century 60 minutes draws having long rest hold sections, but this was a go go pace. All of what we got were hard exchanges. Liked the contrast on the face team, with Gastel working like a third heel, and LeDuc being more of a technician (although in French catch even the technicians throw heat). We got two classic LeDuc headspins,  one the Santo style headscissors, one a spin out of a arm stretch, which was especially awesome. I loved Gastel's final heat segment, tying both heels up in the ropes and wailing on them with forearms. No real finish, and long matches suffer if they don't build to anything, although the work her was super strong. 

Monsieur Montreal/Ami Sola vs Pierre Bernaert/Jack Rouxel 1/12/62

MD: Another week, another show, another great tag. This is our second or third match with Rouxel and I really like him so far. He had this upstart attitude in how he'd disengage or lay shots in or interact with the ref or the crowd. Montreal leaned hard into the strongman gimmick (using the bear hug and a lot of his opponents making him look good by flying around the ring on normal exchanges) and at one point, he picked up Rouxel out of a headlock, deposited him on the apron, and knocked him off. Rouxel made sure to land in a woman's lap which popped her and the crowd. I like the guy. Bernaert (who wasn't teaming with Bibi here since Cheri was in training for another match apparently) was a perfect partner, a smarmy mentor in cheating and underhandedness. Yes, he managed a fake handshake into a forearm once here. Sola was as savvy as we've ever seen him, delighting in Montreal's strength spots, working the apron well, orchestrating a lot of the revenge spots; the best of those was probably a series of arm stretchers in the heel corner where they kept kicking Sola down when he tried to work to his feet. When he got an arm of his own, he yanked it back to the face corner and they repeated the spot on the heels in an over the top manner. It's interesting to watch things develop over the years. By this stage, limbwork/bodypart work is 100% a thing. It really wasn't a couple of years earlier. The first fall ended with the heels really targeting Sola's back. That led to a fun little moment (again showing Sola's presence and experience) when he rushed in to touch his opponent so that he could immediately tag back out to start the second fall, as you can't tag until you touched at least once. Good moment in a match full of good moments. Everything really came together here to make for yet another good tag. Others might disagree with me but I think the overall quality of the tag scene is better than a few years earlier, where there would be heat and intensity and big moments, but less tricks and narrative shortcuts, like the heels cutting off the ring or stopping babyface reversals from the apron or using the ref being distracted. In 61-62, there was just a great balance of the two elements.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 35 minutes. The Montreal/Sola team is pretty fun. Sola is pure technique, and Montreal is all about strength. Rouxel on the other hand looked like a slightly less blonde version of Bernaert. A classy guy who could wrestle but was simply more interested in cheapshotting guys. This built for quite a bit and there was some nice skill on display from Rouxel and Bernaert. Of course, their bread and butter is cheapshotting guys hard, and when it got to that they looked great. Especially liked Beraneaert loosening Solas jaw with a knee only to get giant swung seconds later. And well, Mr. Montreal and Ami Sola are great pair of faces to play off those vicious tactics. This wasn‘t as heated as the other tag but it felt more complete (not just in terms of how much we got to see) and well rounded.

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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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Tuesday is French Catch Day: McTiffin! Guettier! Mountourcy! Gastel! Mantopoulos! Ricetti!

Marcel Parmentier vs. Bob Plantain 6/19/59

MD: As always it's a travesty we don't have more Parmentier footage. He was such a nasty striker with a surly face and tons of heat. This is just a minute or two. No one in the footage is quite as big a tease.

James McTiffin vs. Roger Guettier 6/19/59

MD: McTiffin is Gwyn Davies, of the great Veidor match. He was working an affable Scottish giant gimmick here, kilt and bagpiper, and maybe didn't have quite all the pieces together yet. Guettier was mean and frustrated, full of high class comedy as he couldn't deal with McTiffin's size advantage. My favorite bit was a pumphandle armbar where he couldn't get any leverage and just gave up, but there was more. This went pretty short for 50s Catch, just around ten minutes, seeming to surprise everyone. Remember the first time you saw George Steele's flying hammerlock and how painful it looked? That was the finish here which was a flying double inverted knucklelock, which would only work given a size differential like this.

PAS: This was fun stuff, much more of a wacky comedy match then serious Catch. Guettier was flummoxed by the size of McTiffin, and had a bunch of different ways to seem flummoxed. That finishing flying knucklelock was awesome looking and totally redeemed McTiffin from otherwise seeming a bit stiff. Babatunde should steal that shit.


Sergio Reggiori vs Jacques Bernieres 6/19/59

MD: This was the TV time remaining bonus match after McTiffin made short work of Guettier and while it's cut off as they had to give the feed back to the station, what we get is actually very good. I get the sense that these two knew that this was their big chance to shine in front of a television audience and they really went at it hard. This included a few extended hanging-on-to-a-hold sequences, a lot of struggle, some aggressive shots, and at least one dive through the ropes on a missed charge. Unfortunately, I don't know if it did either of these guys any good because we don't see them a ton in the footage.


Claude Montourcy vs. Robert Gastel 6/26/59

MD: We'd seen Montourcy before, both in the Mann match, which was really mostly about Mann, and in the 60 minute match where he had a lot of interesting showcase moves. Here, though, it was all about him, working a judo gimmick with taped up feet instead of shoes. Gastel was the straight man here, throwing his headbutts and big bumps, and hairpulls, and yes, the tombstone. This was about Montourcy using his feet in odd ways (especially to escape) and having big takedowns and contorted stretches, including the one that kayfabe popped Gastel's shoulder out to end it, causing Montourcy's Japanese Professor (?) to come out to fix it. Also of not here was a wrestler at ringside, which, along with an overly exuberant fan, subtly distracted Gastel post-tombstone, which theoretically gave Montourcy time to come back. This was another short one like the week before.


Vasilios Mantopoulos vs. Roberto Ricetti 6/26/59

MD: Yet another high end lightweight match in the late 50s style, where they don't quite go as over the top with acrobatics as we'd see a few years later, but instead did a lot of what we've seen already faster and with more impact. Lots of long holds with reversals jammed (even the ones that might work elsewhere). Ricetti had some really great bridges. We had, I think, our first giant swing too. There were a couple of moments where they were almost going too hard to make things work (and I'm tempted to pin that more on Mantopolous, as great as he'd be later and as good as he still was here, but that may not be fair), but it didn't necessarily feel unnatural, just less smooth than it might have been. They were competing so hard that it didn't hurt the match at all. The finish was really strong, a perfect reversal to the idea of someone going to the well too many times.

SR: 1 fall match that goes a bit over 30 minutes. Mantopoulos is billed as Greek. We are going to see quite a bit of him. Ricetti is billed as Italian and this is about the only time he shows up. This was a clean match, no heel shenanigans, but the crowd was calling for them to throw European uppercuts, so both guys soon did that. They stuck to mostly basic holds, peppered with that French brand of athletic escape attempts. Mantopoulos wasn‘t as flamboyant and flashy as in later clips, but you could tell he was a wrestling machine. Ricetti looked good also, aside from seemingly not knowing how to bump for Mantopoulos headscissors. This was going solid and they worked in some surprisingly hot nearfalls, including an awesome O‘Connor Roll and some plausible rope running exchanges later. Great finish, too. The thing that stands about these guys running the ropes and hitting improbable moves is not the athleticism, but the great sense of timing.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bout! Van Dooren! Montourcy! LeDuc! von Chenok! Gastel!

Jean Bout vs. Jack van Dooren 5/7/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. We get some nice graphics before the match and a strange segment that appeared to feature van Dooren between the falls. The outstanding thing about this was its discernible structure. The 1st fall is straight wrestling, wherein van Dooren gets the advantage and is able to catch his opponent in a powerbomb for the win. The 2nd fall sees Bout starting to fight dirty, throwing punches, before grabbing a surprise spinning toe hold for the tap. The 3rd fall has more dirty fighting and Bout going for takedowns with van Dooren desperately fighting off that dreadful toe hold. It was pretty close to what we have seen from US workers, plus this had the French touch where they move through the holds much faster. There wasn‘t much in terms of athleticism, but van Dooren looked like quite the tank retaliating with big headbutts and Bout adapts to working as a bastard quite well. Van Dooren liked to go for a cross choke, and Bout had a few nifty ways to work out of it, there was also another short arm scissor that was sold in a significant way. Also, that toe hold was about as deep as you can work a move like that.

MD: Van Dooren is a bit snakebitten with this footage. He was in one of the first matches we saw (vs Di Santo) but then two of the only listed matches from the archive that turned out to be not there were Van Dooren matches (vs Allary and Tarres, the latter of which probably would have been really interesting). Ah well. Maybe they turn up some day. Bout, on the other hand, is a guy that I'm liking more and more. Which means, of course, this is the last we see him. Important note: Van Dooren's day job is real estate and we get a profile skit in the middle when he tries to sell houses. Amazing stuff.

The first ten minutes of this is Bout completely eating Van Dooren alive. Van Dooren will try holds and escapes but nothing works. There's a slight mean undertone between the two of them even early. Right before the ten minute mark, Van Dooren tries an armlock and Bout just clobbers him. I really felt for the poor guy. That leads to a nice transition however, as they repeat the spot, but this time, Van Dooren ducks it and is able to put on a short arm scissors that lasts a good three minutes, in and out. Van Dooren can't capitalize on it however, and when Bout's back up, it's with some brutal shots. Van Dooren fires back with two great headbutts, and they build to rope running, a killer dropkick and more Bout mauling. He ultimately slips on a banana peel, unable to get the flip up 'rana cleanly and gets power bombed to end the first fall. The second two falls devolved repeatedly into a slugfest, with more great Van Dooren headbutts, and some awesome low kicks to the legs by Bout. The best part was when they went out to the floor and brawled like total madmen. While it wasn't his sole focus, Bout did go for the legs when he could, and ultimately took both remaining falls with a spinning toehold. Considering that Bout caught him with gut shots or kick ups during certain attempts to go low, it felt natural and opportunistic. Ultimately, yet another really good match.

Claude Montourcy/Gilbert LeDuc vs. Karl von Chenok/Robert Gastel 5/23/59

SR: 1 Fall Match going 60 minutes. Yes, you got that right, it‘s a broadway. Gotta admit, even though I know how great the wrestlers at the time were and matches going 30-40 minutes not being unusual, I was a bit skeptical whether they could pull it off. And well I‘m a damned fool, because they just do. The heat for this was insane. It seemed like a big crowd and the folks were super engaged from the beginning. It only took von Chenok & Gastel 1 cheapshot to have people threatening to jump them. The heat is a big part of why the match works, but also all 4 guys were absolutely on that night. Gastel had fully transformed into a stooging, grimacing prick heel here, and he was absolutely fantastic. He really struck me as Murdochian again, knowing exactly what to do when, having all these fantastic exaggerated bits of selling, and looking like an asskicker when it was time to crank up the violence. Von Chenok is a bit weird, as his sole intent is to nervehold guys which should normally be off-throwing, but I have no problem calling his performance here great. The man had no problem taking some insane punishment and bumping his ass off. His bump for the european uppercuts was like the 1950s version of the Rikishi clothesline bump. I also loved his Ohtani like crybaby selling when his hands got stomped. He also went absolutely savage at times, including a bit where he went straight for an eye gouge and then dished out several knees to the balls. He did go for the nerve hold a lot, but for the first half of the match, the hold was pretty much broken immediately, so when he finally got to sink it in later, it felt like a big deal. Also, undoubtedly he worked great with Gastel in cutting off the ring.

Leduc and Montourcy were fantastic as well. We‘ve seen how great Leduc can be, but Montourcy really stood out as well. He had ton of slick moves, including a great roll through into a boston crab, and something that was like a grapevine atomic drop that Hechicero should steal. Both he and Leduc also had a variety of ways to escape von Chenoks nerve hold, which kept things fresh. Of course the main job of Leduc and Montourcy was to hit explosive dropkicks, punch combos and forearms, and they do that rather well, my god. At some point in the 30 minute mark, the match just turned into a frenzy and all 4 guys were dishing out serious punishment. It wasn‘t exactly Holy Demon Army level structure (save for Leduc hitting multiple powerbombs as the time was running out) and the match may have peaked with the initial heel beatdown on Montourcy (culminating in an insane tombstone piledriver followed by some BattlARTS level near-10 counts and nerve hold nearfalls), you could tell they ran out of ideas towards the end and just kept repeating their stuff, but with a match this great I‘m not complaining. These guys just beat the shit out of each other and in between that you had shit like von Chenok stomping someone in the back of the head or Leduc trying to bite someones ear off again. Also, Gastel refusing to go down and just getting hammered towards the end was awesome, as was his bump over the top that landed him in the audience. Also loved that they only started going for pinfalls like 55 minutes into the match and before that it was all 10 counts with the crowd counting along and the wrestlers being awesome selling near Kos. I could go on and on but I will just say that everyone in this match ruled and it was really great.

PAS: I have very little interest in watching a 60 minute match these days. Give me a solid 16 and take it home. This, however, was fantastic, and in the discussion for the best 60+ minute matches ever. All four guys are great in this, with a bunch of individually awesome moments and also a weaved together structure. I loved what von Chenok brought to this. A lot of the great French Catch guys are stylistically similar, which can bring a bit of sameness to even incredible matches, having a bald weirdo just trying constantly for nerve holds was awesome. I really came away from this wanting to see a LeDuc master of the headspin versus von Chenok master of nerve hold singles match. Gastel was a total package too on the heel side, vicious mean prick, who when it came time to bump and stooge went for it. Those piledrivers were gross and he really threw then with disdain. You can tell a great French Catch match if I am sending Daniel Makabe DM's about moves to steal and that Montourcy octopus thing got the DM treatment for sure. This is standing as our 1959 MOTY and we will be truly blessed if anything outdoes it.

MD: Sebastian covered this so well that it's actually hard to add a lot, which is crazy when you think about a 60 minute broadway. Let me reiterate a few things and try to add something though. The level of difficulty on this one was extremely high. It's one thing to structure a long match, a long tag match, when you have some fall breaks to build to. Here they didn't have one single fall and more over, like he said, they didn't even really go into the pinfalls until the last ten minutes. They had the crowd (announced mid match at around 2387) into it the whole time, booing, cheering, chanting! There was a moment where Leduc was able to time the grinding of his toehold with the chants even as Von Chenok kept grabbing at his head. There were underlying themes both in general (like the heels controlling the ring with VERY quick tags and the babyfaces able to fall dramatically towards their corner for tags with bruising forearms and uppercuts to follow) and specific (such as Von Chenok going for the nerve hold, or Leduc getting justice with the catapult), and maybe they ran them a bit into the ground, but the crowd never cared and it's hard to care too. Instead of falls, they built to big moments of babyface comeback and fire. Then they brought things back down either with the heels controlling or some longer, excellent holds around the 40 minute mark.

Everyone brought something to the table: Von Chenok's begging off, cruel and desperate attacks at the eyes, selling of his hand, and the single-minded cross-choking and nerve holds; Gastel's stooging and bumping, his bullying chops and great cut-off headbutts, those tombstones, the way he'd constantly try to cheat or get frustrated with the crowd; Montourcy's jumping knee attack, his dropkicks, his backbreakers late in the game, the way he'd cheer on Leduc from the apron or pull the rope back to give extra oomph to those catapults, and yes, that Canadian maple leaf style crab and the amazingly cool stretch drop into the rolling cradle; and Leduc being Leduc, headstands and forerams, the leg nelson, those crazy power bombs at the end (the angle on one being insane), the vicious elbows to stop the nerve hold, and just both babyfaces' selling when in peril around the 35 minute mark, which is some of the best we've seen in all of the French footage.

There were times where I was wondering if this was going to hold together, but ultimately it did, driven by the constant struggle, the quick tags and heel cutting off of the ring, by the triumphant babyface comebacks and revenge punishment, by taking the crowd down and then bringing them back up, and then by escalating things towards the finish by introducing pins and bombs. Then with all of the small details that tick past along with the minutes. Truly an accomplishment of a match.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bout! Stein! Leduc! LE BOURREAU de BETHUNE!!

Guy Mercier vs.  Robert le Boulch (JIP) - Leduc Profile - Robert Gastel vs. Gaby Calderon 2/5/59  

MD: This show was formatted a bit differently than usual. We came in at the very last seconds of Mercier vs le Boulch. There wasn't enough to say anything about Le Boulch but we'll see him a couple of times later. Mercier won with a clunky but still impressive float-over fall away slam. Then they were supposed to go to Leduc vs Le Bourreau de Bethune and showed us a Leduc profile piece to set it up. We've gotten a few of these so far and they're always a nice surprise. Here he was driving a small chariot of horses as part of his training and then had a little interview where he talked about his favorite authors and what not. When they cut back to the ring an impromptu Gastel vs Calderon match was going because they claimed the fans were preventing Le Bourreau from entering the ring/arena. This is what google translate is telling me at least. It's the most Memphis studio TV I've ever seen French catch. Anyway, this went just just a few minutes and was anchored by Gastel being his usual cheapshot clubbering jerk self. This was our first look at Calderon and he had no shoes and long pants and maybe had a martial arts thing going? He had one neat reversal of an arm wringer into an armbar and won with some chops and a stepover armbar which led to a great post-match moment where Calderon had to put Gastel's arm back into joint, which I'm not sure I've ever seen before. We'll see more of him later too. After the match, they asked Gastel about how he felt, which got over the hold even more, but also felt like another weird departure.

SR: We get about one minute of Mercier vs. Le Boulch. Le Boulch does a somewhat elaborate bumping and rope running routine before Mercier hits him with a nice overhead suplex.We get about 5 minutes of Gastel vs Calderon. It‘s Robert Gastel, baby, and every second of him is a treasure. Gaby Calderons barefoot look with the cut off tights is questionable, but he did seem like a competent catcheur. And young Gastel will club the shit out of anyone. It is telling how awesome he makes a simple punch to the jaw look. Calderon seemed to be doing a martial artist gimmick, which can be tough to pull off, but when it was time to chop and arm lock Gastel he did chop and armlock the shit out of him. Wouldn‘t mind seeing more of that fellow.


Gilbert Leduc vs. Le Bourreau de Bethune 2/5/59

MD: What an amazing debut. I was a little hesitant on us covering this one because it had been out there for a bit, but seeing this in context, following from L'Ange Blanc's debut, knowing LeDuc as we do by now, just having a sense of what French Catch of this period is like, this is a puzzle piece that just fits into the broader tapestry. LeDuc is masterful here, a wonderful counterpart to Villars in L'Ange Blanc's debut. There, Villars took holds and let his opponent escape. Here, LeDuc let himself get overpowered again and again, and had to really work for his escapes. When LeDuc takes a punch, he sells it like he's been hit with a hammer. I don't think we've seen anyone who wasn't a giant portrayed as such a powerhouse like this. Moreover, almost immediately after the escape Le Bourreau was right back in to try to get an unfair, bullying advantage. When LeDuc finally has him down, Le Bourreau goes to the hair to escape a hold and the crowd, ready for this moment, jeers wildly. Ultimately, Le Bourreau locks in a cobra and won't break it in the ropes, which lets him really unload with clubbering blows and headbutts. LeDuc mounts a big comeback, ducking a blow and firing back, only to get tossed over the top. He's weakened and vulnerable and this allows Le Bourreau to unleash his killer blow, a press slam gutbuster, which is definitely something we haven't seen before. LeDuc sells it like death, taking a ten count, but demands to fight on into the second round. Le Bourreau swallows him up immediately, hitting two more gutbusters for the brutal win. Great debut, following another great debut, and if I was part of that crowd, I'd have been chomping at the bit to see L'Ange Blanc vs Le Bourreau de Bethune. This may have been the most effective match we've seen so far at accomplishing what it set out to do.

SR:  2/3 falls match going a bit over 20 minutes. It‘s the Hangman of Bethune, baby. Really cool how we get masked guys who look like straight up luchadores by now. Match wise the Hangman didn‘t do much out of the extraordinary, though he did a good job looking like a menacing masked evil dude, complete with a signature pose and all. I liked how he powered out of Leducs arm holds and when it was time to deliver a beating, he got pretty violent hitting Leduc in the face with headbutts and forearms. I always enjoy watching Leduc so the match was easily enjoyable, although it ended in a rush when the Hangman finished off Leduc 2:0 with his military press into a gutbuster which is a hell of a finisher in 1959. Apparently the Hangman doesn‘t show up again, which feels like a bummer as we just got a taste of him here. 

PAS: This was a heck of debut. We have seen LeDuc eat up his opponents before, so it is was something to see him dominated like this. He tried to use his patented headspin several times but it was mostly stymied by Bethune. The hangman really wore him down with his headscissors, and cracked him with nasty headbutts and overhead forearms.  LeDuc took a big bump over the top rope and fell hard with that press slam stomach buster. It is a shame we don't have anymore Bethune, because after debut like that you really want to see how someone could stand up to him. 

ER: One of the joys of French Catch is that, nearly every week, I get to write some variation of "this was not what I was expecting, but in a good way" and mean it. LeDuc is not a site favorite, and just a few weeks ago we made LeDuc's showcase match against Rocco Lamban our MOTY for 1958. This LeDuc match is just a few months later, and it was wild seeing LeDuc massacred by this masked executioner. The early match headscissor blocks and attempts were enough to sell me on this one, as LeDuc's Santo-esque head spins have been a highlight of French Catch, and every time Bourreau would block them I could feel muscles straining and backs and necks getting tweaked. It's like when you have to crack your neck, and really lean into the attempt, but nothing actually cracks and you just end up making your neck feel worse, only times five. Bourreau was bulkier in the arms and shoulders than most men we've seen from the era, looking more like a shorter Clint Walker than any of the wrestlers we've seen, but he amusingly minces around the ring like Mil Mascaras. He takes little short steps with his toes pointing inward, butt clenched, waist sucked in. You'd expect him to stomp around, but I was endlessly entertained watching him draw heat just by walking around the ring constantly flexing, taking those little steps. He uses small heat tactics to maximum efficiency, and hearing the crowd erupt in rage after a hair pull is pure joy. His brazen cheating is something to behold, made more special when placed in context of just how uncommon it was during this era. The press slam gutbuster was a real shock, something that would absolutely hold up as a finisher 60 years later, and at the time (and with the help of LeDuc's expert selling) it must have felt like LeDuc was dying in the ring. The straight falls finish was handled brilliantly, LeDuc coming off like an ultimate babyface for demanding to continue, only to get wasted with the same gutbuster. I can only imagine how molten the rematch must have been, and we can only imagine how LeDuc would have handled that. At least we got this, but it's cruel knowing how fired up the rematch would have been. 

Johnny Stein vs. Jean Bout 2/27/59

MD: Long, but very good, albeit quite straightforward, match. Stein is the future Kurt von Stroheim and the second Kurt von Brauner. Bout is a real meat and potatoes guy for this footage. Could take a beating. Could hit a running 'rana. Expert technician. Cound mount fiery comebacks. He did all of that and more here, but it really was the Stein show. He was completely immersed in his character, a lumbering stormtrooper, one of the prototypes of a dozen post-war German heels, mixing style and substance. He had any number of holds working over the head, the arm, the back, the legs, and sometimes multiples at once, including a nasty STF. He had a way of moving from one to another after cutting off a bit of hope. On defense, he was quick to try for a rope break, though he'd never give a clean break himself. One one of the big spots of the match, Bout had enough of that and flipped him over while he was in the ropes. This had a ton of time and after a more technical beginning, flipped between holds and clubbers by Stein and big comebacks and revenge holds by Bout. Bout had a great variety of strikes, including knife-edge chops that we actually don't see a lot in this footage. And yes, as per the French way, they were trying some new things in this episode, starting by playing Witch Doctor, with some weird lighting throughout that really deemphasized the crowd (though it's hard to do that when they're chanting or throwing orange peels at Stein after a heel tactic), and with piano occasionally highlighting a moment in the background.

SR: 1 Fall Match a little over 40 minutes. For some reason, they kept playing piano solos over this. Johnny Stein is a bald headed German with a massive physique. You can tell he is hated right from the get go, and this was a niggly bout where they do some tough, simplistic hip throws and headscissors wrestling and lots of beating on eachother. It doesn‘t add anything new to this common formula of French wrestling, but I enjoyed myself. One thing that stood out is how dark this was, like the ring was basically this claustrophobic bright chamber in a dark hall. You basically never get a look at either guys face, and Steins hunched over stance gave him a sinister aura. The only time you see the audience is when Stein goes to throw Bout over the top rope and a bunch of people rise up to catch his fall. One of those examples of how invested fans were into the babyfaces then. Bout seemed to have the upper hand, being fired up and blasting away at Stein with big chops and forearm blows. The match seemed to ramp up the intensity at the 30 minute mark with Stein starting to pick apart his opponent, but after some heated back and forth (including a great rope running sequence that lead to Stein eating a sick dropkick) the match deflated with a lame DQ finish. Not a great way to end a 40 minute long match to say the least.

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New Footage Friday: FRENCH CATCH!! RIP FRANZ VAN BUYTEN!!!

PAS: The great Franz Van Buyten died this week, so we decided to dig into our French Catch archives and review some of his matches.

MD: I've always had a soft spot for Van Buyten. I think most people in our circle first became aware of him from the Lasartesse series and other 80s German footage, but I first encountered him in the IWE Andre six man from 1972. There he was an amazing stooge, with his interactions with Andre being one of my favorite comedic performances of all time. I don't think I've seen another match where he took on quite that role, but it's always in the back of my head when I see him. Knowing that somewhere inside this triumphant, sympathetic babyface is that performative sense of humor, always made me look (and usually find) a certain mischief even in his his straightest matches. It's just so obvious he got "it" and that he could back it up.

Franz Van Buyten vs. Robert Gastel 7/5/71

SR: 1 fall match that goes about 30 minutes. AHH I LOVE THIS MATCHUP!! Franz is basically the guy who started the madness when I first got my hands on his Piratenkampf against Dave Taylor. Robert Gastel is someone I never even heard of before this project, but I fell in love basically looking at him. And they are a natural matchup, Gastel being balding, pudgy, skull jacket wearing and exuding the miserable tough charisma of a guy who feels like an amalgation of a slimy used car salesman, a grumpy construction worker and a smelly truck driver, and Franz being classy and a stud. Despite it being transparent where this was going to go from a mile away, there is lots of really fun, really solid wrestling. These guys do extremely basic holds, but find all sorts of neat little touches to work around them, and everything is super tight. I also really liked Franz angrily responding to Gastel throwing the first shot by trying to snap his wrist. Gastel is a real treasure trying to get in on Franz with cheapshots and leg picks, and Franz of course is an all time great when it comes to making basic stuff look really painful and draining. Not that Gastel has a hard time looking like a bastard, dropping big forearms on Franzs face and throwing body shots and headbutts. As soon as Franz had enough there was a tangible asymmetry in this match though, as Gastel despite trying his best soon found himself blown away by van Buytens onslaught. Really liked Gastels stoic selling performance as van Buyten tried to uppercut his jaw out. Time limit comes into play and feeds into the story of the match with Gastel having to survive his fitter, more athletic opponent.

PAS: Gastel has a really great look, he is bald and dumpy looking and looks like Stathams cop friend in the Transporter. This is a bit more deliberate then the other Catch stuff we have seen, but it is a cool deliberation.  The first part of the match is all Gastel working an arm lock while Van Buyten flips and spins his way out of it, only for Gastel to grind right back down on it. It is impressive how well these guys get across the basic idea of professional wrestling, "this is hard painful violence" this is more ground bound then a lot of Catch stuff, but even the wildest shit still has struggle and fight at it's base. Van Buyten grinding this tight reverse choke looks like some Gracie shit and Gastel fires back with some teeth loosening shots. Gastel looks like a thug and wrestles like a thug and it is super fun to watch Van Buyten overcome that.

MD: This felt extremely familiar in the best way. The opening had such a sense of inevitability as Gastel gave way to his darker tendencies. It was basically the Tully (and so many others) formula, where he comes out wrestling evenly with the babyface, but after losing a few exchanges goes dirty, but you got the sense that it wasn't just feigned reluctance out of Gastel, but instead that once he was so committed, there was no looking back.

They went in and out of things early, first with Gastel armdrags and an armbar he hung onto. Despite his bulk, he just melted away on the armdrags, which were the smoothest things you'd see. Van Buyten finally shifted it with a headscissors takeover and they went in out of that a bit. That's when Gastel lost his cool the first time and hit some blows out of the corner. Van Buyten shifted to the arm and you could see Gastel's cracks deepening: instinctively going for the hair when an escape got cut off, being positioned to use the rope when he had advantage on leglock and the crowd getting on his case for it. Van Buyten's constant struggle from underneath is excellent here, leading to an eventual escape and Gastel going past the point of no return.

When he finally does unload, it's with peppering shots and headbutts. Gastel has this sort of high/low combo style which keeps things interesting. It's very compelling and you never quite know what angle he'll take the attack from next. Van Buyten's comeback came a little early, maybe, though it's plenty fiery and full of righteousness with Gastel's selling giving everything even more weight. They shift to more of a back and forth after that, including Gastel utilizing a dragon sleeper and Van Buyten building to a big mare reversal of it. The finish has Van Buyten switching up Gastel's advantage by catching him with a slam off the ropes. It was sudden and effective, though maybe not entirely memorable. The video fades with Gastel walking forward to shake Van Buyten's hand, which fits with the overall feel I had. Gastel was no villain; he was just a passionate man who let his frustration take him over.


Franz Van Buyten vs. Bob UFO 7/28/84

SR: It‘s a Piratenkampf baby. There is a joke about a Piratenkampf happening in France and the flag on the pole instead of being either guys national flag is just a white flag. Maybe they didn‘t want to emphasize van Buyten being Belgian too much. European chain matches are weird in the sense that they are less about guys hitting each other with the chain and instead about chain grappling, and also really long, but I enjoy them a lot. Lots of tight, inventive grappling that comes across as grueling, with guys getting tangled in the chain while trying to wrestle. I especially liked Franz hitting a bodyslam only to find himself being strangled with the chain around his neck the next moment, and Bob Ufo(??) tangling his arm behind his back so he could hit him. The turnbuckle climbing/chain tugging is something that could potentially feel lame in these match but they had a ton of different ways to make it compelling here, including both guys taking a nasty spill to the outside and frightening balancing on these really loose ropes. The one thing that left me sour is that they clipped 10 minutes from this, I mean these matches are supposed to be really long. Not as heated as previous matches in this style we have seen, presumably due to the crowd not being familiar with the gimmick (or maybe Bob Ufo not being a super charismatic heel, though he does a solid job here) which is about the sole thing keeping this from being a minor classic.

MD: Given the clipping and the random shots to a random crowd, this did feel a little bit lacking. What stood out were particular moments (Van Buyten's comeback rush of forearms to push Bob away from the flag, the way he leapt across the ring to take both of them over the top). Just from a guess, what we missed on here was a longer period of heat, but that's what I wanted the most. I liked the heel jawing in English, though he was sufficiently brutal and dogged, but what you really want out of these matches is a long bloody beatdown that leads to a violent comeback, and we missed that here. I don't know how many of these Van Buyten had been in at this point, but he has such a great sense of the chain. He knows when to bring it into play, either as a way to dramatically control the distance between the two wrestlers or as a bludgeon. The former is particularly impressive.

PAS: Not sure who Bob UFO is, they mention he is Canadian which made me think about Bob Della Serra, but it looks more like Rocky Della Serra. This isn't a high level Piratekampf match but has a bunch of the fun things which make this such an interesting gimmick. Van Buyten is clearly a master of this match, I love all of the little ways he leverages the chain to keep UFO from ascending, at one point he just presses his foot against the chain so his opponent couldn't get the slack to get up the pole. I would have liked to see a bit more of a dramatic ending and a a little more of the violence, but this is a nice look at Van Buyten bringing his signature gimmick match to a different place.

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