Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Jarret! Bibi! Bernaert! Cowboy Jack! Guettier!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Michel Jarret vs. Cheri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert 7/22/60

MD:I am floored by how good the Bibi/Bernaert team have gotten by this point. They're just a mauling, stooging, cheating, heat-seeking unit, totally on the same page, garnering reactions, well-balanced as they each bring different things to the table but wholly focused in that both of them can do a ton of damage. Ben Chemoul remains very impressive. Some of his big spots are becoming a little more familiar now but most of them hit with a lot of flash and plenty of substance. This is our first look at Charret (I think we get one more) and he was okay, standing out the most for punch flurries in the corner and the way he twisted his body back and forth to escape from holds. He did do a triple up and over on a top wristlock which was more elaborate than I've usually seen that spot.

Bibi and Bernaert's heel antics were great. They had a long stretch of controlling Ben Chemoul and Charret with hammerlocks, either grabbing onto the rope or each other in order to stop the flying mare counter attempts. All of their stuff looked brutal. Bibi has gone from being an immobile clod in the middle of a style he couldn't keep up with to a center of gravity that lines guys up and knocks them down, with Bernaert there to creation more motion when need be. Bibi doesn't sell much, but when he does, towards the end of the match, it means all the more. Just knocking him down and getting the best of him means something because he's presented as so strong. And all the while, the crowd is jeering him and, at times, swiping at him and trying to trip him. The momentum shifts here were pretty good, with the faces getting solid revenge at times only for the heels to cheat and scheme and take back over. The finishing stretch felt more like an old lucha trios where everything reset and the tecnicos got to clown the rudos. Here, the fans loved it and everything ended on a high energy note. Just another super entertaining 40 minute tag match from 60s France that looked absolutely effortless.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. This was, naturally, extremely similar to Chemoul/Cesca vs. Bibi/Bernaert we reviewed a couple weeks ago. It followed the same structure as usual, faces shine, heels start cheating, rinse and repeat till all hell breaks loose. I was theorizing that I was getting bored of these guys because I didn’t find the first 20 minutes or so not terribly engaging, but then Bibi and Bernaert started salvaging the match by dishing out some big damn beatings. The faces retaliated in kind and suddenly you had Chemoul trying to break peoples arms and Michel Jarret throwing headbutts and punch combos. The intensity turned up to as the falls kept dropping and it felt like the ending really delivered. I shouldn’t doubt this crew.

PAS: I thought this was dope, Chemoul is such a fun tag worker. Great at using his athleticism to wrong foot the heels, takes a monster beating, and has big exciting comebacks. His leap frog mule kick owned, popped Bernaert in the jaw. Bernaert was a monster in this, totally vicious and frantic. At one point he stops Jarret from countering a hammerlock and just starts smashing the side of his head on the mat, what a mean fucker. We get a big build towards the end with the babyfaces matching the violence of the heels. Chemoul and partner versus Bibi and Bernaert seem like a total guarantee.

Roger Guettier vs. Cowboy Jack Bence 9/15/60

PAS: Really not sure what the hell was going on here. The ring is covered in trash as we join the footage before the entrances even happen, and throughout the match every time Guettier does even a basic bit of heeling he is pelted by garbage. Weird atmosphere which kind of fucks up the match. Bence has some fun escapes, including a backflip, which was less Ricochet and more Jimmy Valient. They do some cool stuff working out of a leg lock, take some big spills to the floor and tee off on each other. Still it has to be weird to try to wrestle like that, and it was more like watching a skilled standup deal with a blackout drunk bachelorette party, then an all time memorable match. 

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 25 minutes. This was good solid pro wrestling, and I continue to be impressed by Bences ability to match the French athleticism, but there was something rather disturbing going as there was a group of snotnosed kids ringside that kept throwing trash into the ring. Normally that’s an excellent sign of someone getting great heat, but in this case the stuff just came flying with no relation to what was going on in the ring. Not that Guettier is not a good heel. It approached some kind of surrealist theater as referee and wrestlers were trying hard to ignore the fact that the ring was starting to look like a trash bin and newspapers kept flying at their heads. If you can get over that, there were some pretty sweet European uppercuts vs. punches exchanges in this match.

MD: So far, between 57-60, we've seen very little sign of kids in the audience. Here, there's nothing but kids, a legion of rowdy newspaper boys who make their presence felt like you'd not believe. They spend the entirety of the match, the entirety, tossing paper into the ring. That's not to say they're not reacting or, if Guettier does something whiny and scummy in his babyfaced heel (as in a heel who has a pudgy, baby faced look) manner, the intensity of the paper doesn't increase, but it's a constant. Mid-way through the match, they're really tying each other up in tricked out holds and wrenching and it's just in a sea of paper as they roll around. Bence is even more a showman here than the last time we saw him, coming off like the old rodeo star traveling through Europe with trick lasso moves that he might have been able to pull off twenty years before but full of so much gumption that you wouldn't dare tell him to stop now. I'm not sure they entirely adapt the match enough to the crowd they're in front of, though the end of the first fall was absolutely perfect. See, Guettier ends up on the floor. That's not where you want to be on this day as dozens of kids rush up to pelt him over and over and he doesn't make it back into the ring before the count. The wrestling is good, with Guettier mean and sneaky and Bence getting plenty of revenge, but it's the paper flying into the ring and the kids revolting against societal norms that are the real stars (maybe the real heels?) here.

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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: Israel! Rabut! Guettier! Delaporte!

Roger Delaporte vs. Roger Guettier 5/30/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. We get a Delaporte interview and another fantastic graphic before the match. We have seen these two teaming up before, so there might be some context necessary: where they still teaming at this point? Was there a breakup? Judging by the match, it seems they were still teaming at this point, as they do the „rudos suddenly work a clean match“ bit to start, to befuddled „ahh“ and „ooh“ responses of the crowd as they work armlocks and clean breaks. Naturally though, their instincts start kicking in, and soon we have a full on rudo vs. Rudo brawl. The wrestling they did was pretty fun, but you want these guys to unleash some serious violence, and that they do. Guettier is the first to say „I‘ve had it“ when Delaporte forearms him off the apron and he lays a pretty nasty one sided beating on Delaporte. He assumes a quasi-face role here, although he also throws the referee around. They end up spilling to the outside, the police get involved, and some heated forearm and uppercut exchanges later Delaporte retakes control and is able to take out Guettiers leg. Referee gets thrown around some more, and Guettier looks quite great selling his own destruction and taking big bumps and spills. Tons of really fun fighting here, and Delaportes charisma is just unreal. He really can make the most simple things wildly entertaining.

PAS:  Really cool structure in this match, like most face vs. face matches we have a pair of heels starting the match wrestling clean, until their tempers flare up. It is cool to watch a pair of disreputable creeps try to clean their act up and fail. All of the early matwork was really cool, and I especially loved all of the work around Guettier's spinning headscissors. I imagine it's a spot he doesn't break out as a rudo, but he was spreading his tecnico wings. Loved all the different leverage moves that Delaporte would use to block going over too. Guettier's big backbreaker to win the first fall ruled, and Delaporte sold it like he just slept on a lumpy mattress. Of course the breakdown in decorum was great, both guys just laced into each other brawling in the crowd, tossing the ref to the floor wilding out. Loved the finish with Delaporte just demolishing Guettier's leg until he couldn't stand anymore and couldn't answer the bell. Super fun match which is up there with some of the best we have gotten so far.

MD: I could have used a little more context on this one. I know what's in my head. We've barely seen Guettier in the footage, but the big appearance was almost exactly two years before this when he was Delaporte's second banana against Hayes and Hunter. There's an interview segment at the start with Delaporte where he gets a lot of time to talk and it seems like Guettier just wants to get to it. And he really gets to it. Delaporte wrestles cleans right up until the point he starts to get outwrestled (relatively early on). He uses the ropes for leverage more than anyone we've seen, including on pins, which I think we haven't seen at all yet. He uses them to jam spinning grounded Mascaras headscissors, which is an interesting visual. Guettier's in control more often than not though, until about halfway through the match everything shifts. After being on the wrong end of some big headlock takeovers and a long-ish headlock sequence, Delaporte lifts Guettier over the top rope to the apron to break it and then just clobbers him to the floor. Guettier comes back with a vengeance and just unloads on him, including pressing him into the corner and pummeling him, and the ref when he gets in the way. At one point, the ref has to single-leg Guettier because he's so out of control. The fall mercifully ends with a few huge backbreakers and a power body slam into the pin (and is followed by Delaporte putting on a brilliant selling performance during the break). Guettier charges right back in to start the second fall but after getting beat on some more, Delaporte is able to reverse a push into the corner and he starts tossing Guettier around by his hair, ultimately out of the ring. Guettier grabs Delaporte's leg, however, and we get probably the best, most heated brawling into the crowd we've seen yet, and chaos as neither man can get in or stay in for long. At one point we get the visual of Delaporte tossing Guettier out by his hair and then, as the camera follows him, the referee flying into the screen as Delaporte tosses him too. Ultimately, Delaporte hones in on the leg with a series of cruel low kicks and a half crab which wins both the fall, and as Guettier is unable to answer, the match. There was a real sense of Guettier having a chip on his shoulder through out the match and Delaporte taking the utmost of offense to it and that made for a hell of a slugfest once things got going.

Isha Israel vs. Jean Rabut 6/4/59

SR: 1 Fall match going about 30 minutes. This was a technical match, and what a great one. These guys were seriously fast moving workers. Just one beautiful exchange after another. I was looking at the match time and wondering how the hell can they keep up at this speed for +30 minutes, but they do. They were executing basic stuff, like a headlock takeover or struggle over a pin from a test of strength in just a ridiculously high end manner. That pin exchange along with the muscle up may very well be the best I‘ve ever seen, and I must have seen a thousand. There were a few holds that they worked for a bit longer. There was a short arm scissor from Rabut, which was great as he had this ridiculously fast set-up and then a few different ways to prevent Israels escape. I dug how short arm scissors are consistently sold in a big way in this territory, as Israel was slow to get up, and Rabut immediately moved in for the kill. Few brilliant rope running sequences here that they move in and out of with such ease. Another lengthy hold was that straight jacket strangle hold, which was really sold like a choke by Rabut here, which is not something I‘ve seen much. You could see the pressure on his windpipe was troubling him. When he starts muscling out of it, you could see his veins popping. Israel had some ridiculously quick movements for a dumpy looking guy. Towards the end he takes a surprise bump over the top rope and comes back favoring his foot and then fighting off a number of leg hold attempts from Rabut. It doesn‘t stack up to much but it was a nice way to increase the drama for the finishing run. Crowd was really into this and rightfully so.

PAS: This was very much worked in that Cantanzaro vs. Cesca juniors style, which is the first exposure we all had to French Catch, but really isn't that representative of most of the French we have gotten. I am guessing that there were probably a couple matches per card in that style, but they rarely made television. It was cool to fall in love all over with the freaky takedowns and super fast rope running. I am a short arm scissors aficionado, and have loved all of the different variations we get to see of that spot in this footage. Rabut turning the scissors into a rolling cradle was badass, and I loved his ranas too, just whipping them off with a ton of snap. If we had gotten this match first, it would have been the legendary one. In context it is really great too.

MD: The best way to describe this was that it was much of what we've already seen, just at 1.5 speed, and a good deal we haven't seen much of on top of that. It was a lightweight title match, our first look at Israel and our first look in a match like this at Rabut and it was something. I think it was our first look at an actual title belt too (Israel was champ). There was so much work and effort put into every lock up. They slam into each other for the first and so many of the subsequent ones had little hand motions and fake outs. Rabut loved to go through the legs to set up holds. He also had a way of slapping away the hand, where Israel could be like a tornado spinning about and grabbing a limb. There was almost too much to keep track of here. They did go in and out of holds, but there was often an extra twist to them. When Israel caught Rabut in a bodyscissors off of the bridge breaking spot, he managed to fully flip him over at the same time. That sort of thing. Even a pretty lackluster long headlock early on was entered into with two huge flying headlock takeovers. That was the only lackluster thing in the match, by the way. Later on, Rabut entered into a short arm scissors off of a top wristlock takedown as quickly as I've ever seen, and then worked the hold through a half dozen escape attempts, all faster and with more oomph than we've seen. There were more nods here to limb selling than we've generally seen, but it only lasts until capitalization of it is over. Rabut stayed on the arm for a moment afterwards but Israel was able to dodge a lunge at his arm and that was it there. Later on, Israel took a back body drop out of the ring and came back with a hurt leg but Rabut could only stay on it for another move or two. There was a straightjacket choke exchange, where Israel held it and Rabut went in and out which I don't think we've seen yet and that was very good, the escape attempts and the hang ons and Rabut's selling. There was definite escalation despite it all too, with more knock downs and working of the counts towards the end before some frenetic rope running to build to a finish. Super high-end stuff here.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Marcel Parmentier! Al Hayes! Rogers! Rene Ben Chemoul! Bob Anthony!

Marcel Parmentier vs. Jean Frisuk 5/24/57

SR: JIP with about 8 minutes shown. Not getting a full match of Parmentier is probably among the biggest misses in this footage, but at least we now know he existed. Frisuk is a good looking babyface and has good fire. I imagine if we had the build up this would be a really good match because they were both happily dishing out receipts and inside shots. I am still getting used to how violent French wrestling is compared to the British stuffs. I mean British heels are nasty but they won‘t full on running punt a downed opponent like Parmentier does here. Love Parmentiers rugged aura and these two guys killing each other with massive elbows was awesome to watch briefly.

MD: It's a crime we don't have a full Parmentier match. They beat the heck out of each other here and we can only ever assume why. It's not hard to assume, mind you, given how scummy Parmentier is, though. He was the absolute master of the leg dive out of nowhere, just throwing his body at Frisuk's legs almost every time he gets knocked down (Well, at least three). You have to love how he plays to the crowd here, when he gets the better of Frisuk (through hook or crook) and especially after he eats the loss. After that punt Sebastian mentioned, Frisuk does the absolute meanest thing we've seen yet, just ripping at Parmentier's hair and clubbing at his skull, alternating between one and the other.

PAS: What we got of this was really great, Parmentier was a scuzzy creep, and Frisuk was throwing heat at him for sure. I really liked Frisuk's headscissors takedowns, before it just broke down. Parmentier has amazing looking elbows, he just throws his whole body into each shot and land the point right on the upper jaw and ear, elbow smashes are one of the most trite things in wrestling these days, and it is cool to see them throw so well and so nastily. If we got more of this I imagine it might be in the upper tier of stuff in this footage.

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Roger Delaporte/Roger Guettier 5/24/57

SR:2/3 falls match over 30 minutes. Hayes & fellow Englishman Ray Hunter are apparently introduced as „Australians“. There is also a giant robot watching the match from the crowd whom the announcer calls a „martian“. And the French team of Delaporte (champion of France, even!) and Guettier gets a big heel reaction. All the absurdities aside, this was a very good match. The last time Hayes showed up he was a real highlight, and he is really fun here again coming up with fun counters to all the holds. It‘s funny how you can watch a ton of old French/British wrestling and still see new things. Hunter is really tall and likes to upside down chop people, so he‘s basically Baba in this match. The two Rogers won‘t blow you away if you‘ve been keeping track of all the awesome heel workers we‘ve seen in this project so far, but they did a good job working over Hayes back with Fuchi-like rope stretches, big backbreaker moves and knee drops to the spine. It builds to a pretty hot 3rd fall with the Brits masquerading as Australian going for near finish after near finish with the Frenchmen breaking up pinfalls as much as they could. I‘m not sure whether it cut off before the finish or if the deciding pinfall simply came out weird, but since that‘s all there is of this match we‘ll have to go with „came out weird“.

MD: Great tag match. Hayes did everything right here, super technical at the beginning, standing on the ropes and working the apron, being the recipient a hot tag where he got to clear house to set up the end of the first fall (more on that later), then playing face-in-peril for the rest of the match, with escalating limb-focused selling. Very complete performance. Hunter was larger than life, just towering over his opponents, especially Guettier (who was portrayed, even by the commentator, as Delaporte's little crony). We got a clear picture of Delaporte as a heel's heel here, but maybe not a complete one. There will be time for that. I really liked the bouncing leg lock off the ropes when they cut Hunter down to size, and the double teaming that followed. The heels cut off the ring well when in charge and the backwork on Hayes in the second and third falls was just picture perfect. We have a lot of tags ahead of us and the later ones we've seen haven't been so pinpoint focused. Lots of backbreakers and kneedrops and grinding over the top turnbuckle. A little more variation might have been nice but they were only developing it, so you forgive it. It's just a shame we don't get a finish (unless Delaporte running out of "public warnings" on pinfall breaks was the finish). I'm looking forward to the handfull of Bollet and Delaporte tags we get later.

PAS: Really enjoyed the Rogers here, frantic focused attack which isn't something I have seen a lot of in wrestling. They really key in on the back and work it over really well, but execute that attack with wild intensity, they were a mix of the Sheepherders and the Andersons. Loved their bouncing rope step over toe holds and all of the jamming of Hayes back into the turbuckle bolt. Hunter reminded me of Baba too, and I loved how impassioned he got going after the heels. Feels like were are missing the last minute or two, which is a shame, but what we got is really class stuff.

Rene Ben Chemoul vs. Bob Anthony 4/7/61

SR: 1 Fall match that is a little over 30 minutes long. Bob Anthony is someone we saw before in the twilight years of his career working World of Sport, and here he is in his mid 20s only a few years after making his debut. Although he didn‘t look green at all here and was doing many of the same spots as 19 years later, so I guess back then in European wrestling things changed slowly. This was a clean contest for the purists with no unfair tactics from Anthony. I‘ve noticed that while the athleticism is quite high end, French wrestling didn‘t get as brainy as the British stuff when it came to matwork. That is minor complaint though when you get 30 minutes of classy back and forth technical work. Ben Chemoul is probably at his best when he is being charismatic and uppercutting the fuck out of a stooging heel, but of course he is also a maestro and this type of match fits him like a glove. This didn‘t really kick into next gear and the finish looked a little too easy but I enjoyed it greatly.

MD: This was Sebastian's pick and it's the best AWA face vs face match you're going to see this month. Lots of working in and out of holds. The more we watch, the more familiar some things get, like using a step-over flying headscissors to get out of a long armbar. The first time we saw it, it was like lightning, now it's a familiar and welcome part of the syntax and diction of their storytelling. That said, these two had a bunch of stuff that was cool and novel, like Anthony's rolling bodyscissors and the amazing deadlift cradle slam that Ben Chemoul used to get out of it. Or Ben Chemoul's backflip out of a backhammer right into a roll up, or his escape from another one where he got his foot behind Anthony's leg and just tripped him. So simple. So good. And yeah, then there was the rolling cradle stretch. While things never got too fiery, they did escalate into strikes. Anthony as a faux Australian had this great jumping kangaroo double knee, whereas Ben Chemoul would throw these crazy combos from every angle. You wish it would have went over the top for the finish but ultimately it was just a great, hard hitting, cleanly worked technical match with more than enough sights to see along the way.

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