Tuesday is French Catch Day: INCA PERUANO! Araujo! Corne! Laroche! Czernieski! Guguliemetti!

Jacky Corne/Roger Laroche vs. Jo Czernieski/Giacomo Guguliemetti 12/9/60

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. Jo Czierneski & Giacomo Guguliemetti, now those are names. The Corne/Laroche had a bit of a feeling of a junior partnered with a heavyweight. Corne was working some impressive smooth takeovers early on and Laroche kept it a little bit more solid. I’d say Czernieski's beatdown was easily the highlight of the match. He would ground people with nerve holds and then work over their kidneys with stiff blows and stomp on their hands. I also totally didn’t expect Laroche to take a big spill between the ropes and basically suicide diving into nowhere to set up a further heat segment on him. As usual, there was a ton of asskicking going and I thought it built to a very good match overall.

MD: Another strong, long tag. There were a few structural things that we've seen a lot lately, like the heels utilizing consistent and repeated holds and the faces firing back or a comeuppance spot with the heels tied up in the ropes including a catapult where one's tossed into the other. That's interesting to me because Corne hasn't been on the scene for a while. Hearing the announcer say he hadn't been on TV for 18 months when we don't have him in our footage for that exact period of time is a real reminder just how complete this footage is and makes me feel closer to the crowd and the scene in general. I wouldn't say that Guguliemetti and Czierneski stood out in the sea of foreign bad guys we've seen, though the former, an Italian, had a memorable lanky appearance. They used a stranglehold and a nerve hold respectively and stooged as appropriate. The best stuff here was after Laroche wiped out to the floor on a running tackle in the second fall and how relentless they were in demolishing his back. Corne managed to get back in at the start of the last fall (though again, they just haven't figured out the timing of a really good hot tag; I think sometimes we've seen visiting Brits manage it, but not the natives) and he really is a great total package of wrestling and fiery slugging. I liked how Laroche did get some revenge here, but just for a minute or so, in and out, as he was still selling. He never put himself at great risk and because of that, Corne was able to secure the win.

ER: The Italian/Polish team is already one of my most hated heel teams, just because I hate having to type Guglielmetti and Czernieski several times just to describe what they are doing. Czernieski works maybe the most active and engaging nerve hold I've seen, really wearing Laroche down to his knees, digging hard into both traps, and every time one of Laroche's hands would hit the mat Czernieski would throw down a quick stomp. It really forced Laroche to expend way more energy while locked into a hold, not being allowed to conserve any breath with Czernieski showing he was going to keep pain front and center. Czernieski was a real asshole, and had a lot of great stuff around the ropes. He would hold Laroche in a full nelson and walk him over so Guglielmetti could land a stiff shoulder shrug into his gut, and then Czernieski would do some other asshole thing like throw a double chop into Laroche's sides. Czernieski was generous feeding into Laroche and Corne's comeback, taking big exaggerated belly flop bumps on kicks to the stomach, getting tied up in the ropes and bumping to the floor when Guglielmetti gets thrown into him, getting thrown even harder into the bottom rope to bump Guglielmetti to the floor. Corne and Laroche take the two most insane bumps of the match, with Corne taking a really disgusting backward Harley Race bump to the floor onto his head, and Laroche basically doing a tope suicida to nothing. This tag took a nice amount of time to logically build from heel control to face comeuppance, working a long match that never once felt long, which is kind of an unheralded gift of French Catch. 

Inca Peruano vs. Al Araujo 12/30/60

SR: 1 Fall Match going about 25 minutes. Al Araujo may be Spanish or Portuguese, who knows. Gotta love France for giving away matchups like this. This was pretty much a sprint with both guys doing a mix of cool wrestling, unique bumping and beating the living shit out of each other. I would‘ve liked to see these two hit the mat a little longer, as they had some super swank stuff going on, but soon Peruano was stomping on Araujos face and punching his stomach. One might call this a 1960s spotfest as they move really fast from one thing to another, but I can tolerate a spotfest when the spots are fresh and there is a ton of gritty fighting as seen here. Al Araujo looked pretty fantastic here, his wrestling was spot on and when he took a beating his retaliations were violent as hell, and I loved all the backbreakers and holds he broke out. He also had this great vertical arm lift into dropping the Inca straight on his wrist. I really dug how both guys kept kicking the wrists from a standing position, and of course Inca Peruano was whipping out cool stuff left and right, including some really swank headscissor work. There was also a nice sense of progression, as some things would be repeated and then countered. This is our last lengthy singles match appearance from Inca Peruano and the only real match we have from Al Araujo, it‘s sad but this match certainly serves as a good highlight reel for their stuff.

MD: Peruano is nothing short of amazing. Obviously, we've seen him a few times now, but without the context of everything we've seen so far, I think it's hard to fully appreciate him. When we first started watching this footage, everything seemed amazing. Now that we've gotten a sense of it all, everything continues to seem excellent but Peruano, himself, continues to seem extraordinary. He's probably the single most talented person in the footage, or at the least up there with Catanzaro and Ben Chemoul and Pellacani and Le Petit Prince (and.. and... I know). He almost reminds me of Negro Casas with his combination of heatseeking and innovation and drawing outside of the standard box while being able to hit hard and stooge well and do all of the fundamental things well.

I thought we were out of Aruajo matches but this one had been mislabeled. Aruajo is a great foil for Peruano, almost a mirror image in some ways, though he'd probably stand out more against a less innovative opponent. He hits as hard as anyone and has maybe the best 'rana we've seen, but Peruano is simply impossible to keep down for long. He's almost too good at escaping holds and grinding down on Aruajo from every angle. Aruajo locks in some great stuff like a cavernaria and a tapitaia but Peruano is just too slippery and he's back to being dominant again, sneaking in cheaty counters and cheapshots on pinfalls before long. Peruano makes up for that by stooging dramatically in the most-crowd pleasing manner possible. The total package makes for pure entertainment.

PAS: This was incredible, what a performance by Inca, and Aruajo being there every step. Inca does five impossible things before breakfast, attacking at odd angles, finding a dozens ways to roll someone up you have never seen, throwing big shots and taking a bunch of bumps to the floor. All of the attacks on the wrist where super nasty, and I have never seen that wrist lift slam before, what a nutty spot that is. This felt like a tremendous lucha title match, all the skill of  Negro Casas vs. Atlantis,  but 15% stiffer, which is all you can ask for in a wrestling match. All of the opening exchanges were great, and all of the final run bombs exploded the way you wanted them to. Another stone cold all timer from French Catch.

ER: I loved this! Peruano is like a compact Regal, but Araujo has as many cool tricks and reversals as Peruano, and works as an excellent canvas for some of Peruano's best work. I loved all of Araujo's focus on the ankles, some of the coolest ankle spots I've seen. He is really great at totally tying up Peruano's ankles, like how he trapped and tucked them early, then built off that later by pinning Peruano's ankles to his butt and lifting him. He had really tight work around the ankles, knees, and thighs, getting these great leveraged grips that would lend themselves well to nasty crabs and deathlocks. Peruano is a master at tying someone up with leg scissors, and I appreciated the energy that Araujo used to fight out of a snug grounded headscissors. The best leg scissors in the match was this all time great fun spot, where Peruano had both of Araujo's ankles tied up in a scissors, and Araujo kept trying to roll through it to escape, only to continually finding himself back on his feet, ankles still wrapped up in Peruano's legs. Peruano had a bunch of nasty wrist work, and I really loved one spot he did a couple times where he broke a wrist lock with a quick downward thrust kick. One of the most impressive things about guys like Peruano and Araujo is how they do so many pieces of offense that could feel like exhibition exchanges, but their stiffness always makes it come off like a part of a bigger match, not just guys running through spots and then shifting back into place. The pace they kept for 25 minutes was insane, and after Peruano gets the pin he just can't help himself, and throws a couple nasty kicks into Araujo's ribs. This was one of my very favorite French Catch experiences. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: L'Homme Masque! Delaporte! Al Hayes! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Lambert! Laroche!

L'Homme Masque vs. Roger Delaporte 3/6/59

MD: So far, 1959 has been the year of the masked wrestler. This is the third we've seen and not L'Homme Masque's debut, but he'd only been around for a bit, apparently, even if he was the first. They bill him from Texas, with 3 wives who had all ran away. If he ever loses, he would unmask. He was presented in the announcing, more so than than Le Bourreau (who worked for another promoter) as the opposite of L'Ange Blanc and we do have a match with them but not for another ten years! This was a match in three parts, with some amazing comedic performing from Delaporte to start. The first five or six minutes were all him ducking away from L'Homme and trying one thing after another: top wristlocks, headlocks, a bearhug. Each time he was shrugged off, or with the bearhug, put into a giant headlock causing his arms to crumble. Each time his reactions were hilarious. L'Homme didn't do much here, but he didn't have to. He, given his massive size, was a perfect prop for a stooge like Delaporte. If Delaporte even got touched, he'd sell it huge. Eventually he got caught and things were a little disappointing for this middle section. You'd hope he'd get tossed around and really it was fairly disappointing, just a grounded wristlock with Delaporte flailing about a bit. I did like the knees to the kidneys L'Homme utilized in taking him down though. The last third was far better though. L'Homme kept going to the ropes, wrenching Delaporte's arm around it, and there was nothing he or the ref could do. It was a great visual and, expanded to include a few arm-trapped beales, played up as brutal. Delaporte would get a comeback or two (and did drop the arm selling but that's 50s French wrestling for you; selling tended to be immediate), really slamming L'Homme's head into the turnbuckle. That just made him angrier though and L'Homme jammed him with the most amazing monster spot, the thing we'd been waiting for the entire match: he picked him up over his shoulder with a gutwrench and just slammed the back of his head over and over into the turnbuckle, before dropping him and locking in a sleeper (which he wouldn't break) for the win. Ultimately, he had presence, but this was Delaporte directing traffic. It's a testament to the talent in the 50s that they were able to put these masked attractions against guys like Villars, LeDuc, and Delaporte to give them real credibility and entertaining matches. I think this would have been better if L'Homme had tossed him about or clubbered him the first time he really caught him instead of just sitting in a hold, but otherwise, it definitely did the job.

SR: It's... the masked man. This was a complete squash at 18 minutes length. Poor Delaporte, although the crowd took quite the delight in his demise. He really is the Louis De Funes of wrestling. What a weird character to be Frances major heel star, although I guess it speaks to their culture. It's so strange to see him going from being a vicious bastard brutalizing faces to stooging around as he is himself brutalized by this comical giant. Did Louis De Funes ever do serious movies where he is a corrupt cop breaking fingers? This was a good 7 minutes of Delaporte bouncing off of L'Homme Masque in such a comical fashion that John Tatum looks like Lance Storm in comparison. Followed by 7 minutes of the masked man hanging on to an arm lock with the referee getting increasingly involved. And then, a 2 minute section where the masked man uncorks the repeated turnbuckle powerbombs before wringing Delaporte to sleep. The masked man certainly had a menacing physique, looking like something out of a comic book, but his control section aside from the insane repeated drops to the turnbuckle wasn't super hot. Will be interesting to see him going against the likes of L'Ange Blanc, though.

PAS: Delaporte certainly met his match here. I agree with Matt and Jetlag about how Masque's armbar was a bit dull, although I did appreciate the dominance. I think this would have been better served just cutting the middle part entirely, and just had the match be Delaporte's stooging and that crazy turnbuckle powerbomb combo. I am mixed about the masked invasion, I appreciate the changes in style they bring, but I just wish they were all more compelling workers.  It is a bummer we don't have any footage of Tony Oliver or Karl Gotch's masked characters, I imagine they would be more compelling

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Karl von Kramer/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 3/6/59

MD: We have about 17 minutes of this before they run out of time and I lament the loss of the other 20+ that the match would have probably contained. We have one lone Hayes/Hunter match left, but it's against the Delaporte/Bollet combo, which should be quite the show. We have one more look at Kaiser (tagging with El Strangulador Lamban) and two or three more Von Kramer matches. So no need to say goodbye to anyone now. I do, however, lament that we don't get to see more of Von Kramer and especially Kaiser against Hayes. The last times we saw Judo Al, he really ate up his opponents and the first few minutes are Kaiser and Von Kramer putting their foot down to the best of their ability to prevent that. It doesn't meant they can stop Hayes but it does make for some great, extremely high end struggle. Hayes is very interesting as he will sell, unquestionably, and he will give, but you have to cheat to get up on him. He'll drop for a cheapshot or sell an extended cheating sequence (as he does here where he limps around the ring after they work his leg over using the rope and ref distractions), but if you wrestle him straight up, he's going to not give an inch. In some ways, it's a little unfortunate he's paired with Hunter, who has such a size and reach advantage against almost everyone he wrestles that he's nigh impossible to move. You try for a hold and he'll just bonk you on the head and there's very little you can do about it. That means that Kaiser and Von Kramer are stooging and bounding across the ring and trying and failing to cheat for a lot of this. Hayes and Hunter are also a little more apt to cheat here themselves than we've seen before, which I attest to the fact they're wrestling Germans. All good but not enough; never enough.

SR: We get about 20 minutes of this. No finish, and it appears that was only the 1st fall. That is pretty bitter, as the von Kramer/Dr. Kaiser duo is about the most high end when it comes to monocle wearing fake Germans in wrestling. Here they had matching outfits, they were bumping, stooging, cheating, miscommunicating, doing some pretty fun wrestling, along with their eccentric demeanour, they had everything you want from an entertaining heel team. There was an especially funny bit where the Dr. did his spider walk only to accidentally end up running into von Kramers boot. You get the sense either of them (but especially von Kramer, god what a freaky wrestler that guy was) against Hayes in a singles would've been dynamite. "Rebel" Ray Hunter is probably the least of the faces we have seen, when everyone else is uppercutting the shit out of the bad guys, a tall guy lightly tapping people in the head with chops isn't quite doing it. Still, maybe the full thing is laying around somewhere.

PAS: Yeah this is a real tease of a match, on paper this is a total gem, but we get to see the foreplay with none of the climax. Hayes is always worth watching, he is so skilled and I loved the whole section of him trying to bridge out of a face lock while von Kramer kept punching him in the kidneys. Dr. Kaiser was a little subdued here, we got all of the stooging with none of the maniacal evil. When we are all done with what got, I think we are planning on checking back with the archive, maybe the full version of this is still in the vault.


Henri Lambert vs. Roger Laroche 4/30/59

MD: This one took me by surprise. We had seen Laroche in one of our very first matches in this project and that was primarily to get beat upon by La Barba. I think a commenter previously said that Lambert was the ref in the Mann vs Montourcy so I wasn't sure what to expect here. However, this was, yet again, one of those matches, that if we had nothing else from 50s France, would have blown our collective minds. I wouldn't say that either of these two were dynamic and memorable characters, but there was a real contrast, both in their physical attributes and how they wrestled. Lambert seemed younger, was incredibly athletic, very spirited, quite dynamic. Laroche was (as i said last time we saw him) off that unassuming French maestro assembly line. He seemed older, more reserved. At many points in the match, he stayed low and took the count in order to slow Lambert down and recover, which is not a tactic we've seen much in the footage so far. There was a real but subtle sense of him trying to absorb punishment at times to blow Lambert up so he could take over with a hold, or to draw Lambert out so that he'd get impassioned and make a mistake.

The first few minutes of this had Lambert eating Laroche up with holds, and Laroche's response was to step on the foot. The first time he did it, Lambert brushed it off. The second time, he returned the favor and followed up with a clubbering blow. Taking Lambert off his game allowed for Laroche to get an arm, headbutt the wrist, and use the knee to drive him down, leading into almost SEVEN (7) minutes of Lambert dynamically trying to escape an armbar. We've seen this, of course, with the person in control holding on through armdrags and bodyslams and hip tosses, and blocking headscissors, but this was remarkable both for the length of it and for the fluctuating desperation from Lambert. He'd sell the hand within the hold more and more, trying to keep feeling in it, but he'd also launch lightning quick combinations of hip tosses, only for Laroche to hang on and Lambert to wear himself out. It was seven minutes and it was never boring, in part due to the energy of Lambert and in part due to the sheer audacity of length.

Much of the rest of the match pitted Lambert's athleticism against Laroche's skill, with a lot of great bridges and quick bits of punishment from Lambert and reversals upon reversals. Increasingly, Lambert, in frustration, would go into blows, more emotional than underhand. Laroche on the other hand, would be the sneakier of the two, dropping down and cutting off with a grab of the leg. Lambert, an actor on the side, had a lot of stuff but could also sell very well, and as the match went on both wrestlers really portrayed the weight of what they'd been through and the sheer exhaustion they were facing. There's a long strike exchange towards the end where they're barely standing by the end of it. They were ultimately working to a draw here, though given the tenor of French matches, you can't always tell. This could have had a finish just as easily. It didn't really need one though as the draw was both escalated to and completely earned.

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was a stiff technical match built around armlocks and european uppercuts peppered with some athleticism. It's kind of the French house style, but after weeks of seeing masked dudes running wild on French TV, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Laroche is balding and stocky, while Lambert has a mustache and looks like someone out of a squashbuckling movie. Sometimes, you just want to watch two gentlemen forearm the shit out of each other for 30 minutes, and this delivered in spades. Laroche was a real punisher here, not an outright villain, but taking his shortcuts when they appeared and thus heating up the match. I can't emphasize enough how hard these guys were peppering each other, big kneedrops, kicking their way out of holds, hard shots to the ribs, at one point Laroche blocks an escape attempt so he eats a knee to the head for his troubles. There was a lengthy section built around Laroche keeping an armlock, twisting and throwing Lambert to the mat over and over, often making him land awkwardly on his shoulder. When Lambert gets out, he is slow to get up, clearly favouring that arm, then, when Laroche tried to go back to that same arm hold, he kneed him right in the face. The match was full of "fuck you, you are not doing that spot" which always helps keeping these matches fresh, and enough cool athleticism thrown in at the right moments to keep this from being a sheer slugfest. Still, it's all about them rolling out those forearms and uppercuts. Last couple of strikes exchanges were downright crazy.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: La Barba! Inca Perano! Laroche! DR. ADOLF KAISER

Joachim La Barba vs Roger Laroche 3/7/57

MD: This was very good. You watch these matches and you get a sense that they were just mass producing absolute masters like Bout and Laroche off of some assembly line in 50s France. He was able to present this immense control over his body and his opponent's (obviously that's half on La Barba but the total effect was very convincing). One of my favorite bits was when he launched a spin-move feint out of nowhere to grab a leg. He had absolutely crushing blows too, including some pretty novel strikes like proto-Kawada kicks and a cravat-held kneelift. We'd seen La Barba as a mean, mugging heel before and that's exactly what he was here, getting whatever cheapshots he could and going for things like a double stomp at every opportunity, even if he mostly missed. His missed haymakers, for instance, were things of beauty. A lot of the narrative of the match, like we've seen elsewhere, was how he kept pushing the ref's buttons, taking advantage by cheating but losing it by the ref getting fed up and intervening. La Barba also brought excellent bumping, memorable facial expressions, and a tendency to go flying out of the ring in the most interesting ways, like when Laroche reversed a cross-arm puller and heaved him up and out of the ring with it. Everything came together nicely as they worked that theme into the finish with a brutal over the top bump onto a table leading to the count out. La Barba rushing back in after the bell only to get dropped was a perfect, giving crowd-pleasing ending.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This is a match with lots of wrestling that‘s gonna stay in your mind because of the parts where they beat the hell out of each other. Not that the wrestling was bad, Laroche looked like a classy worker, but it just wasn‘t that exceptional and as soon as Joachim kicked him in the kidney you wanted more where that came from. It‘s like you slotted Tenryu or Takashi Ishikawa into a European style grappling affair. Most of the first 10 minutes are built around Laroche evading the Mexican, with Joachim La Barba attempting some double stomps which was rather interesting. As soon as Joachim found his opening he wasn‘t letting go of the chance to beat the crap out of Laroche. He also took the chance to bump all over the place once again. It all builds to an especially big bump to the outside. Little hard to rate for me, it‘s clear that this was good shit and smokes most 2020 pro wrestling in a cakewalk, on the other hand the baseline for this French stuff is getting really high.

PAS: I loved this, I think I am higher then Sebastian and Matt. My god La Barba, he is listed from Mexico, and if he is actually a luchador, he must have been Satanico's illegitimate father. He has the whole rudo package, sickingly violent, great stooging, huge Jerry Estrada style bumps to the floor, and even some Un Foul's. I loved all of his missed moves, he was really great at whiffing at double stomps and splashes, and those big missed uppercuts were great looking, everything looked like it was thrown full force but still had this great silent comedy feel. Laroche was really good too, great hard charging foil to La Barba's wild performance, really brought the violence, and I dug all of his early grappling too. Loved the finish with La Barba getting pressed over the top rope landing hard on a table. He gets counted out, helped to the back, but reverses course and tries to jump Laroche and takes another stooging bump, what a man. 

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Warnia de Zarzecki 3/29/57

MD: This was an even better Kaiser showcase than the last match. In just a couple of matches, it's clear how good he was at walking a fine line between precision violence and a sort of manic desperation. You'll get a carefully set up arm-trap headbutt, a rolling short armscissors, and Kaiser going for the ears to get out of a hold all in the span of a minute or two. He hits a 1957 Full Nelson Slam too, in case anyone was wondering. The crowd was distracted early on by some police activity in the crowd but they recovered well. Zarzecki was competent in his role. He came off as younger and square-jawed, though ready to dole out revenge for Kaiser's cheapshots. He had the Andre the Giant kneecrushes too though I'm not sure how sound they are coming from a guy that's not a giant. It does hit home that we've seen a lot of variation of strikes in all of these matches though. I probably read way too much into the finish, but to me, there was real emotion to it: Kaiser finally was able to lock in his nerve hold that he had used with such verve in the previous match, but Zarzecki slammed his own head straight back into Kaiser's to break it. Distraught and furious, Kaiser yanked him into a 1957 Dragon Sleeper, cinched it up to a ridiculous degree and choked him out.

SR: JIP, but we get about 10 minutes. Mostly Zarzecki taking the Doctor to the pay window. Zarzecki wasn‘t kidding, he hit some pretty violent looking kneelifts and stomps. The Dr. is really fun at sneaking in cheapshots and his calculating behaviour is entertaining, he also busted out another cool double armlock. The finish has Warnia escaping the dreaded nerve hold with a nasty headbutt, only for Kaiser to spin him into a Dragon Sleeper in the middle of the ring. I didn‘t think they meshed quite that well and the match could‘ve picked up the pace a little, but it was a nice reminder that the Dr.s chokeholds will put anyones lights out.

PAS: I am the high voter on this match too, I thought it was fucking great. This match was full of really violent in fighting, with guys latching in holds, and then the other guy throwing short nasty shots, or stomps or headbutts. I am assuming Zarzecki is billed as Polish, and a Polish guy certainly has some incentive to want to stomp the shit out of a German doctor, and stomp the shit out him he does. Kaiser is being built up so great here, he gives his opponent a lot of stuff, but always has this aura of sadistic shocking violence looming. God that finish was incredible, Kaiser is able to grab his dreaded nerve hold, and Zarzecki breaks in by throwing the back of his head into Kaisers face, that back headbutt is a barfight move I can only ever remember seeing once in wrestling, when Chris Hero and Eddie Kingston started shooting on each other in PWG. Kaiser snaps and locks in this violent Dragon Sleeper, and they basically have to give Zarzecki CPR in the ring after. Kaiser continues to leave bodies strewn at his feet, I can't wait to watch more. 

Inca Peruano vs Comanche Indian 3/29/57

MD: I'm pretty certain that some of the people I went to grad school with could have used this match as a valid and loving case study for veiled homoeroticism in 50s French popular culture. They start with the rare-for-a-reason double grounded headscissors spot, go a bit overboard with the sitting-on-your-opponent stuff out of victory rolls and what have you, and even some of the positions Peruano gets punches in from were either ill-conceived or expertly conceived depending on what they were going for. Comache was fun, with a very unique way of stalking around his opponent that popped the announcer and that Peruano even mocked during a moment of his advantage. He really leaned deep into his hip tosses (utilizing the leg trip) which always looks so great in this footage and Peruano, who we saw as a face in the previous match, was a bullying heel with a bunch of flashy stuff, including the really cool handwalk headscissors spot. Not to go to deep onto the theme, but there was a sense of a lover's quarrel here, just that sort of animosity, from the initial stalking all the way to Peruano's post match cheapshot and it kept things interesting, at least.

SR: When you see a matchup with names like this, you expect everything. We ended up getting some really swank stuff. Lots of nifty throws, swank headscissors and smooth matwork, at one point both guys exchange fast leg trips. Comanche is a spindly guy with some eccentric mannerisms, and his physique adds to his matwork allowing for some cool escapes. Peruano continues to look like the real deal, at one point he does this transition where he hooks Comanches legs with his own legs and spins around almost like a double leg nelson, and his headscissor from the ropes – which he does slick and out of nowhere like a shootstylist – is one of my new favourite moves. He also busts out the Octopus Hold. Peruano eventually starts sneaking in inside shots and the bout gets chippy, with Peruano throwing punches to Comanches skinny body and Comanche firing back with neck chops. Comanche also has some cool looking non-standard dropkicks and a great victory roll. Once again, there were some intense pin attempts. Could‘ve built to a bigger crescendo, but what a neat match to watch in itself.

PAS: I thought this was weird and cool, although I am not sure if it totally nailed it as a match. There are a lot of nuts right in faces in this match, and that rolling double headscissors looked like porn. There was so much cool shit too though, that walk up headscissors was great as was a later spinning headscissors.  The whole thing felt pitched to a slightly different frequency, like this is what Peruvian wrestling in the 50s looked like, rather then a traditional French match. As always I loved the chippiness, although it never evolved into the pure wars that a lot of these matches get to. Lots of stuff here for wrestlers to steal, including a bunch of thing for Effy or Cassandro to take. 

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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