Tuesday is French Catch Day:Khan! Gentilly! Amor! Rouanet! Horst! DiSanto!

Monsieur Montreal vs. Jack Rouxel 9/15/61

MD: We get the last 5 minutes of 20 here. It's our first look at Mr. (Marcel) Montreal. Pretty straightforward. The crowd was against Rouxel and he, after quickly escaping the full nelson we start with, just mauled Montreal. Forearms and simple throws and a few kicks for good measure. I half through the ref should call it at one point (he gave Rouxel a warning instead) but then Montreal ducked a running forearm and Rouxel went sailing over the top and the entire match turned. Montreal got plenty of revenge, to the point where both guys seemed fairly blown up from all the slams, before locking in a bearhug for the win. We have a Rouxel/Bernaert vs Sola/Montreal tag in a few weeks that sounds like a lot of fun.

Iska Khan/Serge Gentilly vs .Yves Amor/Pierre Rouanet 9/15/61

MD: Not a lot of brand new fooage this week. Just the JIPs, I think. But we're going through this stuff as we encounter it for the most part. This was a very fun tag with a lot of fun pairings. Amor and Khan are both such interesting wrestlers to watch, very talented, multifaceted despite their sort of singular gimmicks, both able to lay it in and go at it when they're not doing the highly affectated stuff. Both men were consumate performers with great connections with the crowd. Gentilly and Rouanet worked extremely well together, lots of quick exchanges and holds that were either repeatedly hung onto or escaped from, including an excellent hammerlock/flying mare exchange. Likewise, Amor vs Gentilly was a lot of fun with Amor's size and reach advantage up against Gentilly's slickness. What we saw of Khan vs Rouanet was a slugfest as much as not. When the heels decided to finally act like heels, they controlled the ring well and demolished Khan's back. As the guy who ate the fall has to start in the ring to begin the next one, it let Khan work from underneath a bit to get a quasi-hot tag and the comeback was fun. The last fall was back and forth, with a couple of flashy things like a cool triple strike combo by Gentilly and Khan's stepover spin kicks, including the one that knocked Amor out of the ring to end the match, and great straightforward ones like Amor's kneeshots in the ropes. Good mix of straight up work and fun character stuff here.

Remy Bayle vs. Al Gamain 10/5/61

SR: We get about 1 minute of this featuring lots of heated slugging and a cool spinning canadian backbreaker finish. Wouldn‘t have minded to see 2 or 3 minutes more.

MD: Just a minute of this, but they went hard for the finish. Good striking. Gamain had a great, abrupt headbutt to the gut, and won it with an over the shoulder backbreaker whirlybird which was nice to see.

Kuti Nador vs. Michel Allary 10/5/61

SR: 13 minute match going one fall. I am pretty sure Kuti Nador is Hungarian wrestler Micha Nador, since that guys real name is actually Kuti. Nador I think was mostly active in Germany and Austria. It‘s nice to have a full match if him in his prime. He also showed up in NJPW in the early 80s, somehow. He seemed like a cool worker and I would‘ve liked to see him in a 30 minute match like they gave every other worker. This was face vs. Face, with them going through the usual solid wrestling with Nador having some unique twists on the established holds and counters. Then, Nador decided to work over Allarys face with thai clinch knees and lock in a nasty sleeper. The he just dropped him with a gnarly piledriver. That was unexpected for sure. They get heated for a minute before a nasty bump occurs and the match is thrown out.

MD: We're in tournament mode here, I guess, as this only goes 10 minutes. It's a good ten minutes though. Nador is bigger and relies upon his strength. He's a little awkward but has just enough technique to be extra dangerous. Allary is super technical and generally the aggressor here which serves him well right to the end when he KOs himself through the ropes in a charge. Good stuff up til there, however, with them trading hammerlocks, a Nador full nelson, and some nice leg holds by Allary. He had one great rolling takedown into a short leg scissors of sorts (including using his knuckle to grind the knee). Nador was generally able to power out though. They escalated to bombs (a Nador bodyslam tombstone followed by an Allary neckbreaker and heated strikes), before Allary went sailing out. Good, quick sampler if you wanted to show someone a bit of the style.

Lino Di Santo vs. Horst Hoffmann 10/5/61

SR: 1 fall match going 20 minutes. It‘s Horst Hoffmann, baby. Hoffmann may be familiar to people from his work in AJPW in the 70s. He was a young Mitsuharu Misawas favourite and inspired him to wear the emerald green tights. This Hoffmann was in his 4th year as a pro wrestler, but he was quite the specimen. In Germany, Hoffmann was promoter Gustl Kaisers boy and basically The Man. Needless to say having this match alone is a blessing. And it‘s a very good bout. Hoffmann really wrestles like a bear. He would wrench the shit out of Di Santo and just throw him around. After so many cartoonishly evil fake Germans, it was nice to see a real stoic German being a straight up bulldozer. Hoffmann didn‘t do anything evil but you get the sense he was demolishing the Italian. At one point, Di Santo denied a wristlock escape and Horst just kneed him in the gut. Hoffmann also had this amazing overhead suplex that looks far beyond the scope of normal humans. I thought Di Santo wrestled a great match, too. He really put over the overwhelming force of his opponent and fired back with big impact moves of his own, including that sick looking neckbreaker of this. There was some cool grappling, too. By the end Hoffmann was just dropping the Italian hard over and over. When the time runs out, it feels like Di Santo survived a storm.

MD: I don't think we have much more, if any, of young Hoffman in the footage and it's a little strange as Di Santo was going way out of his way to showcase him here. There was a lot to showcase too. He was a beast that brought a lot to the table. Di Santo would keep holds on (like a hammerlock) to show how many ways Hoffman knew to try to escape it and he kept things equally interesting by going for frustrated shots first and having a bunch of stuff, a good backbreaker, a neckbreaker, etc. Hoffman had it all though. Size and power. Pretty solid strikes. Some interesting holds like a bow and arrow. And big, big throws including one of the first gutwrenches we've seen and his fall away slam. This stayed more even than you'd think, even though Hoffman had a clear advantage on points by the end. Just a good showcase with a solid journeyman highlighting a younger guy with huge talent.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Al Hayes! Hunter! Delaporte! Bollet! Montoro! Bernaert!

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Roger Delaporte/Andre Bollet 12/1/60

MD: This is the back thirty of what's billed as a 60 minute draw. We get what I imagine to be most of the second fall and all of the third. It's a shame we don't have the whole thing because it means we miss the early Hayes wrestling and enough control for the heels to win at least one fall but what we get is, of course, absolutely iconic. This is going to be our last look at Hayes and Hunter and they feel like the best team in the world, with Delaporte and Bollet maybe a close and very different second. We still get a brilliant stretch of Delaporte and Bollet controlling their half of the ring to contain and punish Hayes. We get lots of heel comeuppance and stooging, just endless amounts of it, each bit hugely entertaining. I'm not sure there's a better stooge heel pairing in the history of wrestling than these two and Hunter and Hayes were the perfect straight man babyfaces, between Hunter's size and Hayes' sheer skill and presence. I could have done without the ref letting Hunter score the win in the second fall when he clearly wasn't the legal man (though I had no real problem with him coming in after all of the heel cheating, though, of course, there was a better way to do it), but other than that, my only complaint here was that we didn't have more of it. You knew exactly what you were going to get coming in and it was everything you could possibly want from a 1960 French tag match.


SR: JIP into the 2nd fall, but we get 30 minutes of this match, which is 30 minutes more good wrestling than you are likely to see in any given week in 2020. This was another bullshit tour de force from the superduo of Bollet and Delaporte. They will bump like mad, they will get bitchslapped, they will commit every single buffoonish mishap in the book, they will miscommunicate, they will grimace their way through the match in a way that makes mid 90s Shinjiro Otani look stoic, and then they will stomp the crap out of you. There was a nasty beatdown section involving Hayes taking lots of nasty flying stomps and knees to the gut while in a surfboard, which is a spot that modern indy guys could steal but they would inevitably make it look too much like a choreographed spot compared to the raw asskicking that we got here. This is the last appearance of Hayes & Hunter, and they had another good night doing almost nothing but uppercutting the shit out of their opponents. Hayes also looked good selling an asskicking, there was a moment where he ate an uppercut and whipped his head back into the ringpost, eyes rolling into his skull, it was like something out of a FUTEN match. Hunter also got to have a good night hitting a really fast airplane spin. Wild ending that saw Delaporte doing his usually great "Where the fuck am I" selling.


Arabet Said/Serge Gentilly vs. Yves Amor/Georges Gueret 2/12/60


SR: JIP match. We get about 10 minutes of what could have been a great TV main event. Yves Amor & Georges Gueret are a welcome change of pace compared to the crazy antics of Delaporte and Bollet. These guy will focus on just straight up ass kicking. It rules that about every other heel team we see in catch is another awesome version of the Anderson Bros. This didn‘t reinvent the wheel, but I could watch these guys waste each other with forearms and stiff body shots all day. Gentilly threw some crazy elbows for a skinny guy. There was a chaotic ending with Amor waltzing in to blast guys like a bearded Taue. It ended in some controversy and I could see these guys having an epic feud, but this was the only time either of these men was seen on French TV that year.

MD: We only get part of the third fall here but it's basically nine minutes of guys hitting each other as hard as possible in meaningful ways and we're always going to be for that. Past a bit of darting around and one funny spot where Gentilly waves his hands all around to try to fake out Guerret who complains loudly, we didn't see a lot of the babyfaces' speed or skill, just tenacity. Amor really used his size in interesting ways, able to get to the ropes easily or having the reach to get out of holds but also a giant canvas when he was getting whacked. Just tangible noise for forearms and uppercuts. He ate some atomic drops too, which looked sort of small but he sold huge. The finishing stretch was chaotic as Amor, as the illegal man, kept charging across the ring like a giant bullet to attack Said on the apron while Gueret beat on Gentilly, but the babyfaces came back big and it all devolved into violence and got thrown out. I thought, at times, Amor and Gueret worked a little too even with Said and Gentilly but when the end result was guys beating the crap out of each other, you don't complain too much.



Antonio Montoro vs. Pierre Bernaert 2/12/60

PAS: This is our first glance and Montoro who is a Spanish wrestler who had a mid to late 60s run in EMLL working all of the top stars (Karloff Lagarde, Humberto Garza, Blue Demon, Cavernario Galindo etc.). Man I hope there is a Spanish motherlode out there somewhere, because every time we get a Spanish wrestler in France they absolutely rule. Bernaert keeps it pretty scientific for most of this match, as Montoro does a lot of athletic takedowns and bumps big for all of Bernaert's offense. I especially liked the section where they exchange funky looking monkey flip which both guys took big bumps off of. Montoro also has a spot later in the match where he dives on Bernaert and eats a boot to the face. Finish came on a really graceful victory roll. Not at the level of the absolute best stuff in the footage, but a cool look at a guy we hadn't seen before

MD: Whew, so this was hit or miss at best. Montoro is one of the best regarded Spanish wrestlers of this period and this is our first look at him. Bernaert is a cheapshot artist who looks like Kirk Douglas and we've seen him plenty. While there were a number of innovative spots and plenty of athleticism, this worked better as selected gifs than a match. There were more moments of miscommunication or flubbed attempts at things than in any other match in the footage so far. Some of that was because Montoro was going for so many tricky things, but sometimes they just crashed into each other and sort of went over oddly. It wasn't just one time either. That can create a feeling of competitiveness but here it made things seem somehow more cooperative and you could tell by the hush and occasional groan from the crowd that they were used to something more visceral. Montoro is the first guy in this footage that would do an extra flip or flourish when he probably didn't need to and it was often simply not additive. Bernaert started playing to his strengths two-thirds through, going dirty, but he probably should have led with it instead. The novel stuff that hit was legitimately cool but the match wasn't.

SR: 1 fall match going about 20 minutes. Montoro was another Spanish wrestler. I‘ve branded Bernaert as a bit of a one trick pony before, but I thought he redeemed himself a bit here, opening the match with a good 15 minutes of straight wrestling which I always appreciate. That alone made this bout worth watching. Montoro was a lightweight and significantly smaller than Bernaert. He looked pretty slick at times, but there were a few moments where they blew their spots. Montoro also landed awkwardly a few times when he was seemingly controlling himself at times, so I‘ll blame him. On the other hand, Montoro probably had a touring match with a more familiar rudo where he looked like dynamite. Montoro also did some of those Johnny Saint style escapes that looked like dance moves so I guess it was interesting to see someone do that kind of stuff as earl as 1960. Bernaert eventually went to his cheap shot routine (as he should) and there were some nasty bumps including Montoro flying face first into an upkick which looked nastier than it was probably intended to be.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Karl Von Kramer! Gentilly! Duranton! Boss!

Karl von Kramer vs. Serge Gentilly 4/29/58

SR: 2/3 Falls match over about 30 minutes. Karl von Kramer was playing a stereotypical, bald German with a mustache, but he was a French or Belgian worker by the name of Michel Laurent. Judging from what we see here, he was pretty awesome. This had some of the funnest technical work we‘ve seen from the French guys so far. Gentilly also looked good, but von Kramer was stealing the show with freaked out takedowns, awesome wristlock work and generally doing everything in a unique way. His shoot snapmares rule. Of course, him being a bald German with a mustache the heel shenanigans soon kicked in and after some inside shots this became a bump-a-ton from Karl. I especially liked all the pin attempts that lead to Karl taking big monkey flip bumps. The heel beatdown wasn‘t outstandingly violent and they kept dialing it back down to do some wrestling, but I really liked how Karl just out of nowhere wrapped up Gentillys head in the ropes and later got some payback getting tied up himself and eating nasty dropkicks. I‘m stoked to check more von Kramer after this.

PAS: This was great stuff. von Kramer was obviously the standout, he had everything you want from a Catch heel, the ability to rock out the mat section at the beginning, the ability to get nasty when required and the willingness to stooge and bump huge for the babyfaces big comeback. I loved how squirmy Gentilly was, Kramer would get him in tons of compromising positions and Gentilly would find a way to squirt out, driving Kramer crazier and crazier. Kramer wasn't as cartoonishly evil and Dr. Adolf Kaiser, but was a more skilled wrestler, can't wait to check them out as a tag team.

MD: This was not what I was expecting. Von Kramer goes for a nerve hold a few times in the match, but he barely ever gets it and never for long. What he does instead is a whole mishmash of other stuff including some of the most tricked out chain wrestling we've seen yet, some really athletic counters, a satisfying amount of pointing to his head and waving his finger to show his intelligence, and lots of opportunistic cheapshots. Most of all, he goes for the win. A lot. There are more pin attempts here than in most matches and it helped to give things a very competitive feel. Gentilly was able to hang with him but more than that, he was able to respond with a lot of fed up, frustrated offense. These weren't often the big sweeping blows we saw from someone like Arroyo but instead little mean shots and kicks and stomps, giving as he was getting, with Kramer often returning the favor right back. The end of the first two falls were very good, with the end of the third kind of weird but enjoyable. It all fit into the match between Kramer's pin attempts backfiring in the first, the inside work in the second, and the sudden stops and trickery in the final fall. There were big bumps and both novel moves and novel spots, with Kramer managing these neat reverse gutwrenches (the last of which Gentilly turned into a backbreaker) and one of the best and most interesting "heel stuck in the ropes" spots you'll see.


Pierre Boss vs. Robert Duranton 5/2/58

SR: This won‘t stand out among all the amazing matches in the project, but I had fun. Duranton brings something different to the table than the usual heel characters. He‘s clearly athletic and and had an arrogant swagger to him that was unique for the time. He hasn‘t gone full Exotico yet, so it was like watching the black trunks rookie version of a future megastar. Pierre Boss is balding with a single lock exactly in the Dory Funk Jr. Spot. He was much more ferocious than Dory here, thankfully and made a good counterpoint. This was long but had enough of the usual solid matwork and guys thrashing each other with forearms for me to enjoy it.

MD: This could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse too. Duranton was a handsome, muscular guy, who had a lot of presence and really thoroughly portrayed haughtiness, but just didn't seem to have the technical skill to go along with it. Boss was fine, and against a different wrestler (like a Guy Robin or a Pellacani) might have grounded things really well. Duranton seemed to me like he could have been a great 80s wrestler. He was able to flaunt his strength, hit big backbreakers, appeal to the ref and the crowd, and just ooze an effective smarminess. He walked around the ring like he owned it. When he stalled late in the match, he got lots of heat. He reminded me of Paul Orndorff, sort of. I think, if we were judging this on a different curve than 1950s France, we'd agree that he "played his role well." I honestly though he sold well, when he chose to sell (whenever Boss was going overboard with his comebacks, and not even that overboard relative to others, he'd more dust himself off and look at the ref as if he should do something about it), but a lot of the stuff that we take for granted (beales for instance), seemed lacking. Boss' strikes weren't quite up to par either, except for his headbutt, which felt more like a necessary killshot when Duranton wasn't letting smaller things register. This had some good exchanges, including the bodyscissors one, and there was an air of uncooperativeness which was welcome, but I don't think the narrative held up. When they went to the falls, they seemed to come out of nowhere with only half the escalation they needed. Duranton using backbreakers to cut off Boss during the end of the final fall would have been great if they had invented long-term bodypart selling yet, but they hadn't, at least not in France. I'm not 100% sure they ever do, to be honest. There was a female announcer with a guest here and I think they spent a lot of the match talking about other things. It was hard to blame them too much.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Tony Oliver! Cheri Bibi! Inca Peruano! Serge Gentilly!

Jo Benardo vs. Eric Wasberg 6/14/57

SR:JIP about 17 minutes in with roughly 4 minutes shown. Some cool holds and ranas before the winner takes it home by catching a rana into a folding powerbomb.

MD: Athleticism seemed a bit lacking in the few minutes we had but that didn't stop Wasberg from trying a lot of stuff, including a tiger suplex set up to a headscissors takeover and the rolling arm trap takeover off the ropes that we had seen in one of the last JIP matches. It was hard to get much of a sense of this but you had to like the finishing stretch of five or six twisting 'ranas that finally got jammed with a power bomb.

Inca Peruano vs. Cheri Bibi 6/14/57

SR:1 Fall match over roughly 25 minutes. Inca Peruano, baby. Cheri Bibi, aside from hitting like a truck, is probably one of the less interesting heels to show up on French TV. But the Inca is a joy to watch. He pretty much made this whole match watchable with his unique trips and throws, out of nowhere Santo headscissors and clinical holds. One of my favourite things they do in old euro matches is the hammerlock behind the back, which Inca Peruano uses to set up moves from the ropes in cool ways. I also really liked him really bending the fuck out of Bibis wrist while stepping on his chin. It was a really simple move compared to everything else he does, but it stood out. Cheri Bibi seemed slow to bump for the Incas moves and the finish seemed to come after a series of blown sequences, but I will alway relish in a chance to see Inca Peruano go to work.

MD: I've been looking forward to this for a few weeks and it hit most of the marks I wanted to, even if it didn't quite rise to the mean, slugfest level I was hoping for. That's not to say it wasn't mean and a slugfest, because it was both. Very non-cooperative and competitive, with Peruano having Bibi's number for most of the match. He was so good at portraying a casual, cocky excellence, able to grab a limb out of most exchanges, get a throw, and follow it up with a dropkick or a monkey flip or a hold. Bibi on the other hand, was pure, unbridled, bullying power, trying to ground Peruano with strangles, grab a headlock, or just press him against the rope to lay in shots. The problem for Bibi was that Peruano could give just as well as he could take and came back again and again so he could never hold an advantage for long. At the same time, Bibi was able to use his strength to fight out of all the holds, barely be rocked by his dropkicks, and even jam Peruano on things like Monkey Flips a few times and even managed to block a fireman's carry with a headscissors roll over. While Bibi was an interesting opponent for Peruano and the match had a gritty, believable tone, the high spots weren't quite as high as in other matches we've seen with both guys. The strike exchanges never quite went over the top. Peruano's most interesting spot was an Indian deathlock where he kept lifting Bibi back to lay in kicks. There were a couple of good nearfalls in the end (like Peruano getting a roll up off the ropes and his twist-turn pin he's won matches with before), but the ultimate finish was a little weak. I think the idea was that Peruano was supposed to catch a back elbow when going in for an attack, which allowed Bibi to put him away, but they didn't quite hit the execution. Still, this was just good gritty stuff and I'm glad we have a lot more time with both wrestlers.

PAS: One thing that really stands out from this footage is how good the execution of simple things are. Bibi has one of the best side headlocks I have ever seen, and a bunch of different ways to apply it and use it as a throw. Compare that to how time killing and weak most of the headlocks in the last thirty years have been and it really stands out. This was a bit of style clash and not nearly as smooth as these guys have been against other people, Bibi doesn't seem to know how to bump for Peruano's headscissors, and the finish seem a little off. Still the quality of the small things, the forearms, the headlock, and a Peruano's cool escapes make this worth watching.

Tony Oliver vs. Serge Gentilly 1/1/59

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a little bit over 30 minutes. It‘s another chance to see Tony Oliver baby. This wasn‘t an epic, super heated title match like the Bert Royal match, but still a welcome chance to see Oliver do his thing. Based on the grand total of 2 matches we have, it seems like Olivers program is reminiscent of a less cartoony Jim Breaks: Constantly brutalizing the opponent while stooging and reacting in amusing exaggerated ways. Tony Oliver really had perfect eyebrows for this role. My favourite thing that he did was the way he would grab his opponents face and try to hook him, or grab the chin when the guy was down. Then he would blast away with those unforgiving forearms and punches. Really trying to make every second of wrestling him as unpleasant as possible. Gentilly was another French technico with the charisma of a piece of wood, but the did give Oliver some fun receipts including some mean dropkicks. He had a lot of impact moves, the big Robinson backbreaker, even an inverted atomic drop, and the worlds greatest gutbuster. That‘s about enough to get on my good side, plus he really liked the catapult which gave Oliver ample opportunity to fly across the ring like a ballet dancer. The very last bump was like something Buddy Rose would do. Great to get another look at Oliver against a game opponent, who really seems like a complete package from what little we have.

PAS: Clearly our next raid needs to be the Spanish film archives, because Oliver really looks like an all timer. I just love watching him do his thing, what an all time great heel. So many little mannerism and niggling asshole moves. I love his double sledge to the back of Gentilly's neck, he comes at it from the side with a ton of force and it looks like every shot is going to send Gentilly into a dark room for four days. He also does this super nasty thing when he has Gentilly grounded, where he digs his fingers into his Adam's apple and twists, he must have just sucked to wrestle. Oliver was really great at putting over Gentilly, he has that great ability to switch from stooge to killer and back which is something that all the great heels have. Gentilly wasn't the most dynamic technico, but he was willing to land with the appropriate force on his shots (If I was wrestling Oliver I would be trying to KO him with every shot), and had some really cool moves. I loved his inverted atomic drops, and his gutbuster was really cool, he got a deep lift and really lifted him high before just driving his knee into Olivers belly.

MD: Another match with Tony Oliver. He's no longer the best heel we only have one match of. This was actually much more of a specific showcase for him, as opposed to a title match where he pulled out constant stops like we had before. Here he still did everything dirty imaginable. The difference was that, for the most part, it worked. That doesn't mean that he didn't stooge and bump and get caught out by the ref. He did, but he took a lot more of this one with a hundred cheapshots, constant face raking and ref maneuvering, and a hundred more straight up brutal blows. Gentilly had some really novel stuff that we haven't seen much: an actual bulldog (as opposed to Oliver's armbar bulldog), some nasty submissions, an inverted atomic drop/atomic drop combo on the guy most deserving to eat those in history, and this really great spinning gutbuster. Oliver's hyperactive antics had him arguing with the crowd, with the ref, complaining about anything that didn't go his way and taking every opportunity imaginable. And us? Before we could complain that we only had one match with him. Now we can complain that we only have two.

ER: Not a surprise, this was great. Tony Oliver is as must see as this French Catch gets, a total package of nasty ringwork, pratfalls, shtick, and a mean side. If he had just a couple of his excellent qualities and nothing else, he'd still be a major standout. If he was only a guy with a fantastic body vice and the best clubbing fist to the back of someone's neck, he'd be a guy we'd talk about at length. If he just had a nasty grounded punch among several other cheapshots, we'd be talking about him as a heel legend. But he has everything, and does it all so so well. I love his pratfall bumps for catapults, loved his clenched butt straight leg selling for a pair of atomic drops, loved the way he made Gentilly look like a tough guy while also beating the hell out of him. Gentilly looked super capable here, and I think would have stood out much more against a lesser opponent. His execution was so tight, from his picture perfect snapmare to the way he fought against Oliver's body vice (I loved how Oliver tightened the vice on a standing Gentilly, who slid his boots back across the mat as his body was forced downward by Oliver), loved how his flexibility made Oliver's holds look even more cruel. Now it's also possible that he looked even better *because* he was in with Oliver, who seems to be a master at both hyping and murdering opponents. But then I see what an all time great gutbuster Gentilly has and I'm pretty sure his work stands on its own. Oliver's pratfalls never had a straight comedy flair, as even when he gets knocked ass over crown and is hanging by his feet over the ropes, it doesn't come off silly. A wrestler could watch this one Tony Oliver match and find literally dozens of things worth stealing, as every single sequence is fresh and inspired by who knows who, a guy whose every bit of movement could be analyzed and ripped off without anyone knowing. And now we all get the chance to know, and we should take it.

Read more!