Tuesday is French Catch Day: Asquini! Trujillo! Mercier! Gonzalez! Momo! Latif! Siki! Schmid!

Bruno Asquini vs Tomas Trujillo 8/21/87 

MD: We get the last eight or so of this. Trujillo is the Peruvian we've seen the last, but he's very good. He's got interesting angles to come at with his offense, plays to the crowd well, bumps big, can handle complex rope running sequences, and has the big swooping climb up armdrag, which would be better on a babyface, but still stands out. He matched up here with Asquini, who by this point was relatively old, but still worked hard and had a sort of twinkle in his eye in how he wrestled. Saulnier as ref got just a bit too involved here. The put upon, furious tiny terror gimmick has its moments but I was more interested in seeing these two match up. Trujillo actually gets the win after catching Asquino off the ropes with a quick pin. I feel like outside of a monster like Henker, we haven't seen heels win almost at all in the last decade.

Jose Gonzalez vs Guy Mercier 8/21/78

MD: I love how clean this match was narratively. Twenty minutes. Entertaining. Well worked and competitive. Ebbs and flows. Saulnier (the ref) being a bit annoying but getting plenty of comeuppance and he can't outstooge Gonzalez who was just one of the best. Mercier grounding everything like the old pro he was.

I don't do this often but let me run you through how the match was set up as it was as clean as anything I've come across in the footage match. They have a feeling out exchange where Gonzalez gets an early advantage with multiple mares and armdrags and biels but where Mercier gives him comeuppance and sends him to the outside with a reversal. Then we get an extended cravat sequence where Gonzales hangs on through multiple escape attempts as Mercier tries to escape. After he finally shrugs him off, Mercier does his spin out legpick and starts with a toehold, peppering in legdrops onto the leg and changing position. This is probably the most extended portion of the match save for the actual heat later on, as Gonzalez manages to reverse it in the ropes and then uses the ropes for leverage as Saulnier keeps missing it. We've seen tag partners work together but less of one person really using the ropes like this. Mercier is able to take back advantage with more of the same, with Saulnier getting chopped for his trouble. Gonzalez gets another shot at it, in the corner, grinding the leg over his shoulder, but Mercier konks him in the top of the head with his foot and Gonzalez bumps forward into Saulnier (second public warning on Mercier).

They reset into a go behind reversal by Mercier, who drops Gonzalez into a bodyscissors sequence, with him thudding Gonzalez down repeatedly. Eventually, he gets out, eats a monkey flip to land on his feet, poses, and Mercier dropkicks him out (and then dropkicks Saulnier twice for good measure). Gonzles sneaks back in, gets a cheapshot and starts the real heat, a lot of stomps, headlocks with punches, and bicep poses to the crowd. Eventually he ties Mercier in the ropes and they run a spot where Saulnier gets his foot stuck trying to get him out, which the crowd loves. The transition is Gonzalez missing a charge and choking himself in the ropes. That leads to Mercier tying Saulnier up in the ropes too so he can whack Gonzalez on the top of the head, sending him tumbling and stooging on the outside.

The finish is some back and forth forearms, with a Mercier advantage, Saulnier preventing Gonzalez from holding the rope to avoid a whip, a nice bit where Mercier hits a gut shot the first time and gets sunset flipped the second for a nearfall, and a third whip where he hits the armdrag slam (really nicely as he'd been looking away until a split second before) for 3. This was one of the cleanest matches I've seen narratively. It only went seventeen or so, which helped, had clear characters, and they worked nicely segmented sequences (feeling out, stylist hold advantage, heel hold advantage, stylist overcoming to regain hold advantage, stylist presses advantage into clowning, heel comes back and gets heat, stylist comes back as they go to finish), but I do sort of wonder if it's just me living in this footage for a couple of years now.

Jean-Pierre Momo vs Salah Latif 8/28/78

MD: We get the last five or six of this. It went around twenty before we got here. There's a Breton folk group in the crowd dressed up. It feels like a smaller venue. Latif had a lot of headbutt related offense, despite not looking like a guy who would. I'm not sure if the ring was slightly smaller or usual or what but there were some spots where the positioning was off and dropkicks didn't quite unravel like they should. It felt like they were working towards a draw but Latif kept going for a double underhook in the end and finally hit a sort of floatover suplex with it to score a win with a couple of minutes to go. They hit hard enough but it wasn't the smoothest match in the footage.

Mammoth Siki vs Daniel Schmid 8/29/78

MD: I expected Siki to be the face here and Schmid the heel out of previous matches, because Siki had a good reaction coming out, and because the commentary talked him up as a good guy, a former accountant, a bouncer, etc. Plus Schmid is a natural heel, a Buddy Rose analogue. He's a few years older here and I know they brought him out the last time we saw him after a injury that was either real or fake, but seemed pretty severe. Since we're up to 78, Portland could have brought him into run an angle as Buddy's cousin and it would have been the best thing in wrestling that year. He could do kip ups and rope running quite like Buddy after all. This had a lot of him working from underneath in armbars or nerve holds. Not the most exciting stuff, but he was working hard and the crowd was behind him. The Breton folk group started playing music to support him and that's exactly when he timed his comeback, which is how wrestling is supposed to work when you're not working to specific quarter hours on TV. We're at least ten years into when I started noticing the trend, but this was the clearest I've ever heard the "Bonuses", which, in this case, was when people in the crowd or local businesses rewarded things that happened by offering donations to the wrestlers, 120 francs for Schmid and less for Siki by the end, and someone even gave the ref 10. It's a uniquely French thing as I've never encountered it anywhere else, but quite common throughout the 70s. Sadly, this ended with said ref getting crushed off the ropes in a mishap and then Siki stomped him which led to the DQ. It was an ok novelty but shouldn't be the top of anyone's list to watch.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten Brothers! Vladimir! Strogoff! Mercier! Asquini! Taysse! Viracocha! Gonzales! Trujillo!

Guy Mercier/Bruno Asquini/Gerard Taysse vs Inca Viracocha/Jo Gonzales/Tomas Trujillo 8/7/78

MD: On paper, this one may not seem so special. Some stylists (French and Italian) against the Peruvians or Spaniards. This is, however, our first real trios match. We had one previously back in 74 but that had been more of a penalty box match where the third wrestler on the stylist side didn't join until halfway in. At a glance, it doesn't seem to catch on like it did in Mexico around this time, as I don't see more of these upcoming in the footage.

That's a shame as the style was so suited for the ins and outs of traditional trios matches. There was an extra flow to the pairings in the first third, wrestlers cycling in and out, with an underlying story of Gonzales (who was wonderfully over the top here and I'm not sure I've given him enough credit overall) sort of ducking Mercier. They felt like de facto captains in the narratives. Things shifted to a fairly clear heat where Asquini and Taysse would fight back but get trapped back into the heel corner. They'd cycle in and out but the advantage stayed with the heels. Mercier got knocked off the apron a few times but didn't get in. The only real move of note here was a Trujillo slam where he fell too, landing sort of in a suplex (We still haven't seen a standing vertical one. This was more like a Snow Plow). Most of it was shots and stomps but it was all effective and drew heat.

After the first fall, they ramped the heat up more, putting a lot of it on Saulnier (being the diminutive ref, who we know well by now both as a wrestler and a ref) including him missing a hot tag to Mercier before Asquini rolled so he could make it. Mercier subsequently destroyed everyone, including Saulnier, whipping him into the corner repeatedly as he was tossing Gonzales around. The third fall had some elaborate spots including the six person at once headlock, set
up beautifully at the end by Saulnier getting in Mercier's face not to do it. They even did a spot where they pressed Mercier into a heel and counted a pin with him. Fun stuff all around, good performances, with Mercier and Gonzales standing out, and a taste of what French trios wrestling might have been if it developed further that way into the 80s. One last note, while there hasn't been a lot of week to week build in the French footage, it has happened occasionally and it looks to be happening again soon as I see the August 21, 1978 show is Asquini vs Trujillo and Gonzales vs Mercier. We should cover that next week.

Ivan Strogoff/Le Grand Vladimir vs Franz van Buyten/Daniel van Buyten 8/14/78

MD: More sound issues on this one, sorry. Unsurprisingly, it's worth watching though. Daniel is Franz' brother and works very similarly to him, including the same huge babyface comeback spot, one of the best of all time, that lunge across the ring up to the top rope to fire fists into his opponent's face. That's for the end though. This was fun with a different structure than usual. Strogoff and Vladimir were a formidable team, clubbing and leaning with armbars. The first third or so had them trying just that and Franz and Daniel out wrestling them. Ultimately though, they cut of Daniel and Strogoff put him down with a prototype of a Tiger Drive ('78 I guess).

Second fall had a pretty awesome comeback early on with Franz putting on maybe the tightest cravat I've ever seen, but Daniel ended up back in and beat upon. Delaporte was equally a jerk to everyone in this one, keeping Franz out but also pulling on Vladimir's beard when he went too far. Eventually hot tags were made and fiery comebacks were had. It eventually spilled out to the floor for a big brawl and got thrown out. These guys all matched up extremely well.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Weber! Salah! Don! Trujillo! Bordes! Bouvet! Samurai! Payen!

MD: As a heads up, the audio on the first set of matches is a bit messed up. For me, it worked best if I just listened with my left earbud and not the right. The footage is the footage.

Arpan Weber vs Artif Salah (JIP) 6/14/76

MD: We get the last seven minutes of this. I don't think we have much more Weber but he's looked very good in the two matches we've seen so far. A real slugger, with a tendency to bounce back off the ropes with big shots. He has a lot of stuff: a butterfly suplex (one of the first we've seen?), a backbreaker with a grind, his fall away slam with a float over follow-up, and of course chops and headbutts and an ability to take all of his opponent's stuff. Good presence and I would have liked to see him against LeDuc or Corn or Bibi or any number of other wrestlers from the footage. Salah was game to fight back against him, having more stylist tools like dropkicks and headcissors takeovers but going shot-for-shot when it was called for. They were fighting for the draw here and showed but it was still good hard-hitting action for the seven minutes.

Juan Gil Don vs Tomas Trujillo 6/14/76

MD: This was a totally different animal than the last Don match. It started off much the same with Trujillo feeding into all of Don's traps and spots. Trujilo had his own climb up armdrag which he used here. It looked like it was going to be another straight up Don showcase like the Tejero match. Then it turned hard left as Trujillo tossed him out and posted him, opening him up and taking a real advantage. From there, Don had to use his tricks and savvy to come back again and again as Trujillo leaned on him. It gave the match plenty of drama and made it feel like a complete match, all heightened by the blood, by Trujillo being a good bully, by Don's spectacular stuff (including those flipping mare that someone, anyone has to steal! I never do this, but here's a gif. Steal them!:

You get the sense that they wanted to get him over in the Tejero match and once he was they could do more fleshed out encounters like this. 

Le Samurai/Pierre Payen vs Walter Bordes/Gerard Bouvet 7/18/76 

MD: We had this back in 2014, but it was only the first two falls. Now we have it complete. That's a great word for it, for it really is a very, very complete tag, going a few minutes longer than a lot of the ones we've seen lately. The first ten-fifteen minutes is one of the best shines we've seen, just the stylists pulling out all sorts of spots and clowning the heels again and again. The last six minutes are hugely celebratory with the fans singing and chanting and having a wonderful time. In the middle there are about three separate face-in-peril sequences and comebacks, including one stemming from Bordes absolutely wiping himself out on a missed top rope move.

Bordes and Bouvet made for a great unit. Bordes always kept up on the new moves and spots of the time and here threw a chancery suplex followed by a German suplex, for instance. He also worked the apron quite well showing excitement for his partner on big spots. Bouvet had a lot of fun little variations, leg picks and nice escapes, including a sort of skin the cat headscissors takeover that was deep and measured and popped the crowd huge, and a fallaway slam that almost caved in a skull, but also did a dropkick variation on the bit where both heels are tied up in opposite ropes and the stylist charges in again and again. Because this got so much time, everything felt fairly balanced, even if the drama was done by the end and they were into full on partying. You wish that they had worked out exactly how to time and maximize the hot tags with some of the ref distractions and out of position tags that didn't count, but Bordes and Bouvet always came in fiery and the crowd went up for it. Samurai didn't have too much in the way of complex wrestling, but I thought he was properly theatrical (and Payen properly mean), working very big with chops both missed and hit and doing things like getting into a shoving match with the announcer. Very worthwhile tag and I'm glad we have it complete now.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Don! Tejero! Mansour! Fryziuk! Bordes! Doukhan! Viracocha! Trujillo!

Juan Guil Don vs Anton Tejero 4/18/76

MD: Personally, I feel that some of the weaker matches in the set so far were those from around the turn of the 60s with the judoka guys: Calderon and Straub. There were a couple that overall worked and specific spots that worked, but it just didn't click. By the mid 70s though, things were a bit looser and maybe more allowing of entertainment, and Don was leaning hard into the Karate trend, like Sammy Lee or Ironfist Clive Myers (the real answer is very much like Eddie Hammel, who he teamed with in the UK, as opposed to let's say Kung Fu Jimmy Valiant) and this was a lot of fun.

Here, he had a thousand monkey flip variations, spin kicks, bounds through legs, handsprings; all sorts of fun stuff, plus all of this unique positioning and footwork bits and some ridiculous moments of tying Tejero up so he could whack him in the face with his foot. He also had maybe the first tope suicida we've seen? Plus he had that crazy twisting flying mare that we've only seen once or twice in all of wrestling history, I think. Tejero was as game as could be, such an amazing stooge and base, taking all of this stuff, occasionally plucking him out of mid-air into a backbreaker or laying in things when it was time to get some heat, but mostly just flying around the ring and feeding for his opponent. At times he'd mock the karate stance, and it'd be pretty funny given his look and mannerisms but then he'd walk right into a jumping double knee for his trouble. And he somehow managed to do the spot where he catches his throat in the ropes, but also had his foot caught as well. Pretty advanced stuff. Great base and a fun match even if it was entirely a showcase. People should check it out for something different though.

SR: Jon Guil Don was pretty unique. Wearing a gi, moving like a luchador and hitting spin kicks. He even hit what may have been the earliest suicide dive on film in this. This kind of made you feel like nobody would have given a shit about Tiger Mask if he was just a south american guy in a gi. The match was a Guil Don tour de force with Tejero bumping his ass off, getting almost no offense. Guil Don had enough fun, unique and highly athletic spots to make it work. Even winning the match with a martial arts kick off the top rope. There is something impressive about Don just having 10 minutes worth of stuff to run through, all smoothly. Modern wrestlers don‘t have that much. And Tejero bumped like a pro.

Emir Mansour vs Janek/Jean Fryziuk/Frisuk 4/18/76

MD: Daniel Schmid came in to see the crowd before this one with a ton of stitches on his head. Let's not focus too much on that as this was remarkable. I've never seen a wrestler quite as flexible as Manour. The things he did here were just remarkable. The first time you really see it is with a double handspring and some bridges, but it's his crazy pop ups out of strike exchanges or his matrix style dodges that are downright breathtaking. With his mustache and amiable attitude, he comes off like the promise of Leaping Lanny Poffo fulfilled. He also had a bunch of the old trips in keeping a hold or switching from one to another and even brought out the rolling leg nelson. He'd have some of Petit Prince's stepover armdrags and things too (and a rare 'rana and straight up German Suplex for the finish), but it was the rubber man ups and downs that will make you look twice, no matter how much wrestling you've seen.

Fryziuk was old and grizzled by now though a sportsman, and you can watch him get more and more frustrated. You keep hoping for it to really boil over but it's almost impossible to with Mansour popping up midway through the exchange to clobber Fryziuk. It left him looking around bewildered. He was such a game vet to take all of this and play straight man to what was going on, occasionally mean or vicious but ultimately clowned and in over his head. It was always with a twinkle though, like when he ate a dropkick out of the ring in sat in the front row or had enough and started with the ref only to get back body dropped by him. Just a fascinating piece of pro wrestling that should launch a dozen gifs. Between this and the match that proceeded it, the fans certainly got some real stylized action on this night.

PAS: Yeah this wasn't an all time great match, but it is one of those cool spectacles that French Catch delivers as well, like the Spaceman match. Mansour should become a twitter gif favorite after this match, he is really wild. I loved the spot where he just powered up to a standing position after a full bridge, and he has one of the coolest kip ups I have ever seen. Weird is cool, and he is totally unique

SR: We‘ve seen Frisuk since the 50s, so that‘s actually cool. He was a lot older and lumpier here, but he could still pretty good bumping around and working holds, considering how old and lumpy he looked. Emir was the star of this with his freaky bridge spots. The guy was built like Jerry Lawler but lord those bridge ups and weird rubber kip ups were spectacular. He didn‘t always land perfectly but he a lot of things up his sleeve. Plenty of good hold for hold work in this. Add some fun European uppercuts and a good finish and you have yourself a crackin heavyweight bout.

Gass Doukhan & Walter Bordes vs Inca Viracocha and Tomas Trujillo 5/15/76

MD: I love the notion of introducing old wrestlers before matches. Here we got Jacky Corn. More importantly, we had Bordes' amazing robe, now in color. In this post Ben Chemoul era, he's trying out different partners and Doukhan is a solid choice, playing a bit more of a trickster than usual (he also threw what I thought might be the first spear I've ever seen in this footage, but I think it was more of a spearing headbutt to the gut, which is both common in the 70s and something that needs to be used more today). This was our first look at Trujillo and he spent a lot of the time bumping and stooging about, but also had some cool stuff like step up armdrags and backbreaker out of a reverse headlock

Bordes and Viracocha matched up so well in this one, both in an initial exchange where Bordes escaped headlocks again and again and then, later on, in some great rope running, and even later Bordes threw a number of huge flying headlock takeovers. In general, he seemed to have more wild energy than I'm used to, almost to the point where he got ahead of himself sometimes. When it was time for the match to shift gears, Viracocha started whipping Bordes around by his arm with these huge sweeping throws and then the heels took over in the corner on Doukhan. Unfortunately the big comeback moment in the second fall had Bordes a bit too over-exuberant and throw a catapult too soon. Still, the fans were happy for the comeback and Bordes destroying everyone and really for all of the subsequent clowning of the bad guys as they were tossed into one another over and over. Yet another crowd pleasing tag match as part of what seems like an endless list of them.

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