Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mantopolous! Lemagouroux! Weicz! Delaporte!

Vassilios Mantopolous vs Gilbert Lemagouroux 1/24/65

MD: As we're just on our last run (that we know of at least) of matches here, I love to look at the presentation and some of the cultural bits, even if they are still alien to me. This was another studio show. Here we have an announcement up from that conditionally, as it had not been confirmed, François Bonlieu, French alpine skier and gold medalist in the 1964 Winter Games, was going professional and would compete at the Professional Championships in the US. 

Bollet (introduced as a grand poet) was there and just nodded a long as they discussed the matches for the night. Starting with the lightweights (which were heavier than in boxing since the heavyweights were heavier). Lemagouroux was the champion of Brittany and Mantopolous the champion of Greece. When the fans got up for Mantopolous mid-match the commentary noted that this was France appreciating its Greek roots and applauding the legacy that Homer bestowed upon them. Funny stuff.

SR: Really good match. Part of me is just happy to see some wrestling after that travesty with the bull, but this was genuinely very good. I expected poor Gilbert, who didn't stand out in a big way in the tags we've seen him in, to be completely run over by Mantopolous, but he stood his ground and actually dominated quite a bit. Gilbert is really solid, goes along really well with Mantopolous stuff, really liked the ways in which he'd just yank Mantopolous down by a wrist or armlock. This was in front of a big curtain, like a theater, and it made me wonder if it was another studio match kinda deal. We don't see the audience, but we hear lots of applause, and the match was worked so simple that anyone can understand it. Textbook stuff kinda. There was a segment where Gilbert kept his opponent in a headlock, always resorting to hair pulls to maintain control, not something we've seen a ton of but it was really well done. And Mantopolous is always impeccable, really explosive and spectacular when it's time to make an escape. His flying headiscissors were just weep-inducingly beautiful. In the end Gilbert didn't stand a big chance but they topped it of with a perfect sequence. It's weird this kinda stuff doesn't stand out in a huge way in the grand scheme of French Catch but in another universe it's  like the best studio TV match ever. I'd part hard pressed to think of anything better to teach a new audience about the magic of Catch.

MD: I agree with Sebastian here. This is just perfect Intro-to-Catch, at least the lightweight style. As accessible as some of those shorter Prince vs Noced/Richard touring type matches. Like those, you could pull out any number of gifs such a Mantopolous getting out of a hamerlock by going not just up and over but through the legs to turn it into a roll up, or even the way he'd go up for a dropkick but do a headscissors takeover instead, or the multiple kip ups when he was armbarred before he escaped out of it, or the way he'd step up on Gilbert's leg to vault up and over him, and I can go on and on. But what made it all work was that he had to struggle for each of those escapes, that Gilbert sold them with frustration and meanness, coming back with enraged kicks and stomps, and that each and every one was built to in its own way. That's part of why this is perfect to show, because you see all the exclamation points, but also the meaningful, direct sentences that led to them. Just beautiful, beautiful wrestling all around.

Eddy Weicz vs Roger Delaporte

MD: Pre-show they had talked up Weicz as world champion and acknowledged as such by both Americans and Europeans. Carpentier is amazing. My appreciation has only grown and grown. He is a star. He always presented himself on TV better than his peers and this show gave him even more opportunity to do so. Maybe it doesn't always make for the best matches, but I always come out impressed by his savvy. He's always punctuating things, always getting an extra shot in, always standing up to the ref and his opponents. he has that underlying element of being a bully that fans love. Post match, when Bollet is checking on Delaporte, he dropkicks him for no reason and then hits a spin kick on the ref and the fans love it because of course they do. He's always reaching, always engaged, always putting an extra flourish on things. 

And maybe there's even an extra level of construction to the spots. If this was Delaporte vs Leduc they'd build to the toupie headscissors takeover by making Leduc really work for it. Here they do that (to a lesser degree) but then do a spot where Carpentier pumps it repeatedly and then one where Delaporte holds on to the ropes so he doesn't go over until he finally gets his comeuppance. I really do get the sense he was decades ahead of his peers in some ways and that's why his act transferred so well.

And of course, Delaporte is one of the great villains of the 20th century because he sells everything. He sells the indignity of life at every point. There's a moment towards the end where he tries for (another) cheapshot, Carpentier moves due to the crowd warning him, and then, just because he couldn't get his cheapshot, Delaporte has a fit. And it's awesome. It's selling the emotional blow of it all. That obviously resonated with both me and Sebastian as you'll read below. They'd do these bits where Carpentier would get the better of him repeatedly and he'd just lose his cool and start choking him. It was a moral victory for Carpentier even if it was Delaporte leaning down on him. And then when they got slugging, he was just so good at it. He's sort of unassuming at first and doesn't do the flashy things (even though he can) but what he does do he was as good at anyone doing, and as I said, this was just a perfect setting for these two.

SR: Well, maybe this is the perfect studio wrestling. Great mix of wrestling and bullshit. Wiecz is in a ridiculous striped shirt. Delaporte goes after him at the bell, and now the crowd seems indeed to know what's going on so maybe they aren't that unfamiliar with wrestling. Wiecz literally flips off Delaporte, cartwheels around him a bunch, does a weird hip shake, and Delaporte scurries for the hills, only to immediately try a dirty takedown through the ropes. Awesome stuff. They just keep going like this, always doing a little something to keep things engaging along with the wrestling, which is mostly Delaportes basic holds vs Wiecz more athletic stuff. A bitch slap here, a little kick in the taint there, some pretty hard looking knuckle punches etc. I love the crowd engagement. When Delaporte even tries to grab the ropes for the slightest advantage, they are immediately in on his case, alerting the referee. Later, Delaporte tries to sneak up on Carpentier from behind, but the crowd alerts him in time, allowing Carpentier to evade the assault. Of course, Delaporte cusses them out for that. Is it really such a surprise the fans were super engaged, when they could so vividly observe their engagement have an immediate effect on what happens in a match? That's what sets wrestling apart from movies and theater. You can shout at the movie all you want, the murder is still gonna happen. Not in wrestling though, you can participate. That kinda stuff is pretty much absent from modern TV matches where every move is carefully choreographed and there's little room for interactions like that. Maybe having every match go 20 minutes to allow for stuff like this really is the way to go. The finish here is cartoonishly violent as Wiecz puts the Inoki-style falling indian deathlock on Delaporte but instead of falling next to him he drops his bodyweight onto him, squashing poor Delaporte to a smear as is his rightfully comeuppance. After the match Bollet also comes in in a suit and gets a savate kick too for his troubles. Way too fun.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Billy Catanzaro, Vasilios Mantopolous, Andre Bollet, Henri Bury

Andre Bollet vs. Henri Bury 4/26/57

SR: Another night in Paris where lumpy 50s gentlemen forearm the shit out of eachother. Bury is introduced as the champion of Belgium, I guess everyone wrestling in France was a champion then. Bollet is someone who will be a recurring figure to this project. With his thinning hair and greasy look, he has the vibe of a Kurisu or sleazier WAR heavyweight. This, like most of these matches, was a cool mix of wrestling and guys really laying into eachother. Bury brought some classy wrestling, doing cool escapes and athletic bridge up spots. Soon Bollet found his opening though when Bury was on the ground and the fun began with Bollet landing a big kick to the spine. Bury was less stoic than the French workers we have seen, he had really good, decently expressive selling, sometimes barely managing to beat the 10 count from Bollets beating. When it was time to fire back he would hit big beautiful dropkicks or savate kicks which were trippy to see. It‘s also clear that Bollet can wrestle, but he would rather punch you in the kidney. This goes 30 minutes but it‘s really good, nice wrestling and when they beat on eachother, they really beat on eachother. Nice finish with a series of badass strike exchanges leading the winner almost landing a lucky shot and sinking into the pin.

MD: We have a lot of Bollet in this collection, so it's good I really like the guy. He's sluggishly over the top, but at least this early, he can back it up with a clunky sort of effectiveness. That is, he can do a lot of what is peers are doing; it just takes him twice the effort. Meanwhile, he's overselling (including bumping over the top on a dropkick) and cheating charismatically and getting clowned. In some ways he reminds me of a Buddy Rose type, the sort that will get outwrestled by the babyfaces but still catch a lucky strike and pick up a win to frustrate the fans. Unquestionably, he was a larger than life character though. I liked Bury here, and it's a shame we won't see him again. He had a great Negro Casas style spinkick and some even better escapes, like a spinning headstand or even just grinding his own knee into the ankle to escape a headscissors.

I loved the finish to the falls here. The first had Bury come back with hard shots and a sunset flip after Bollet lost his cool and really unloaded on him. The second had things escalate to a Bury bull charge only for Bollet to turn the second attempt into a back body drop out of nowhere. The third had Bollet use the momentum of a Bury headbutt to bounce off the rope with a huge forearm. I imagine we'll see plenty more of Bollet aggravating the fans with banana peel wins throughout the years and isn't that what wrestling is really about?

PAS: It is such a trip that we get single appearances from guys like Bury, clearly Europe in the 1960s was just loaded with awesome grapplers that guys could show, rule and disappear. I really enjoyed all of his early slick grappling and frustrating of Bollet, and Bollet flipping out and kicking him in the back was a very pro-wrestling moment. Bollet is a blast to watch, and we really get a nice cross section of heels in this project, he is a real cheap shot artist and knows how to really sell out for the technico before sneaking in one of his cheap shots. Sebastian compared him to Kurisu and Matt compared him to Buddy Rose, how awesome is a Kurisu/Buddy Rose hybrid wrestler?

Vassilios Mantopolous vs. Billy Catanzaro 1/29/67


SR: One fall match that goes about 30 minutes. The fact that Billy Catanzaro has two televised singles matches almost exactly 10 years apart is surreal. A few things change in 10 years, and in 1967, Billy Catanzaro was a thick veteran heel. You could still see his brilliance in his work, even when he was more interested here in kicking his opponent in the spine and grimacing to the crowd. Even though it was very obvious that this was gonna get chippy, there was a ton of ridiculously high end technical work here. Mantopolous was a wrestling dynamo, no kidding about it. Just a ridiculously fast moving worker with a ton of tricks in his bag. Most of this was wristlocks and armlocks, largely built around Mantopolous holding on to a hold while Catanzaro was trying to get out. Bread and butter euro stuff, but these two execute it in such a high end manner it‘s not even funny. Catanzaro is a joy to watch, as he always finds neat twists on the most basic things, such as using his foot to win a test of strength on the ground. This was getting chippy here and there, with guys throwing unexpected bitchslaps and using the face scrape, but they mostly stuck to working holds with a few blindingly fast, well timed rope running exchanges thrown in. My one issue with the match was that it could‘ve used a bit of a bigger heat section on Mantopolous – Catanzarro did go to town at one point, lacing the Greek up with gnarly kicks to the spine and nifty backbreaker variations, but Mantopolous was soon back to making a fool of Catanzaro. Guess it wasn‘t 1957 anymore. It‘ll happen to all of us. Hell of a match with a sick finish, regardless.

MD: So, let's get this out of the way now. There's a fun moment in the middle where Catanzaro takes over with some backwork. He does these cool full nelson spin-outs into side backbreakers. After he hits two and some associated backwork, Mantopolous reverses the third spectacularly, and takes back over (with just a bit of selling). This match would be unmistakably better if there was five more minutes of Catanzaro grinding down on the back. Unmistakably better.

I'm glad I got that out of my system, because this was otherwise just amazing. Obviously we looked at this because of Catanzaro, but Mantopolous made me excited to see what he'd do on every lock-up. I can't even think of another wrestler like that. You can watch a hundred Negro Casas matches and he'll do a unique thing in each match. You can see a hundred fascinating, character-driven Fujiwara escapes. There'll still be a lot of rote and familiar, and that's fine. You need that for structure and familiarity, generally. Here though, every lock up leads to some bit of unexpected magic.

That's not to sell Catanzaro short either. I don't think there were many other wrestlers in the entirety of the 20th century that could keep up and play base. Moreover, he brought a subtle sort of offended jerk mentality all his own. There's a moment a little before said backwork where he's pressed into the ropes, shoots his arms up for the clean break, and then sneaks the tiniest slap in as Mantopolous draws back. That's almost, almost as artful as some of the float overs and escapes in the match. It's stuff like that which helps the match be more than just sizzle (even if it's the best sizzle) too. Mantopolous will do a crazy flying leg-over-arm leap to escape a hold. Later on, Catanzaro tries it and doesn't escape. Mantopolous sneaks a hand behind his back to give Catanzaro a handicap, an freebie: the first time Catanzaro refuses and taps his head; the second time, he gives in, goes for it, and gets driven to the mat arm first by a snaking leg for his trouble. Just brilliant stuff, so full of character on top of all of the explosiveness and skill.

I just wish it had a little more heat in the middle, just a little more, but I'm not so much a fool not to be thankful for the match we got.

PAS: This was pretty much Cantanzaro as Psicosis to Mantopolous's Rey Jr. in their WAR match. He was basically there to make of all of Mantopolous's crazy stuff look cool. Considering how awesome Cesca's crazy stuff looked in their match a decade earlier, it is clear that Cantazaro is an all time great baser. So much wild cool shit from Mantopolous, not only wild armdrag and legdrag takeovers, but a cool El Nudo, and one of the grodier tombstones I can remember ever seeing. I agree that it would have been nice to see Billy get to break out some of his offensive bag of tricks too, but that doesn't take away from what an impressive dance partner he was.

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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