Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Shadow!

Georges Cohen vs Black Shadow 7/16/83

MD: This is part of a show with a Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Eliot Fredrico/Kato Bruce Lee match from the previous week too and I kept that because the version we had before and covered here. This doesn't have the audio timecode issue though so it's an improvement. The Cohen vs Shadow match is new to us.

SR: Cohen has had one of the best singles matches of all the French matches that we've seen in 1968. 15 years later, he sure is aged, but still quite on top of the game. By 1983 these matches had approximated the rhythm closer to a lucha match. Less extensive working of holds, more complicated rope running and snappy armdrags with a rudo bumping a lot. It's a fascinating evolution. Cohen showed he was definitely not coasting by his old skillset. He could do all that. And Black Shadow was an excellent bumper. There may be an argument that the guys working France may have been better rudos than the Mexicans. I mean, Black Shadow had no problem bumping around for Cohen for like 10 minutes straight here, flinging himself into armdrags and outside of the ring. They would work some holds for a bit, and then go back the bumping and stooging. It's really fun to watch. Shadow actually ends up taking up the match working over Cohen with some mean stomps and punches. Nothing mindblowing, it does the job. Shadow actually put up a bit of a fight here but ended up falling to Cohens skill anyways. Perhaps they were a bit long in the tooth here going 20 minutes with the rudo beatdown being a bit much but it was a good match.

MD: Cohen sure was good. The first ten minute had him totally in control and some of his stuff was so slick. He'd torque the arm and then vault over for the headscissors takeover or bump himself with a front flip to set up the bridging headcissors roll over. The rope running was very good. The fans were into it. Shadow did a great job of feeding and running into it all, really bumping all over the place for Cohen. Very entertaining stuff and like I said, slick, just slick. There were two bits of heel control here. Both were quite similar, with a lot of stomps and punches, slamming the head into the turnbuckle, and tossing Cohen out. In the first, Cohen was able to mount a comeback because the ref was getting in the way of Shadow. Cohen went too big on his comeback an the ref got in his way though, letting Shadow take back over. The second, which got over big, had Shadow toss him out one too many times and Cohen yank him out from the floor. Cohen was able to catapult him into the ref too, satisfying everyone. You had the sense (and the footage might justify having this sense) that these two had worked together for years. It showed here. It's late in the game for the French Catch footage, but from a skill standpoint alone, this really does stand up to almost anything in the world in 1983.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Angelito! Bordes! Gordon! Marquis! Texas! Frederico! Maniaks!

Angelito/Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Marquis Richard/Jessy Texas/Eliot Frederico 8/11/85

MD: Some high level takeaways on this one. First, I've been doing this for three years and I'm nearing the end, just a few more weeks to go, so to hear the crowd chant Mamadou Meme again for Walter Bordes struck an emotional chord. Second, it's such a shame that we didn't get more trios matches. There are only two or three in the footage and it's such a natural, logical extension for French Catch. The style and action and constant motion plays into it so well. This was three of the last stalwart hero stylists of the last decade (or at least two thirds of a decade) of Catch: Bordes, Gordon, Angelito, up against some game heels. Texas came out on a horse. Frederico was dubbed "Le Rocky". Richard had his valet. They all did admirably here basing for the first third, bullying for the middle third, stooging for the last third.

As such, I thought the structure worked. Exchanges and pairings to begin. Bordes had entered middle age but could still go. Gordon was starting to show cracks, maybe, but still worked broadly and his spots, when they hit, had star power. Angelito was a marvel; they were calling him the new petit prince, basically, and it's not like it wasn't fair. 

The match broke open on the outside with some pretty visceral brawling, ending back in the ring with Bordes trapped in the heel corner. He took a huge beating (including some valet-assisted hidden object nonsense), and they really should have pinned him after a great tandem move where Texas and Richard held him up by his limbs so Frederico could hit a driving headbutt off the top on his elevated form. Still, eventually he did come back with a big set piece of turning the table on the heels that Ben Chemoul would have proud of. They worked a mini heat on Angelito after the hot tag but he fought back too and Gordon scored the first pin with his twisting armdrag slam. The third fall was almost entirely celebratory with Frederico getting his mustache pulled and the heels tied up. There was a blip of Bordes having the rope pulled down on him and eating a nasty bump but it was all so he could come back with the big reverse body press off the top for the win. A nice look at what had been, what was, and what might have been all at once.

Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes vs Les Maniaks 8/18/85 

MD: One last look at our friend Walter Bordes, as we now just have a few matches ahead of us. This was a great performance out of him too, smooth as anything in his exchanges in the first half. There was a point where Maniak #2, who was more of the showman, went for a catapult into the corner and Bordes just flew towards the ropes and casually ducked between them and right back in. It was a slick little piece of business which if done poorly might have exposed one of the more dubious moves in a wrestler's arsenal, but overall looked great. Then, for the back half, after a Maniak caught him out of nowhere with a Tombstone, he sold and sold and sold, starting at comatose and coming back just a little more and more until he was able to utilize a leg clap to break up a second tombstone attempt and make the tag.

Gordon was fine. You really get the sense that he had taken all the moves of his predecessors (even using Jon Guil Don's crazy  360 armdrag as his finisher) and had a definite connection to the crowd, but wasn't quite as smooth and slick with any of it. Here he did a headstand to escape an armbar but sort of just fell over with it instead of doing the spin out, that sort of thing. Still, you can't say he wasn't a solid babyface even if he was just a reflection of the stylists of old, especially when he was in there teaming with Bordes who was still the real deal, even with his middle aged hairline. So the first half of this was just ok, with one Maniak trying more than he could manage and the other solid with some nice cravats but not much more than that. Once the heat started and the fans really got into it all the way through the big comeback and comeuppance for the heels, you could see the glimpse of years' past once again.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Richard! Corne! Hassouni! Shadow! Angelito! Cohen! Bordes! Gordon! MANIAK!

Jacky Richard/Albert Sanniez vs Jean Corne/Kader Hassouni 9/3/83

MD: As we close out the 1983 footage, we bid adieu to three of our stalwart friends: Richard, Sanniez, and Corne. There will be a few more Hassouni matches in the collection, which is a good thing as he looked excellent here. They all did, of course, Richard the heatseeking, clubbering, basing malcontent; Sanniez the slicker, hard-hitting, big bumping technician; and Corne the junior hero, smaller and quicker than Corn or Leduc but just as able to carry the crowd. This was a great crowd too with kids who wore their hearts on their sleeves, uppity teenagers who dared to get right up to the ring, and yes, a pro wrestling granny. Lots of chants and big elation for the stylist comebacks.

Given the four we had in there, of course they moved in and out of the holds well for the first ten minutes. The heat came in two parts and the first was a little overwrought as Saulnier had to strain all over the ring to get out of position. He was missing Sanniez's pretty blatant hairpulls (armbar, with the head between the legs, and his hand reaching around the back for the pull). It meant that the first comeback was more about him paying for his transgressions with Sanniez catapulted right into him. The second bit of heat was primarily clubbering and this had a bigger and more direct sort of comeback with Corne sneaking into the ring and through the legs to break up a double team and lead to miscommunication and the finish. As always, it was amazing that Hassouni and Sanniez were able to do some of the things that they were in quick exchanges 20+ minutes in, but that's French Catch for you.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. You will know exactly how these go by now. Long, quality face shine chock full of super quick sequences to start, before the heels take over for a beatdown. Faces come back, heels bump like mad and a quick finish happens. After this, the matches we have get pretty wacky, so I guess this is a sort of last hurrah for the classic type of Catch. It was as good as any of these matches you‘ve seen too. Everyone looked pretty old but they had no probably going hard as usual. Richard especially was the most grey and crusty looking dude here but had no problem bumping big and fast and running the ropes. Hassouni was spry and Sanniez had one of his typically good performances. There were also a bunch of rowdy kids and an elderly lady at ringside threatening to storm the ring at the heel tactics of Richard & Sanniez. Maybe for this reason referee Michel Saulnier decided not to do anything fishy here.

Black Shadow vs Angelito (JIP) 2/25/84

MD: Just the last two and a half minutes here of a match that went almost twenty. Angelito and Shadow might have lost half a step but them half a step down was still pretty good for the bits we saw here. I imagine they had started off with a bit more flash and speed. This was pretty evenly worked with holds and rope running and flips about until Angelito bounded up cleverly into a victory roll for the win. From a technological standpoint, they were experimenting with slow-motion replays.

SR: About 2 minutes shown of what looked like a preliminary affair. Angelito has some really nice moves, though.

Marquis Edouard de la Rossignolette vs Georges Cohen 2/25/84

MD: I may have spoken too soon, for the good Marquis, in his fineries, with his medals and his monocle, and his butler "Paul Bart", does have a striking resemblance to Jacky Richard, if you just take out the beard. I do give him some credit for changing his look, his expressions, the way that he moved.

That said, this is going to disappoint people who are into the quicker stuff in the footage, the more technical stuff, AND the slugfests. I'm not going to lie about that. I enjoyed it to a degree, but it was a pale shadow of some of the other examples of the sort we have. It didn't have the manic energy of Duranton and his valet and no one compares well to the size, derision, and high spots of Lasartesse. Moreover, there were just less of the chained together moves or dogged hanging on to holds that you'd get from the tags (even the ones with Richard and Cohen). I do think this would compare quite well to a lot of what was happening in the mid-cards of pro wrestling shows in the States for 1984.

Richard played his character well, got heat, was able to grind down on Cohen. When it was time for him to show ass, he did. He bumped around the ring (but just one bump at a time instead of three), got dropkicked into a hanging in the ropes (replayed nicely with the slowmo), set up some spots for the butler (including Cohen chasing him around the ring, AND a repeat of what we saw in the last 83 tag where Saulnier as ref took a similar kicked away from the ropes and into the center of the ring bump), and even had a truly funny moment: after pulling the corner protector off, Cohen reversed him into it a couple of times and he gingerly tried to put it back on with deep regret. It was funny. So, I think, objectively, this was fine; it was the sort of stuff that Eric and I would write a bunch of words about and be glad that we saw. It just doesn't compare to what was came before, even what came a year before as we had just seen. The biggest sin wasn't a slightly slower pace or less technical back and forth or a lack of rope running; it was that Cohen didn't get more of a heated comeback before the Marquis got himself dqed with a corner crotching. They were getting over the character but I think that would have gone a long way to helping the match overall.

SR: I wonder if the Marquis ever faced the little Prince. This was the first sign of the old catch maestros slowing down. Both guys could still move but they only did the most barebones stuff and there were pauses between each movement. Not good.

Walter Bordes/Flesh Gordon vs Les MANIAK 2/25/84

MD: Flesh was really leaning into the gear here, with the lightning bolt tank top and belt. The Manics had sort of an Espectro, Jr look to them, with big hair and masks, but in grey with red splotches. My gut tells me that one was better than the other but I couldn't say that for sure. This was one fall but still went quite a while. Bordes and Gordon looked good. Les Maniak had one or two big moves (a front facelock drop that was nasty, a huge press up powerbomb type drop that may or may not have been intentional). They worked over Gordon's leg for their control but I'm not sure he had any real intention to sell it. A lot of what Gordon and Bordes threw out was still their tricked out stuff, but maybe things less reliant on their opponents, especially after the early going where there was some miscommunication on fairly simple things and Bordes seemed a little hot at one of the Maniacs. For instance, there was only one extended hold sequence of in and out, but it was a nice one where he kipped up repeatedly in an armbar until he got the headscissors to a big pop. There were a few quite gifworthy sequences in here, stuff that would be more like ten seconds instead of the usual thirty, and the never lost the crowd (Bordes is undeniable and Gordon really understood how to milk a moment for the back row, like when he just hung on a Maniac's shoulders and looked left and right before falling backwards with a Rana), but overall, this definitely felt a little disjointed relative to other matches of its ilk in the collection.  

SR: LES MANIAK. France was going full Catch y Lucha at this point. Apparently, Flesh Gordon was working Mexico in the 70s, so I guess that explains the crossover. This was even more Luchaesque than anything we‘ve seen before. Unfortunately, Les Maniaks, who acted quite sane and calculating, weren‘t very good here. There were several blown spots and their beatdown section dragged on forever. I enjoyed Bordes old man performance as usual. I can‘t tell if Gordon was getting lazier or if he was toning it down due to his opponent not being familiar with him. Anyways, this was charming and entertaining, but needed better rudo bases to work.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Gordon! Falcons! Mercier! Montreal!

Walter Bordes/Flesh Gordon vs. Golden Falcons 8/13/83

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. I am totally fine with young Flesh Gordon and an ancient Walter Bordes carrying French TV at this point. Gordon is really spry doing these luchariffic exchanges and I am loving Bordes in these matches, just bouncing around and mixing in all this cool shit while being old enough to be everyone's grandpa. This also had a nifty heel beatdown where Flesh Gordon was laid out like an All Japan tag and Bordes took a big beating. In a nifty moment, the Falcons even stole the "wrestler gets catapulted into his own partner“ spot which is usually reserved for babyfaces. Gordon comes back in the 3rd fall wearing a bandage and just uppercuts everyone a lot, and all is right in the world.

MD: Yeah, this was just chugging along like any other match, with some great bridges by Gordon and Bordes blocking some throws in cool ways and having really nice hanging-on arm holds. Some of the spots seemed a bit recycled from the last time we saw these two teaming but it was all good stuff that they were continuing to build upon so that was ok. The Falcons took all of it and had a certain bit of cheek that you appreciated in heels (also a diving headbutt which is also appreciated in hold footage). Then, after Gordon won the first fall with his spin around mare thing that people need to steal, everything got wild in the second fall.

One Falcon catapulted Bordes into Gordon (held by the hair by his partner) and Flesh (said with a possibly straight face to be a distant cousin of Flash, by the announcer) did a human stretcher job from the bump off the apron. After that they leaned hard into the heat. Bordes would fight back but the numbers game was too much. He'd get knocked off the apron or tossed into the crowd. The Falcons had some strong stuff here, including this punch that knocked Bordes off the ropes and right back into a back elbow. After they took the second fall they hit a double team, one Falcon holding Bordes in a full nelson and the other coming off the second rope with a headbutt to the gut. They went for it again, but Bordes moved and Gordon flew back in, his bloodied head bandaged, and it was a big iconic moment as they fired back and took the win and won a tiny little trophy as the crowd went wild. 1983 French Catch? Still rousing stuff.

 

Guy Mercier vs. Mr. Montreal 8/27/83

MD: Three or four big, long, incredibly well worked holds in, halfway through the match, Montreal was hanging on to a headlock so tightly that I thought Mercier's head was going to pop off. Then Mercier started to slam him, uppercut him, drop elbows (rare for the footage) and knees and slam him some more. Montreal dodged one and came back with huge whips and huge shots and slams. They end up slugging one another, until they crash into one other and both hit the mat hard. And there's still ten minutes to go!

There are a spattering of matches like this in the footage, especially once we got into the 60s, but they were always something absolutely exceptional. The holds are so tight, so mean, so thoroughly worked. There's not an armbar here which also doesn't have a shin grinding onto the cheek. There's always motion, always an attempt to escape, but it takes three or four motions to even get to the escape attempt and then that gets cut off, and then it's that many until the next, and that gets cut off, and so on and so forth, so expertly worked, until the opening finally is earned, as is everything else in a match like this (And when what is earned is Mercier's headstand spinout? It's as good as it gets). And the shots? The shots hit so hard and resonate so deeply. They're not the end, but instead a response to the last affront and a prelude to the next hold. During the stretch as time was going out, three, four hard forearms or uppercuts would lead to a headlock takeover or a body slam or even Mercier's fallaway slam, but all to no avail. You could say that this was Montreal's strength against Mercier's leverage and skill, but it was really just two aging masters putting everything out there and it stands up to just about anything we've seen during this entire journey.

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit under 30 minutes. This was a clean technical match, a rare occurrence by 1983. The fact they still had matches like this at that time made me wish there was more 80s French TV around. This was super minimalist, two guys struggling over basic holds for 30 minutes without a fall. It was something you‘d expect out of the 60s. The holds were simple, but they were really cranking them. The whole match felt clinical and the fact Montreal was squeezing Mercier so hard with those headlocks his veins seemed about to pop emphasized that. I imagine this kind of contest was more Mercier's specialty than the heatmongering face/heel style. His suplexes ruled. Both guys seemed to get increasingly agitated towards the end, really cracking each others jaws with the uppercuts. I‘ve seen a lot of 80s Euro draws like this, but seeing this go 25+ without rounds or falls was impressive. I could see most people finding this boring, but I enjoyed the show.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gordon! Bordes! Frederico! Kato! Mercier! Montreal! Magnier! Fuji!

Elliot Frederico/Kato Bruce Lee vs Flesh Gordon/Walter Bordes 7/9/83
 
MD: Now this had some heat and was all the better for it. They did about ten minutes of exchanges before Gordon missed a dropkick and they went into heat and comebacks for most of the rest of the 30. In the first fall, that meant two or three hot tags too, one of which set up by Gordon catching a kick and driving forward with a trip that worked really well. The heels were more fresh and kept in control though. They used ref distractions for double teams so that even as the stylists came in hot, they got knocked back down. It finally built to a big sequence where they were able to work together to end the fall. The heels took back over in the second fall though, winning with a double team and this continued until the third when chaos would ensue with a giant dive to the outside (and then back in) by Bordes.

So that was the structure, always a welcome one. The details were good too. Gordon had come into his own with the new character, fast and fiery with sympathetic selling and that star nature of always coming back at least a little from underneath (plus that great flip around mare finisher that people badly need to steal). Bordes, older, some hair going n the back of his head, continued to pick up new tricks. They both seemed to integrate some of those headlock flip about tricks that only Petit Prince had done previously and Bordes had a really cool double hand on the mat block to an arm wringer throw. Kato Bruce Lee showed no signs of working a character named like that and was more of a Mike Sharpe style bruiser. Frederico had leather, a bald head, a mustache, and a pretty cool lifting choke towards the end. You watch this and it's hard not to think that they couldn't get a few more years out of what they had. Gordon came off as a solid heir to Leduc, Corn, Corne, Mercier, Ben Chemoul, Bordes, the last of which was still going strong. The heels were competent and compelling, and sometimes they got the structure exactly right to build the crowd to a fevered pop. We're into 1983, but this one simply worked.

SR: 2/3 Falls going about 25 minutes. Flesh Gordon debuts. And France would never be the same! In all honesty though, this was really good. Young Flesh Gordon was a pretty good technico, no kidding. Really dug the luchariffic rhythm of the early exchanges. And Bordes as his maestro partner was just ridiculous, even hitting a plancha to the outside. Most importantly, this felt like it had spark. It also had the kind of recognizable southern structure that people can recognize. Frederico & Kato Bruce Lee won‘t set your world on fire if you‘ve seen Anton Tejero and Albert Sanniez, but they knew how to beat someone up and make it not boring.

Guy Mercier & Marcel Montreal vs Fred Magnier & Yasu Fuji 7/30/83

SR: I have a suspicion that this is from the 70s due to the way it‘s filmed, but Fuji is listed as only having come to Europe in the 1980s. But what do we know. Anyways, this was pretty mediocre and brutally long so you don‘t really want to watch it.

MD: Sebastian got here first and had me worried. Overall, I'm not as low on this as he was, though I agree that it's a bit long for what it is, and it's also missing certain elements. There really isn't the sort of mat wrestling and in-and-out holds that you'd expect from almost every French Catch match we've seen so far. What we do get is generally from Mercier, as the heels are all stomping and hammering and leaning, with just a bit of power moves out of Fuji (primarily a lifting drop onto the top rope). And they do control a lot of the match. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Montreal takes a lot in the second fall, but when he's in control it's sitting in a headlock as much as anything else.

I do think Fuji brought a different presence at least. By this point he'd been active for quite a while and he was still a year or two off from being Super Strong Machine #3 but he had size and reach (especially stomping from the outside). Magnier is a doughy cheapshot-spewing stooge, a sort of poor man's Gastel, but it was still nice to see him again. And yes, Mercier still did all the hits, the spin out takedown (blocked once by Fuji but hit twice), the headstand headscissors takeover, grinding the knee and the nose at the same time, etc. The heels distracted the ref well at times and it made the two big comebacks in the match matter more, but again, it was all a bit lacking. You wanted more heel miscommunication spots and more dumb bits with Saulnier as ref and just more wrestling overall. There were still things to like here; it would have just been a lot better if they stopped at the end of the first fall. It was one of those.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Zarak! Gonzalez! Gomez! Asquini! Mercier!

MD: We're in the 80s now, believe it or not. There's still quite a bit of footage to go. I think after we're done, I'll make yet another list that puts things in chronological order with our reviews and use that to fill in the gaps of other things that may have popped up outside of the collection. Good news for the 80s is that Sebastian has gone through most of this footage. I don't think he's been living and breathing this stuff as much as I have, so you'll get a different take on things. Which is good, as you'll see below, as I'm always a little uncomfortable being the only take on these matches. Go check out his blog which is consistently great.

Walter Bordes vs Zarak 3/1/80

MD: With the help of youtube's handy translation function I figured out a few things here. The first is that Bordes had been trying to beat Zarak for a bit but was always stymied. The second is that he had learned either through a trip to the US or just through research about the wonders of the strap match and in order to finally defeat Zarak, challenged him to one here. They even had Petit Prince guest commentate for a moment to explain it to the audience. For a minute there, I got pretty excited about it, but Zarak, rogue that he was, refused and this was just a standard match. At one point, Duranton (I think) came by with his dog and the entire production team cared more about the dog than the match. I was actually pretty high on this one and I saw more of an underlying story both in Zarak's strength vs Bordes' speed and technique and fire and in Bordes getting himself in trouble by going for Zarak's mask (or even his boot laces) later in the match when he had an advantage. This was such a heated rivalry that he lost his cool. I don't think Sebastian has it right that it ended in a DQ, but instead a time limit draw leading to the eventual strap match that we don't have. Zarak had used, mid-match, a sort of running headfirst charge which knocked Bordes off his feet. In his final comeback, Bordes started using them as well which popped the crowd huge but he missed and hit the ref for his second or third attempt at it. Again, I think it was just a warning as then the fans counted down to the bell a half minute later.

Zarak impressed me more here too, not necessarily for what he did (which was all good), but for what he did differently from when he was Batman. He worked this like he was Der Henker or one of the many masked headsman we've seen so far, with just a bit more of his theatrical panache and flair in just little motions of his hands. It's funny to think how so many of the masked wrestlers were headsmen. I'm not sure if that is a takeoff of the first, successful one or something more ingrained in the culture, in as how we had the Spoiler and Midnight Rider and Outlaw and whatever else here in the States. But I always reward a wrestler who's able to adapt in his style and mannerisms with a different character and Smith-Larsen absolutely did here. This is one of Bordes' best babyface performances too, as there was more built in animosity than usual. Some of his bumps were spectacular, flying sternum first into the corner (Even breaking the ring at one point) or out of the ring or into the crowd.

SR: 1 Fall match going a bit over 25 minutes. Zarak was a big, towering guy in a mask. It fascinates me how much masked French wrestlers look like luchadores. This Zarak guy didn‘t work like a luchador (he was a British guy, in fact), but he seemed like a decent worker. Bordes had entered the maestro portion of his career at this point, and he had quite good looking mechanics. The early portion of this was Bordes putting a hold on Zarak, Zarak powering out and Bordes really flying across the ring. Bordes even flew into the crowd like Spike Dudley later in the match. The problem with the match was that they seemed to have no ideas for a story or such, so it was your typical series of retaliation spots. Zarak had some nice punches, a knee drop to the throat and one point just kneed Bordes in the balls, but wasn‘t terribly interesting as a character. The worst thing about the match was that it ended in a stupid DQ after they ran through a series of nearfalls.

Jose Gonzalez/Pedro Gomez vs Bruno Asquini 8/14/80 

MD: Maybe as perfectly structured a tag as we've seen on the set. And we're in 1980. The long first fall with comedy with Saulnier as the ref and feeling out (with a stylist advantage) early, into the first round of heat with Saulnier missing all sorts of double teaming, a brief comeback, a second bit of heat leading into the pin and the second fall, the real hot tag and comeback and stylist win, and then a high octane, imaginative and celebratory last fall with those multiman spots that are so much fun. I don't think I could have laid it out better.

And of course, everyone, from the wrestlers to Saulnier to Couderc (shouting "Save the cameras!" late when Mercier was chasing Gomez around the ring). Gonzalez is a true hero of the footage, the successor to Inca Peruano, stooging, creative, dramatic, hard hitting, incredibly fast in feeding and bumping and in holds. He's great a putting a little twist on something normal, going high low on clubbers instead of just straight on, that sort of thing, and of course more than willing to bump himself into the ropes and choke himself. This was our first look at Gomez and I thought he was excellent chain wrestling with Asquini. Otherwise, he didn't stand out as much but he took everything clean and worked well with Gonzalez. Aqsuini, of course, is spry, probably second or third best for what he was to Carpentier and Ben Chemoul on the set, but with a patina of age and grump to him. And Mercier is the perfect all arounder, able to do the headstand twist, hard shots, a fiery comeback when he tosses one after the next into the corner. I may be more sympathetic to the Saulnier stuff than others because we know him so well and he's so small and still able to bump and plays his role well. Here, I don't think too much of the heat ended up on him. Some of the last fall stuff was new too, a couple of spots where they made one heel pin the other and counted. This didn't have the long holds of the 50s but it was much more refined from years and years of working out the style to a point which feels quite ideal to me.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going about 25 minutes. I love that France has a litany of South American rudo bases available. Structurally, this was exactly like something you‘d expect to see in Arena Mexico or Monterrey. The thing that the French crew has going for it in 1980 is that these guys are old and rugged now but still doing all the ridiculously fast armdrags. Asquini is balding and dumpy looking here but has just a beautiful dropkick. Mercier didn‘t do a ton besides hitting some great looking arm drags and stiff uppercuts, but he had a nice airplane spin and impressive old man strong military press. Gomez & Gonzalez looked good during the opening wrestling portions. Unfortunately, the rudo beatdown went a little long and they seemingly didn‘t have it in them to make up for it with a ferocious finale, although the rudos were dedicated to miscommunication spots. There was also some ref bullshit in the match, although the refs mannerisms were amusing and thankfully it never took center stage. I could see someone who has never seen French pro wrestling before digging this.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Boucard! Calderon! Siki! Bordes! Bouvet! Viracocha! Shadow!

Georges Cohen vs Daniel Boucard (JIP) 3/3/79 

MD: Last eight and a half minutes of a thirty minute draw here and it's good stuff and our loss that we don't have more. Cohen, is, of course, as good as anyone really. Boucard we've seen a bit more lately and he was an hard-hitting, agile, imaginative heel, able to do a Tajiri style handspring off the ropes, but also sporting an amazing one-two European Uppercut/gut shot. They worked some fun spots using more of those armdrag-into-a-slam that ended so many falls and matches on the set but here having a kickout cause the person who hit the move to crash onto the ref. They also went to the floor to brawl at one point only to have a fan try to intervene. Things built to one of those 1950s style of draw finishes where they just threw fists until the bell. Talented wrestlers, good action. Unfortunately, less than ten minutes of it.

Gaby Calderon vs Mammoth Siki 3/3/79

MD: I was kind of dreading this one. Calderon is very hit or miss throughout the footage, which isn't entirely fair to him because he's only there a few times and our first look at him was twenty years before this, but it is what it is. The judo gimmick he worked depended on the opponent. I hadn't liked Siki much at all in the last match against Schmid so this one had me worried.

I was mistaken. It was actually quite good as they worked every hold about as hard as it could be worked. Siki didn't do much fancy, but he was strong and could grind someone down. Calderon was smart working from underneath and pretty nasty when locking in holds of his own. This became a fight of strength vs skill, of precise judo vs bursting power and well-placed headbutts. It only went around twenty and there were signs in the back half that they weren't quite as sharp as they started, but in general, it was just good, solid wrestling that played to both men's strengths instead of falling into a messy contrast.

Walter Bordes & Gerard Bouvet vs Inca Viracocha & Black Shadow 3/3/79 (possibly 6/79?)

MD: Thirty minute tag that gets two falls, with some drama in the middle but a fairly celebratory last ten minutes. Bouvet is a guy who has looked great in the late 70s, one of the slickest and smoothest wrestlers we've seen in the footage, but we just don't quite have enough of him. Bordes, on the other hand, we have as much of as anyone, and he was such a complete ace by this point, a real star who could do almost everything. He might not have been quite as slick as Bouvet in his holds, but he was slick enough and here we got to see him slug and have imaginative spots, and work the apron, and play the crowd. Shadow was with Viracocha which made for a bit of an odd couple as Viracocha was usually with the Peruvians or the Spaniards and Shadow with Josef el Arz, but they worked well together, both in feeding and stooging (and Shadow bumping to the floor, a specialty) and in bullying when it was time to take over. Viracocha was such an expert in sneaking is foot in from the corner to stop a comeback attempt. This is typical for the time period in France, so there was just a bit too much heat on the ref (not wildly so, just a bit), but you could slug him and just draw a public warning and not a DQ, which Bouvet did after taking the hot tag from Bordes. Some very imaginative tandem spots at the end. Another good tag in the almost endless string of them.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Bouvet! Payen! Boucard! Ramirez! Menard! Di Santo! Zorba!

Walter Bordes/Gerard Bouvet vs Pierre Payen/ Daniel Boucard 8/28/78 

MD: I missed this one last week (the footage at the end of this decade is a little harder to organize) but it was another match in front of the Breton folk group, pipes and all. Long first fall, short second fall. Not a ton of drama as the stylists took most of it and even when Bordes got trapped in the corner late in the match, for instance, it was just to set up a comeback spot and another tag. That said, there were some really good individual exchanges in here, especially when Boucard or Bouvet were in the ring and especially against each other. That's not to say Bordes or Payen weren't good too but there was just more smoothnesss and imagination from the other two. One standout was Boucard pressing himself up into a very unique dropping headbutt (as opposed to a bridging knee drop for instance) and then immediately missing a dive to the outside. Just that level of imagination and energy. He also had a nice flurry of strikes at one point and stooged later on when it was time to take offense, very complete wrestler from this look at him. Bouvet had more of Ben Chemoul's flare to him, using Leduc's headstand headscissors (and the announcer invoked Leduc by name), and having a number of slick takedowns and spots. So this was enjoyable and probably gif-able but hardly weighty enough to stand against some of the other tags we've seen lately.

Paco Ramirez vs Jean Menard (JIP) 11/12/78

MD: We get the last 9 of this one. It's a swimming pool match but that really doesn't come into play except for Ramirez trying to push Menard out a couple of times. After a brief flurry of dropkicks by Menard earlier in the footage, the rest of this is all Ramirez. His stuff is very credible, but not terribly dynamic. Even when he lifts Menard up, it's really just to press him into the corner and hit him some more. Again, nothing we necessarily have a problem with, and they worked in some more direct and clear hope spots and cutoffs than what we usually get, as matches tend to be more back and forth than this. Ramirez pressed the advantage and ultimately got DQed as he pressed the ref (apparently Bollet's brother) just a bit too much. Post match, he had a staredown with the arriving di Santo, so maybe that was to build to another match.

Michel di Santo vs Zorba 11/12/78

MD: Zorba's sporting quite the look, another masked monster, but this one in blue and red superhero garb (looking a decent amount like Atom Smasher, actually). Michel di Santo, on the other hand, reminds me a bit of Greg Gagne, kind of lanky, not his dad, still perfectly decent. Zorba mostly threw hammering blows and tossed di Santo around the ring, but he had some big strength spots as well, a press up gutbuster, a tombstone. I'm not sure about the look for a monster heel, even in 79, but he had size and presence, very imposing in the ring once he got going. The ref called it after the tombstone but the beating continued and when he tried to get in the way of it, Zorba tossed him in the drink and di Santo soon after. At that point, they made a pretty big deal about him ending up in the water when he had been knocked senseless and the danger of it all. Pretty dominant introduction for the masked man, even if there's nothing particularly Greek about him. I'd have paid to see Bordes try his luck against him, for instance. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Roberts! Bond! Bordes! Doukhan! Viracocha! Ramirez! Ben Chemoul! Plantin! Lagache! Caballec!

Pete Roberts vs Dave Bond (JIP) 2/27/78

MD: We get the last nine minutes of this draw. Roberts and Bond were both in from the UK though Bond was billed as American. This was a mix of gritty cravats, rope running, and a lot of trading of Roberts' forearms and Bond's headbutts, which were a nice piece of business. They were sportsmanlike but really went at it, and Roberts wasn't afraid to bump out. Good stuff with a nice nearfall or two. It's a shame we don't have more of them in France. 

Gass Doukhan/Walter Bordes vs Inca Viracocha/Paco Ramirez 2/27/78

MD: Lots to love here. Very fun tag with double heat and some new tricks from Doukhan and Bordes, even if the heels never picked up a fall. Doukhan is a great partner for Bordes. Bordes is a little tallier and lankier and his stuff is clean but a little stilted and Doukhan is smaller but very smooth. Viracocha is, of course, an ideal base, who can take everything with a put upon stooging face. Ramirez was leaning into his strength on certain spots and was excellent at interjecting himself from the outside but that just made him getting his comeuppance when they went wrong all the better. Bordes took some nasty catapults to the floor to justify the heel control in the middle. They did the RnR spot of the partner blocking an irish whip into the corner by putting his body in the way, which I'd never seen before in France (or, I think, in the States before 78?) and the second fall, while short had some fun build up and payoff with the heels lifting up Bordes in a double drop until he landed on his feet to flip and make the hot tag and then some heel miscommunication to set up the finish and send everyone home. These tags don't often reach the slugging or pure mat wrestling levels of the ones from twenty years earlier but they really had a good, compelling, crowd pleasing act down. Like Ben Chemoul, you can't really question that Bordes, a guy who felt almost completely unknown in our circles before we'd picked up this footage, who still doesn't have a cagematch entry, was one of the best tag workers ever.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Bob Plantin vs Pierre Lagache/Rene Caballec 4/4/78

MD: A lot to cover here. This was in Coubertin handball stadium, with the ring right in the middle of the court, so it was a bit of an odd look with maybe some strange acoustics. The Mamadou singing worked its way in midway through the match but it was never as loud as you'd expect. This is the first match which had some slow motion instant replays too, so technology marches forward. This match was in part to celebrate fire fighters based on some previous heroics in France. It has friend to all followers of French Catch, Bob Plantin, and he stated in the bits and pieces of this one that had been on youtube that both Ben Chemoul and Caballec had been former fire fighters.

Caballec very likely might have worked as a stylist otherwise, and he had those skills, a backflip off the top, a body press, the headspin headscissors takeover, as well as some big power moves when on top like a backbreaker and a signature slam out of a suplex position (remember, we've still never seen a standing vertical suplex in the footage by 78!).

This is it for Ben Chemoul, a swan song to an amazing career, and even in a 40+ minute match, albeit a tag where Plantin could come in a lot, he could still go. He knew all the tricks, could execute them so smoothly. Something like a rolling legpick or a flip through on a full nelson to bring up his mule kick looked so good and so smooth. He'd go up to the top for a missile dropkick and turtle so he could duck in and out to enrage Lagache until he could grab an arm.

Lagache was called "the striker" here, and he lived up to that with stomps and cheapshots mainly. He fed into all of the stylists spots and came back with mean shots but he was there for contrast mainly. Plantin had a lot of youthful energy and exuberance, and while some of his stuff wasn't as precise as Ben Chemoul's, the way he through himself into everything brought a lot of value, and he garnered plenty of sympathy working from underneath.

Like I said, this went 40 and the structure is, as I'd said recently, something I've finally learned to live with. About half of the match was fairly even exchanges, good wrestling, holds, rope running, with a slight stylist advantage. At right around that halfway point, Lagache took over with a hairpull in the corner, beating on first Ben Chemoul and then Plantin; in this it's a bit like an All Japan tag match (or lucha in general) where they make the tag but the momentum stays with the team that had been dominant. Not a hot tag then, but one that doesn't change the plot. The second fall had a big comeback, revenge, and bombs from the stylists and then the third, quite short, had a brief tease of the heels taking over before Ben Chemoul rushed them from the outside and we got a series of celebratory high spots and tandem bits with the stylists firmly in charge and the heels getting clowned. It might not maximize drama but it really is wonderful in its own way and Ben Chemoul was as good as anyone at it.

He, more than anyone except for maybe Delaporte and Bollet, is simply the perfect French Catch wrestler. The ideal. He carried with him technique, mirth, cleverness, innovation, a deep, deep connection with the crowd and the ability to conduct them. There was elements of the theater or the circus to him, but such deep athleticism and that extra gear that he could take it to when he was getting revenge. He could draw sympathy and could elicit deep belly laughs. He's not going to come off as quite as tough and hard hitting as someone like Corn or LeDuc. he's not as spectacular as Petit Prince or as technical as Saulnier or Mantopolous, but he encompasses the glitz and the glamour and the sheer showmanship of it all, while still possessing all of the skill.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Falempin! Richard! Menard! Bordes! Rocca! Sanniez! Bernaert!

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs Jacky Richard/Jean Menard 8/22/77

MD: I wouldn't call this one balanced, but the actual wrestling was just excellent. They went around twenty minutes of a first fall in and out of holds, with rope running, quick exchanges, some fiery slugging, certain things that were somewhat innovative for the times, like crabs and a backslide takedown and even a doctor bomb sort of takedown. Menard was able to do quicker and more elaborate exchange but Richard had a way of falling like a tree and stooging more and really could keep up on the rope running. Delaporte (announced as the "former licensed villain of wrestling"), as ref, was a non factor for the first fall, just the guy with the best seat in the house. The second fall had the heels cheat to take over, with Delaporte getting frustrated and admonishing one while the other made cheapshots. The last fall had a fairly quick hot tag and both guys tied up with another spot of Delaporte getting stepped on and encouraging the stylists to keep it going. Quick and celebratory. It's not how I'd want this match to have been balanced, but it's the style, and as a match in the style, it was excellent. Just great wrestling all around.  

Walter Bordes/Claude Rocca vs Albert Sanniez/Pierre Bernaert 8/29/77

MD: This was a tale of two matches, or at least of two falls. The first fall felt very complete, had some really nice exchanges, fresh ones too because it wasn't just Bordes but also Sanniez and Rocca, who we've not been able to see much of. Bernaert was a surprise. It'd been a while since we'd seen him and he was certainly up there in age, but he wrestled early on like someone with something left to prove. By this point, Delaporte was old hat as ref. The matches and spots were not based around him. He was able to bluster about when the heels were cheating and worked into the comedy at the end (more on that in a second) but he felt almost like an expectation instead of an attraction. Still, it was nice to see Bernaert in there with him as they knew how to play off of one another. After a lot of wrestling, the heat based on double teaming, and a rousing comeback, the second fall was entirely shtick. Sanniez bumped all over the ring for it, Bernaert begged off like a champ, and Delaporte fed people into the next spots when applicable, but it wasn't quite as imaginative as you might have hoped with the pieces at play. Still, overall this was a good one, a comfortable one. By now we're well aware of the ebbs and the flows and pacing of late 70s tags and matches like this feel right in a way that they might not if you weren't awash in them.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bordes! Leduc! Ramirez! Boucard! Mercier! Asquini! MacGregor! O'Connor!

Walter Bordes/Gilbert Leduc vs Paco Ramirez/Daniel Boucard 7/25/77

MD: We get a solid 20 minutes of action here, so while this is incomplete, there's a lot to see, and a lot of enjoy, and a lot to learn. For one, it's Leduc, the wrestler of the 60s, teaming with Bordes, who may well be the wrestler of the 70s. Ramirez, working sort of ebullient yet cowardly matador gimmick, was a great heatseeking heel and Boucard, more of a mugging, clubbering one. Leduc still had it, able to slug it out and do all of his signature spins and Bordes had such amazing energy, both when he was charging headlong into his own offense and eating Ramirez' charging headbutts to the guts. Sometimes, he went so fast that it went haywire, like when he tried to flip up into a 'rana off, but they always recovered; here it was with a nasty power bomb. The structure of this makes it a bit of a shame we dont' have all of it, as Boucard and Ramirez, after shaking hands politely, staged and ambush and actually pinned Leduc in the first minute. We only get the brunt of the second fall before the video cuts off, unfortunately, but it was very complete in the action we do have, exchanges and bits of heat and comebacks and the occasional slugfest. This will be our last look at Leduc so I saw it as something of a passing of the torch to a more than game Bordes.

Guy Mercier/Bruno Asquini vs Alan MacGregor/Marc O'Connor 8/1/77

MD: Michel Saulnier was an exceptional wrestler and trained Andre and Petit Prince if I'm not mistaken but he was an outright heel ref here, as heelish as we've seen, and while it absolutely got everyone in the crowd angry, especially as this was a crowd filled with more kids than usual, it ended up being a bit much in this one. Let me put it this way. It was okay this one time, because it certainly worked for what they were trying to do, but as someone watching 45 years later, hopefully they don't go back to the well again. On a social level it was interesting to see the announcer laughing and dismissing Saulnier's antics as good fun and patronizing the kids in the audience for taking it all too seriously. That gives you some sense of how all of this was taken in France on a macro level maybe?

It was all so over the top and comedic (with the comebacks being about Mercier and Asquini attacking Saulnier as much as attacking the Scots) that you really have to take it as its own thing and it makes it hard to compare to more conventional matches. That's almost a shame because this had more straight up heat than most French matches we see. The heels dominated almost the whole thing, mainly through control of Asquini's arm, cutting off the ring, some very credible offense, and of course, Saulnier missing tags and holding Mercier back. MacGregor had size and hit hard and O'Connor was a real mean mugging goon type. Asquini, older but spry, did very well as face-in-peril including setting up and paying off his hot tags rolling across the ring and Mercier, unsurprisingly, was able to knock everyone about when it was his time to come in. There wasn't really any meaningful selling of the arm but it still made sense as a was to control things. The celebratory last fall was shorter than usual though you got glimpses in the second and so much of it was about Saulnier getting his comeuppance. It was certainly fun, no question about that.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Prince! Hassouni! Tejero! Remy! Angelito! Sanniez! Bordes! Zarak!

MD: Unfortunately, this has more audio issues, but you can watch it without problem with headphones, only using your left earbud and not the right. It's a good week of matches though, so tough it out.

Kader Hassouni/Petit Prince vs. Anton Tejero/Bob Remy 1/7/77

MD: This one is for some cup and well worth watching. Tejero's one of the best bases and bumpers in the footage so having him paired up against Petit Prince is pretty special. Hassouni was slick as could be and Remy was a meat and potatoes slugger bad guy so all of the pieces were right here.

Structurally, this is probably the most perfect tag in the set. Yes, there are some Blousons Noirs (and others) matches with more (or longer) heat, but this was balanced just right for the style and had, finally and I don't say this lightly, the hot tag we've been waiting on for so long. It gets around 35 minutes with the first 15-20 the wrestling we'd expect from these guys, lots of holds and escapes and the stylists looking great at the expense of the heels. The heat really kicks in with Hassouni getting knocked to the floor, with the crowd moving to help him but he ultimately unable to make it back in. From there, even after a tag to Prince, they really dig in, distracting the ref, laying in mean shots, and ultimately getting the ringpost guards off to the point where Prince gives us that rare, rare French Catch blood.

This segment isn't long, but between the blood, Prince's selling, and the fact that they cut off the tag a couple of times, including one where the ref misses it, it really ramps things up so that when Prince monkey flips both heels and bounds back for the tag, the place comes unglued. Hassouni makes quick work of them on the comeback to take the second fall and the third, as you'd expect, is all celebratory stooging double teams to the crowd's delight. This is the style but it's got incredible talents with great personalities and is tightened up to make things mean even more than usual. If you've been following these tags at all, you should put on some headphones, listen with one ear, and watch this one.

Angelito vs. Albert Sanniez (JIP) 2/19/77

MD: We get the last ten minutes of this and it's just wild action. Stylist vs stylist. Juniors. They just really go at it. Counters to counters, big shots, huge spots. Some fun parallel stuff (be it both guys going for a drop down at the same time or later on when Sanniez hits a press slam into a gut buster and Angelito follows with a fireman's carry into one). Sanniez is smoother but Angelito is pretty imaginative. The thing is, Sanniez has to take all of this stuff and make it look good! The absolute craziest thing is a sunset flip bomb off the apron by Angelito to Sanniez. In 1977. Just nuts. Sanniez hits a bomb later in the ring, which I don't think we've seen too much in a while. They're working towards the draw, but they're working exceptionally hard. Sanniez looks like an all-timer here and in a vacuum this is probably some of the most action-packed ten minutes of footage in the whole set. 

Walter Bordes vs. Zarak 3/12/77

MD: Sorry guys, switch to the right earbud on this one until around the 15:30 mark and then go left. Anyway, Bordes had an absolutely undeniable connection with the crowd. It may have been inherited but you watch a match like this, you see him get fiery and just take one swipe at an opponent, not even landing, and you hear the crowd start singing Mamadou and it's beyond doubt. They go even more nuts with the singing when he tosses out Zarak later. He knew it, knew how to play into it, and here, he had an opponent who understood it just as well, for Zarak was our old friend Batman, David Smith-Larsen.

Larsen, here wrestled completely differently but with the same sort of theatricality he brought to Batman. Here he was a strutting, masked strong man with big power moves and mean clubbering blows. He overpowered Bordes' early attempts but ultimately got outwrestled, the first fifteen minutes or so being very entertaining along these lines. Eventually though, Bordes missed a top rope headbutt (or splash) and Zarak really took over with huge power moves, a press slam into a gut buster, a fireman's carry into a slam, Quasimodo's tombstone position press up move. Ultimately, he catapulted Bordes out and forced him to take some really nasty bumps to the outside. But Bordes was a hero true and he came back and tried for pin after pin after pin as the clock ticked down. This was probably the best push to a draw that we've seen, really gripping stuff with Bordes trying everything and Zarak slipping out again and again. It's not the best match we've seen but it truly felt iconic and really gives you a sense of the skill, flash, and attitude of mid 70s French Catch.

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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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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Doukhan! Shadow! El Arz! More Mystery Wrestlers! One is Walter Bordes!

Arpad Weber vs Josef el Arz (JIP) 11/29/75

MD: We get the last 14 minutes of this. I'm though the guy in red was Guy Mercier, just from the way he looks and moves and hits and his fall away slam at the end, but I seem to be wrong. (We were told later that he was Arpad Weber) I'm not sure who the guy in blue is but I'm hoping we can crowd source it off of the announced public warning if nothing else. (And this was Josef el Arz which I should have spotted). It's a really good 14 minutes. The first few aren't super inspiring as Blue chokes and lays in nerveholds on Red, but once the comeback starts, they don't stop, just laying in big blow after big blow with some big bumps to the outside. Blue had great headbutts and wasn't afraid to throw them. Red had heavy heavy clubbering shots. This had more of a Red advantage in revenge, but Blue wasn't afraid to stand up to him and fire back. They were fighting to a draw but they were FIGHTING to it which is so much of what we want from this footage.

By the way, the date on this isn't incorrect. We have almost nothing at all in 1975. It'll pick up again in 76 somewhat at least. There still is footage to go.

Walter Bordes vs El Demonio Rojo(?) 11/29/75

MD: Somewhere in the last month or two of watching, we saw our last Rene Ben Chemoul match and I'm sad to see him go. He was such an interesting, unique wrestler, but Bordes is the legacy he leaves behind and we have more of his matches to go. Here he was up against a masked man who served well as a bruising base. Nothing was particularly novel in this match but it was cool to see certain things, like the fast rope running or Bordes bumping to the floor, or his endless cartwheels towards the finish, in color. The masked man had some mean shots, a step on the face, big corner whips, a fireman's carry drop straight to the floor, but nothing that overly stood out. He was simply good at his job. It was actually a little funny in the finishing stretch after all those cartwheels and dropkicks to see Bordes stop to play to the crowd instead of moving on with it and eating a little punch to his gut (not quite registered) for his trouble. Between that and the masked man not exactly selling a hard whip into the corner a minute or so before, there was just a slight undertone that they weren't 100% on the same page. In general though, this was a nice little Bordes showcase match, but in color.

Georges Cohen & Gass Doukhan vs Black Shadow & Josef el Arz 1/3/76

MD: I really wonder about these episodes with crowd noise but no commentary. Maybe what was kept was a different feed? The biggest advantage of color so far is definitely the ring jackets Black Shadow had a pretty amazing gold deal and then red tights. You'd think for how often they'd tagged, he and El Arz would match more but nope. On the other hand Doukhan and Cohen did match with blue jackets and white tights. Thankfully, we know all these guys and they're announced clearly. The downside is that we're already into 1976, having had almost no shows at all in 75. At least it'll stabilize a bit now again.

People ask about the quality dropping as the years go on but it really doesn't. This was just as good a tag as most that we'd see in the 50s or 60s, maybe not as hard hitting or technical, but with more actual heat than you'd get fifteen years earlier. In fact, there was too much heat here! The first fall ended with around eight minutes of Josef and Shadow doing what they did best: one would take liberties with stomps or shots and draw the ref so that the other could do it which would then draw the ref allowing for the first to take over again. This lasted through a tag but they had the numbers and momentum advantage, ultimately taking that fall. When the second fall started, Shadow immediately used a hairpull from the outside and a fan ran out of the crowd to throw wild kicks at him on the apron. Crazy scene.

Before and after that, everyone got to show off. For Josef, that meant hard shots and tossing his weight around. For Shadow it was bumping out of the ring over and over again, especially after getting dropkicked. The fans were so into the comeback towards the end that they started chanting Mamadou Mémé as if Doukhan was Rene Ben Chemoul or something. I've never heard them do it for anyone but him or Bordes. After the riot scene they let the stylists take over for most of the rest of the match, including some big double teams and heel miscommunication that led to catapults and the like, and a nice tandem finishing moment of Doukhan and Cohen hitting different things at the same time which I haven't seen to much of in the footage.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corn! Malmoa! Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Asquini! Lagache!

Jacky Corn vs. Frank Malmoa 11/9/73

MD: The good thing about being this deep into the footage is that we really do know some of the wrestlers. I can write a lot about Gilbert LeDuc or Rene Ben Chemoul, and yes, about Jacky Corn. He's the sort of guy who will outwrestle you to start, that will dive you to nasty tactics, will survive them, and then will forearm you in the face three times, toss you out of the ring, and get you in a hold just so he can stomp on your fingers. He did that here. He also elbowed Malmoa's skull repeatedly while holding him in a Fujiwara arm bar. I liked Malmoa but I don't know if I need to see him more than this. He had a way of getting ahead by doing something dirty, appealing to the crowd, and then getting annoyed and admonishing him when they didn't give him the credit he deserved. It's a simple act but an effective one. I liked how they could do similar exchanges, primarily things like top wristlocks into headscissors into headstand escape attempts and have them feel different and mean something different at the three minute point and then the eighteen minute point of the match because of what had transpired in between. My favorite Corn matches are probably the ones where he's beat down for a while and then comes back in a big way and this was more of smaller slights that were quickly avenged, with the idea that Malmoa was never a huge threat, but it was still fun to see him fire back and to see Malmoa get what was coming to him.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Bruno Asquini/Pierre Lagache 12/7/73

MD: Asquini had previously been a stylist and he had some clunkier than usual exchanges with Bordes and Ben Chemoul though they were still quick and effective. When it was time for them to take over, primarily through cheating and controlling things in the corner, he did a lot better. He could put on a competent beating. Lagache stood out more for stooging and complaining and it was great to see his carefully coifed hair become more and more wild as the match went worse and worse for him. There was extended heat on the end of the first fall through a tag between Ben Chemoul and Bordes and Bordes really took a mauling getting tossed over the top repeatedly and then kept out of the ring with kicks and hard shots. The comeback came a little too easy in the second fall, but Bordes' finishing sequence of the three cartwheels, the two headscissors takeover, and the leap up victory roll remains one of the best trademark sequences in all the footage. The third fall had some more beatdown and another comeback which was just a little too easy, but it all felt more balanced and maybe a little less celebratory than usual. It was still nice to see Bordes and Ben Chemoul against some new opponents.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Montreal! Henker! Corn! Leduc! Schmidt! Frisuk! Viracocha! Tejero! Ben Chemoul! Bordes!

Inca Viracocha/Anton Tejero vs Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes 1/18/73

MD: This was exceptional. So many of these Ben Chemoul and Bordes tags (and Ben Chemoul and Cesca for the six matches we have of them together before Bordes) are so, so good that it's hard to rank them but this has to be towards the top of the list. Viracocha did everything well, but Tejero was just an amazing big bumping base that had the visual of being almost Brazo like to really put it over the top. This match might set some sort of record for bumps over the top and to the floor or off the apron as Tejero just went over again and again in the first third, Bordes got absolutely killed in the second, and then the heels got their comeuppance in the last. There were some absolutely amazing sequences like Bordes getting lawn darted and bouncing into the front row only to come back on the second attempt at it with cartwheels and dropkicks as he bounded around the ring and took out both opponents.

The heat was strong and meaningful, cutting off the ring and taking out first Ben Chemoul and then Bordes, who had his back just demolished with whips and creative tosses to the floor and a huge backbreaker. He had a great bit of hope in there as he fought back in but over shot on a flying body press and got stamped out. Then the comeback was fiery and full of revenge and the final fall was hugely entertaining including a great spot where they crushed the ref between the two Peruvians and a high energy finish where Bordes leaped to the top and got his flying body press. I don't really see how this could be any better considering what they were trying to accomplish.

PAS: This was really great, felt like a classic lucha match, with Viracoeha and Tejero as big bumping, big stooging rudos, and the Chemoul and Bordes iconic technicos. Bordes was bumping big and I loved his big KO right hand, and when he went wild and started cartwheeling and flipping all over the ring. Tejero spent more time flying out of the ring then in it almost, and Bordes especially just got tossed everytime he hit the floor. Totally breezy 30 minutes, really something nearly any wrestling fan can enjoy. 

Mr. Montreal vs Der Henker 2/10/73?

MD: Big time heavyweight clash here. Henker was a big powerhouse but so was Montreal. Early on they played it up with Henker jamming Montreal's mares and headlock takeovers in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It took a shoulder block (also jammed) and a rushing headbutt to the gut to even get him into a position where the headlock takeover worked. This might have been methodological at times, but there was always that sense of struggle. The first half of this was really the two of them trading holds with neither getting an advantage. Eventually Henker's inside shots won out and he did take over with nerveholds and rabbit punches. Montreal came back big, dropkicking Henker out and tossing him around the ring, but he overstretched by going to the mask. That let Henker toss him out and post him and the writing was on the wall after that. While Montreal didn't bleed, he did sell it all well enough to really get over that it was the beginning of the end. The appeal in a match like this is that guys that are bigger and stronger are showing the technical prowess. There were less in-and-out escapes but they played up the power and the struggle instead, and Montreal did go up and over out of a top wristlock into a headscissors. It was just the right amount of flash to go along with the hammering blows and the just overwrought enough battling over a test of strength or full nelson.

Jacky Corn/Gilbert LeDuc vs Daniel Schmidt/Janek/Jean Frisuk 2/10/73?

MD: This is our first look at Schmidt and the first time we've seen Frisuk (Fryziuk, called Yanek here) in ten years. And this was very good. In part it almost felt like a throwback to the 50s with some of the holds, some of the spots, and the absolute slugfest that it devolved into again and again. Schmidt and Frisuk played de facto heels, Schmidt young and spry with as much energy as anyone we've seen in this footage other than Bollet maybe, and Frisuk older, a little slower on some spots, but still able to throw fists (or forearms as it was) and grind down. I say de facto because it was clean, with LeDuc and Corn helping Frisuk up after winning the second fall and all hands getting raised after the third. They had taken the first by capitalizing quite mercilessly on Corn going over the top and when the hot tag came in the second, it was very hot. Corn and Leduc were some of the best sluggers in wrestling history and they got more than their share of revenge with one big shot after the next. Down the stretch, it was all parties firing off on each other. Basically, if you enjoy watching wrestlers throw hands, this is one of the best matches in many a year from the footage for it.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Lagache! Grelha! Saulnier! Renault!

Brief programming note: I've updated the Master List. It should be easier to search for a wrestler, or, once we get past the first year or so, to see things mostly chronologically. Feel free to share it widely and reply if you think we have any name or date or anything else wildly wrong.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs Pierre Lagache/Grelha Le Portugais 7/17/72 

MD: This isn't my favorite Ben Chemoul/Bordes match. It was one fall, which is often a plus but this was a long fall without a lot of drama and having the heels take a fall might have actually helped here. You can't judge these French matches against southern tags. It's a different thing in a different place from a different time in front of a different crowd with a different style. It becomes less about transitions and the tension between hope spots and cutoffs and the build to comeback then and more about ebbs and flows and how compelling the action is. It's about the engagement of the wrestlers with one another, the engagement of the crowd, the struggle of the holds, the cleverness of the spots, the personalities and skill and snugness.

Some of that worked out here, but some of it didn't. Lagache comes off as a smaller Bernaert to me, capable, able to base during fast action and for acrobatic escapes to holds, with the right put upon and sour attitude, especially in how he interacts with his partner and the crowd. He was fine. I wasn't overly impressed with Grelha (Maybe Grella?) though. He had the look right, a sort of caveman Mocho Cota (not quite Barbaro Cavernario unless he was the drunken mall Santa version of him). He'd bump over the top eagerly, would stooge well, occasionally had some good clubbering or stomping, but it just wasn't enough. The commitment wasn't fully there, the offense wasn't interesting enough, and he was too low on the overall weirdness scale. I've seen Lagache team with N'Boa against Ben Chemoul and Cesca and Grelha here was no N'Boa, at least not on this night. He paired better with Ben Chemoul who had a bit more theatricality in what he did and there were a couple of fun and unique spots like a catapult into the ref or Ben Chemoul and Bordes tying his hair into the ropes to trap him. In the end though, the stylists probably took too much of this and were never quite in enough danger. The one time the bad guys took over was due to drawing a public warning with blatant cheating and I liked that, and in some ways, it did set up them getting DQed at the end for running out of chances, but this either needed more drama or more shtick over all.

Michel Saulnier vs Guy Renault 10/9/72

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. They wrestled for a big golden trophy in this, and damn the wrestling here deserved a trophy. Beautiful beautiful match. Saulnier is certainly making an amazing case for himself with every appearance. The wrestling didn‘t have the kind of flips or whackiness like the more attention-drawing catch, but their movements were poetry in motion, each throw and running sequence executed to perfection. It‘s really amazing what you can do with armdrags, headlock takeovers and headscissors and varying them slightly. They worked all these really fast throws and ran the ropes, then settled it working control segments building to more elaborate counter sequences, then back to throws and rope running, all seamless. Just the kind of ebb and flow structure you want from a mat classic. Saulnier seemed to overwhelm the taller Guy Renault initially, so Renault worked a segment controlling him with a headlock which has to be one of the greatest headlock control segments I‘ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Renault started hitting Saulnier with these flying headbutts and drew some boos from the crowd, then Saulnier fired back with a tope of his own that knocked both guys down and felt truly epic. Saulnier made beautiful comebacks and went for broke when it was time to hit european uppercuts. Tempers flare a bit with guys ending up in stalemates and in the ropes and taking offense, but they kept working a clean match but amping the stakes building to the eventual conclusion. These two really looked like masters of the style here, never a slip up in anything they did and they worked this with such a pace that I have serious doubts any two workers in the world right now could rival them. Great great match, every once in a while I go back to check in on French Catch and end up being immeasurably happy that we have this stuff.

MD: This was a title match for a European Super Lightweight title. It felt more special for it and for the fact that Renault's wife and kids were at ringside. They cut to them a few times, though the kids didn't seem super interested and the wife was spoken to fairly deep into the match when Saulnier was grinding his face into Renault's cheek on a hammerlock. Renault was billed a Teddy Boy and was bigger, but he wrestled this more cleanly than we'd seen him in the past. While it got intense at times, it did have that traditional title match feel.

And for the first half of it, I got a little worried we jumped the gun on the 1972 MOTY as it was really sharp action, holds worked in and out of, just excellent stuff. They'd build to faster and faster spots and more and more complex escapes and then fall right back into the hold. That included a lot of fast pin exchanges and rope running, high level stuff of the sort that felt novel with Savage vs Steamboat if only because people hadn't seen Saulnier vs Renault. Some of these were put together with clever and meaningful bookends that utilized repetition in a way you don't usually see in this footage. They may have actually overdid it a bit because it was somewhat evident that they were low on gas by the midway point. At that point, there were some leglocks by Renault that weren't nearly as compelling as what they had lead with. They both picked the pace back up and got a lot chippier in their shots by the end but it was a title match worked clean and it never quite boiled over, instead ending on a series of quick pin attempts. Still this was very, very good and fairly different to what we've been seeing at this point in the early 70s.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Golden Falcons! Menard! Michel! Celts! Kamizake! Priore!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs.  Golden Falcons 5/13/72 

MD: A return match here. It starts exactly the same for the first thirty seconds or so which made me wonder, but it diverges after that. Very good as always when it comes to Ben Chemoul and Bordes, but you want just a little more heat sometimes. That's not to say that what we got in that direction wasn't good as the Falcons were excellent at controlling their corner and laying in clubbing (and clubbering) blows. All of the celebratory stylist stuff was excellent too, of course. Bordes increased his toolkit every match. There were maybe four or five new spots he did here that I'd never seen him do before, as varied as a belly to belly over head toss to more innovative tricked out rope running exchanges and even knife-edge chops which we don't often see in the footage. We have Ben Chemoul footage dating back fifteen years earlier and he could still go at such a high level here. Bordes might have outpaced him when it comes to flash but he still brought so much stylized sizzle and had such a connection with the crowd. And really, the fact that the two of them, 30 minutes into a match like this, could just shoot off 'rana after 'rana and dropkick after dropkick was just amazing.

Jean Menard/Alan Michel vs. Jean Corne/Michel Falempin (Third Fall) 5/22/72

MD: This is the last fall of a 2/3 falls match, and we get about eight minutes overall, plus the Celts celebration with a giant flag after the match. It was stylist vs stylist, mostly clean but occasionally boiling over in that 50s style. A lot of quick exchanges, some pin exchange sequences that were sharp and exciting. Usually when I see a new move in a match, I'll see it again in another with different people soon after. That was the case with the crucifix pin here, which I saw Bordes do recently for the first time in the footage. Really, by the end, this was just exchange after exchange and nothing really resonated too much. The tag setting made it hard for things to build towards a chippier finish because once they finished throwing shots, they'd tag out and go back to holds or pin attempts. The wrestling was all good though. I think we just missed out on not having the first two falls.

Kamikaze vs. Nicolas Priore 5/22/72

MD: I'm going to assume this was Aledo. He had a new deal where he took the mask off and revealed a ghastly bald head with a mustache and probably the eyebrows taped back to go full caricature. The announcer sold it as being worthy of a horror movie. Nothing incredibly spectacular out of him here, but he had a lot of stuff, going all in with the gimmick. That meant nerveholds and neck vices, throat shots and a nice punch to the cheek, chops to the head and stomach in a high/low pattern, skinning the cat by going through the second rope while getting tossed a couple of times, a bound up to the top to hit a diving chop to a prone Priore, a lot of bowing to the ref whenever he cheated, and this great bit where he sprung over the top to the floor like Savage to slam Priore's leg into the apron. He also had a way of sneaking in a quick counter to almost everything. So a lot of stuff and hoping at least some of it stuck. He had heat and they were behind Priore's comebacks so I suppose it did. Best part of this was probably when Priore came back and got his own revenge whack of the leg onto the apron. Kamikaze sold the leg well for a minute or two before deciding he had enough of it. Story of the match after that was Priore's head getting damaged from the chops and he selling the injury more and more until the ref stopped it. He had a few nice flourishes and comebacks including some brawling on the floor and a press slam gutbuster and giant swing, but it was all for naught. It's always interesting to see the Kamikaze act in full force but even with all of those affectations in offense and mannerisms, it only shows half of what we know Aledo could do.

 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! El Arz! Black Shadow! Mercier! Falempin! Viracocha! Gonzalez!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Les Libanese (Josef el Arz) & Black Shadow 2/12/72

MD: I forget if I declared it or not, but if so, let me do it again. Ben Chemoul and Bordes are up there with the Blousons Noirs as unquestionably one of the best teams in the history of French Catch. We have enough footage, which is always the tricky part. This was in two falls, one long and one short, with something akin to shine/heat/comeback in both falls. By not forcing the heels to win a second fall, the pacing felt better and less stilted. Bordes felt at the very height of his power here, incredibly athletic but also hard-hitting, with Ben Chemoul not quite as spry as he once was but an absolute master of timing and popping the crowd. El Arz was very impressive, having a distinctive way of taking shots, having a cruel lifting choke toss, just laying it in. Black Shadow based well and took stuff but he was less memorable in general. Where he shined the most was in controlling the corner and cutting off babyface comeback attempts. They built to triumphant crowd pleasing stuff as you'd expect and everyone left happy.  

Guy Mercier/Michele Falempin vs. Inca Viracocha/Jo Gonzalez 2/28/72

MD: A rare one-fall tag. If I'm not mistaken, Falempin recently passed away and he was a very solid talent and a good partner for the beloved Mercier, who was a slugger and a wrestler's wrestler both. Falempin brought the rope running and energy and big escape attempts. Viracocha remains a bit heavier and he almost has a Brazo feel to him as a heel, way smoother than you'd expect from looking at him while still hitting hard and stooging big. Not as big as Gonzales though (billed as a gypsy by the way), who really does feel like a special talent, able to cartwheel and leap back off the top rope, but also having such a canny sleaziness to his act, luring his opponent in by selling too big or begging off and constantly going for cheapshots from the outside. Very much a total package sort of wrestler. This went back and forth with frequent moments of heat but always leading to big comebacks and crowd pleasing spots, none of which were new but all of which were executed to perfection.

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