Tuesday is French Catch Day: Wiecz! Koparanian! Gueret! Bollet! Alfred Hayes!

Eddy Wiecz/Eddy Koparanian vs. Georges Gueret/Andre Bollet 2/23/56 pt1 pt2

PAS: This is the earliest French footage available, and is a hell of start to this whole project. This isn't the balletic, frenetic, athletic middleweight Catch we have seen. This is four heavyweights pounding on each other. We start off with the top wrist lock lockups which are a Catch staple, and there are some cool flips and takedowns out of those, including a great looking drop toehold by Bollet. The heels (Guret and Bollet) start mixing in some cheap shots,It starts to get chippy, and then just unloads into some absolutely super violent forearm and uppercut exchanges. This is Johnny Valentine level violence from all four guys, including Koparanian doing these super nasty half chop, half eye rakes. We get a first fall win with an airplane spin by Koparanian. There is some really great stuff in the second and third falls as well, although the vicious forearm exchanges at the end of the first fall were the apex. I really liked Weicz working a half crab, and there was this super cool spot where Koparanian kept turing a body scissors into a leg stretch. Finish run of the third fall was really cool with Bollet getting especially viscous with a shot to the back of the head, only to fall to a top rope dropkick/schoolboy combo, which looked more like a Fantastics finish from the 80s, then something from the mid 50s.

SR: 2/3 Falls match that goes about 40 minutes. Our journey into French wrestling begins with Edouard Carpentier of all people. He‘ll be interesting to watch, since he obviously stands out in the US wrestling scene, but in France he might be just another guy. Although I imagine he will definitely get a bump from watching this French footage. This match wasn‘t quite in the super athletic French style that blew all of our minds in the first place anyways, it was instead a classic heat mongering affair. Gueret seemed rather non-descript, but Bollet drew a really loud negative reaction as soon as he was announced. He was a towering guy, he could clearly wrestle, but you could sense that this wouldn‘t be a wrestling heavy match very soon. The match was the type that I imagine sent folks into near riots all across Europe in the post WW2-wrestling boom. It starts with some slick arm rolls and nice wrestling, but they soon get to the real meat. Guys get bitchslapped, cheapshots are thrown, and eventually you have a bunch of heavyweights throwing forearm smashes with abadon. Gueret did look a little bland, but he sure knew how to throw those forearms. The heels would soon start to try and buckle their opponents to the corner to deliver nasty 2 on 1 beatdowns, and the faces would retaliate with ear rakes which the crowd loved. Koparanian was kind of bastard too, he would bitchslap the heels and get in cheapshots of his own. The whole match was worked like this, there would be moments of well executed wrestling, only for someone to throw a forearm or cheapshot and things would fire up. It‘s quite a long match, but they keep the pace up. Add 3 fun finishes and you have one hell of a match.

MD: By all rights, this should have been our first match last week. It is the first match chronologically in the set, but alas, it took a little longer to find the second half. It's 2/3 falls, long, fascinating, dynamic, in many ways, very easy to understand and familiar while also being unique and alien as any new footage can be. There are familiar faces in Bollet (who we've seen not all that long ago vs Andre) and Weicz who would become Carpentier. It goes forty to fifty minutes and there's so much to cover. Look, we could spend a paragraph just talking about how they use handshakes instead of handslaps to tag one another.

Bollet was the real heatseeker and Koparanian, more than Weicz, the charismatic babyface (one excellent at milking a moment). Everyone stood out. We are inundated with footage, but I'm going to remember Guerret's forearms, Weicz' weird slicing chops, and just how much of a goon Bollet was (both in the action itself and how after he won the second fall as he pranced about with some trash flying in the ring). The faces (white trunks) were faces and the heels (black trunks) were heels. There was illegal double teaming and a few measured and over heel miscommunication spots in the corner. It was familiar enough that when you watch it, you won't be lost at sea.

I won't always do this, because it's a terrible way to write a review, but I know the rest of the guys will carry the narrative weight and I just want to make everyone understand just what has been uncovered and why all of you should stop what you're doing and watch it. There were a hundred little details worth noting; we could never get to all of them: Bollet not shaking hands at the start and later avoiding Koparanian to build heat and anticipation; how much French fans seem love the make-a-wish style submissions in this and other matches; how the heels utilized their side of the ring and how Koparanian just pounded his way out of the corner; how dramatic and expressive Bollet and Koparanian were when they were taking and putting on holds respectively; Guerret's hugely credible forearms and fists and how Weicz judo flipped him to reverse one; the endless feet face-twists as super over babyface comeback spots (really all the revenge spots, like Koparanian's rabbit punches after Bollet's examples or the tit-for-tat hairpulls on top wristlock takedowns; revenge spots are the best); the way they used jerk headpokes as an insult; Weicz stopping Guerret's interference shot on Koparanian from mattering by running in with an armdrag to keep Bollet on their side of the ring; the cool Koparanian body-scissors counter that involved hooking his own feet up around the scissoring ones; the heel neck work at the end including Bollet's deep vice and quasi-hotshot; how serious any pinfall attempt was: the finish, a full-nelson set up for a missile dropkick, was preluded by the momentum shift of a mere kickout and it absolutely worked; and the post match celebratory backflips (Bollet had to get into the act and I think the fans were chanting for Guerret to do one too?). This isn't even the half of it. There's so much to see. It's absolutely overwhelming, and it all somehow comes together as a coherent, emotional whole.

Bollet is so fun on offense (both in his underhandeness and how he'd occasionally do something super athletic, like a flip to set up a drop toe hold), so it's a shame he ultimately works from underneath so much. As with what else I've seen so far from this footage, I wish there was a little more selling. It's not that things don't matter, but a lot of limb focusing (be it hand-stepping by Koparanian on Guerret or Guerret taking out Weicz's leg from the outside, etc.) is more to set up the next spot/opening than something that plays into a longer narrative. In general though, it's astounding how far the style had advanced by the mid-50s and how well they filled so much time in entertaining and meaningful ways. 


Al Hayes vs. Guy Robin 3/22/57

SR: This French gem features a 29 years old Al Hayes. Aside from that, there is an obvious thought looking at the matchup: how will a British guy fit into the French wrestling style? The answer is they meet up in the middle and work pretty much a World of Sports style match without rounds, with Hayes working classy British escapes, and Robin bringing the French touches, although the sights of the match were set on a chippy bout from the introductions. There it is immediately noticable how this match is pretty much the Roland Barthes description of wrestling exemplified: Hayes, the clean cut, tall technician who never complains and is never unfair, against the short, balding, somewhat mishapen looking Guy Robin. And Robin really embraces his role to the fullest being a pesky little goblin. And he is a total show here, gesturing big, diving all over the ring like he was Gargamel trying to catch a smurf. His out of control bumping, mannerisms and cartoony stooging were really awesome and may have carried the match. That is not to disparage Hayes, who had some quite beautiful escapes and knew to lay in the european uppercuts when it counts. At one point he did a totally GIF-worthy escape from a cravate that was slow and deliberate like Arkangel de la Muerte, at another he just lifted Robin and threw him, and my favorite may have been his beautiful sweep from the ground. It was almost like carny Jiu Jitsu. The whole match had a slow and deliberate pace, maybe because both guys weren‘t familiar, but they kept it simple and effective, with Robin really bringing the funk towards the end , earning himself a few public warnings and trying to crack Hayes with nasty backbreakers and armbreakers. Hayes retaliated with some nasty face scrapes that seemingly bloodied Robins nose and got sold with BattlARTS style 9 counts. Classic formula match executed extremely well, and it was really cool to see the classy British technical style in place at this stage.

MD: At some point, I'm going to stop being in awe with what we gain in every new match. Not yet though. As noted by others, this was a proto-World of Sport style match, with Hayes as the youthful, intrepid, blue-eye and Robin as the underhanded rogue. We have almost no Hayes on tape: the Veidor match from the 70s, the 80 Heenan manager vs manager match where he's a defacto babyface, and very little else. I love Hayes vs Veidor and I think on some level, despite knowing how unlikely it was, I was hoping for another look at full on heel Hayes here. What we have instead is probably more illuminating, however, because it gives us a more rounded triangulation of Hayes as a wrestler and even some interesting early trappings of "Judo Al" with chops and some of the takedowns. It's also a good look at a very dynamic Robin as the frenetic rulebreaking stooge.

Robin leaned into his role, bounding back and forth early on like a spring, creation motion and energy. He was technically sound, though constantly outwrestled by Hayes, resorting instead to the behind the ref's back rabbit punches that were WoS standard, and adding in a backbreaker variation from that position cool single-arm drops, and pretty nasty knees. There was something almost Backlund-esque to Hayes, with his perfect posture on mares and the way he'd power out of certain holds, to go along with the more deliberate point-by-point escapes and the memorable escalating cravat escapes (first slow and then lightning fast). When he advanced to fighting a bit dirty, whether it be tweaking the nose to allow for an escape or the fisticuffs, it was all with a stiff upper lip. No jury in the world would convict him. The finish was a culmination of what came before, with Hayes bloodying Robin, reversing one of those arm drops, hitting the cradle powerbomb flip and just cinching in a deep accordion pin. Everything was precise enough that you could check your watch by it but it all felt perfectly natural and like a true athlete at work.

PAS: I thought this was absolutely great. Lord Alfred Hayes was a great character actor in the wrestling I grew up on, as sort of a Benny Hill drunk British goof in Tuesday Night Titans sketches. It is so cool to see him young and handsome and incredibly skilled. I loved the contrast in this match with Hayes as an incredibly slick mat master, and Robin as this twitchy aggressive hawk. He was like the guy in a pickup game you hate to play, picking up full court, pushing his chest into you while you are trying to drive, diving at your knees for a loose ball. Hayes worked at his own pace, and had some really beautiful counters, I especially loved all of his escapes from cravates. Finish was really cool with Robin landing these nasty Fujiwara armbar takedowns, and Hayes getting frustrated with Robin's bullshit and messing up his nose, and pinning him deep.