Tuesday is French Catch Day: Le Petit Prince! Michel Saulnier! Pierre Roinet! Jacky Corne!

La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 1/1/68

SR: JIP with about 10 minutes shown. Apparently, Michel Saulnier was the Prince's maestro, so I guess that explains the Rey/Psicosis nature of their matches. This was similiar to their 1967 encounter but different enough to be highly enjoyable. It seems their movements got even faster. Just some beautiful stuff on display here. The rope running, the armdrags, the emphasis on basic headscissors and pin attempts between all that, Petit Prince solebutting Saulnier in the face when you least expect it… it‘s all highly enjoyable and make me excited for having their next encounter in full.

MD: The JIP Saulnier vs Petit match we get is very similar to the back part of the full match, just with a different camera angle on some spots (which is a relief, actually, because we miss some of the best spots with the longer one due to the art overlay, like the hang-on-to-a-hold-as-they-go-over-the-ropes spot) and some more comedy ref interactions. They obviously had their travelling act down but so did Rey and Psicosis and Flair and Magnum and it's hard to fault something that people would so obviously want to see again and again. Where it diverged it was pretty much the same idea, just with a different way of getting there or things in slightly different order, but it's not worth focusing too much on that.

PAS: The clipped version of this made it feel like the WCW Pro version of a Rey vs. Juvi match. They kept the big stuff and we didn't see some of the build and interstitial stuff you get in the longer match. I really love WCW Pro matches and thought this was a total blast. Prince is such a unique wrestler,  he is basically Gallic Rey Mysterio Jr. 20 years before Rey. It is pretty crazy that you had a spectacular guy working this style in France, and nothing really like it anywhere else and then it bounces up again in Mexico, its like the wrestling equivalent of Newtown and Leibinz both inventing calculus. Prince had a bit of nasty in him too,  that spin kick looked awesome, I also loved the Saulnier kickout which sent the Prince to the front row.

ER: This did have a touring match feel to it, but it's a good routine. I really liked the beleaguered referee in this one, a guy working practically as hard as Prince and Saulnier due to the unpredictable movements of both. The ref's timing had to be exact as it would be far too easy to get clocked with a boot when either man was doing a sudden back handspring or floatover. There was a lot of timing that was similar to ref spots in midget matches (one midgets kicks out and sends the other into ref's arms or onto the ref's back, midget runs behind back and through legs of ref), except these guys are moving at 3x the speed. I loved the spot where Prince is rolling through an armlock and both start to spill to the floor, the hapless ref keeping them from hitting the floor, revealing that Prince kept the armlock held during the entire struggle and begins rolling again. He even rushed perfectly between them at the finish to break up the action, and if his timing were any worse he would have eaten an uppercut to the ear. And you never knew when Prince would break something wild out like his spin kick. I didn't see that coming and it played great, and when they broke out those uppercuts at the end I thought that was important, showing that all of their hopping around and dramatic shove off kicks from the back could lead to some real blows being thrown.


Pierre Roinet vs. Jacky Corne 1/1/68

SR: 1 Fall match going about 15 minutes. That is like a studio squash compared to the average French match length we‘ve seen so far, but it‘s fine to get a condensed version. Roinet sure had a tough guy look, with his Ahab beard and flannel patterned trunks, but Corne was just walking through him during the wrestling sections of this. It almost made me wonder if there was some legit animosity there, because Corne even forcefully executed moves like a shoulder pin in a way that didn‘t look pleasant. When they engaged in their first strike exchange, Corne just clocked him with the european uppercut. Roinet doesn‘t get much in during the early phase besides a nice bearhug, which Corne quickly worked his way out of anyways. I was starting to suspect a squash, but then Roinet was able to get something going hammering at Corne with kicks and forearm smashes. Some disgustingly thudding shots here. Corne quickly went back to business and finished Roinet off with a rope assisted move that really feels like a heel spot but the fans didn‘t take offense. Short and it got good when it got violent. I guess this does a really good job of making me want to see Corne vs. A high caliber technician or Roinet getting revenche on his opponent, but the more logical explanation for this going short is that they had to keep room for the main event of this show which was Andre vs. Scarface.

MD: I insisted on this one as a palette cleanser for the two Prince vs Saulnier matches as it was the second part of the JIP show. I think I ended up with more sympathy for Roinet than any wrestler we've seen so far in this project. A lot of the heels we've seen so far were just outright villains. This guy held his own for the early going but got outmatched midway and started to resort to whatever he could, mostly frustrated illegal attacks while Corne was grounded, targeting the back or really just anything he could get. It'd work for a minute or so but then Corne would come back twice as mean and twice as mad. It ultimately ended as a mauling. Some of his stuff seemed promising, like a bearhug exchange where he'd toss Corne against the ropes and back into it, but it ended with a cannonball headbutt to the gut. He'd hit a dropkick but then miss the second one. Or he'd just stomp and kick and pummel and uppercut, but then Corne would come back and brutalize him. At one point, Corne won a strike exchange with a spinning kick that sent Roinet sailing out of the ring. When he came back in Corne just grabbed him and sent him out the other side of the ring. So ultimately this was a slight contest but an enjoyable exercise in mastery, brutality, and frustration.

PAS: This kind of nasty fist fight in very much my shit. Having this follow the Prince match is liking having an Ultimo Dragon match lead up to Ashura Hara and Takeshi Ishikawa beating the bricks off of each other. You might buy the tape for Ultimo, but its Hara who sticks with you. This match starts off like a violent Finlay squash, and then turns into Finlay vs. Regal as Roinet powered up and started firing back and was bringing as much heat and he absorbed early. It was a cool story as Roinet was outmatched but was going to go out on his sword. Those forearms he was landing had some concussive thuds and the corner exchange between both guys was pretty thrilling. Man was Corne a beast, Matt and Sebastian mentioned him chucking Roinet out of the ring, but they did mention his knife edge chop to the throat and the face, that was the kind of thing that would make Wahoo McDaniel cringe.

ER: Unfamiliar with both men, I saw the sinister bearded Roinet and thought he was going to murder Corne. What I didn't know was that Corne was one of the hardest hitting motherfuckers that any of us have seen in a ring. And sometimes, after getting knocked to his knees by another Jacky Corne combo, it looked like Roinet himself had no idea how hard he was about to get hit. There was one point where Roinet was on his knees buckled, right arm clutching at his ribs, and I thought he wasn't going to get back up. But eventually he got up and fired back, and it was one of the stiffest matches we've seen from this French footage. I still couldn't get over Corne's combos, as sometimes they looked like they wouldn't have much on them, but they landed flush. Corne doesn't have exaggerated wind-ups or punchy follow through, he comes in short and close and he gets incredible impact from such close range. His chops are among the best chops I've seen, thrown high up by the throat - much too high for my comfort - instead of to the broad of the chest, and they land quick and sharp. He had a body shot that was also a real scene stealer, used as the mic drop moment of a few exchanges, and between his chop and his left to the body it felt like he had enough for a 1-2 finisher. I love how this all broke down, loved Roinet's big bump to the floor and the way he threw himself into a hotshot for the finish, and especially loved Corne's violence which lead to our big slug out. 

La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 10/4/69

SR: 1 Fall Match going 30 minutes. For some reason, they kept overlaying this match with classical music and paintings, which adds to the flair of what you are seeing. I honestly thought this was another borderline masterpiece that easily stands up to any other level of highly respected wrestling match we've known before. Sure, it‘s transparent that these two had their routine and their go-to spots, but you have to keep in mind that back then people couldn‘t rewatch matches and their previous match aired over a year before. This match was more ground-based and didn‘t have the same level of crazy elaborate spots the 1967 match had (although there were still a few spots that any modern audience would shit their pants at if two current workers pulled them off as clean and fast as they did here) but I think the best part about these matches is not the flippy shit they do but the way they will chuck each other hard to the mat with arm throws and headlocks. And there was plenty of that here. Saulnier really wanted to beat that fucking Prince this time and was grinding him down with headlocks and armlocks hard, which lead to some great subtle selling from the Prince as Saulnier was just wringing his head off. It probably says a lot about me that my favourite moment in all this was Saulnier catching the Prince with an extremely well timed and vicious looking headlock takeover in the middle of a criss cross running spot. Saulnier also has a really great crossbody. People probably won‘t like that none of their matches have a finish but I guess that was kind of the point.

MD: This was tremendous, providing real substance to the spectacle that we've seen with the JIP matches. After seeing the second JIP match, I was impressed, but I sort of wondered if what we saw was all that it was: a bunch of spirited, expert amazing spots, without anything to really ground it or give it meaning. I was already wanting to see both of these guys against bases instead of each other. I was worried about diminished returns watching three of basically the same thing though.

Then this match came and blew me away. The first twenty minutes are basically three extended hold sequences where Saulnier just hangs on no matter what Prince does. We've seen that as a narrative tool in a number of these more serious French matches but nothing like this. They just build it and build it and build it, weaving in more and more elaborate escape attempts and Saulnier either cuts Prince off or just hangs on no matter what. By the time they're going full blast for the part of the match we were more familiar with, that entire crowd badly wanted what the came to see, the lightning quick spots and acrobatic athleticism that they only had bits and pieces and tastes of for the first twenty minutes. That's the joy and the heartbreak of this footage. We don't have another full match between the two. Without this match, we would have never known that they set up that grand finale fireworks display with something so disciplined yet imaginative. Without another full match we have no way of knowing if it was something they always did or something just for this weird art special. But we're so, so much better off for having this match in full, so we swallow the unknown and be glad for what we have.

PAS: It is really cool that we get to see the unclipped version of their signature match. I remember when we would all get clipped NJ TV where we would miss the first six minutes of the NJ Juniors stuff and you always imagined how great it was. When we finally started getting unclipped versions later, it turned out the first five minutes of matwork in NJ Juniors matches kind of sucked. That is the opposite of what happens here, as we get the clipped section and it rules. Saulnier was a hell of flight grounder, and I loved all of the great work he did to keep the cork in the Prince. That grounded headlock takeover Sebastian mentioned was truly a thing of beauty. I also though the Prince was cool on the mat; his two big holds, the headscissors and the keylock were really great to watch. He would use his speed and athleticism to hold onto the holds, every time Saulnier saw some daylight, Prince would close the blinds. I do think it is a little weird that these matches seem to never have finishes, but it is hard to argue with the beautiful stuff we got. Excited to see how both guys work with other opponents.