Tuesday is French Catch Day: Boucard! Cohen! Kamikaze 1! Rene Ben! Bordes! Kamikaze 2!

Daniel Boucard vs. Georges Cohen 12/26/68

MD: Tremendous match. It had that sort of chippy 50s feel of amazing wrestling with everything eventually breaking down but with that flashier 60s sheen. The first ten-fifteen minutes was just brilliant stuff, with them starting very even in their chain wrestling and on the mat and then giving way to Boucard with the advantage with a headscissors, wristlock, and full nelson and Boucard doing everything in his power to escape, only for Boucard to hang on. There was just an extra level of athleticism in the escape attempts. Cohen's bridge was extra sharp. The way he'd whip up to his feet to try to get a beal, only for Boucard to hang on, had extra zeal. The kip up getting shut down again and again just worked. Then, despite holding the advantage, Boucard went chippy first with a brutal beat down, uppercuts and forearms and headbutts and some interesting things like a neckbreaker and head whip. 

Cohen fighting back with a headbutt to the gut out of the corner had the crowd up big for the comeback and he got plenty of revenge (though Boucard always kept swiping back when he could), before Boucard went to the leg and we got a few minutes of really strong selling and legwork that only ended with Cohen managing to kick Boucard out of the ring in desperation. Following that was more revenge and the eventual rush to the finish. They were working towards the draw but it never felt like something inevitable given the speed and intensity and the attempts at actually winning, despite both wrestlers selling massive exhaustion as they flung themselves with hammering shots at one another. We've seen enough matches end in the last minute that you just didn't know. Top notch stuff here.

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was the best French singles we've seen in awhile. They start with a bunch of silky smooth technical wrestling. It was like one guy would go for something spectacular, and then the other guy would do something even more spectacular to counter, and then they would cool it down for a bit with holds before repeating. It's a good way to work such a match and these two were flawless athletes. Eventually Boucard decided to batter Cohen with European uppercuts. He wasn't being a heel, but he jawed with the crowd a bit and twisted up Cohens leg. Cohen sold like a champ and they engaged in some breathtaking strike exchanges, up there with the best in the project. They also do a bunch of bonkers nearfalls and unpredictable rope running building to some huge Cohen ranas. These guys did toe to toe strike exchanges about as well as anyone in wrestling history, real edge of your seat stuff, and the nearfalls and spots were executed fast and beautifully. It would've been a good match if they had continued in the vein of the early technical wrestling but the dramatic second half completely elevates this.

PAS: Killer match which hits all of the great points of French Catch. Really fast athletic exchanges early, cool matwork and counters. I loved all the early headscissors and full nelson work, just endless cool counter wrestling. Then when it got nasty it got really nasty with both guys throwing heat. Sometimes these matches just end in draws, but here it felt like the pace got cranked up to eleven and both guys were throwing everything they had at each other to try to steal a win. Right up there with the best stuff we have watched so far, and a match which should join the pantheon of all time great wrestling.  

ER: A 30 minute draw is one of the more unsatisfying things in pro wrestling, and yet there is not one thing unsatisfying about this 30 minute draw. This was paced really well for a time limit draw, with some nice technical wrestling that kept threatening to sprawl into something more violent, then would settle back down before things got too violent to return to simple matwork. Boucard worked like a more stiff Nick Bockwinkel, able to cleanly work the mat but never waiting long before throwing his whole arm into uppercuts. Once we got into the painful snapmares and uppercuts the match kept moving to another level, with Boucard laying a vicious beating on Cohen in the corner. Boucard's uppercuts were nothing but hard contact, hooking Cohen's neck and chin with his inner arm while slamming his shoulder into Cohen's face. The uppercuts are so nasty that, in my favorite part of the match, the large referee grabs Boucard by the traps looking like Andre the Giant locking in a nerve hold, dragging Boucard out of the corner just to get him to stop all the damn uppercutting. Boucard sells the pain of the nerve hold, the ref lets go, and Boucard casually walks back to the corner and rocks Cohen with his hardest uppercut yet. 

Cohen's comeback is really fantastic, firing his best strikes of the match, punching back with his own nasty uppercuts, hard clubbing strikes to the back, and monkey flips that land Boucard as hard as suplexes. I love how often they would wind up in the ropes on every side of the ring. They weren't getting tied up in them and separated, they were getting flipped into them and falling awkwardly into them, getting thrown across the ring and seeing their limbs whip off the ropes. Things get more desperate and both men start throwing from disadvantageous positions, leaping from their knees to land headbutts to the stomach or grazing punches, and the entire run to the time limit was some of the best off balance striking ever seen in pro wrestling. We see a lot of stand and trade now, or even kneel and trade, and seeing exchanges like these really highlights how awful a lot of modern strike exchanges are. 

This was not two men voluntarily standing in one place and taking turns, this wasn't two guys pulling up chairs to have a seated punch out, this was two men getting knocked around and then throwing from wherever they wound up. Cohen knocked Boucard down to one knee with a punch, then held his jaw firmly in place while he landed another, also from his own knees. They staggered into knew spots, threw kicks to create distance, fell, leapt to their feet with offtime strikes that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, and they made it look like all rules of proper decorum had been thrown out. The time limit draw worked because Cohen and Boucard looked like they had completely forgotten about finishing a match within the stated limits of time, they only wanted to knock each other's block off. The crowd would buzz and roar louder with each mention of time, but these men were lost in a swarm of elbows and uppercuts, and we are better for it. 

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Kamikaze 1 and 2 12/26/68

MD: Really good tag here, with a better balance then we usually get. The smaller Kamikize was most likely Modesto Aledo, though they were masked and leaning hard into the over the top Japanese gimmick, stalking and crouching, with plenty of shots to the throat. When the Kamikazes were really going and targeting that head and throat, they looked great, going so far as to win the first fall with a spinning hangman's neckbreaker hold after what looked like a Katahajime. The match was full of things I've seen before in the footage from all parties, including Bordes using a half crab into a bow and arrow or almost a stretch muffler, and Ben Chemoul using a reverse knee crusher to the back of the head. One of the Kamikazes rolled in from the top rope to hit a chop at one point adding insult to injury, and I think we saw one of our first cross-armbreakers too. 

Very imaginative spots all around, with the best one maybe being Bordes eating a whip into a back body drop over the top rope and bumping huge. Everything clicked, with the stylists both selling and hitting their big stuff well, to big response. I'm excited to see Bordes continue to develop as he was great at grinding down holds but also launching big high spots, like just throwing out a press slam into a gutbuster when it was time to pop the crowd. Ben Chemoul hit his somersault senton and corner torpedo and worked the apron really well when his pupil was in trouble. The last ten minutes were maybe a little too celebratory for the good guys since it covered two falls, but the heat leading up to that had warranted it and no one left unhappy.

PAS: Tons of fun shit in this match. Kamikazes were clearly super skilled, and I could see Aledo under one of those masks. I loved how slickly they moved around the ring, and the fun bumping on all of the faces big moves. Bordes taking that huge bump was a real moment as well, insane stuff which feels like something that should be made into a gif. I agree that the finish was a bit wonky. Kamikaze's were really formidable until they weren't Chemoul and Bordes take 90% of the last five minutes, it was all cool offense, but it sucked all of the drama out of the match. Still enough individual coolness for me to heartily recommend.  

ER: We've decided to make Daniel Boucard/Georges Cohen our All Time MOTY for 1968, replacing an excellent young Andre (Jean Ferrer) French match. Boucard/Cohen is 30 minutes of excellence and deserves its place on our list.