Tuesday is French Catch Day: Corne! Falempin! Viracocha! Haggerty! L'Ange Blanc! L'homme Masque

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs. Inca Viracocha/Steve Haggerty 10/8/69

MD: Energetic tag as the Celts got to shine. Corne hits hard and throws hard and sells sympathetically. There's an extra bit of oomph to what he does. I liked the heel side. They were quick to cheat, used the ref's being distracted well, really laid in shots, and stooged huge when it was time. I thought the match built to big tags and comebacks better than most French tags of the era do. The quick tags and rope running in the last few minutes was chaotic in the best way, but the fans were into this the whole way through. Haggerty fit right in as a blustery loudmouth scrapper.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 25 minutes. I wonder if they did some clipping at some point because there were some suspicious interviews of audience members. This was another junior tag with a fast, fast pace. I think this is the first time we see Inca Viracocha and while he doesn't do any neat moves like the other Inca he is another true rudo. This had the same layout as all these other tags, they work hard and fast exchange, faces shine, occasionally heels will beat the shit out of the faces in their corner. Once again, the faces didn't seem to have much trouble outside a few patches. Falempin at one point took a super nasty bump to the ring apron. It was followed up with some mean stomps to the back and I thought we were actually gonna get some limbwork but instead he hit a flying headbutt and tagged out. I prefer the exchanges these guys are working to Dragon Gate and the heels in this kicked ass stomping and punching people and bumping a ton so it was another good quality match overall.

L'ange Blanc vs. L'homme Masque 12/13/69

MD: Ok, so about halfway through the match, there's a pelican, and I don't know why there's a pelican, but it hangs out with the announcer. It's maybe the weirdest thing I've seen since the Martian was there. This is too late for L'Ange Blanc to be under further WON HOF consideration but I'm not sure it tells us a ton. He was not under the mask here. He spent a good chunk of the match getting put into a cobra by L'Homme Masque and getting out. He spent a good chunk of the match trying to cheat or get a cheapshot in or mess with L'Homme's mask to the crowd's delight, only to get chastised by the ref. That was part of the story, I guess, that when the ref chastised him, he'd stop. When he chastised L'Homme, L'Homme wouldn't. While I can't say we've seen L'Ange Blanc's star power in the footage so far, not relative in any major way to someone like Ben Chemoul or Corn or LeDuc or Weicz, I will say that the crowd was very much up for everything he did. A tecnico/rudo ref double standard is one of the more irritating ways to build a match (it can be an element, but if it's the one that drives absolutely everything, that's problematic). I will say that L'Homme Masque is entirely credible. If all he does for the first half is drive L'Ange down with a cobra hold and choke him when he can, he's so big and menacing and persistent that you buy the threat of it. In the back half, he does a little more, even if it's stomp and clubber or hit a huge tombstone. Eventually he goes to the well twice on a drop onto the top rope and L'Ange punches his way out and gets some big offense. Unfortunately, that enrages L'Homme who picks him up in an interesting way and drapes him onto the top but ends up drawing the DQ. I'm not going to say this was wildly illuminating but you did get more of a sense of what the unmasked White Angel looked like as a folk hero. 

SR: 1 fall match going about 30 minutes. The angel lost his mask. He's no longer the mysterious avenger, but he's still a formidable worker. This was WORK to the max. Everything they do in this match, they do with a purpose and to milk reactions. They work around the masked mans mask. They work around Blanc wanting to throw punches but being too valiant to do so. They work around a heel ref. Everything here is done for reaction, and they succeeded. It was the kind of work that would put tears in Tracy Smothers eye. Aside from all the bullshittery, there was some cool wrestling. Blanc still moves very fast and has really beautiful dropkicks, and the masked man really torques him with some cool upper body holds and chokes. Really trying to pop the Angels neck. He also works some nerve holds, and it was some of that trademark French "actually compelling" nerve hold work with Angel Blanc showing some impressive facial expressions (really embracing the mask loss for the better) and fighting hard to get out. Most of this was L'Homme kicking ass too, so it never felt like other French matches where the face is seemingly never in trouble for long. This stuff won't win workrate awards to those who look for super high end matches, and the shitty DQ finish underlines that, but both guys looked like wrestlers wrestlers, and it was an entertaining romp.