Tuesday is French Catch Day: Cohen! Chico de Oro! Corn! LeDuc! Henker! Schmid!

Georges Cohen vs Chico de Oro 2/23/74 

MD: Beautiful wrestling here. Stylist vs stylist, but they're juniors. This is our only look at Chico who was billed as a champion of Spain and 25 years old (to Cohen's 30). This never even came close to boiling over, as there was sportsmanship from beginning to end. As the match went on, Chico got knocked out of the ring frequently, or both might go over, and Cohen was always quick to help him back in Andre Chaveau, the ref, got more heat than either guy as he admonished them after some late comedy kickouts where they landed on him. But the wrestling was very good. It was full of struggle but more of a scrappy sort than a gritty sort, if that makes sense. It was more about preventing holds in the first place by constantly moving and scrapping and then preventing escape attempts as opposed to hanging on through them (though there was plenty of that too). Cohen had seniority and home advantage and was the aggressor for a lot of this, and he got to kick out both the old favorites (like the long body scissors in-and-outs) as well as some more advanced things like a tapatia and this great toehold that I had to watch three times to understand how he got it on. Chico sold well and fought well from underneath and had some fun things of his own including a nice version of Leduc's "toupe" headspin (which I finally have a name for). It was nice to see Cohen really stretch in a singles match even if you always want things to boil over at least a little. I don't think there was one strike in this whole match, which while a detriment in some ways, was a huge credit in others. 

Jacky Corn & Gilbert LeDuc vs Der Henker & Daniel Schmid 3/30/74

MD: We come in JIP here, maybe as much as twenty minutes in. It still goes another 20 so that seems like a bit much. By this point, we know it's going to be great when Henker gets in with these two, and Schmid is such a great underling goon, pudgy in a way that does remind you of Buddy Rose, but with this habit of running headlong into every shot and being able to fire back fairly well on his own. It's hard to explain what makes Henker so effective. He's big and strong but not the biggest and strongest we've seen. He has the tombstone but that's a blip in a 30+ minute match. An exclamation point at the end of a paragraph where it's the paragraph itself that matters. He just has a way of making the traditional monster clubbering look more punishing and violent and dangerous than most others. It's a sort of physical charisma where he can shrug someone off of his shoulders or cut off an escape attempt and make it look like it's a monster actually doing it. It stands out. And of course LeDuc and Corn play their roles perfectly at all times. They'll fight back cleverly (LeDuc undoing the mask for a distraction, for instance) and valiantly (standing toe to toe with both opponents) and when it comes time, with fire. Schmid is the perfect guy to eat LeDuc's headstand headscissors takeover and Corn's comeback forearms. This isn't as good as the handicap match because it doesn't tell as primal a story but there's nothing about the work that is any less. And hey, there's even a random Pat Roach (the English Giant) cameo as he comes in after Henker wins the second fall to set up a match that unfortunately we do not have.