ohtani's jacket

Jean Bout vs. Liano Pellacani (aired 2/15/57) This was fantastic. Just a great heavyweight fight. The crowd was hot and both guys did a great job of whipping them into a frenzy. I was impressed by the pace they worked in the opening fall. Even when things slowed down in the second fall, the intensity was still there, and when they finally let rip with the brawling there were all these guys in the crowd punching the air and egging them on. I've mentioned before that it can be difficult to get behind the French baby faces, but I thought Bout was tremendous here. He kept stalking Pellacani around the ring like some kind of machine that can only go forward. Pellacani drew a lot heat by simply being Italian. At one point someone threw a cigarette or cigar at his arm. He wasn't quite as good as Jim Oliver, but he was burly and good at the rough and tumble stuff. They worked an injury finish, which was a common finish in Europe and at times the bane of my existence when going through the British footage. I was okay with it here since we haven't seen too much of it yet and it didn't ruin the bout. For what it's worth, I've been really impressed by the seconds in this 50s footage. Man, do they put some work in. They even fix the wrestlers' hair. The crowds are great too. They look like caricatures from a French movie. We get another few appearances from these guys so I'm looking forward to seeing how they go with other workers, and whether the chemistry was simply good this night.

For what it's worth, here are my favorite early Finlay matches before he hooked up with Princess Paula and changed his look (and style): Dave Finlay vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (3/9/82) Dave Finlay vs. Ringo Rigby (2/16/83) Dave Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (3/23/83) Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (6/13/83) Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (8/23/83) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (11/23/84, JIP Rd 4)

Dave Finlay & Ian Gilmour vs. Guy Mercier & Alan Mitchells (aired 8/25/80) Ian Gilmour was one of the golden boys of British wrestling during the 1970s. The footage we have of him is mostly of him tagging with Jeff Kaye though he does appear in one of the only Jackie Pallo matches we have. It looked like he was having fun playing a lippy heel in front of a delightful French crowd. Finlay still had a bit of the "lad" about him. He looked like some kid Gilmour brought with him on tour. I think he's better in his early ITV work but perhaps I'm biased. You could see flashes of his mean streak during the beatdowns he gave but he mostly played second fiddle to Gilmour. He looked like an absolute thug, though. You could have easily cast him as the muscle in any Brit crime flick from this era. He seemed to have a perpetual scowl on his face, and the way he beat guys up felt like he was trying to hurt them. The French guys were classic old-school, French grapplers. They looked like the splitting image of amateurs turned professionals, and body sculptors. I'm more familiar with Mercier's son, Marc, than either guy, but they looked like solid technicians. The match was entertaining. The crowd certainly enjoyed it. I kept wondering if the commentator was Roger Couderc. Whoever he was, he was having a whale of a time. There were a few too many shenanigans with the ref for this to enter the cannon of great French matches, but it was fun.

Before I dive into this week's catch, I want to clear up some of the confusion over what promotion is running the shows. I did a little digging and apparently there were four promotions in the 60s and 70s. The first was the Federation Francaise de Lutte Professionnel (The French Federation of Professional Wrestling) headed by matchmaker Maurice Durand. His stable of wrestlers included Gilbert Leduc, Le Bourreau de Bethune, Cheri Bibi and his convict henchman Eric Husberg, Jack de Lassartesse, Jose Arroyo, The Batman and James Brown. Then there was the Federation Francaises des Lutteurs independants (The French Federation of Independent Wrestlers) led by Roger Delaporte. This was the promotion that was based in the Elysee Montmartre. Its talent pool included Delaporte and Andre Bollet, Bobby Duranton and his valet Firmin, Lino di Santo, Frank Valois and Eddy and Jacky Wiecz. The Federation International de Lutte de Combat (The International Fighting Federation) was headed by Albert and Rene Ben Chemoul and Alex Goldstein. It included wrestlers like Walter Bordes and Gilbert Cesca. This group ran shows at the Cirque d’Hiver. I believe a lot of the 70s footage we have is from this promotion. Lastly, there was the Federation Francaise de Catch Professionnel (The French Federation of Professional Wrestling) run by Robert Lageat and Etienne Siry. This promotion featured names like L'Ange Blanc, Andre Drapp, Jean Menard, Le Petit Prince, Jacky Corn, and others. According to which source you read, these promoters either competed with each other for the ORTF television slot, or they worked together sharing talent with each other. We don't have the full picture yet. A lot of the English information is confusing as it says that Roger Delaporte took over the Federation Francaise de Catch Professionnel in 1960 but it's not clear if that is the promotion run by Lageat and Siry or some other organization. The English info points to Delaporte as being the most important promoter at the time but the French info leans more toward Lageat, Siry and Durand. At the moment, it's not clear which promotion was on TV at which time. Hopefully, that will become clearer as more footage is released. It may depend on the venue. It doesn't appear that there was any type of unifying body like the NWA or Joint Promotions, but we're still trying to put together the pieces.

Marc Rocco vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 10/4/79) Hara looks like Rudy Ray Moore in this match. Hara was such a fabulous talent. I don't think people appreciate how great he was in the early part of his career. Rocco was so timid in Japan. If you watch 1979 WoS Rocco, he is the most brash, loudmouthed wrestler imaginable, but he was a pussycat here. Match never reached any great heights but I feel as though Hara deserves his own thread. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dynamite Kid (8/17/79) This was from Stampede and was a hell of a match. When I think about Dynamite Kid, I always imagine what it would have been like if he'd stayed in the UK and had great matches against Rocco, Jones and Finlay, and oddball matches in Germany, but you watch a match like this and you can understand the appeal of wrestling abroad. People still don't appreciate how phenomenal Fujinami was in the 70s. If you ask me, he's the greatest junior of all-time. Unquestionably. I honestly don't see an argument for anyone else. This was a killer match and had the best non-finish I've ever seen. It was so good that I actually think I prefer it over a legit finish. I've always thought the Marty Jones bout is Dynamite's best but this is the first bout I've seen since then that's given it a run for its money. Hot damn this was good. Dynamite Kid vs. Ashura Hara (IWE 7/21/79) This was a long title match worked with the British rounds system. It lasted for 7 four minute rounds and was another excellent bout. It was slower than the Fujinami bout but a superb title match. I've said time and time again that Dynamite Kid was one of the most talented teenage workers I've ever seen, and here he was at 20 years old delivering a stone cold classic on his first tour to Japan. Hara was a special worker too, but to me this was vindication that Dynamite was a sensational talent. Things went downhill quickly but at least we saw him deliver on his talent. For some reason, I keep thinking he's like the Randy Rhodes of wrestling even if that's not strictly speaking an accurate analogy. Dynamite Kid vs. Kantaro Hoshino (1/15/82) This turns into a shoot. It's fun to watch how uncooperative they are and the way they keep reaching towards the eyes. Part of me wishes all wrestling was like this. Dynamite Kid vs. Kantaro Hoshino (4/7/83) Here they are again. This is a match-up that has a lot of potential, and they do some nice things, but there is a marked difference between 1982 Dynamite Kid and 1983 Dynamite Kid. He starts to work this slow, methodical Bret Hart style pace. It's very stop/start compared to his earlier work. Tiger Mask is at ringside so it's glaring obvious that Hoshino is just fodder for Dynamite to send a message to Sayama, but still you can tell that this is not the same DK that impressed so much in the 1979 matches.

So, I watched a Bob Geigel studio match from the 60s where Geigel was torturing a guy named Johnny Ramirez with digit manipulation, and busting open his nose. The wrestling world needs more Bob Geigel matches. When I saw the listing for Yulie Brynner vs. Rose Roman, I thought Brynner was a cute ring name. Then she took the towel off her head and was completely bald. As you can imagine, much of the bout was about Roman not being able to get a handful of hair. I don't think Brynner was around for long. There don't seem to be too many match records anywhere. Who would have thought her work would live again one day on YouTube? The Mighty Atlas vs. Red Bastien was better than the average Mighty Atlas bout, I suppose, but still a Mighty Atlas bout. After watching a couple of Bob Orton matches -- against Harry Lewis and Billy Hickson -- I have come to the conclusion that Orton was decent at dishing out a beating, and sold well when the other guy retaliated, but was completely unremarkable otherwise. Now I know that will come as a surprise to you that an Orton could be unremarkable, but it's true. The Hickson match was a catch weight bout and had some interesting parts, but Orton is not one of the stars of the 50s for my mind.

Antonio Inoki vs. Roddy Piper (9/22/77) I'm not a fan of Inoki vs. foreigner matches, obviously, but this wasn't bad. I don't know how much of his persona Piper had developed in 1977, but his personality disappeared into the same vacuum that so many foreigner wrestlers' characters do in Japan. That left us with Piper the serious wrestler, however, which was an interesting take on a guy you think you know all about. He drew on his boxing background, which I thought was cool, and he was a much better fit than you would imagine for Inoki's MMA leanings. Just as it's getting good, Inoki wraps it up, but it wasn't as though Piper was meant to be a serious threat to Inoki, so it is what it is. Marc Rocco vs. Isamu Teranishi (IWE 10/6/79) Dynamite Kid vs. Isamu Teranishi (IWE 7/19/79) Isamu Teranishi was one of the best workers in Japan at this time, IMO, but I haven't seen him have a match to rival the Fujinami match from the DVDVR set. This could have been great but they were from television and incomplete. The Dynamite Kid match was the better of the two but they kind of pegged things back instead of going full tilt. Dynamite Kid vs. Isamu Teranishi (1/6/84) This was physical and had a lot of intensity. Kid had his killer, psychotic football hooligan look going on and looked like an absolute beast, but it looked like his roided frame had wrecked his conditioning a bit since he couldn't really pick up the pace when the match demanded it and instead kept setting for a breather. But they hit hard. Riki Choshu & Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Hiro Matsuda & Masa Saito (6/15/79) This was nice. Really nice. Even an angle between Sakaguchi and Crazy Leroy Brown couldn't derail this bad boy. Masa Saito was a great pro-wrestler. I guess everyone knows that already, but man, what a worker. Everyone is well-versed in the Choshu style of wrestling but when he was young he did a lot more amateur shit, and you know who else did amateur shit? That's right, Mr. Saito. I desperately need to see a Saito vs. Choshu singles match from this era. So good. But it wasn't just them. You also had the dangerous barefoot style of Hiro Matsuda, and the spry power wrestling of Big Sak, as we're told the Americans call him. Just a beautiful blend of wrestlers.

Baron Arena vs. Sonny Myers... Baron Arena was an interesting guy. He claimed to be the original Gorgeous George but had to stop using the name after Wagner filed a lawsuit against him. That didn't stop him from claiming to be Gorgeous George, though. The tales only got taller as he aged. They must have worked as well as some of the papers got him confused with Wagner when he died. It looked like he was pinching Baron Michele Leone's gimmick here, but I guess I say that about every guy with terrific hair. Myers was a young guy they were trying to get over. His finisher was an atomic drop. For some reason, I find that charming. I saw him against a fella named Kostas Davelis as well. Now with a name like Kostas Davelis, you'd think I made my latest and greatest find, but it wasn't meant to be. It was the same formula as the Arena match. Real half-hearted veteran vs. youngster shtick. Bob Geigel vs. Buck Weaver, on the other hand, how had I not seen this earlier!? Everyone knows Geigel as a promoter but he looked like a hell of a worker as well. This was one of the best 50s matches I've seen in a while. They were light weights so they only got about 10 minutes. I could have watched them trade holds for another 30 minutes, but they packed so much great shit into their bout that I couldn't help but come away impressed. I loved the finish. I think it was botched but it was botched in a way that felt violent and organic. It was a real "holy shit!" moment for me. This is on of my short list of 50s matches worth watching.

Iska Khan vs. Jim Oliver (aired 2/1/57) This was good stuff. On the surface, it wasn't that dissimilar from a lot of 50s matches with Asian stereotypes, but it was stiffer and nastier. A lot of that was due to Oliver, who was allegedly quite fiery in real life. I really liked his performance here. I could see Khan being more of your generic Asian worker against other wrestlers. Oliver had an edge to him that made this more violent than expected. You could see it in the way he barbed with the crowd after the bout. It's a shame that he doesn't show up on tape again, but his brother has a match against Bert Royal which I'm looking forward to. Francis Louis/Jean Claude Bordeaux vs. Antonio Pereira/Mota Dos Santos (aired 4/24/72) What the fuck happened to catch in the early 70s? I've been reading some memories from a guy who lived in Paris in the early 70s and the scene seemed watered down at the time, but between this and the swimming pool match, I'm at a loss. This was some avant-garde shit right here. It was this gimmick called Luna Wrestling 2000 where the wrestlers are shot into the ring by a springboard powered by compressed air. There is an AP clip about it on YouTube if anyone is interested. The actual wrestling is hard to follow since it's skinny, preliminary types doing a bunch of loose, flippy shit. There are rules until the third fall where there no rules, and only a few ways where they can use the springboard to do a move. The leaps get boring after a while but it's worth seeing once.

On paper, Chief Lone Eagle vs. Great Jojo looked like it would be bad. I mean you had a Native American gimmick against a fat Mexican worker with Russ Davis doing his stupid voices. But I'll be damned if these guys didn't mean business. It's just a shame that Russ Davis is such a despicable commentator. This match ended with probably the worst thing I've heard him say -- "Chief Long Eagle is going home with his drum and his squaw, and he'll probably beat them both." WTF, Russ Davis? Gypsy Joe vs. Leon Kirilenko wasn't the famous Gypsy Joe. This guy had a wild Ron Jeremy look that seemed out of keeping with the 1950s. It reminded me of Baron Michele Leone. These guys tumbled about for a bit but didn't have a license to really get going. Tiny York vs. Johnny Gilbert was two fresh-faced preliminary workers trying to make some sort of name for themselves in the territory. For some reason, Davis shat all over them. It didn't seem like a bad match to me, not compared to some of the shit Davis had commentated over previously (with glee, I might add), but cranky old Pappy went as far as to say it was a match he wasn't proud of. Way to put over the new talent, Paps.

Antonio Inoki & Giant Baba vs. Mil Mascaras & Spiros Arion (JWA 3/2/71) Who would've thought Inoki vs. Mascaras was a match-up you'd want to see? I'm old enough to remember a time when that match-up would have been an absolute horror show for most people. There wasn't a hell of a lot else going on in this match. In fact, the entire time I kept wishing I was watching an Inoki/Mascaras singles match, but hey, at least it was an eye-opener. Antonio Inoki & Seji Sakaguchi vs. Johnny Powers & Pat Patterson (8/24/73) This match was full of hot air. It was really just a bunch of jawing and posing and a whole lot of begging off. Inoki vs. Patterson was fun, but Patterson clearly came from the Gorgeous George School of Wrestling and didn't have a ton of offense. This was the first time it struck me that Sakaguchi was meant to be a stand-in for Baba. Why has that never occurred to me before? The best thing about this was probably Patterson's heel promo.

Mile Zrno vs. Jimmy Ocean (Hannover 1992) Hey, these two had another match together. The final couple of rounds aired on Reslo. I would have liked to have seen the whole thing since I dig the whole Rip Rogers vibe that Ocean has. Couldn't really get the full picture on this, but glad to see Ocean doing his thing. Mile Zrno vs. Franz Schumann (Hannover 9/9/91) I never did make up my mind about Schumann and whether he's any good. This had some nice wrestling but it kept being broken up by ref comedy spots. It was real house show fodder. You could imagine the campervanners and holiday-makers getting a kick out of it, but not the guy looking for Zrno classics.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Franz Van Buyten (aired 1/17/72) This was a disappointment. You hope for a classic between these two and you get a gimmick match, and a shitty gimmick match at that. Some of the work seemed okay but the match was long and they committed the cardinal sin of being boring. The finish was stupid and the match was completely unsatisfying.

Joachim La Barba vs. Inca Peruano (aired 1/17/57) According to my research, Inca Peruano was a Peruvian wrestler named Rocky Tamayo who went on to work for the WWWF, All Japan and New Japan under different aliases. He also worked in territories such as St. Louis, Florida, Memphis, Georgia and the Carolinas. La Barba was better known to UK fans as Pancho Zapata. They actually showed a clip of him wrestling Jeff Kaye on the final WoS episode. He made one early appearance on ITV where he KO'ed by Mick McManus. That was the same episode that had an extremely rare appearance by Luther Lindsay. There was nothing pretty about this match. It was a good ol' fashioned slugfest. Personally, I thought it was a terrific brawl and hope to see more matches like it in the future. If you're serious about your brawling you may find that the comedy detracts from it a bit, but I liked how they packaged it all together. Entertaining bout.

Mile Zrno vs. Robbie Brookside (Hannover 10/9/99) I had high hopes for this and it didn't disappoint. Brookside is basically the evolution of all those skinny kids who debut on WoS in the late 80s. I have a soft spot for him because of that documentary where they followed him around on the UK indy scene and also because he was a flag bearer for British wrestling after the demise of WoS. The early part of this was upstart youth vs. veteran wrestler. Then Brookside started to play the aggressor and got himself on the wrong side of referee Jeff Kaye. I thought Brookside did a good job of the heel here. You can easily imagine a guy like Robbie Brookside being in some blowjob babyface tag team that tries to be The Rockers but comes across more like The Dynamic Dudes, but the dude knew how to performer. Never judge a guy by his hair. Finally, Mile woke up and kicked the shit out of Brookside like the kick ass beast that he was. In the midst of all that there was some nice wrestling. Mile looked like one of the better technicians in the world in 1999. Another keeper from the great man.

Marcel Motta & Angelito vs. Le Marquis Richard Fumulo de la Rossignolette & Black Shadow (5/28/85) This was late into the catch broadcasts but there was still a lot of good stuff on ITV in 1985 so I thought I would give it a go. It was actually pretty fun. It was a bit like watching a lucha undercard match where you don't know any of the workers. Actually, I thought the Marquis looked familiar and he ended up being Jacky Richard who we saw in a lot of the late 70s/early 80s tags that ABCCatch uploaded 5 years ago. Not an essential match by any means but better than it looked on paper.

Antonio Inoki vs. Akira Maeda (5/27/83) This is a match I've always wanted to see as it was Maeda's first real shot against Inoki. Nothing earth shattering, but Inoki let Maeda get in a few good licks. As usual, Inoki vs. native was a thousand times better than Inoki vs. a foreigner. If Maeda had stayed in New Japan we might have seen some bigger matches between these two so it was an interesting window into what might have been. Maeda gets a bad rap for his pre-UWF work, IMO. For a young heavyweight, I find him to be pretty solid both in Europe and Japan. Maybe a bit too much of the ol' bland, black tights, no personality for some, but he looked like a promising talent.

Hollywood Blondes vs. Antonio Inoki & Seji Sakaguchi (10/2/75) This was an interesting styles clash. The Blondes wanted to work their bread and butter US heel style but of course Inoki wanted to keep things on the mat. I thought the Blondes did a decent job of adapting to a mat-based style. Eventually, they got to cut loose and there was all of the blood, violence and mayhem that you'd expect from American heels. Inoki was well-versed in that sort of thing so it worked fairly well, but as usual with his tags, the rhythm and pacing was uneven and the falls felt long and loosely connected. Antonio Inoki vs. Mr. X (2/6/79) Inoki mixed martial arts fights had jumped the shark at this point. Beyond awful. Antonio Inoki vs. Seji Sakaguchi (4/21/78) This was epic. These two were such a good match-up. I don't think I'm crazy for saying that. Sakaguchi didn't have a dazzling persona or a ton of charisma but I'll be damned if he wasn't a better worker than he was ever given credit for. He was a really great foil for Inoki as the number two native.

Mile Zrno vs Klaus Kauroff (Hannover 11/9/91) This was fun. Kauroff was a short, bald-headed, barrel-chested powder keg who could really go. For a while, he was able to keep Zrno grounded and made Mile look pretty meek and ineffective, but then Zrno beat the shit out of him and he wasn't able to continue anymore. Mile has that mean streak in him, doesn't he?

Owen Hart vs. Danny Boy Collins (handheld 11/2/91) This was a good match. It was worked in more of an international juniors style than the classic British wrestling style, but as I've argued many times in the past, British wrestling was steering toward a more global style in the early 90s, and had no choice really given the wrestling climate at the time. Owen did all the things you'd expect 1991 Owen to do. Even though it was the rounds system, I thought he did a good job of pacing it as a normal match. The early rounds were competitive and hard fought, and the match escalated well. Worth watching if you've exhausted all your World of Sport options. It made me want to revisit the Marty Jones match, which I was never very fond of because I was sold on Grey vs. Myers as the epitome of the British style with Owen being a fish out of water. But perhaps it looks better through the lens of a late period WoS match.

Al Hayes vs. Guy Robin (aired 3/22/57) This was a decent match. I wouldn't regard Hayes as one of the finer British technicians, but he was popular at the time and a regular at the Royal Albert Hall so it was interesting to see him in action. The only other footage we have of him from this early is the tag match from Paul Lincoln Promotions. Lincoln promoted a style of wrestling that had a real US influence with lots of colorful gimmicks. Hayes played the blue eye lead against this cast of characters, and you can kind of see elements of that in this match. As is so often the case, it was the heel that captured the imagination. We've seen Robin once before in the Bob ALPRA footage. He looked like a savvy performer. I liked the way he progressed from comedy spots to serious heel heat. I definitely want to see the rest of his footage since talented undercard performers are always a treat.

Eddy Wiecz (Edouard Carpentier) & Eddy Koparanian vs. Andre Bollet & Georges Gueret (aired 2/23/56) This was tremendous. Carpentier is a guy I've had mixed feelings about, but he was in his element here against guys who knew how to bump and sell for his offense. Bollet was incredible in this match. The first thing you notice about him from the Andre match is how quick and athletic he is. Then you start to notice the bag of tricks -- the counters, the selling, and the theatrics. He came across as a master. In the Andre match, I compared him to Mick McManus, but I've seen McManus matches from the 60s and Bollet looks even better here. I felt like I was watching Arn Anderson at times and that's about the highest compliment you can pay a wrestler. Gueret also looked like a talented performer and I enjoyed all of the heel antics in this bout. But it was the babyfaces that made this match. I've seen a lot of 50s matches where the heel cheats, the babyface retaliates, the heel cheats, the babyface retaliates. What I liked about this match was that the babyfaces were clearly the better, stronger team and it was all the heels could do to keep up with them. That was refreshing considering how good these heels were stooging. This was a great addition to the canon.

Kader Hassouni/Claude Rocca vs. Bernard Caclard/Albert Sanniez (aired 3/20/76) This was an absolute gem of a match. European tag wrestling hasn't given me many reasons to be a fan of it but this match was a glimpse into what might be possible with the right heel team. Caclard and Sanniez were super slick as the lightweight heel team with the matching trunks. Caclard came across as a vicious little shit while Sanniez matched technique with divine bumping and selling. Rocca and Hassouni were vanilla by comparison, but they fulfilled their core role which was to retaliate to the heel tactics. I loved Sanniez jawing with the fan in the crowd and the older guy getting annoyed with the fan for carrying on with it. And Caclard attacking Delaporte was gold. I am sure there were a lot of matches like this in the halls in England with the Hells Angels (Bobby Barnes and Adrian Street) or Sid Cooper and Alan Dennison but never made ITV in this form. If I was recommending a list of the very best Euro matches of the 70s, this would make the list for sure.

Andre the Giant (Jean Ferre) vs. Andre Bollet (12/68) This was another look at Andre as a young heavyweight star. His opponent, Andre Bollet, was a big name in French wrestling and resembled a French Mick McManus. It was a fairly predictable bout and not that exciting but it was interesting to see Andre work a standard heel vs face heavyweight bout and none of that monster heel freak show stuff. Like all matches of this ilk, the best parts where when Andre started get riled at the shots Bollet was dishing out. Andre had to hold back a bit since he was meant to be the face, but Bollet looked like he could be dynamite against the right opponent. Apparently, there are only four full length Andre matches in the INA archives but there is footage of him against the likes of Jack de Lasartesse which hopefully surfaces.

Lino Di Santo vs Jack Van Dooren (aired 1/11/57) I enjoyed this. When I went through the British style, I developed a real soft spot for the heavyweights. This had a ceiling since it was JIP but it was good while it lasted. It was a classic Euro bout where they can't better each other with technique so they start with the rough stuff. They didn't flesh it out like the Corn bout but it was clearly a go-to style even in the 50s. Di Santo is a guy we've seen before in the match with the young Horst Hoffman. So far he seems like a bit of a journeyman, but he was definitely solid. They way they wrapped it up kind of made you realize why it was a lower card match that was JIP but it was neat and tidy. Jacky Corn vs. Luis El Gayo (aired 1/11/57) I think this is the first footage we have of Corn. He was a prominent name in the 50s and 60s catch broadcasts. I'm pretty sure he was a middleweight (at least at this stage of his career.) This was faster paced than the heavyweight match with a lot of tosses and the odd wrist lock or head scissors. The Spaniard wrestler, El Gayo, was a lot of fun, especially when he started getting heat for himself. Corn was good but it's always hard to identify with the baby faces in this type of footage. It was clearly a showcase for him but he didn't exactly set the world on fire. The match was a lot of fun when it broke down and the forearm smash contest was well worked. I really liked the escalation in the final minutes.