French catch

[ohtani's jacket]

I had the opposite experience as I was able to sit through the entire match without pausing. Watch a few hours of 80s catch beforehand and every match will seem like a Michelangelo.

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I had the opposite experience as I was able to sit through the entire match without pausing. Watch a few hours of 80s catch beforehand and every match will seem like a Michelangelo.. 

We’ll get there in 2022, thank you very much.

[ohtani's jacket]

All right, let's try to get through this so I can go back to watching 50s catch:

Flesh Gordon & Kader Hassouni vs. Le Marquis Richard Fumolo de la Rossignolette & Black Shadow (aired 7/14/85)

The Marquis has changed his name from Eduardo to Richard and shaved his beard. He looks like a totally different person. In fact, I'm not convinced it's the same worker. This guy looks like Jacky Richard. The gimmick still sucks and his wrestling is awful, so that hasn't changed. This has some decent stuff at the beginning between Gordon and Shadow before breaking down into the usual bore. The ring apron says Gilbert Leclerc in big letters. Is he the man responsible for this shit show?

Georges Cohen & Kader Hassouni vs. Anton Terejo & Pierre Lagache (aired 7/21/85)

Terejo is fat and out of shape here, but it's Terejo so I'm always gonna love it. Mercifully short.

Le Primitif vs. Jessy Texas (aired 7/21/85)

Mambo's posse are back! Albeit with a slightly different look. Poor old Jessy Texas tried to put up a fight here but ended up a bloody mess. 

Flesh Gordon & Angelito vs. Kato Bruce Lee & Frederico (aired 7/28/85)

Hmm, this is the ending of Le Primitif vs. The Golden Falcons, followed by the tail end of a Herbie Hancock concert where he's treated like a rock star, and then the news. No sign of the tag match. Mambo does a huge plancha off the top turnbuckle. Who was that mystery primate? Was he South American? Did he spent time in Mexico? Please tell me he fought a mask match. 

Georges Cohen & Gass Doukhan vs. Black Shadow & Kato Bruce Lee (aired 8/10/85)

For some reason, Kato Bruce Lee is doing a Leatherman gimmick. What is with catch and the Leatherman gimmick? So many guys do it. Thank god for Georges Cohen and Gass Doukhan for bringing some old-school class to 1985 catch. I really like Black Shadow as well. That dude deserved to run with a better crew. This was a good match. The structure of the falls was whack, but it was easily the best match since '83. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Walter Bordes, Flesh Gordon & Angelito vs.  Le Marquis Richard Fumolo de la Rossignolette, Jessy Texas & Eliott Le Rocky (aired 8/11/85)

Time for some Catch A Six action. Jessy Texas is dressed like a cowboy and rides a horse to the ring. And for some reason, Frederico is doing a boxer gimmick. This should have been exciting but structurally it was a mess. I'm not sure why it was so hard for European guys to lay out a tag match. Oftentimes, the action can be good but the timing of the falls is baffling. Gordon and Angelito did some flashy moves, and Frederico held up his side of things, but the match lacked rhythm and excitement.

Afterward, there is a documentary about the French jazz pianist, Michel Petrucciani, who suffered from brittle bone disease. 

Walter Bordes & Flesh Gordon vs. Les Maniaks (aired 8/18/85)

This was supposedly taped on 3/2/85. I'm not sure if it aired earlier than this. The footage is so erratic at this point that anything is possible. Bordes and Gordon were a good team. The Maniaks were a pair of Psicosis wannabes, but Bordes and Gordon were better than most at working drama into their matches. 

Mambo Le Primitif vs. Flesh Gordon (aired 9/1/85)

Finally, the match the world has been waiting for -- Mambo the Primitif vs. Flesh Gordon! In a strap match! Here we go! The past few years of catch all boil down to this.

This also looked like it was from an earlier show. I have no idea what is going on at this point. This was worked like a handler trying to tame a wild beast. I was disappointed when the beast's big transition was a nutshot. Gordon ends up taking a whipping, and when it's finally too much, he starts choking Mambo with the strap. The refs don't like that and call the whole thing off. There's nothing quite as unfulfilling as a stip match without a payoff. 

 

[El-P]

1 minute ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Jessy Texas is dressed like a cowboy and rides a horse to the ring.

How much more stereotypical can you get. Gotta love Jessy with an Y. I've seen that guy in the early 90's too. Crappy, from memory.

Where the hell do you even find all of this stuff BTW ?

[ohtani's jacket]

Gaby Lailee vs. Acensy De Oro (aired 3/8/87)
Flesh Gordon vs. Eliot Frederico (aired 3/8/87)

A pair of nothing matches to end our 80s catch adventure. 

That's it, unless we've overlooked something. I'm not sure how much is missing. The broadcasts changed format so many times that I suspect catch may have been on and off the air. 

Here is my final ranking of the matches (not including the ones that were already on YouTube):

1. Jacky Richard & Guy Renault vs. Jean Corne & Rene Cabellec (aired 10/12/81)
2. Walter Bordes & Flesh Gordon vs. The Golden Falcons (aired 8/13/83)
3. Jacky Richard & Albert Sanniez vs. Jean Corne & Rene Cabellec (aired 9/8/80)
4. Le Petit Prince & Claude Rocca vs. Bob Remy & Anton Tejero (aired 8/18/80)
5. Jacky Richard & Albert Sanniez vs. Jean Corne & Kader Hassouni (aired 9/3/83)

[Phil Lions]

10 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

A pair of nothing matches to end our 80s catch adventure. That's it, unless we've overlooked something.

Off the top of my head, there's a Flesh Gordon and Prince Zefy tag match from November 29, 1987, that you've missed. There's also a midgets match in the same broadcast.

[ohtani's jacket]

Oh boy.

[ohtani's jacket]

Jose Arroyo vs. Pierre Bernaert  (aired 2/11/58)

This was fine. I would have liked to have seen the whole thing to compare Bernaert's performance with Husberg but there was enough here to suggest that they were at a similar sort of level. Arroyo's selling bugs me. He's one of the worst selling babyfaces we've seen so far. I like his flurries on offence, but he can't sell the transition from selling to offence.

Jo Labat vs. Ami Sola (aired 2/11/58)

This was a nice technical match. I wasn't paying attention to the commentary but apparently the commentator called them stylists and referred to this as a gentleman's contest. I wouldn't really call them stylists in the sense that later workers were, but they were certainly focused on their craft. Sola is forging a reputation for being a man for all seasons when it comes to these television matches. This wasn't as exciting as the last bout we saw him in, but he's been one of the more flexible talents to date. 

Jacky Corn vs. Inca Peruano (aired 2/21/58)

This was everything you'd expect Jacky Corn vs. Inca Peruano to be. I was happy that they delivered on their billing. When only got the last two falls but it's highly entertaining. Peruano was never a "catcheur" in the sense that he worked the French style, but he adapted remarkably well to the Parisian scene. When we start thinking of the outsiders who adapted the best to catch, I think he'll do well. He ends up globetrotting, and we lose him so to speak, so soak this up while you can. Fortunately, he's not the only South American to leave his mark on French wrestling, but he's the guy who did it while catch was still in its prime. As for Corn, this was a nice return to form after that surprise beating at the hands of Robert Blasco. I only discovered this recently, but the French wrestler who fought Billy Howes on the undercard of the famous McManus vs. Pallo match, is actually Jacky Corn. I need to revisit that match soon. 

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Cheri Bibi & Eric Husberg vs. James Brown & Jean Corne (aired 6/19/66)
Cheri Bibi & Eric Husberg vs. Giacomo Guglielmetti & Philippe Crapez (aired 3/6/66)
Cheri Bibi & Eric Husberg vs. Remy Bayle & Marcel Montreal (aired 4/25/65)

The first two matches dashed any hope I had for the Cheri Bibi and Husberg tag team. The first match featured lightweight comedy and the second match was a listless brawl that wouldn't end. But the third match was everything I thought the Bibi/Husberg team would be. Husberg did the lion's share of the wrestling, and later on the bumping, stooging and selling, and when Bib tagged in he was fun, charismatic and interesting. There was night and day between the matches. I don't think you can truly appreciate it unless you watch them in the order that I did. If you watch them in chronological order, you'll probably end up disappointed. I watched them in random order picking the Corne match first. I'm just glad I found a match where the combination worked. I was ready to slag them off after the first two matches, but as a Husberg fan, I'm really glad I stuck it out and watched the third bout. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Michel Chaisne vs. Jo Labat (aired 2/27/58)

This started with Ami Sola getting a win, which I wish we'd seen since he's become something of a favorite among our Catch circle, but always seems to do job on TV. Then they introduced Cheri Bibi to the wrestlers and crowd. If you want my honest opinion, Cheri Bibi can stay far away from Catch, but the opposite happens as far as the footage goes. After Bibi leaves, we get the match. And it's a good one. It's a shame we don't know more about the backstage goings on from this era, but it can't be a coincidence that Chaisne has been on television so many times. The promoters must have seen some sort of potential in him. I can only imagine the promoters at the time were always on the look out for a new heavyweight star. I'm not sure how things panned out with Chaisne. His name appears on a lot of 60s bills, but there's nothing to suggest he became a big name. At this point he was a classy young heavyweight. This was a nice technical bout. It seems as though they had a heckler in the beginning. Hecklers always bothered me in the WoS footage, but I can't understand what's being said here. Every time they stood up and worked an exchange they got a warm response, and they actually looked really great doing those exchanges. The matwork was fine as well, but the part I really liked was when Labat starting laying in his shots. We've all seen the formula by now where they work a long technical match and start throwing forearms. This match had some really interesting shots from Labat. His stock kind of rose with me because of it. The quality of wrestling in '58 has been just as good as '57 thus far, and the week to week quality of the wrestling continues to be unparalleled in any episodic TV that I've ever seen.  

[ohtani's jacket]

Cheri Bibi vs. Jacky Corn (aired 12/12/62)

When I saw this pop up on the match listings, I thought if Corn could get a good match out of Bibi then he'd be one of the greats. After it was done, you could have scrapped my jaw off the floor. It wasn't just good. It was jaw dropping. Bibi looked like the baddest mother on the planet in this match. And when Corn took over on offense, he wasn't far behind. I often wonder what the other wrestlers thought of Corn. Did they respect him as a wrestler or hate him because he was the promoter's son? Did Bibi work harder here because of Corn's old man? I guarantee you won't see another Bibi match where he pays this much attention to detail. He's like a super worker with every hold. If this was the first Bibi match you saw, you'd want to seek out everything he did. Which begs the question, why couldn't Bibi work like this all the time? The match was amazing, and the finish left me shocked. Corn is an all-timer in my books. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Robert Duranton vs. Pierre Boss (aired 5/2/58)

This wasn't as exciting as recent weeks' offerings, but it was much better than later Duranton. He was trying to be a wrestler here instead of a character. With a name like Boss, you'd expect a guy who's in charge, but his opponent was a bit of veteran roadkill who got some shabby treatment at the end. You can see how Duranton morphed into the character he became as the crowd got a kick out of his comedy spots. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker (aired 12/12/70)

I thought Der Henker would be some huge stiff, but he was actually the same height as Corn. He looked like a decent worker, but he was a masked guy getting a push, and his first priority was to put Corn away. Which he did with authority.

Der Henker & Kamikaze vs. Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc (aired 6/14/71)

Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc! I think I was more excited about this than anyone involved. It's hard to tell whether this was the original Kamikaze, the second Kamikaze, or some guy in a Kamikaze outfit. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the original Kamikaze as he didn't do any of his signature bumps. This was solid, but I wanted a bit more. 

Gilbert Leduc vs. Der Henker (aired 7/31/71)

This was similar to Leduc vs. Le Bourreau. They even teased the same finish. It was slow going at times, but it also reminded me a bit of Leduc vs. a Villano. I'm not sure which Villano (maybe Villano V?) I'm not sure that Der Henker was as good as Le Bourreau, but this was the more complete bout. Leduc's selling was probably the strongest part of his performance. He's a pretty nuanced seller. He had me convinced that his goose was cooked. I think his age was creeping in a bit here as he didn't have that same air of invincibility as the 50s footage.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Al Araujo vs. Marcel Parmentier (aired 7/25/58)

We get the last minute of this. It looked like an entertaining bout. When this catch first dropped, it seemed like Parmentier was going to part of the regular cast of characters. but he's all but disappeared. That's too bad considering how entertaining his shtick is. 

Guy Mercier vs. Allan Le Foudre (aired 1/24/70)

Charly Verhulst used the alias Allan Le Foudre in this match despite the fact that even the commentator and Guy Mercier referred to him as Charly Verhulst. I guess that was the name Verhulst went by in earlier appearances in France. It's not the first time a commentator has pointed out that a wrestler is using a different name. Anyway, Verhulst was a fine Belgian wrestler. This match was an experiment in using a rounds system. It featured five five-minute rounds with the winner decided by two referees at the end. I believe they were also wrestling for a purse of 10,000 francs. I'm not really sure if pinfalls or submissions counted. It seemed like the winner was determined at the end of the fifth round. Although in this case it appeared to be a draw, which defeats the purpose of determining a winner over five rounds. I'd have to watch it again to understand the rules. There was some great wrestling as the emphasis here was on catch as a sporting contest. Mercier looked better than in any other match I've seen him in. I do wish he would stop doing Leduc's moves, however. It's cool that we have so many different types of Verhulst matches. It's probably an artificial construct based on how few matches we have, but he feels like a traveling Naoki Sano type. The rounds stuff is an interesting experiment, but I think it works better with 2/3 falls. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Gilbert Leduc & Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker (aired 7/3/72)

For some reason, this was a handicap match. I didn't find it terribly exciting but the spectators sure did. Der Henker got rid of Jacky Corn and it became Der Henker vs. Leduc for a while. Corn returned all bandaged up and then it all kind of fizzled out into a draw with Leduc and Corn declared the winners. 

Der Henker vs. Marcel Montreal (aired 2/10/73)

Montreal is a guy we've seen a few times. A good wrestler, but a bit dry. Like a lot of catch matches, this got better once they started clobbering each other. The Hangman ended up claiming another victim, but I couldn't help but wonder if some type of swinging neck breaker would have been a better finisher than his tombstone pile driver. Then again, at least it's a pile driver that everyone sells.

Gilbert Leduc & Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker & Daniel Schmid (aired 3/30/74)

This is the last Der Henker match we have. What can we say about him? Not the greatest masked worker of all time, but certainly not the least. I thought he would be a questionable worker like L'Homme Masque, but he ended up being a lot better. I would put him on the level of a guy like Villano V. This was a wildly entertaining bout and easily the best of Der Henker's tags. The reason for that was Daniel Schmid. Schmid is awesome. He really should be everyone's new wrestling hero. He's this chubby blonde kid who bumps and sells like a European Buddy Rose. I really need to devour everything we have from him. This was the first tag where Leduc and Corn felt like they were anything special. Together, that is. And to make things better, Pat Roach showed up between falls and challenged Der Henker to a match. It's too bad we don't have any of that, but it was nice to see Pat. 

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jo Labat vs Ami Sola (aired 7/31/58)

This was an excellent wrestling match filled with holds, counter holds, and forceful strikes. I swear if this match came from any other archive, we'd be heralding it as one of the best matches of the era, but because it's part of this amazing period of French catch, it's just another match. It will be interesting to see where Sola ranks among the French wrestlers when we're done with this footage. He's carved a niche for himself in this 50s footage as The Midcard Guy. One of the problems we face as we head into the 60s footage is that we don't get the same week-to-week footage. In fact, for some years we barely get any footage at all. I'm not sure if that's an indication that catch went off the air for a time. There was some sort of controversy that happened in the early 60s, but I haven't been able to nail down what it was all about. At any rate, Sola quickly disappears from the footage we do have, and I guess he retires at some point because he's not on any cards after 1963.

Robert Duranton vs Michel Chaisne (aired 7/31/58)

They only showed the first fall of this, which is strange because usually they'd clip the Sola match and show the Duranton match in full. I'm kind of glad they gave us the entire Sola because it was clearly the better bout. This was kind of goofy at times. The popular blue-eye, Chaisne, was a bit over the top with how he dealt with this massive slab of a man. I didn't really get what all the bobbing was about. Once again, early Duranton exceeded expectations with how much he was willing to wrestle, but against a decent technician like Chaisne, his short comings were apparent. My favorite part of the fall was when Duranton stepped over Chaisne. That's a move Duranton did a lot and one I'm surprised other wrestlers didn't pinch. We all know how irate basketball players get when players step over them. It seems perfect for wrestling as well. 

 

[Matt D]

Wait, how often do we just get one fall when it’s not JIP?

[ohtani's jacket]

Not sure. It's not something I've noticed before.  In this case, the commentator declares Chaisne the winner of the premiere manche and signs off for the night. You can see the wrestlers standing in their corners waiting for the bell. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Cheri Bibi vs. Paul Debusne (aired 8/16/58)

This wasn't as good as the Jacky Corn match, but you can still mark it down in the "good" column for Cheri Bibi matches. Debusne is the guy they looked to put in the ring against boxers, so of course the part where they started throwing manchettes is exciting. The build up to that? Not quite on the same level. It didn't help that there was some weird distortion with the film that made the wrestlers appear bigger than they really were every time they were in the middle of the frame. Debusne looked like he was working hard as he was sweating profusely, but he didn't have the skills of a Jacky Corn to keep things interesting, and it wasn't until the finishing stretch that I bought into this. Heck of a finish, though. Wild stuff. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc vs. Daniel Schmid & Yanek Fryziuk (aired 12/17/72)

This ran a bit hot and cold, but the Schmid and Leduc exchanges were sublime. I love the way Schmid sells a manchette. I'm pretty sure Yanek Fryziuk is Jean Fryziuk. 

Daniel Schmid vs. Rocky James (aired 4/13/75)

This was really fun. I'm glad we have this. Schmid gets to shine in a singles match and be The Man for a change. I'm not sure where Rocky James figures into the grand scheme of things, but he was a willing opponent. 

Daniel Schmid vs. Mammouth Siki (aired 8/28/78)

Schmid his best here, but Mammouth Siki sucks the life out of any match he's in. It's crazy how much time he spends in control of a bout given how shitty he is. I suppose Schmid could have sold more, but Siki is probably the worst worker in the archives. Shitty finish too. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Serge Reggiori vs. Guy Mercier (aired 8/23/58)

I'm gonna call him Serge Reggiori since that was the name he went by most often. I think they used "Sergio" when they wanted to play him up as Italian. I didn't realize we had Guy Mercier footage from the 50s. That means we have footage of him from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, which is pretty cool. He looked like a new breed of athlete here, but he never really pushed Catch forward as far as I can gather (in-ring, I mean, not the unionizing outside of the ring), so it's hard to get excited about his early stuff. It looked like a hard fought, competitive draw, but we only have a few minutes at the end to show for it.

Jacky Corn vs. Ted Lamar (aired 8/23/58)

Again, I'm going with how Lamar is usually billed. I know they showed the poster at the beginning of the broadcast, but I think that may have been a typo. It's not unusual for promotions to misspell names on posters (don't get me started on how you're meant to spell Alan Sarjeant or Ivan Penzekoff.) I watched this twice. The first time I watched it, I thought it was kind of dry. The second time I watched it, I really enjoyed it. Just goes to show what you already know -- you have to be in the mood to watch these long technical matches. I'm a big fan of Corn, but it's easy to watch him have a slugfest with Cheri Bibi than work a slow burner with Lamar, but the fact that he could do both is a testament to how good he was in the 50s and 60s. The second time I watched this, I appreciated Ted Lamar's performance more. Ted Lamar means little to me. I think I've seen him one time before in a Bob ALPRA upload. Sometimes it's hard to get into a match when you hardly recognize a guy, but the second time I realized he was working super tight and super hard. The first time you have those moments where you're trying to work out who's who (okay, this guy's hair looks like this, etc.), but once I realized Lamar had a mustache, I could focus on what he brought to the table. This was almost worked like a title shot without a title. It's not the kind of bout that immediately draws you in, but without making excuses for it, if you adjust your mentality you'll find that it's a solid Catch bout.

Inca Peruano vs. Jo Labat (aired 9/5/58)

Peruano is an entertainer who doesn't mind telling a joke while he's in a hold. That's not uncommon in European wrestling. I think what makes Peruano unique is that he's a foreigner working the tongue and cheek European style. There's no denying that he's one of the characters of the 50s footage. Personally, I think he needs a dance partner to have a better than average match, and I thought Labat was a decent enough partner here, so I don't really buy into him being a wizard, but I do think he's entertaining. Is he better than the other South Americans? That's a question worth asking later on. It's all very footage dependent. Early on, La Barba seemed like a character, but he's disappeared. Parmentier seemed like he could be something special, but he disappeared. What we can do you is that the footage that aired here was a Peruano showcase and pretty soon we'll start to miss those. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Karl von Kramer vs. Serge Gentilly (aired 4/29/58)

I thought I had seen this before but apparently not. I love Karl von Kramer. He reminds me of what Terry Rudge would be like if we transported him to this era. This was a bit disjointed, and would been better as a 25 minute match completely controlled by von Kramer, but there were enough flashy moments to keep me occupied. It was a strange sort of bout as it never boiled over into a forearm smash contest despite the niggle, and the finish to each fall was weak. Gentilly wasn't the greatest, which may have been the cause. I'm pretty sure the other von Kramer bouts I watched were better. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jacky Corn & Guy Mercier vs. Ted Lamar & Jo Marsallon (aired 1/1/70)

I'm actually quite surprised at what little footage we have from 1970. This is a nice follow on from Segunda Caida's Tuesday is French Catch Day from the other week with Jacky Corn and Mercier tagging and more Corn vs. Lamar. I'm pretty sure Lamar's partner is Jo Marsallon, who used to wrestle with his brother in a tag team known as Les Gorilles. Whoever he is, he's a canny vet. There's a lot of good wrestling in this and Lamar continues to stake a claim as a decent hand. Mercier is growing on me too. Having watched the Corn/Leduc team a lot, there's no denying that Mercier was fresher and peppier than Leduc at this time. 

Kurt Kayser vs. Remy Bayle (aired 2/1/70)

This was a rarity in the catch we've seen -- a squash match. They called him "Kurt" Kayser, but I'm pretty sure this was Peter Kayser, the guy who fought Mercier twice.

Batman vs. Cesar Leoni (aired 6/29/70)

I'm not sure why you'd do a Batman gimmick without a mask, or why Larsen was still doing the Batman gimmick in 1970 after the craze was over, but this was a really good match. Exciting, up tempo the entire way, and a real crowd pleaser. I really enjoyed this. And I had a chuckle at the end when the commentator said, "Bravo, Monsieur Batman!"

[ohtani's jacket]

Rene Ben Chemoul & Walter Bordes vs. Black Shadow & El Arz (aired 7/25/70)

This is the last bit of footage from 1970. I think we have 13 matches in total. Holy crap, it's a young Black Shadow! That won't mean much to most of you, but if you've gone through the 80s catch, you'll be familiar with a middle-aged Shadow, who was one of the better workers left in the business. His partner, Josef El Arz was a Lebanese wrestler, apparently. This started with Ben Chemoul and Bordes dancing, carrying on and having a good time. Then El Arz started cheating. Then Ben Chemoul and Bordes taught the heels a lesson and danced some more. A bit one-sided but it wasn't boring.