[1957-08-16-Kohler Chicago] Lou Thesz vs Edouardo Carpentier

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

 

[Smack2k]

Is this the match that took the lineage of the NWA Title to the Omaha / LA / Montreal lineages of the title?

[Moonsault Marvin]

Edouard Carpentier defends his NWA World Championship against Lou Thesz in a two out of three falls match. Thesz plays heel here, often stalling to try to let his arm recover after being worked over by Carpentier. Thesz is impressive as usual on the mat with little touches such as trying to plant his feet to get out of the hammerlock instead of just lying there like most wrestlers do. Carpentier shows some acrobatic skills throughout the match, but never pulls anything off seamlessly. He wins the first fall with a roll up.

 

The highlight of the match is Lou Thesz's back suplex to finish the second fall. It looked just as devastating as Tsuruta's. Carpentier brings on the acrobatics again in the final minutes as they approached the hour time limit. He went for a somersault senton type of move, and he nailed Thesz in the back on one of his attempts. The match ended in a draw after Thesz collapsed in attempting a body slam, since his back was hurting from Carpentier's senton. The match had a couple of slow sections, but for the most part, this was a good match.