[1968-01-20-France] Jean Ferre (Andre the Giant) vs Franz Van Buyten

[conker8]

 

This is a championship match for Franz Van Buyten's French Championship. Wrestling greats like Andre Drapp and Gilbert Leduc are introduced then Jack de Lassartesse ("American wrestler"), one of my European favorite wrestlers, challenge the winner. André and Lassartesse had a big time feud in the late 60's. Roger Hanin is also in attendance.

 

The match starts with Van Buyten having a game plan for André. He tries different tactics like putting André on the ground or using his speed advantage. They work the size difference well and the match is a lot of fun with Roger Couderc on commentary.

 

Now, I'm hoping a André - Lassartesse was taped.

[Jetlag]

Hooooly shit @ this showing up! Man, young lion Andre is something. He did come across as pushed beyond his ability here, but that uncanny force of nature vibe was there for sure. Anytime Andre put his giant hand or boot in Francis' face was scary, and his bear hug looked like it would break you. Van Buyten is guy who always struck me as a hidden world class worker, and he does look world class here, as he really makes his hold look like there's a ton of pressure in them and clashes into Andre with big european uppercuts and flying headbutts. Franz adds these neat touches as always such as dropping his weight on Andre's leg to bend it, countering a european uppercut into a wristlock or rolling up Andre from the gutbuster aswell as hitting plausible huracanranas on the Giant. Really neat discovery, and DAMN do I ever want to see every french match that was ever filmed show up!!

[gordi]

What a find! Thank you very much for posting this.

 

There is a match from I believe, IWE in 1972, that I'm pretty sure Jetlag introduced me to: Ali Bey, Andre & Franz Van Buyten vs. Rusher Kimura, Isamu Teranishi & Thunder Sugiyama. It's one of my favourite matches now, and the interactions between Monster Rousimoff and Van Buyten are the best thing about it. Getting 10+ minutes of those two is a real gift.

[Ricky Jackson]

Just starting this now, but Lassartesse really caught my attention with his heel charisma during the intros and I was coming here to ask if anyone knew who that wrestler was

[conker8]

René Lassartesse (or Jack de Lassartesse in France) is a big heavyweight wrestler from Switzerland. He wrestles everywhere in Europe and was a Main Eventer. In France, he was build as an arrogant American (blonde hair, chewing gums).

We have two matches in his prime :

vs. Michel Allary available on Youtube

w. Robert Duranton vs. Andre Drapp & Bernard Vignal (a great tag match that I have on my hard drive)

Later in his life, he has a great match against Franz Van Buyten from 1987 ! As you can see, he had a pretty long career. He would became a promoter in Germany (William Regal talks about him in his book).

 

I'm sure OJ knows more so he is the guy to ask infos.

[Matt D]

I reviewed it longform on SC (and I imagine Phil/Eric will follow suit soon):
http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/03/ancient-andre-from-archives-andre-giant.html

 

I have no idea why this came out now. I'm just glad it did. This is one of the earliest Andre matches we've seen and it's potentially his first title win. Van Buyten is a guy we just have bits and pieces of at disparate points of his career. We have him in Germany against Lasartesse and Dave Taylor and Terry Rudge in the mid-late 80s. We have him in one of my favorite comedy performances of all time in a 6 man against Andre in 1973 IWE. This is a straight up title match with him absolutely shining.

After about eight minutes of ceremony, this gets going. It's actually structured unlike many Andre matches I've seen, but in a way that I really love. Van Buyten, the more experienced technician (champion even), who has dozens of tools in his arsenal, has to figure out how to deal with the problem of Andre. The problem of Andre in 1968 is different than in 1978 or 1988 when he was thicker, slower, easier to keep grounded once you got him down. Here he was all arms and legs, with incredible strength and incredible reach. Just twisting an ankle or stepping over for some sort of legvine was near impossible, and if Van Buyten somehow managed it, Andre would be within reach of the ropes almost no matter where he was in the ring.

This played out in practice. There's a 30+ second segment at the start of Van Buyten trying desperately to get a leglock of some sort on. He does everything from attacking at the leg to trying to ride it down with all of his body weight, to no avail as Andre shrugs him off in the end. The sheer struggle of it was tremendous though. Ultimately, Van Buyten's able to use his speed and skill and sheer aggression and confidence to hold his own during this first third. He'll leap right into Andre just to get a front facelock on, will dive head first into Andre's torso just to buy some distance to lock in another cravat. He knows his only chance at long term survival is to keep these holds on; if Andre gets his hands on him, it's over. So he hangs on even as Andre tries to shrug him off, leading, at one point, to Andre taking a fly mare (an appropriate naming, as opposed to a snap mare, believe it or not), but Andre's just too big and too lanky and any movement around the ring takes him towards the ropes.

The culmination of this is a pair of 'ranas, outright, real, true ones. One unfortunate development in wrestling over the last fifty or so years is that we've come to take so many spots for granted. Things are done for the sake of doing them and without the purpose or struggle that something newly developed might have. Here, to hit that first rana, Van Buyten has to twist his body back and forth. Absolutely nothing in this match is taken for granted. Everything Van Buyten does is fought for. Part of that was the fact that he was trying to do it to Andre, yes, but so much of it was just about the fact that this was a match from Frace in 1968. Times were different and the struggle was visceral.

The middle of the match is Andre getting his hands on Van Buyten. Yes, it's a bear hug. Yes, it's an Andre bear hug, but it's like none you've ever seen. There is struggle here to go along with the selling, and Van Buyten has to sell this. Andre's winning the match and it's up to Van Buyten to keep himself over by both showing how hard he's fighting and also showing Andre to be the threat that he is. In the end, though, he tries to hip top his way out of the bearhug, which is a crazy thought, and Andre hangs on, causing both men to tumble to the mat.

The finishing stretch is all about Van Buyten's skill and desperation against Andre's inevitable strength. Towards the end, as Van Buyten tries to charge at him once more, Andre lifts him up for a first press-slam into a gut buster. Then, remarkably, Van Buyten tries it again. When you're watching a match from an alien time and an alien place, in an alien style, with one wrestler you're only passingly familiar with, there's always a danger of reading too much or too little into the text. Here, though, I feel fairly sure of myself. Van Buyten all but jumped into the second press slam-gutbuster, without the struggle of the first or most of the rest of the match. This surprised me in the moment, until it became relatively clear that it was part of a broader gambit. At the moment of contact (knee to stomach), he arched his body, grabbing hold to Andre and rolling him over. It was a moment of true sacrifice, a desperate gambit late in the match to get the advantage back, to lock on one pin attempt or hold that might win the day, to fight the tide of Andre's gargantuan presence. It failed. Andre was too big, too lanky, and no matter where he was, just too close to the ropes. After a clean break, Van Buyten, selling the side, came up firing, a last ditch attempt at survival, firing off nasty forearm blows. Andre shrugged them off and lifted him for a third press slam-gutbuster. One slam later and it was over.

This was great and we're lucky to have it. It's maddening to think what else might be locked up in a warehouse in France, but exciting as well. It's a testament to both men that they could have a match like this so early into Andre's run and it's also a testament to them that their interaction five years later in Japan was so wildly different and so differently entertaining. Hopefully more of these might slip out in the months to come.

[cactus]

Baby Andre is really something. He's fast, mobile and  the frantic way he charges at Van Buyten is scary. Buyten is also brilliant, a master technician who can throw a mean forearm. You forget how big Andre is until you see his boot locked in the already big hands of his opponent. There's another moment where he blocks off Buyten's face by grabbing his jaw with his humongous palm. It's a frightening sight, and you can hear the reaction from both the crowd and the commentator. Even here, the audience is completely enamored with Andre.

Going by what I've seen from French Catch, everything is a lot faster when compared to it's American  or Japanese counterpart. This is no exception. We ever get to see Buyten hurricanrana Andre multiple times. My favorite moment from this would be when Andre decides to retaliate from Buyten's strikes with some of his own. Andre elbows his opponent, and Buyten sells it like he was hit by a bus.

Worth a watch because of the sheer historical importance, but it's also a cracking bout in it's own right.

★★★★

[Chess Knight]

My mind bugged the fuck out when Van Buyten was trying to get a hold on and was doing so by pushing down on Andre's leg like he was trying to force a log down a wood chipper. Simple thing and I've never seen anything like it. The amount of desperation he had trying to do as much as possible before Andre threw him away - while still balancing it with slow paced wrenching - was incredible. The ranas were a great way to throw Andre off, and Andre was visibly huffing after taking them, showing that they were waring him down. Andre eventually kicking Van Buyten's ass with uppercut blows that Van Buyten just couldn't really come back from was just the perfect peak. Like a black and white grainy camera version of a superhero being constantly flattened by a giant. Andre being basically unaffected by the dropkick was a great moment too. IL N'A PAS BOUGÉ! IL N'A PAS BOUGÉ!!