[1957-02-15-France] Liano Pellacani vs Jean Bout

[Jetlag]

2/3 Falls match over 30 minutes. Really heated, intrigueing piece of TV. Pellacanis birthplace is listed as Italy, and supposedly he won the heayweight title of Europe at one point. I cannot stress enough how awesome it is to get a long glimpse at workers like this. Bout is a stoic babyface, and he really dominates with athletic wrestling ability typical of French wrestlers. Pellacani has no real answer but to clock him with thudding forearms. While Pellacani didn‘t show much wrestling, pretty much anytime Bout had him in a hold he would scurry for the ropes, but he was absolutely bumping his ass off, really good pinballing performance. By the second fall Bout was really making minced meat of Pellacani, throwing punches, dropkicks to the face and cranking a nasty sleeper, all of which the crowd loved. By the end Pellacani looked overwhelmed and was taking frustrated swings at the crowd who threw lit cigarettes at him. It looks like another 2-0 blowout like other 2/3 Falls matches we‘ve seen so far, but then a huge, potentially crippling apron bump happens and things turn around. Really in our modern world apron bumps have become so meaningless that the way they put it over here stands out as really memorable, and what a ballsy move to go from Pellacani being outgunned to going over.

 

[Mr JMML]

I loved it, as great as any other French Catch match of 1957, the year is so good that this match is only slightly above average. Awesome though.