European Catch Catch-Up

 

Mick McMichael vs. Vic Faulkner, WoS 6/28/1972

Very nice and unexpected to see a previously lost WoS match surface. These two have kind of a reputation of being jokers, but there was some amazing hard fought technical wrestling in this. Maybe one or two jokes and the match never got truely nasty, but I be damned if this wasn‘t some great pro wrestling. These WoS guys really make the most basic stuff look awesome. Holds clamped on super tight, fast and snappy bumping, and the pins and reversals are just on a different level. In between that you had some fast, beautiful and effortless rope running and they keep peppering in nearfalls that the crowd went really loud for. This is 2/3 falls and the finish to the first was just fantastic. After that both guys were more cautious and the crowd was really wary about another fall happening. The equalizing fall was tremendous as well. Exhaustion in the last round was just great with both guys taking some amazing missed splashes, so were Faulkners out of nowhere bumps. Just two absolute pros having a high end 1972 level workrate match, going 25 minutes and making it look so easy for a crowd that loved everything, yeah this is why World of Sport ruled.

Vasilios Mantopolous vs. Anton Tejero, France 10/21/1967

 Mantopolous is a monster technician. Tejero is a monster stooge. Obviously this was really entertaining, and had tons of smooth and athletic movements and tricks from Mantopolous. Tejero wasn't exactly non-competitive, but he kind of got smoked. Mantopolous was extremely dominant and Tejero only got a few licks in on him. It's still a super impressive match to be this one sided and nearly 30 minutes and not boring. It really makes you want to see Mantopolous against someone who can stand up to his skill, and we'll have to see if we can find a match like that.

 Batman vs. Teddy Boy, France 9/30/1967

I love that they just had a Batman running around in the French pro wrestling scene. This went 9 minutes which is the equivalent of a short Saturday Night squash, but really lively and fun. Batman has some impressive cartwheels. And Teddy Boy just beat the shit out of him. Even though the match was short, Teddy Boy probably got in more offense than Tejero did in the previous match. Some really nice punches and stomps from him. And Batman was Batman.