French Catch Catch-Up

 Batman vs. Cesar Leoni, 9/26/1970

Man, it never ceases to be funny that they had a Batman running around in the French wrestling scene. The fact he doesn't wear a mask makes it even weirder. Batman is a great worker though and Leoni looked like a really good rudo too. These guys have really fast armdrags that they bump hard for, really good arm hold work that looks good even after you've seen a million workers do arm hold work. Batman is such a fun technician, he will do a whacky escape and then suddenly bust out a fast Fujiwara armbar. Leoni is clearly a really good wrestler too, and then suddenly he just increases the violence by smacking Batman hard in the jaw and following up with really nasty stomps and kicks. They keep wrestling but Leoni would always try to cheapshot Batman and punch him in painful places. He even removed the corner pads but it ended up costing him and he ate a nice decisive tombstone for the finish. Really nice 15 or so highlight reel of what made French wrestling so cool.

Le Hippie du Ring vs. Gilbert Bernaert, 9/26/1970

It's the Hippy of the Ring, baby. And well I did not expect this to have a bunch of awesome greco roman work, but it did! Bernaert just grabs and shoot suplexes the Hippie and they scramble to the ropes right at the start, and it's clear that Bernaert is not much on board with peace and love. But the Hippie could grapple too and they had an intense contest with some great greco roman throws. Eventually Bernaert starts brutalizing him with cheapshots, really lighting him up with kicks to the back, the chest... Bernaert was quite the stocky baby faced fucker here. Add a cool boston crab finish and a big bump and you have yourself one hell of a match. This ruled, honestly.

Guy Cavillier vs. Albert Sanniez, 2/1/1969

1 Fall match going about 18 minutes. It‘s Cavilliers second match on TV in about 12 years (that we have). Weird how that happens. Cavillier seems to have filled out a bit and was rocking a singlet here. This was the kind of smooth, beautiful lightweight style we‘ve come to associate initially with French pro wrestling. Cavillier drew some boos when he threw the first european uppercut, but they kept the bout in a light hearted direction, even doing some ref comedy (which, thankfully, did not derail the contest). Sanniez was stunning here, doing some excellent bridging work. Cavallier looked more secure too than he did 12 years earlier (shocker!), bouncing around in agile fashion. Like many of these friendly European matches where the referee becomes the butt of jokes there was no winner, so keep in mind that the journey is more important than the destination here. And there was some quite excellent wrestling on that journey.

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.