Emission Du Catch 5/17 or 7/15/1978

 Watch (And you want to watch)

Brigitte Borne vs. Lola Garcia

This was a sweet match. It was Borne, who was pretty much the top woman among the French lady wrestlers against Garcia who was the #1 in Spain. Rare you get a high profile match up like that. The wrestling was a real clinic too. It starts great right off the bat with Garcia really throwing Borne hard with her basic headlock takeovers and then basically trying to pop her head off with those side headlocks. The whole match was built around some really great throws and then head crunching headscissors and other tight holds. Not a ton of flash but Borne had some really sweet flashy arm takedowns at one point. The holds and escapes were worked insanely well and both of them fought like mad. Check out Bornes spinning headscissor counter when Garcia tried to go for her leg. Great stuff, the best womens match from the 70s?

 

Angelito & Kader Hassouni vs. Jean Menard & Jackie Richard

 This was another absolutely sick match. Just one breathtaking exchange after another, worked at a crazy pace. It rules that a bunch of balding dudes working in France in the 70s pretty much blow everyone in the world right now away both in terms of athleticism and sheer precision and timing. They just go hard and rip out one crazy exchange after another like it's the easiest thing in the world. Angelito and Hassouni were slick cats climbing around their opponents and hitting ranas and all kinds of surprising stuff. Richard was old and bald but he still bump really hard and really kick the shit out of his opponent. Menard was big and bad and grey and hold and holy lord anyone wrestler who can look half as good as Menard does here at any age can consider himself lucky. Usually rudos tend to cheat a lot in these matches but Menard wrestled like he had something to prove, often getting the better off his opponents by wrestling and it was really compelling. He may have had the cleanest armdrag from a wristlock I've ever seen. At one point he caught a flying Kader Hassouni and just spun him around and slammed him. Later he busted out all these cool throws, huge backbreakers and even a gutwrench bomb because why the hell not. His match up vs. Angelito was the money match up in this bout and they looked awesome together. Highlights include Angelito working some really neat painful looking halfcrabs, and a spot where Menard went for a backslide and then stood up and held him in a canadian backbreaker. At one point they worked a knuckle lock monkey flip exchange that may have been the best of it's kind I've ever seen, and think of the ground that covers! Angelito was absolute dynamite in this match, crazy how good the guy was both at the flashy highspots as well as the technical stuff. He even ended up taking some giant bumps in this match, the spill over the top rope may have been the craziest I've ever seen. It even ended up spelling his eventual doom as he was unable to tag back in and later he took another huge bump that made for one hell of a finish. Hassouni was pretty slick too and nailed all his stuff. Hell everyone here nailed every thing, so you have a 30 minute match full of compelling high difficulty exchanges with some huge bumps and a good plot and they nailed everything, insanely great shit really.

Even more matches from France that are so great you should see them

 

Michel Saulnier vs. Ricardo Torres, France 5/2/1970

 This was the 15 minute or so intensely worked lightweight sprint your brain craves. Insanely nimble, beautiful work. Saulnier worked this very much the same way he‘d work his matches against Le Petit Prince. Torres is no Petit Prince but he is quite athletic and a pretty cool wrestler. Seriously, these two just blow all other junior wrestling away, has wrestling ever been greater? Match was built around guys trying to catch basic headlocks and armlocks, with the most stupidly great escapes and transitions you‘ve ever seen to spice it up. The opening was just Saulnier working an arm lock and then a headlock and then Torres works a leglock for a bit but it was seriously brilliant. The second half was textbook stuff with flaring tempers and stiff european uppercut exchanges, plus some more convincing nearfalls than you expect. I adore how tenacious Saulnier is, doing things like spinning around to grab a leg after taking a bump. It wasn‘t some kind of epic overarching match but those are kind of the best when you have two guys who go this hard. Really really good stuff.

Guy Mercier vs. Peter Kayser, France 5/2/1970

This was very simple but insanely well worked. Kaiser was a big bald German and a physical specimen. What he did was extremely simple, but it worked. When he bodyslammed Mercier, it was like a bomb dropping. Mercier once again looked like the real deal. The guy just makes everything look awesome. This won‘t turn many peoples heads as there‘s not anything mind blowing, but it‘s just a bunch of insanely tight holds and throws with real weight in them. The opening move were Mercier snatches a cravate hold and Kaiser lifts him around was pretty crazy though. Then you had Mercier taking a crazy bump suicide diving into nothing. This was a good piece of TV to set up another match between them.

Guy Mercier vs. Peter Kayser, France 8/22/1970

Kayser got a pin over Mercier, so Mercier was out for blood here. This match was fantastically heated, with the fans being so firmly behind Mercier popping just about anytime he did anything. Kayser was more evil here, not as evil as other Germans named Kaiser that we‘ve seen on TV, but bad enough that people were getting up and looking like they wanted to jump into the ring. Kayser was pretty much a slobberknocker here beating down Mercier, while Mercier went for leg dives and sleepers to catch his breath, but eventually he engages in a full on slugfest with Kayser. Those bodyslams sounded massive, that ring must have been hard as concrete. Mercier wasn‘t the most charismatic but he was a fervent hero in this. Loved the little smirks he gave when Kayser started mugging to get into another strike exchange. Of course, when they traded uppercuts and chops they just leathered the hell out of each other. This was a good piece of business.

Daniel Schmid vs. Rocky James (4/13/1975)

1 Fall match going a bit under 25 minutes. This was a match between two guys with fantastic physique. I love that Schmid was like a mini Greg Valentine while Rocky James looked like a more stocky Jerry Lawler. The first 10 minutes of this were pretty much a study of upper body holds and throws which these guys executed at blinding speed. After that Schmid tags James with a punch to the jaw and the match turns into a potatoefest. Schmid looked grizzly here, bowling James out of the ring when he tried a leg stretch and then putting on a nasty Fuchi stretch of his own while stepping on James face. The crowd seemed confused about who the face was, so James made sure to be a bastard and clubbed Schmid hard with nasty forearms and punt kicks. I loved all the body shots that were thrown and the back and forth european uppercuts were some of the funniest we‘ve seen with both guys aiming at the jaw. Basically a mix of really fun wrestling and hard hitting by two barrel chested dudes who look like truck drivers.

French Catch-Catch-Up

Petit Prince & Jean Corne & Alain Mitchell vs. Daniel Noced & Jacky Richard & Guy Renault, France 2/9/1974

Really cool French take on a lucha trios. Like those matches, you had a lengthy technico shine, a rudo beatdown building to a hot 3rd fall with plenty of comeuppance. And you had a real money match up to carry the whole thing, and that was Petit Prince vs. Daniel Noced. Holy fuck the Prince is an absolute trip to watch, just the fastest trickiest wrestler ever, and Noced looked great both bumping for his crazy arm drags as well as trying to kick the Princes chest in. Everyone else was good too and I especially enjoy Jacky Richards stooging who is Infernales level when it comes to eating technical offense. It wasn't a deep match and the fact that Cornes initial absence barely played a role was a bit weird but it was a rousing good time in total.

18/01/1973 Rene Ben Chemoul & Walter Bordes vs. Anton Tejero & Inca Viracocha

Another week of French TV, another 30 minutes of stupidly high end pro wrestling. It‘s quite fascinating how closely these matches mimic the layout of a lucha trios. You get about 10 minutes of fun one up manship exchanges, followed by 10 minutes of a rudo beatdown and then 10 minutes of high quality back and forth. Everything executed with ridiculous tighntess and perfection. There are so many little things here that make these exchanges great – the technicians cranking up the viciousness just a little bit more than your typical friendly babyface shine segment, the way these guys will sell a basic shoulder block just being thrown back only to get up immediately and into a rope running segment, the way these guys will not kid around with their european uppercuts and body punches etc. Some of the technical moves were just blindingly fast. Beatdown segment was good with the faces taking lots of bumps flying to the outside, and the ending section was fun and unpredictable. I‘ve learned that big finishing runs centered around heels stooging and trying to throw inside shots with the faces bowling the heels into eachother are way more entertaining than back and forth 2.99999s. Ref has some heel antics but never gets into derailing the match. The French crew is starting to rise in my estimation to be up there with the Michinoku Pro or BattlARTS guys where you could throw any permutation of them into a tag match and it would be MOTY if it happened now. And they did just that week in week out.

 

Georges Cohen vs. Chico de Oro (2/23/74)

1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Chico de Oro is announced as a Spanish champion. If Spain still had workers that good around in 1974, it’s pretty sad that Spanish wrestling died around that time. This was a technical match up with a fast pace. Both man engaged in some intricate wrestling and fast rope running. Chico de Oro played nice and sportsmanlike, but the French crowd was firmly on the side of their boy Cohen. It almost annoyed me a little how they kept siding with Cohen even when he kept kicking Chico de Oros ass. The Spanish champ ended up taking a few bumps to the outside and fought back valiantly, even throwing out some flying headbutts, but he had no chance winning that crowd over. There was also some weird controversy with the referee where he gave Cohen a public warning for breaking out of a pinfall. All that said, it was a very good match.

 

Catching up with French Catch

 

Gilbert Leduc vs. Bert Mychel 4/16/73

Gritty as hell grappling match between two guys who look like dock workers or pup owners. That is kind of the best kind of old school match, and this was a really great version of that. Mychel is a Belgian greco olympian. He‘s built like a bear and looks a bit like Dick Murdoch, with a mean scowl. I think I‘ve yet to see a Belgian wrestler who wasn‘t awesome and Mychel did his country proud. This was low on flash but high on slow, gruelling struggling in and out of holds. Sometimes smooth and slick can be cool but there‘s an art form to working a slow headscissor or headlock that makes these kind of matches really engrossing. Both guys legit skill came into play too, as there were some cool quarter nelsons and some more uncooperative than usual scrambles over pins and holds. Highlights include some really painful looking handwork, Leduc deciding to hit lightning fast takedowns 20+ minutes into the match and one of the most painful looking, shoulder popping struggles over a butterfly suplex attempt that i‘ve ever seen. The fallaway slam over the rope was also totally unexpected an an absolutely insane bump that really ramped up the drama for the finish. Also, while the match never broke out into a complete slugfest, but they do slug it out here and there, and when they do they just smash the shit out of each other like it‘s France or something. Insanely skillful match that was real engrossing and one hell of a match overall.

Maurice Dumez/Georges Cohen vs. Antonio Montoro/Anton Tejero 4/30/73

Another absolutely beautiful match from France. Chock full of wonderful exchanges. Yes, you‘ve heard it before, but the match had a few outstanding moments. I think Cohen is one of the best technicos on the French scene, but Dumez completely stole the show from him here. Dumez was this lithe, athletic stud who had amazing grace on all his stuff and threw the most brilliant armdrags in the universe. He threw one hell of a suplex, too. The Spaniards were excellent stooges as usual. They did a good 10 minutes of straight wrestling to open this which is always nice, and went back to competitive wrestling even after trying heel shenanigans. Montoro was this aged technico who wrestled like an old bastard who still knew a few nifty technical moves, which is a really cool character, and he threatened to steal the technicos thunder with some of his moves. He‘d come flying off the tope, even leaping at people, and busted out some ridiculously elaborate throws and a great version of that spinning backbreaker we all love. Tejero had grown out his hair at this point making him look pompous and he bumped and stooged as hard as he always does, what a truely dedicated professional wrestler. All falls had really good finishes and the ending was a hoot with Montoro getting pounced across the ring by a miscommunicated move and then Cohen doing a feverish exchange and just darting outside the ring. Another gem from the French trove, if you ask me.

Billy Catanzaro/Pierre Bernaert vs. Mr. Montreal/Vasilios Mantopolous 6/5/72

This was a swimming pool match. All these guys displayed some amazing footwork and timing considering they were wrestling in a shaky, floating ring. This was pretty much a 30 minute comedy squash, wrestled at the highest possible level, like you are watching a couple gods taking a night off and making jokes to put some smiles on their audiences faces. Can you imagine if All Japan had undercard comedy matches like this?! With this kind of obscene workrate and athleticism?!? I really enjoyed the contrast of the Montreal/Mantopolous team, having Mr. Montreal a big body builder type who specializes in freakish strength spots and Mantopolous who is a lightning quick junior. Heels were amazing stooges as you expect, with Catanzaro being brilliant as usual. The man really had all time chemistry with Mantopolous and they breezed through one brilliant exchanges after another. Mantopolous George Kidd style technical trickery looked good in this kind of match. I also really enjoyed how Catanzaro kept teasing the falls into the water, like he was really a master of just barely hanging on to the ropes by his toe, he teases that plunge for 20+ minutes while Bernaert just kept falling into it through miscommunication spots, these two had a fun dynamic. There were a few vicious bits of Catanzaro on offense but they made less than 10% of the match. Jokes were funny, and the match stayed interesting through out as they kept mixing up things to do. If you want to lean back and watch a light hearted 30+ minute workrate sprint, check this out.

Kamikaze vs. Nicolas Priore 5/22/72

Kamikaze (possibly Modesto Aledo, or some imitator) is a really cool character. The creepy look that kind of reminds me of Fantomas, the strange mannerisms coupled with the esoteric martial arts bullshit and unorthodox athletic moves, it makes for a really compelling package. I love martial arts bullshit, and this was some high grade martial arts bullshit. Loved his re-entry into the ring, as well as how quickly he would dive to and over the top rope to attack his opponent. Priore was a good straight man to this weird monster, and they got tremendous heat and drama for their stuff. Kamikaze took a huge bump to the ring apron and seemed done but Priore apparently ended up bleeding from Kamiakzes karate chop assault and the referee ended up stopping the match which is always a memorable ending. Nice introduction to the Kamikaze character.

Speaking of the noose in the country of the hangman

Der Henker vs. Jacky Corn,  12/12/1970

Really solid match that shows the wrestling ability of DER HENKER. Quite a lot of good wrestling here, and I really liked how Henker basically worked like a Greco roman wrestler with a touch of evil. Really liked how he snatched a bear hug into greco roman slam at one point. As usual with French wrestling both guys throw really stiff, great looking European uppercut. Until the hangman started working Corn over with elbows to the face. Corn ended up with a nasty cut and the drama turned up huge before Henker hit a Tombstone Piledriver and Corns second threw in the towel, a finish that should be more common for when a masked evil guy slays a fan favourite in pro wrestling.

Der Henker vs. Gilbert Leduc, 7/31/1971

Wonderful title match which was all about Leducs beautiful technique vs. the imposing force of the hangman, building to an excellent blood drenched finale. Leduc works some great escapes and holds with Henker occasionally powering out of holds and going for nerve holds and chokes, retaining his status as a mysterious powerful evil guy. It seemed to be Leducs match until the Henker started bombing him with some high impact power moves and beating Leducs head into the mat. Leduc came up bleeding and it seemed like a matter of time until the towel would have to be thrown in, but with a last ditch effort Leduc escaped the dreaded piledriver and made a valiant and dramatic comeback throwing his awesome looking left-right elbows and european uppercuts. Really classy but also gritty stuff and just a beautiful match.

Der Henker vs. Gilbert Leduc & Jacky Corn, 7/5/1972

Der Henker has left both these men a bloody mess before, so it is not far fetched that a handicap match would be in order. Both Leduc and Corn worked some energetic exchanges with the hangman to begin. Der Henker is just great as this unrelenting evil force, though and you buy that he can beat two men at once with how he would roll with their shots and keep coming back. Soon enough he has rammed Corn into the ringpost, bloodying him and giving him a piledriver in the center of the ring. Corn barely got out and had to be carried to the back, and now this place is really coming unruly. Intense moment when the Henker fell outside the ring and a huge crowd started ganging up on him. Leduc does an awesome job trying to batter the evil masked man with his elbows and uppercuts, but soon the hangman got the upper hand back demolishing him with big forearms of his own. Leduc ends up bloody and dropped on his head and it seems all hope is lost until Corn comes back to make the hottest of tags. Corn throwing punches andlaunching the ref around was great, as it felt like he was done with the straight wrestling and just tried to combat this monster with all he had. We get a hot ending run with Leduc and Corn finally inching closer to making a dent into the Henker but in true European weirdo fashion the match goes to a time limit draw. I guess that was supposed to get people to come to a follow up match, and I must say I am now thoroughly invested in this feud. Leduc and Corn looked like heroes and DER HENKER is great as an evil monster that won't quit.

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.

80s Europe #4

Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey, 1/28/1980

Johnny Saint is the World Champion here. Steve Grey has beaten him the year before, can he do it again? Something I love about old european wrestling: the weight classes that protected these lighter guys.

This is an utterly incredible match. Easily the best Johnny Saint match ever. Part of why the match is great is the high speed, super athletic, tricked out technical stuff they do, but how they build it into an intense contest is magnificient. This is not the smiling, funny Johnny Saint who does jokes and tricks, it's Johnny Saint as the focussed, skillful champ against the most determined guy in the world. Walton puts over how impressive it is that Grey can even throw Johnny. They also map out the action beautifully, with some spots teased early on that get played off later, repeated sequences leading into transitions etc. Always with the focus on the challenger trying to topple the champ. Then you also have all these insane fast and intricate rope running exchanges.

Another thing I like about this bout is that it's not nice. It's an all technical match with no strikes, but they were punishing eachother here. Each hold or takedown would be really wrenched in, Grey was constantly trying to snap Johnny's wrist. Grey would also claw his hand in Saint's face, Saint would smash his shoulder into the mat, elbow on the face when trying a pin, etc. I also really liked the use of the arm wringer bump or missed dropkick, these simple bumps look great in World of Sport and were timed perfectly.

Grey is a crazy good babyface. He is great at putting over how fierce the bout is and how he was pushing himself to the limit to beat Saint. His selling was fantastic: He would slump over exhausted but then get up, or get Saint in a basic hold so he could regenerate his injured leg. Saint was less expressive but perfect for his role.

 All time great match. May be a serious GOAT contender even. But that's up to how much one can enjoy this kind of face vs. face technical match. For what it is I can't recall many instances where it's been done better.

 Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez, 2/2/1981

Great TV match. The usual Breaks heat mongering, coupled with his ferocious arm attacks and Cortez' technical brilliance. Even though this is both guys bread and butter, there was tremendous attention paid to basic holds. Check out Breaks trying to crush Cortez with a bearhug to counter his chancery, as well as some great struggle over a headscissor reversal and a shoulder pin. 

Gerard Herve & Tony Lamotta vs. Golden Falcons, France 8/11/1980

2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. French pro wrestling was nearing the end, but tag team wrestling could still deliver, and this delivered. Fast intricate exchanges, a pair of masked guys who can stooge and deliver a beating… yeah, this is pretty much Lucha. Also, both teams wore matching outfits , so they understood the crucial parts of tag team wrestling. Gerard Herve is Flesh Gordon as some young stud and a quite polished technico. Lamotta is balding and grey, but still really athletic with great looking ranas and flips, although he wisely leaves the bulk of the work to his partner. I didn‘t know what to expect from the Falcons (what kind of heel persona is that, anyways?) but they were ready to wrestle and bump and had good heel timing. There were some heel ref shenanigans with Michel Saulnier again, but to be honest he may have carried the heel beatdown section with his amusing ways to sabotage Herve. The european uppercuts landed loudly and the crowd was into this. The last fall is really short but the ending move is a good one.

1980s EURO COMPENDIUM

80s Europe #2

Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith), 2/23/1980

  This was a great piece of pro wrestling. Breaks in his bumblebee trunks just carrying a barely in puberty Davey Boy like it's nothing. To be fair, David looked good in parts here, doing a decent job struggling out of Breaks holds and taking a big unexpected bump in the last round, but it  was plainly obvious that he could only do a handful of things. Most of his comebacks are just him bodyslamming Breaks over and over. He did however do a great job palm striking his way out of a submission and bloodying Breaks nose. Breaks was great here at first playing a more subtle version of his usual character before turning it up to 11. His submissions were just ridiculous, trying to sprain Davids ankle at first and then zoning in on the arm and bending it as far as humanly possible. This just lead out in a great way. Fun post match too with Davids mentor Alan Dennison coming in to smash things over Breaks head. 

Pat Roach vs. Pete Roberts, 2/13/1980

Pat Roach always looks like the hardest man on the planet to me. This was a pretty excellent contest with some nifty heavyweight grappling. Roachs judo throws rule, as well as his overhead arm suplex. Roach was playing nice early on, and Roberts was doing a really neat Fujiwara-ish performance trying to crack the giant. Once Roach was outsmarted, he just went beast mode and ragdolled Roberts about the ring. In the 3rd fall, Roberts made excellent use of ring positioning to chop Roach down. I liked the finish more than OJ as Roach was limping and in trouble only to launch an overzealous Roberts over the top rope, taking an insane bump on the outside. The smart player Pete Roberts being outsmarted himself was neat.  

Jeff Kaye vs. Tony "Banger" Walsh, 1/28/1980

This was a battle between two great looking wrestlers. Walsh is pasty with a bowlcut and Kaye has kind of medieval mid length hair and is dumpy looking. Kaye is super fired up here cartwheeling around and Banger Walsh was looking to give it to him, throwing shots and grinding Kaye down  with basic moves.  Walsh has really good basic stomps and clubs. If you are familiar with these type of European give and give back face/heel matches you won't be surprised by the structure here but they worked in so many high end exchanges that it stayed entertaining. Unique finish too. Really really fun sprint. 

Fit Finlay/Ian Gilmour vs Guy Mercier/Alan Mitchells 9/25/80

2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. Browsing through hundreds of French matches, and just out of nowhere a 22 year old Dave Finlay pops up in what is maybe his first ever televised match working like a seasoned veteran heel. Pretty cool. The saying about European tag wrestling is that they didn‘t quite know how to do it, but this match had pretty much the kind of structure you want: Fun babyface shine segment, followed by a heel beatdown before a series of cut offs before a comeback succeeds and then a finish. They fool you a bit here by doing a really long shine with the heels making several attempts at starting the beatdown and being cut off, but in the end the structure is there and even the 2/3 Falls formula is integrated well. This was a bit more holds and takedowns based and less about armdrags and ranas, similiar to what we know from British wrestling, but don‘t be fooled the pace in this match was lightning fast. These guys really do an absurd amount of stuff even in a long match, but everything is executed effortlessly. Guy Mercier is a former European champion and legit Greco roman wrestler with a look and aura that just screams tough old man, and while there wasn‘t a ton of extended wrestling in this match he looked like a classy worker. It speaks for the creativity of these old workers just how much they could do with moves like a body slam or hip throw. Finlay also did this cool thing where he misses a big splash in about the first minute of the bout and spends the next few minutes scurrying away while the faces twisted up his leg and launched him into the ropes. It didn‘t pay off in the long run, but it was a fun bit of selling to make the opening minutes more interesting. Once the heels got something going after what felt like 15 minutes of highly entertaining bumping and stooging, they basically focussed on getting the faces to the corner and stomping the crap out of them. Really simple and effective stuff that made me wish modern workers paid more attention to making simple things like a stomp look good, because Finlay had damn great looking stomps here. Another layer to the match was Michel Saulnier, who was grey and a referee by now. The match had some heel ref antics and comical amounts of babyface retaliation against Saulnier, while that is something that can ruin a lot of these Euro matches it was actually executed in a really fun manner here. The thing I loved most how delighted the fans were at the trick the heels used to get a pin here. No hard feelings, it‘s all good fun in France.

1980s EURO COMPENDIUM
 

1980s Euro Compendium

 About a year ago there was a plan to revive the DVDVR 1980s Europe project. That plan kind of went back to sleep, but lots of matches were reviewed and those thoughts shouldn't stay buried in my text files. And with a recent wave of World of Sport uploads, it's a good opportunity to dive into some of the more elusive bouts of the era. I will try to rank the matches as I go through. Expect lots of British wrestling, with the occasional match from France, Germany, Austria, and maybe even Belgium to make an appearance.

1980

1. Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey, WoS 1/28/1980
   
2. Jim Breaks vs. Young David, 2/23/1980
3. Alan Dennison vs. Jim Breaks, 7/14/1980
   
4. Jon Cortez vs. Pete LaPaque, 1/28/1980 
   
5. Ken Joyce vs. Tony Costas, 1/9/1980
6. Ringo Rigby vs. Johnny South, 8/5/1980
   
7. Jeff Kaye vs. Tony "Banger" Walsh, 1/28/1980 
8. Pat Roach vs. Pete Roberts, 2/13/1980 
9. Fit Finlay & Ian Gilmour vs. Alan Mitchells & Guy Mercier, 9/25/1980
   
10. Jon Cortez vs. Jeff Kaye, 2/5/1980
11. Tony Lamotta & Gerard Herve vs. Golden Falcons, 8/11/1980
    
12. Romany Riley vs. Lenny Hurst, 2/13/1980
    
13. Pete Roberts vs. Mark Rocco, 5/28/1980 
14. Jim Breaks vs. Alan Dennison, 8/30/1980
    
15. Jon Cortez vs. Keith Hayward, 11/5/1980
    

1981

1. Alan Kilby vs. King Ben, 10/7/1981
   
2.  Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes, 3/31/1981
   
3. Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez, 2/2/1981 
4. Alan Kilby vs. Terry Rudge, 6/18/1681
5. Alan Kilby vs. Tom Dowie, 1/13/1981
   
6. Jim Breaks vs. Steve Grey, 5/12/1981
7. Clive Myers vs. Keith Haward, 7/15/1981
   
8. Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey, 1/31/1981
   

1982

1. John Elijah vs. Ray Steele, 7/22/1982 
2. Fit Finlay vs. Young David, 3/9/1982
3. Marc Rocco vs. Steve McHoy, 2/17/1982
   

 

1983

1. Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid, 1/19/1983 
2. Terry Rudge vs. Pete Roberts, 3/21/1983
   

 

1984

1. Jim Breaks vs. Dan Collins, 4/26/1984 
2. Keith Haward vs. Chic Cullen, 3/5/1984
   
3. Steve Grey vs. Steve Speed, 1/25/1984
   

1985

1. Mike Bennett vs. Dan Collins, 2/12/1985 
2. Little Prince vs. Keith Haward, 12/11/1985
   
3. Indio Guajaro vs. Pete Roberts, 11/13/1985
   

1985

1986

1987

1. Johnny Saint vs. Robbie Brookside,  4/28/1987

1988

1989