Bagarre

Tristan Archer, 5'10", 198#, and Marc Sébire, 5'11", 196#, come out punching in this Ouest Catch event from March 15th in Piouasne, France (watch all 23 minutes of it here--for some reason there's no sound for the first two minutes and for part of the last two minutes). The crowd is mostly on Tristan's side, though Marc gets plenty of love, too. The action is sweaty and grueling, and the punching's pretty much nonstop. I'm reminded how much I love out-of-ring slugfests, especially the part when the less damaged of the two groggily hurls his adversary to the ring apron and under the bottom rope (photos 6 and 8, above). And nothing tops off a volley of punches as crisply and loudly as a body slam. Marc dominates Tristan for half of this match, piledriving him into a steel folding chair at the halfway point (12:47--photo 13, above). A TKO stops the match, and at the end, in a sportsmanlike gesture I miss in most US pro wrestling, the two opponents give each other hugs, minutes after trying to tear each other in two. By the way, ten days after this match Tristan wished me a happy birthday on Facebook--can you tell I was thrilled?--and, yeah, I'm narcissistic enough to make this about me.