Gilbert LeDuc vs. Rocco Lamban (France - 10/30/1958)

2/3 Falls match going about 30 minutes. Rocco Lamban, El Estrangulador~! It‘s a testament to the greatness of the Spanish workers that pretty much anytime one of them shows up we get a great match. Lamban, like Adolf Kaiser, uses the Dragon Sleeper as a finish. While he is not quite as comically evil as the Doctor of Philosophy (though he does look like a sophisticated fellow), he sure was willing to do every despicable thing not in the rulebook to get the advantage. He could wrestle, too, and that makes this such a compelling match up. They go from some nice wrestling exchanges with Lamban earning the respect of the audience with a nice hip throw to Lamban punching the shit out of Leducs ear and Leduc stepping on his face nicely. Leduc is impeccable as a gentleman technician who will forearm the shit out of you in these matches. You can say it about almost any face worker in France, but damn did this guy have great european uppercuts. We also get to see him play Bridge between the falls and that was really cool and now I‘ll forver dub Leduc as „The Gambler“ in my mind. I loved when Lamban decided to try and bite his way out of a hold, Leduc went Tyson on him biting his ear. Lamban is good enough that he doesn‘t have to rely on choking all the time. When they do get to working around the Dragon Sleeper, its some really compelling work thanks to both Lamban having a variety of ways to get the hold and Leduc having a variety of ways to get out of it. When Lamban finally sinks the hold in deep and chokes Leduc out it‘s gritty as hell. One thing I like in these old French matches is even the referees will get violent to get a heel to break a hold, usually facelocking them like riot cops pulling off protesters, in this case the referee just decided to punch Rocco in the face. The 3rd fall was really great and probably the best build to a finish we‘ve seen in this entire project with Lamban trying everything to get the Dragon Sleeper again and Leduc, being clearly wobbly, throwing body punches and left-right forearms. Actual finish was a thing of beauty.