I haven't watched any Horst Hoffmann in a while

I think there might only be about 10 Horst Hoffmann matches on tape. I think I might have seen all of them.

Horst Hoffmann v Lino Di Santo (French Catch, 10/5/61)

I haven't even scratched the surface of the French Catch stuff. The only two matches from that treasure trove I'd watched before this were bonkers great, and while this wasn't at that level I did get halfway through and wonder if I shouldn't just watch the entire lot of it right now. This is the earliest Hoffmann footage we've ever gotten. Everything we had before was from the mid-to-late-70s, right at the tail end of his career. This was a mere four years into it and he was already a machine, not quite fully formed but well on his way. He was like a young Scott Steiner, chucking Di Santo around with ease, a couple of his fallaway slams looking absolutely killer. Di Santo worked this like an ageing veteran, although I have no idea if he actually was and in fact I know not a thing about him if we're speaking freely. Some of his holds were awesome, a bunch of cool wristlock variations, one that he transitioned into a mean backbreaker, then a couple regular backbreakers straight out the Bret Hart playbook (or Bret Hart's backbreakers were straight out the Lino Di Santo playbook, as it were). When they got to trading strikes Hoffmann would nuke Di Santo and there was one knee to the chest that was outrageous. Di Santo hangs in there for the draw in the end, but you kind of get the impression that with a little more seasoning Hoffmann would be putting this to bed before any expiration of time. It's a real shame that we don't have any more Hoffmann footage from Europe. Maybe one day...

Horst Hoffmann v Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 12/9/75)

This was much less fun. 70s Jumbo doesn't do a whole lot for me and my interest in his matches hinge almost entirely on the opponent. So I watched this for the Hoffmann and the Hoffmann was indeed fun, but Jumbo at this stage was no Lino Di Santo and all of the grappling was pretty rudimentary. Hoffmann did some cool stuff, I just don't think Jumbo was the sort to play off it in the most interesting ways. The idea that older wrestling = less exciting is a silly one that evidently isn't accurate, but if you'd asked me 15 years ago when that notion was one I still had in my head to guess which of these two matches was from 1961, I'd have said this one without a second thought. France was really ahead of the game with this shit.