My first foray into Inca Peruano. I've purposely tried to avoid reading specifics about this stuff so I can go in as fresh as possible, but Peruano is a name that's popped up a bunch when trying to piece together a roadmap of where to go with all of it and everything written on him is glowing. Also someone compared his performance in the '57 Joachim La Barba match to 1997 Eddie Guerrero so of course I'm going to be hyped for that. I haven't watched that match yet but I think I'm sold already. We're JIP here to them tumbling and diving around the ring, both of them rolling through on attempted throws leading to a stalemate. Peruano tries to take Labat down with a drop toe hold, Labat doesn't budge, so they talk a little shit before getting back to their feet. The pacing of everything after that was kind of strange. It was niggly as fuck and borderline uncooperative at points, so it led to a number of resets where they'd stare a hole through each other. I think I liked it, though. I couldn't get much of a handle on Labat as a wrestler other than the obvious "this guy is another really good wrestler from 1950s France," but it was pretty easy to get a sense of Inca Peruano. He was grabbing holds and throwing nasty throat punches, kidney punches, yanking Labat by the hair, always feigning at least some sort of innocence, just an awesome rudo performance. Labat would get visibly annoyed and blast him with uppercuts, then Peruano would slink to the ropes, and whenever Labat would follow - which he usually did because I guess he couldn't help himself - Peruano would pull him in close and snap the ropes into Labat's neck or throat. When he wasn't being a vicious dirty prick Peruano was doing all sorts of tricky movements. He grabbed Labat in a knuckle lock at one point, used that to spin Labat around 180 degrees, then Peruano flipped into an awesome cradle/sunset flip for a nearfall. Some of the ways they'll build to quick finishes in these matches is a little reminiscent of lucha, where one guy will string together a sequence that you know the other guy isn't walking away from, and when Peruano started ripping Labat's shoulder and grabbed that disgusting armbar you knew it was over. That was as emphatic as any finish so far.
Inca Peruano v Guy Mercier (French Catch, 12/19/62)
This is JIP even deeper than the previous match, with only about seven minutes shown. What a seven minutes, though. Right as we come in Peruano is hitting headscissor takeovers, a couple in a row, then on the third one Mercier blocks it and turns it into a giant swing, Peruano's legs still trapping Mercier's head. I don't think I've ever seen it done like that before. Peruano has a couple jaw-dropping bumps into the ropes here, the first coming out of an upkick that has him backflipping over the fucking ropes and landing in the signature Adrian Adonis rope tangle. Later he gets half whipped, half flipped across the ring and does the full Cactus Jack upside down tumble where his head is trapped in the ropes. Not many people will take that bump anyway, but of everyone I've seen do it (Foley, Headshrinker Samu, Peruano...I think that's it) Peruano goes into it about about a hundred times quicker. I'm not sure if this had a double pin or Mercier got a shoulder up in the end, but either way I liked the surfboard stretch used at the finish. Holy smokes Peruano is a fun watch.
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