The Last Days of Necro, Pt. 2

This is part of my continued quest to find ONE MORE Necro Butcher match to put on any of our MOTY Lists. Phil and I started our Ongoing MOTY Lists in 2014, meaning only about 5% of Necro Butcher's career happened while we were doing our joint list. As an all time Segunda Caida legend, it feels like he needs to be represented much more on our posterity lists. So I have been scouring any 2014-present Necro matches to see if any of them make the cut:


Necro Butcher vs. Rod Street PWASD 1/23/15

ER: This felt like more the fault of the home video recorder than the match itself. This played like a really fun match - and every part of the match I was able to see, I liked - but was filmed from an obstructed corner of the ring, with much of the action happening literally as far away from the camera as you can get while still being in the building. Street is working a Swat gimmick, which is a fun way to have a bunch of faceless goons in Swat shirts standing around the ring, which allows Necro to hit a huge flip dive onto everyone (I had no idea Necro was going off the top to the floor this late in his career) and kick a bunch of them in the head as he would walk by. A shovel gets involved, Necro takes a heavy as hell back suplex, and Necro wins with an O'Connor roll that leads one fan near camera to go "what the fuck?" This felt like a really good late career Necro match, but there were so many minutes where they were brawling completely out of sight, so it's pretty tough to tell for sure.

Necro Butcher vs. Brute VanSlyke 2CW 4/4/15

ER: Here's an enjoyable brawl, billed as a no holds barred match and worked safely but entertainingly by both guys. Necro worked this whole match like a cheap fighting Popeye, which is great. He was Popeye's redneck cousin, smothering them with plastic bags instead of uppercutting them into the ceiling. Necro attacked Brute with the ref, tossing the ref into him a couple times, threw punches and chunky kicks, dug at Brute's face with his hands, and generally controlled much of the first half action with - again - what felt like drunken Popeye offense. Brute came back by throwing Necro into the ringpost, and we get fun moments of Brute treating Necro's facial features with the same respect his face was treated with, and we get fun moves like a nice head vice that has Necro yelling comically about his head and face. This was worked at a little more like 0.8 speed, but Necro's shots delivered and I had a good time with the beating he took from VanSlyke. This was a fun 10 minutes, and that's a nice thing. 

Necro Butcher/Jack Thriller vs. Breyer Wellington/N8 Mattson (PWASD 7/10/15)

ER: Well this was long, and it wasn't actually good, but I certainly enjoyed the aesthetics of it all. It all happened in a small town in Michigan, behind a tin shop building that was likely a used tire discount sale facility or the yard of a lot of a family owned trucking company, and these outdoor shows happening behind a machine shop are always at least somewhat appealing. Necro looks the best of the four, but the other three don't look great. Breyer Wellington (a man whose appearance does not match what you would guess based on his name) and Jack Thriller are in this more than Necro and N8 - at least it sure felt like they were in there a long time - and they don't do much to warrant the amount of time they spend in the ring. Necro and Thriller are working an "on loan from the local prison" gimmick, but don't do anything interesting with it. I did like Necro here, but this was the simplest, base form Necro Butcher. He attacks with simple bodyslams, breaks up pins or bad submissions with kicks to the head, jumps in with a stiff axe handle, stuff that I like to see Necro doing. But the match isn't good in its bones, so you look for little moments, which are there: Wellington kept tight on a sunset flip, N8 Mattson had a decent spinning neckbreaker, stuff that is at least welcome in a nothing match. But no matter how Necro outshone the others, this was not going to be a late era Necro gem. But it *was* a match where Necro took a break mid-match, sitting on a trailer parked behind the venue. That counts for something.