Ian Rotten Hurt You in a Voice Like a Prayer

Ian Rotten vs. Claudio Castagnoli ROE 6/19/04

JR: It’s hard to remember just how different indie wrestling was fifteen years ago. How when Kenta Kobashi came to New York to wrestle Samoa Joe for ROH, it took days to convince him that people would know who he was, that he wouldn’t have to work a stereotypical foreign heel gimmick for the night. You can see it on his face when he comes out, the realization that he was somehow relevant to a room full of people from half a world away, people he presumed had never even heard of him.

I think, in some small way, this is probably how Ian felt almost exactly a year prior, wrestling in some ballroom in Austria against Claudio Castagnoli. I guess this is from a company that is tangentially related to WXW, so people probably knew who he was. But did he feel naked in some way, not wrestling a death match? Was there some fear of going outside of some agreed upon comfort zone for an expectant crowd, like when a band plays songs off the newest album instead of the hits?

I’ve sort of nibbled at the edges of an idea while watching all of these Ian matches, but there is something structurally interesting in them that reminds me of cosmic horror. The matches all start out nominally like a wrestling match; they have holds, there is a feeling out process, there are things that Ian does and that Ian’s opponents do that allow the viewer to say “yes, this is a wrestling match in some identifiable way”. But the longer they go on, really, the longer Ian exerts some offensive control, the more weird it feels, the more the viewer is confronted with things that feel out of place, that feel just off enough to make you stop and pay attention because something is happening in front of you that is recognizable in some sense, but undefinable and grotesque in some other. Phil spoke about it in the Homicide match, where Ian, as time goes on, works holds from angles and places that are not angles and places that we are used to seeing. It’s unsettling then and it remains unsettling here, as he uses short palm strikes while Claudio is on the ground, sharp and violent things that are within the rules of wrestling, moreso even than a close fisted punch would be, but are so absurdly violent looking that they feel illegal, as though the ref should move in and say, “no, this isn’t allowed” and start counting to five.

Ian’s work is always accentuated because it presents his opponent’s with a binary choice: to follow him down a dark path or not. Some, like Joe or Homicide, are capable of transforming and becoming more violent themselves, creating their own dark oddities. Others, like Tarek, perhaps B-Boy, are ill-equipped and can only respond by doing things we see them do in a standard wrestling match. Both serve to create narrative and atmosphere, albeit in very different ways. Claudio is more the latter at this point in his career, although part of that is due to him being hamstrung by Ares being a very present heel manager on the outside. But prior to Ares becoming a major part of the match, Claudio tries in vain to wrestle and strike and have a match, while Ian makes the choice to consistently punch and kick and grab at the back of his opponent’s thigh. It’s horrific, each shot landing with a dull thud, each causing Castagnoli to crumple and lose his balance for the briefest of moments.

There is a sequence that probably marks the midpoint of the match that is a tremendous distillation of Ian’s work in this style as a whole. In the corner, he absolutely pastes Claudio with a forearm, so hard he follows through, almost like a boot scrape. He whips Castagnoli across, who is still selling his leg and basically hops along the diagonal before collapsing. From there, Ian hits a drop kick in the corner, somehow equal parts more athletic than it should be and awkward and unsafe to the point where it looks like he's never attempted it before just now. The announcers, who prior to this had spoken in hushed German like the match was a golf tournament, just start laughing incredulously. There is nothing to be said.

It’s this dropkick that serves as a clear escalation, in the same way that headbutts often do in the previous matches we’ve looked at. Castagnoli works with purpose in his control segment, taking Ian’s arm using the mat, the ropes, his own head, anything he can find to create a fulcrum and bend it in some direction it isn’t supposed to bend. He tries to escalate, to follow Ian the way that others have, but he lacks the tools. He sells his leg throughout, and it plays in to the next major transition, as Ian is afforded too much time and counters a move from the top rope. Well, he knees Castagnoli in the face during a diving headbutt. The announcers laugh again. It almost comes across as a defense mechanism. They do so a third time on a lariat.

That’s why it feels so jarring when the finishing run, instead of a continued devolution into something eldritch and unknowable, turns into a pro wrestling match. There is a failed interference spot, and a tribute to Dusty Rhodes. There is referee distraction. It all feels so….normal. Not even normal for Ian’s standards, but decidedly normal. Perhaps it was Ian’s suggestion, a rare lack of confidence in his own work or a lack of trust in the audience. Maybe he simply thought that they needed something easy, something universal that could be grasped by people who haven’t seen him stretch the boundaries for years. Perhaps, unlike Kobashi, no one took Ian aside and convinced him that he was relevant, that people would be able to follow along.

PAS: Wasn't Claudio's early 2000s gimmick that he was a wealthy millionaire? He is wearing a short sleeve patterned shirt with a tie and white jeans, he looks like he about to do a bringers set at the Fort Wayne Indiana Comedy Barn in 1987. This was pretty early Claudio and you could see the outlines of what he would become, but he wasn't there yet. This was a hell of an Ian performance though, and for most of the match he delivered the kind of viscerally violent performance that has drawn us to him. I coined the term Meth Lab BattlArts for this style of match, but after watching so much French Catch over the last couple of months, Ian really reminds me of those nasty Catch heels, much like Tony Oliver or Cheri Bibi where they look for every opportunity to throw in a hard cheap shot or twist a limb in a wrong violent way. Ian's palm strikes in this were their own unique bit of thrilling transgression. This was great stuff until it wasn't. I agree with what JR said, it felt like both guys were unwilling to take the match where it should have gone, and kind of took a hack road out. Still this was a heck of a hidden gem, because large parts of this were some of the most vivid wrestling you will ever watch.