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.

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Last Days of Necro

Necro Butcher didn't work a ton of matches during his last few active years, and I realized I'd hardly seen any of his work from 2014-16. It surely couldn't hurt to take a look at some of those matches, just to see the last glimpses of this legend.

Necro Butcher vs. Brute VanSlyke 2CW 12/27/14

ER: This was No Holds Barred and we had no idea how literally that would be taken during this match. I'd never seen VanSlyke before but he's a big guy who clearly has no problems taking balled up punches to the face, and will happily hurt this old boxcar hobo. This was a really good brawl that focused on two guys hitting the other. That seems pretty obvious, but so many of these things are about stupid spot set up with too much space between the beatings. This was constant beatings. Necro clonked Brute with ring steps and a chair, and even grabbed him right by the balls and yanked. Brute slammed him into the ringpost and worked a convincing backbreaker (nice sell by Necro too) and continued working that back by slamming him into the turnbuckles. Necro doesn't really bump at this point - can't blame him - and he doesn't look physically able to get up for a ton anymore. There were a few times where Brute lifted him into something and looked like he was doing 100% of the work. BUT, that also made it look more impressive. Brute dishing a tough suplex on a big guy like Necro with none of Necro's help is only going to make this guy look cool. The finish was a fantastic fireworks show, with this breaking down into a big punch exchange, building to Brute hitting a nasty lariat on Necro. And then he makes this better and better by picking Necro up for a few more short arm lariats, grabbing him off the mat by his beard on the last one, and aiming that lariat right at the side of Necro's head. If there's a better Necro brawl than this one in the last couple years of his career, someone please show it to me now!

Necro Butcher/Smokey C/Grim Reefer vs. Sabu/Rhino/Devon Moore PWS 6/11/16

ER: Well this was kind of a drag. This is noteworthy for being Necro Butcher's last wrestling match (yes he was in the goofy Janela battle royal earlier this year, but this was at least supposedly structured like a match), but it isn't really much outside of that fact. Necro is involved in this footage less than maybe anyone (I'm sure he was off brawling in the crowd, but this handheld didn't pick a second of that up). This was mostly Sabu throwing chairs at people and then doing his legdrop/chair thing and people chanting "You still got it!" This felt much more like Sabu's retirement match than Necro Butcher's. Grim Reefer had a couple nice moments including a cool rope walk somersault senton, but that was about it. Just as it looked like Necro was going to go through a highlight reel of Necro Butcher stuff, Natural Born Killaz hit and we got a New Jack appearance. Jack is moving slow as hellllll and we got a guitar shot, some cane shots, and at one point he put a trash can on Necro and just sort of fell on him. Necro at least made some things interesting with his selling, making it look like he took something sharp to his eye. That's something. But Necro clearly needed to retire. Nothing about him at this point really read "wrestler". He was wearing track pants and looked about as old as someone can look at 43. A lot of the match honestly felt like a way to tease Necro *about* to do something, but not being able to. He fired back a bit with some floating punches on New Jack, and wasn't even allowed to hit the tiger driver. Who wanted this to end with Necro losing to Devon Moore by small package? This felt like it was designed to be a crowd pleasing match, that wasn't really pleasing in any way to me. Necro is an absolute pillar to me, hate to see this be the last gasp, but also glad the dude eventually got out of wrestling.

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