ICW No Holds Barred Vol 3 - Deathmatch Drive-In 7/4/20

Big Twan Tucker vs. Dominic Garrini

PAS: These two were scheduled to match up on AIW show Mania weekend and was one of my most anticipated matches. I believe these two have a great match in them, although this wasn't it. Being in an opener deathmatch in front of an unfamiliar crowd hurt this match a bit. We had some great moments, Twan is awesome at hot brawling openings to matches and they just went after each other to start with Dom killing him with Kawada kicks to the face. The first big lighttube shot was great with Garrini charging in only to get wasted by a lighttube. The match was hurt with a long set up section where Twan just kind of wandered around setting up tubes and boards while Garrini laid there, these matches really need corner men to do all of the construction. They never really brought the match back under control after that, and it was a lot of big spots with long set ups, so this ended up being a bit of a disappointment with some great individual pieces. 

ER: I actually thought this was pretty great. This had great 90s backyard aesthetics, and Dom had the perfect look of a midwest backyard meathead. He's the friend who works overly stiff and wears shorts to school during cold weather months. Dom kicks the hell out of Twan, really hard kicks to the hamstrings and body, and both guys collect sick downward chops to the side of the neck. Twan took a bunch of real painful big man bumps, like crashing through a table with a sick flapjack, or getting tossed with a couple of strong Dom suplexes. The lighttube shots came off cool and gritty to me, adding that grit for the home stretch and elevating the match for me. Garrini ran headlong into a hard swung lighttube, just one of SO MANY examples we've seen of Garrini being a fearless talented meathead jock; the heavy boy's Darby Allin. The lighttube fight added to the grit and gave Garrini the aura of a cool Canon Group action star. Dom headbutting a lighttube into Twan's head is one of those great deathmatch comp moments. Garrini knows how to come off like a true backyard legend, as you suddenly get no sense whatsoever of his grappling accomplishments. Suddenly Garrini is a Cactus Jack acolyte and you see that in his cocked head as he's taking strikes, or Twan flattening him through a door with Dom as a backpack. It was under 10 minutes and always felt like a kickass yard fight. 

56. Eddie Kingston vs. Bret Ison

PAS: This was Eddie's only pandemic indy match, and was an absolute masterclass at what makes him so special. His pandemic hair and beard looked totally badass and this was a standard match, no chairs or tubes just knuckles and knees. I loved the start of this as they began to exchange shots but Kingston gets popped with an elbow and before he could fire back just crumples to the ground, and the match went like that. Kingston was trying to use his hand speed and guile to stay in the pocket with a heavy hitter, landing these peppering palm strike combos to the head and body,  but he kept getting caught with powerful one shot elbows and punches. Kingston is one of the great strikers in wrestling, but is even better at selling strikes and he does a great job making Ison look like he is beating Eddie to death. I wish Ison was 20% better in this match, he is pretty hit and miss with the force on his shots, sometimes he really nails Kingston, and sometimes the forearms come with a big foot stomp and not much force, also don't think the spinning backfist landed as cleanly as it needed to for it to be the finish. Still this was a heck of Kingston performance, glad to see he has got

ER: Quarantine Kingston with shaggy hair and bed beard is fantastic, the Unabomber Kingston era staggering his way into a fight. How did none of us realize that Kingston would make the greatest Bruiser Brody? Are we so visual that we need to see that shag? Kingston looks like a Puerto Rican Tex Cobb and it's tough to go back to smooth line Kingston after seeing this. It added a mountain man side to his character that has been absent before, made him come off like even more of a regional folk hero. Ison is a big goony Baron Corbin, and he's the kind of guy Kingston can make look like a threat just by selling his chops. Kingston's strike game was so great throughout, pivoting through different muscle memories and strategies, never looking out of his element or desperate, just someone looking to advance any way he can. He makes Ison's strikes look like they matter and lays in his rolling elbow. Kingston leaned into everything and made this feel like a genuine war, and while I wish Ison used his size much more than he does, he's someone that has no problem bashing limbs with wild men like Kingston. It's a pairing with a high floor, with a fired up Kingston performance keeping that floor high as hell. He even works blue afterwards in his folksy Lenny Bruce fireside 4th of July chat. 

Eddy Only vs. Tim Donst

ER: I really liked how this started, with Only cementing himself as the heel by running the crowd down hard, and then getting wrecked by Donst, to the point where I was feeling sympathy for Only and the beating he was taking. Donst didn't really hold back on anything, and there was this stunned look on Only's face when Donst hit him as hard as he could with a plastic fat bat covered in tacks. Getting hit in the side of the head with one of those bats at full strength would hurt enough, but when it leaves dozens of tacks stuck into your head? Only looks at Donst like he can't believe Donst hit him as hard as he possibly could have, and then Donst does it again. Only is getting really battered, suplexed onto the grass, and it's this cool heel in peril with a cold babyface just punishing him. But at some point I am reminded why whatever Tim Donst is supposed to be doing does not work for me. He is so emotionless in the ring that he takes things beyond no selling, as not selling offense tends to at least bring some kind of character. He just acts like a man who is numb to all kind of pain, which could be cool...but if I was every other dude on a deathmatch card with him it would sure as hell he annoying to watch a guy get suplexed multiple times into tacks, crawl hands and knees through tacks, take a back bump off the apron through a board with cut up beer cans, get lighttubes kicked into his face, and sell it all by making a frowny face as if he were being admonished by his parents for missing curfew. I liked what Only brought to this, came off like a guy who was in actual pain while taking some gnarly shots, including getting a barbed wire board avalanched into him. I liked Donst's willingness to be crazy, loved his wild tope, but you have to make these weapons mean something. He is adamantly trying to make them mean less than anyone. 

Eric Ryan vs. Alex Ocean

ER: I'll always go out of my way to watch Eric Ryan matches. He's one of my favorite brawlers and he's one of the greatest bleeders in wrestling history, no hyperbole. This match did not work for me at all, went way too long, and was pretty artless about how they got from A to B to C. However, Ryan bled great. He bled immediately, and it was some great blood. He headbutted a couple of lighttubes into Ocean's head, got color on his own head, and somehow wound up immediately cutting open his entire back. He had this gorgeous collection of streams running down his back that made him look like he was a see through human body vein diagram. There are a lot of painful moments here, but they all run together pretty quickly. It's crazy to me when someone is dragged across the mat through a bunch of broken glass, but there's such a weird focus on selling every single thing the same in a deathmatch. There really needs to be some expressive selling to get across some of this damage. Give me a guy screaming as he's being dragged across broken glass man. The kind of stuff that is more interesting to me is Ryan starting the match with a fork and quickly stabbing Ocean's arm when Ocean goes for a lock up. Ocean snatched the fork away, and Ryan simply grabbed another one out of his pocket. That moment had so much more creativity than just setting up props. The finish of the match sees Ryan attempt to mule kick a couple lighttubes over Ocean's face while holding a single crab, but he keeps missing and just heel kicking Ocean in the face. And guess what? Ocean getting kicked in the face looked more violent than any of the weapon shots. A death match with the brawling as the focus is just going to be better, and this felt like 18 minutes of them picking up and just moving onto the next prop. 

Matthew Justice vs. Casanova Valentine

ER: I dug this match on paper and liked a lot of what they did, I just wish they didn't take 20 minutes to do it. Valentine has maybe my favorite look in deathmatch wrestling, like a gastric bypass Pig Champion, and I love blown out Justice epics. I thought they did a good job at working the deathmatch elements and not just arbitrarily rolling around in wire and glass. There was some build to this, and I liked how Justice hit Casanova's garden weasel out of his hands with a chair to start, instead of jumping right into some weaseling. They took those steps to ramp up their damage and make the eventual weaseling mean a bit more. If you start with Valentine breaking lighttubes over Justice's balls, then where can you go from there? The match is plagued by length and some unnecessary overbooking, with things like Riley Madison and Manders interference not really leading to anything that we couldn't have done without. People want to see Justice jump off high places, and he does that, and it rules. He hits a wild superfly splash off an SUV through a table, and we get to see Valentine really smoosh Justice later with his own big splash. A lot of the weapon stuff comes off kinda weak, as they were following a match that saw every possible weapon and attack you could need from a match, and this was just going to be repeating that. And it didn't help that the finish was a verrrry long time stand still moment of Mancer trying to light some fireworks that were attached to skewers, and the fireworks would not light. So you had poor Valentine kneeling there holding skewers into his own head, eyes fixed on Manders the entire time trying to light the damn things, Justice standing around waiting, and finally Justice calls an audible and just hits Valentine with a chair. I think they could have done what they did in half the time, and a 20 minute match ending with the flattest finish possible is always going to seem more disappointing. 

Matt Tremont vs. Akira

ER: I really didn't like the start of this, as they sat down in chairs right at the bell and did the "barroom punch" spot and threw worked punches at each other. The crowd was the quietest during this than they were all night, so I can't say that it was working for them either. I don't like that spot anyway (although Akira and Mickie Knuckles made it obsolete with their take on it earlier this year), but starting off a match with it, with no build and nowhere to go, makes no sense to me. Tremont throws nice worked punches, but this crowd has seen some uggggly shots on this show, and they are not going to be moved by worked punches. And when Akira puts his hands behind his back and demands Tremont hit him, there isn't any drama in that either, as Tremont had already punched him 10 times without Akira bothering to defend. Some things work, and "some things work" is probably the thing I will find myself writing the most whenever I watch deathmatches. Akira gets that same cool blood streaming down his back that Eric Ryan got earlier, there's a cool battle over Akira trying to get Tremont up for a death valley driver, and Tremont really brains Akira with lighttubes when Akira was attempting a plancha. Akira gets a fairly deep slice under his breastbone from it, could have been a cool thing to build off. But, as with a lot of this, the build just seems scattered at best. 

John Wayne Murdoch vs. Jeff King

ER: I thought this was a fantastic Jeff King performance, one of my favorite individual performances on the show. I am always going to love any wrestler who is referred to as an old timer (unless it's some cutesy fake old man gimmick) and King has had an interesting career. I knew him as a guy who would show up on IWA-MS shows in the 2000s, and then he disappeared for several years, coming back earlier this decade and slowly working himself into the deathmatch scene. He's probably younger than I am, but I love an old timer who is perhaps a fish out of water. Here he takes a furious beating from Murdoch, and every second of the match King felt like a man trying to prove himself to a scene. And at minimum, he certainly proved himself to me. He took a lot of punishment, and I think what makes a deathmatch worker appeal most to me is what their foundation is. I relate far more to the IWA-MS deathmatches because the core IWA style was rooted in southern wrestling. East coast DM style is much more big prop spots with less glue to get to those big moments, but King is a guy who feels more like a Memphis guy and that really works within a deathmatch. He takes big bumps and fills in downtime with nice punches, so there is less building structures and seeking weapons and more of a southern structure in its place. He gets really scared up here and I bought into his horror at the violence, like getting a gusset plate smashed onto his arm and punched into his head. He does a wild tope con giro through a table (Murdoch moved) and there were several moments of him taking an insane bump on missed offense. He hits a disgusting senton through several set up chairs, crushes Murdoch through barbed wire table with a backpack cannonball, and gets dropped through a chair by a Murdoch brainbuster. The finish is basically a botch but far more insane for it, as it's supposed to be a Murdoch superplex through a tubes covered table, but they set the table up WAY too close to the buckles. So, the superplex happens, but King flies PAST the table and Murdoch takes a back bump onto the table and spills off, both guys ending up worse off than if they had both gone through the table. Ugly fight, awesome King performance, and that's exciting for me as I hadn't seen the guy work in probably well over a decade. 

John Wayne Murdoch vs. Nick Gage

ER: It's cool Gage made it out as a way to cap off the show, but I think his power is minimized a lot by showing up at the end of a show where every single match had one of the guys essentially "doing" Nick Gage. These are all going to be bloody fights, and by the time we get to the main event of these shows we have seen EVERYTHING. So even though Gage and Murdoch have the best "sitting in chairs while punching face" sequence on the show, it is also the third time we have seen that routine. Gage has charisma that brings a higher floor into his matches, and the energy he brings to a crowd is undeniable. He and Murdoch punch each other in the face, and I loved how Gage geared up, took a lot of shots, kicked his chair away and flew into Murdoch with a diving elbow. Both guys took some disgusting shots, like Gage getting thrown through a sliced cans board, and plenty of ugly bumps through chairs. Murdoch wins with a brainbuster on a bent to hell chair, which was sick and looked like something that should definitely finish a match. And, it did finish a match, literally right before this match. And that's kind the problem with shows like this. Even with an appropriate number of matches, it is incredibly hard to still WOW a viewer at the end of a show like this. We all learned that a long time ago, the best matches of a deathmatch tournament are almost always 1st round matches, and on a show like this where everyone is using mostly the same props you're going to see even more of the ideas being used up halfway through. A match like this would have played far better as the main event of a normal wrestling show, but this is the kind of match that drew a nice crowd so more power to these lunatics. 

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ICW New York No Holds Barred 1/4/20

Tessa Blanchard vs. Nick Gage

ER: This was a brawl sprint, with Gage jumping Blanchard at the bell and her playing catch-up the whole time. I think it would have worked a lot better if Gage had taken time to sell Blanchard's shots better. Gage likes these quick brawls where he's pushing through the crowd, pushing through fans while exchanging big punches. But Gage's thing is also that he's the toughest guy in the room, so he's barely getting moved by Blanchard's strikes, and meanwhile Tessa is whipping around a head full of hair every time Gage throws a fist near her head. I like some of the ways they get from A to B, like Tessa taking the worse of a crowd beatdown only to escape into the ring and hit a dive. It felt like they were playing up Tessa getting the advantage even though taking more damage due to Gage being distracted by his adoring throng of fans (and it's true that Gage has more live show charisma than most people I've seen on indy shows the past decade). I don't know if that's what they were going for, but I went there for them because it made the pacing make more sense. Things felt a little abrupt and it was a pairing that sounded more interesting on paper, and the finish of Tessa throwing a chair at Gage's head and then DDTing him on it had some hinks, and Gage kicking out right after the 3 to manufacture controversy always just makes both sides come off worse.

8. Homicide vs. Casanova Valentine

PAS: This was like a version of those incredible Homicide vs. Teddy Hart matches in JAPW if Hart looked like pre-gastric bypass Kevin Smith.  Cide just massacres him early, stabbing him with the ghetto fork and spraying lemon juice in the cuts, smashing him in the ribs with a bolt cutter. Valentine does hit a nice belly to belly to take some control, and even garden weasels Cide in the nuts. Valentine brings out a dildo with nails through it, and Homicide kicks him in the balls and just starts brutalizing. I loved the idea of Cide totally unwilling to play along with that viral Tik Tok bullshit. Ron Funches isn't going to retweet you, I am just got to beat the living shit out of you. The end comes with Cide waterboarding Valentine with bleach and frenzy stabbing an already unconscious Valentine in the the head. Out of control Homicide is still incredibly compelling.

ER: It might be easier to be compelling as a worker if you have a lunatic like Valentine who is willing to bleed and get repeatedly stabbed. That's a big ask, but it seems to be Valentine's thing. This is my first time seeing Valentine, though I'd heard the "King of the No Ring Death Matches" moniker before (which does seem like kind of a hollow title. This match had a ring, but it could have easily been worked the exact same way without one, and "need a good ring" is not something that comes to mind when I think of successful death matches). With his big bushy beard and long hair he came off more "Piglet Champion" than Kevin Smith (although had he brought out a Fleshlight covered in nails I would have conceded the Smith resemblance). Homicide's mugging of Valentine started the match, and continued long enough that I wondered if this was turning into Ian vs. Peter B. Beautiful. I'd be really curious to know how much art there was behind Abby or Homicide's fork stabs; it's a quick bit of violent magic that sure feels like a shoot stabbing, and this is a match where people wanted to see a shoot stabbing. Valentine is a good bleeder (has there been a fat guy who is a bad bleeder?) and that was the star of the match, with Homicide stabbing, squeezing lemons into cuts, choking Valentine over the chain ropes, enough that I was genuinely rooting for Valentine by the time he made a comeback. Valentine hits a great overhead belly to belly and has really nice clubbing forearms. He had brought a Garden Weasel to the ring, and it doesn't really read when he's rolling it on Homicide's back. The motions just make me think of a toddler with one of those Fisher Price vacuums with the popping balls. Speaking of popping balls, the Weasel reads much better when he's hooking and pressing it into Homicide's genitals. The bleach finish felt excessive (feels more "feud ending" than "finish of the 2nd match on a show") but you know there had to be several fat wrestling fan Ackshually guys in attendance who explained that Homicide didn't use proper waterboarding technique. The visual of Homicide fork stabbing the unconscious Valentine was strong.


Jimmy Lloyd vs. Alex Colon

ER: The big spots in this were pretty great big spots, but I think they could have tied them together better. YMMM death matches are weird, weak transitions, just one guy falling into something sharp, then standing up and making the other guy fall into something sharp. Both guys are good at falling into sharp things, so the falling looks great, I just wish there was a little more build or sense to it all. But, the big moments are cool, and there is some nice nastiness in between. Colon looks like Death Match Jaka, and he seemingly has several pairs of scissors stashed in his cargo shorts. He slices Lloyd open with a pair of them, but not before Lloyd smashes the top of Colon's head with a thumbtack bat. Colon has a shaved head and we get the great visual of a couple dozen thumbtacks sticking out of head for the rest of the match. Lloyd takes shots with the same bat, but Lloyd is wearing more clothing and has a full mane of hair, doesn't read as impressively as a nutbar our hear doing deathmatch wrestling with no shirt. The board covered in cut up soda cans really shook me, like they keep coming up with new shocking death match props and I can't handle it. Anyone who has accidentally cut themselves on the mouth of a soda can only experienced the tip of the iceberg; those things are even sharper than razorblades and here's Colon eating a facebuster and a tiger driver on them. Crazy. Cameras mostly miss Colon hitting what looked like a killer tornado DDT tope, and the Spanish Fly finish through a barbed wire board was pretty spectacular. Maybe I liked this more than I realized? At minimum, this made me want to see more Alex Colon, and that's a good thing.

Eric Ryan vs. John Wayne Murdoch

ER: What a couple of bloodletting savages. This brawl didn't rely on sections of extended cutting, one guy holding still for minutes while the other gouges at his forehead, and was instead driven by both guys just bashing each other in the forehead with fists and weapons. No gouging, but a lot of disgusting. We had a board with bent forks, a board with cut up soda cans, a board with razorblades, but the real blood factory are these gusset plates. Eric Ryan gets busted open good on impact, and it only takes him hammering Murdoch's face a couple times with a gusset to get him going too. Things ramp up when the go to the floor, both fighting themselves off the apron through a door, with Murdoch following with a cannonball off the apron, and Ryan bashing him silly with a door ("That door must weight 100 pounds," says a commentator who must think bank vaults are made of wood), Ryan really blasting Murdoch with shots who leans into them before eventually regretting that. The big spots looked great, like a wild superplex from Murdoch through a table, and there was plenty of Ryan stabbing and scraping Murdoch with bent forks before tossing bloody fork souvenirs to the crowd. I really like how Ryan's use of forks lends itself to a better brawling atmosphere, keeps action flowing from spot to spot and keeps blood fresh.

PAS: This was pretty good, Ryan is my guy for US death match workers, and he really opens himself up here. I loved Ryan really wasting him with right hands, and I think I would have liked this better if it was more of that, and less set up fork boards. It's weird, if this was just a regular brawl where a guy grabbed a soda can ripped it open and gouged a guy with it I would love it, soda cans on a board make the insanity seem very set up and performative. I loved the half crab stomps finish by Ryan, although I wish it wish it wasn't proceeded by a tough guy no-sell. I liked more about this then I disliked about it for sure, but it did have some stuff I disliked.


Killer Kross vs. Tony Deppen

ER: Deppen comes out in street fight gear, wearing cutoff shorts and a CZW is Pussy shirt (feels like someone on Drag Race could easily turn CZW is Pussy into a huge brand catchphrase), and Killer Kross comes out to murder him. The show needed a match like this, no blood or weapons but a big crowd brawl and a violent semi-squash like classic ECW. Deppen brings some big knee strikes (including one that really buckles Kross) and tries the Darby body-as-weapon approach, which occasionally works! Deppen's tope into the crowd looked great (the security guys in all black and ski masks is a fun touch to the atmosphere), and Deppen even flies off the White Eagle bar with a crossbody. But a lot of this is Kross catching and crushing Deppen, launching him into ugly hotshots on the chainlink ropes, and finishing the match with some sick rolling Riki back suplexes. The whole match worked really well as a palate cleanser, the violence all coming from throws and collisions instead of gouging.

Necro Butcher vs. SHLAK

ER: I got unexpectedly emotional during Necro's entrance. I knew what to expect from his physical appearance, I'd already been shocked by the pictures, but I was not prepared for seeing him in motion. I'm sure part of it was my mood at the time, but the Freebird entrance combined with the decomposing visage of a legend really hit me. I'm not sure what Necro has, but it is something, and possibly several things, and it's terrible. He's a big guy, and parts of his body still retain some size; he still has big calves and fists, but everything else has been wasted away. He honestly looks like my grandfather in his last days, especially in the face. My grandfather died at age 90. I was actually dreading the match by the time I actually saw Necro walk out, but honestly? The match kind of ruled. Considering all factors, here's a guy who looks like Death's ghost, and that is about as much built in wrestling sympathy as you can get. It's no secret that Necro Butcher is one of my all time personal wrestling favorites. He's one of the most fearless and captivating performers I've ever seen, and one of those guys who I would love to see against any opponent, just because of what he brought to a match. There aren't many guys like that, for me, that you can take literally any opponent, and the match would be intriguing just because of The Necro Factor. Necro Butcher vs. Davey Richards? Yes sir, I saw that match LIVE, and I can't fathom any other situation where I would be excited for a Davey Richards match.

I wasn't expecting a classic Necro performance here, but I really liked what we did get. For a man who looks as brittle as 1998 Giant Baba, Necro is still out here getting punched in the face, punching SHLAK in the face with heavy hands, getting his head bashed with the edge of a trash can lid, taking a chairshot to his elbow, and bleeding hardway. If you want to remind yourself how crazy pro wrestling is, just know that had I been in the crowd and a man who looked like Necro landed near me, bleeding, I would have shoved every woman and child I could find in front of me to shield me from whatever could be. But here's SHLAK continuing to open him up, like a total lunatic. Necro doesn't have the speed he once had, but he's still out there throwing big fists directly at SHLAK's jaw, and SHLAK landed several shots right to Necro's ear, and you could see that ear getting redder with every shot. The "sit and trade" spot is pretty played out at this point, but when one of the participants looks like he's a nursing home resident fighting for his supper, a new level of intrigue is baked in. The big shot that finally sends Necro crumbling from his chair was a great visual, and SHLAK just standing on Necro's skull while trying to rip his arm off was even better. And then my man kicking out of two sitout powerbombs got a reaction from me bigger than anything on the show so far. Necro's arm shot up off that mat like that arm reaching up from the grave in Creepshow, showing that this corpse ain't dead yet. When he kicked out of that second powerbomb I was howling, and yet I was thankful when he stayed down for the third. Necro Butcher is an absolute wrestling legend, and I loved what he was still capable of giving.

PAS: I can't say this was a good match. Necro looks like MPRO Dynamite Kid, and it is shocking how much worse he looks then he did even at Spring Break less than a year before. There was some real drama here, because SHLAK is so sloppy that it felt like any moment he might kill this very sick person he was in the ring with. Necro still has real instincts about pacing and storytelling in the ring, and the end was really compelling, with those perfectly timed kickouts. I just rewatched Necro vs. Joe for my book, and you could see that there were similar timing and and pacing instincts in this match. GCW or ICW should just hire Necro to agent their matches, shit NXT or AEW should hire Necro to agent their matches, I just really don't want to see him in the ring again.

I do wish, if Necro had wanted to get semi-squashed by a guy to put them over, that it was someone better then SHLAK. SHLAK looked like he could hardly lift a guy (who might be 140 pounds at best) up for those powerbombs. I have no idea how someone who is that jacked has so little upper body strength. Maybe he is just wearing a realistic looking muscle suit, or ICW has a big CGI budget.


Dan Maff vs. Mance Warner

ER: Big chops, big headbutts, biggest bumps. I will never complain about Maff just chopping fools, and Mancer is crazy enough to puff his chest out for all of it. This was a real bring out all the stops in ring brawl, with classic plunder like trash cans and doors and chairs coming into play. The match starts with an immediate chop exchange, and it goes long enough that I got restless and a little glazed, and Maff snaps me immediately awake when Mancer turns his back to prep for another chop and Maff just spears him unexpectedly through a door. Mancer's crumpled sell into that shattered door was perfection. And everything was big after that, with Mancer dropping big DDTs (including an awesome tornado DDT where he vaults off a chair), and Maff is one of the best at taking DDTs, rolling them right off the side of his big dome. Maff crushes Mance with a cannonball while Mance is laid out in a trash can, Maff drops him with a piledriver on that same can, and the kickouts get fun in a "why not this is crazy fun" kind of way. We get a great visual of Maff being run throat first into on of the top rope turnbuckle boards, and it looked nasty enough and Maff's sell was so good that I bought it as the finish. Mance beating down Maff with part of that busted door from earlier, and Maff's head burst through the door crazy eyed like Jack Torrance. And then Maff destroys Mance with a nasty suplex, before getting the confirmed 3 with a Burning Hammer. And part of me actually wanted to see Mance kick out of the Hammer, just so he could take another.

2. Low-Ki vs. Masashi Takeda

PAS: This was an interesting style clash, with Ki wanting to work the match clean, and Takeda losing his cool and trying to brawl. The early sprawls and wrestling exchanges were really fast, and caused Takeda to open up a wound on his ear. Takeda eventually tires of the wrestling and kicks Ki low, but each time he tries to bring in weapons Ki counters: Punching a chair out of his hands, using judo throws to avoid scissors shots, so cool. Finish was the kind of unique bit of violence which Ki has been coming up with lately. Ki ties Takeda's arm's behind his back with the belt Ki was wearing with his Gi. Takeda spits on him, and Ki responds with a spinning kick to Takeda's sternum, and a double stomp from an elevated platform directly onto Takeda's spinal cord for a well deserved ref stoppage. After that Takeda is going to be begging to take some gussets to the face. Really fun style clash and Ki just keeps rolling.

ER: I loved how Ki approached this match, playing it totally straight, and the ground game was good enough for both that I stupidly expected it to stay there. Once Takeda grabbed a cool kneebar that made Ki sit up suddenly, I was getting into a mat based main event on a death match show. But Takeda couldn't help himself and just punts Ki in the balls. I loved Ki still selling the nutshot on the floor with a duckwalk around the ring as Takeda dragged him, love the way Takeda's ear blood splattered across his face (Takeda's body is one giant wound waiting to be opened, so not a shock he was busted open early), and love just how damn HARD Low Ki punched a chair into Takeda's face. Takeda went to swing on the floor and Ki punched that thing so hard I assumed he had broken his hand. The work around Takeda's long cutting shears was awesome, with Ki holding him off from stabbing his eyeball, then working slick throws to toss Takeda without getting sliced. I wish Takeda would have taken Ki's kicks a little more seriously, there was one spot in particular where Takeda flipped Ki off and Ki William Tell'd that finger practically right off his hand and in one motion swept back and kicked him in the jaw. But Takeda sold some of Ki's kicks by just standing up after getting kicked. No fighting spirit, just a guy who was now taking his turn. I hate that shit. Luckily this match had Ki stomping through Takeda's torso bones, and that is something I am okay with. He hits one early leap onto Takeda's chest after leaping off the chain ropes, and the match ends with the most cruel Warriors Way possible: Ki plausibly ties Takeda's hands behind his back using the belt on his gi (love Ki in his 1994 UFC skin), batters the defenseless psycho, and leaps off the top onto a balled up Takeda. The finish either properly reset damage he had taken, or completely destroyed Takeda's back for life. Who can be sure?


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