IWA Mid-South Top 18 Matches, #12: Mean Mitch Page v. Corporal Robinson 10/27/01

 #12 Mean Mitch Page v. Corporal Robinson 10/27/01



PAS: This is a house of horrors match with light tubes hanging like wind chimes from the ceiling, and multiple tables stacked with light tubes. Parts of this I liked but it just went too long for something this brutal. The Klein v. Necro match was great because it was a violent sprint. Something like this had a lot of moments of both guys lying around covered in glass and bleeding. Robinson has great punches and that made the parts between bumps look good, and the bumps were cool, but the whole thing needed to be compressed, and the they needed to end on the biggest bump, instead of both guys just sort of collapsing from fatigue and blood loss. It was a spectacle for sure, but I don't think it was a great match.

ER: I liked this a lot more than Phil. Necro/Klein is a violent ugly masterpiece and it's tough to compare other matches to it. This match set out to do something different and I thought it accomplished it well. It was long, it was violent, it was not compressed, it dragged it spots, and the finish was two broken men. And that's kind of what I loved about it. Klein/Necro was the fast violent sprint, this was the "every tool in your belt" shitshow. I liked that it didn't necessarily peak, but more maintained violence until neither man could really do any more violence. And it did go too long for something this brutal...but the thing is, those brutal things were ACTUALLY happening to these two, and they actually DID last this long. This was your endurance death match and they endured some ungodly punishment, some of it - unfortunately for them - some of it far more painful to them than it looks to the viewer. I'm not sure the best salesman in wrestling could accurately get over how much it must hurt to have your cut up body rolled through fiberglass insulation, or dumped in rubbing alcohol (although for general hygiene concerns, dunking these two in rubbing alcohol probably prevented some infections).
This match was billed as a House of Horrors match and yeah, lived up to that; light tubes, barbed wire, a wiffle bat with thumbtacks taped to it, the aforementioned kiddie pool of alcohol and roll of glass wool, plus a couple of tables covered in light tubes for good measure. The hanging tubes provide an awesome visual, but truthfully are completely ineffective while hung wind chime style, as they don't break while running through them, so they just clack around into each other. It must have taken ages to hang those things up, when all they ended up doing was clacking around and getting awkwardly yanked down by Page/Corp. So, we got weapons, and we got two guys who are each really good at brawling. Phil mentions Robinson's punches but I liked Page's brawling even more in this. His punches looked tighter and when he shook his fist out, I believed it. Their "through crowd" brawling was far better than most, with Page taking a sick bump into some splintery bleachers, and Corp giving him a couple guillotine legdrops on the bleachers. Both men take countless awful and nasty shots to the face and head with light tubes, which make me regularly cringe as you can just imagine dust and glass getting into eyeballs and cuts forming on top of cuts. Before long the ring is littered with thumbtacks and broken glass and just rolling into and out of the ring looks painful. By the end we've seen it all, Corp's face is covered in the darkest blood you've seen, Page has thumbtacks visibly stuck into his scalp, Corp has a giant cut lengthwise across his back, Page has taken a backdrop onto glass wool...and then we start blasting our way through light tube tables. The finish was unexpected, with both men not able to answer the bell, but it felt totally fine to me. Those shots were all real, and here were the two causes of that destruction, lying passed out in the rubble.

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XCW Midwest Rollin Hard Memorial Show 2/3/09

Suicide Kid v. Drake Younger v. American Kickboxer

PAS: Fine little five minute three way, a couple of awkward spots, but Kid and Kickboxer looked pretty good for a pair of guys who don’t really wrestle regularly. Kickboxer had an especially pretty flipping asai.

TKG: About two years ago Suicide Kid was doing commentary for a couple IWA-MS matches and mentioned that he was thinking about a come back no longer as Suicide Kid but now as a more seasoned Suicide Man. He comes out to a big pop and has nice baby charisma but he is no longer a baby, he is a man and eats the pin from the new generation in Drake Younger.

J Boy Allister Fear, Guido Andretti v Ian Rotten, Chris Champion, Mickie Knuckles

TKG: About a year ago Chris Champion had a stroke. Chris Champion is currently working some sort of almost AAA style middle aged Marilyn Manson gimmick. He comes out wearing white face paint and a fascist military uniform with an iron cross insignia, waving the old Wildside Skull and Crossbones flag while carrying a Misfits lunchbox. Inside the Misfits lunchbox are chemicals which he mixes up to blow fireballs. Before Champion had his stroke the joke I used to tell was that for a drugged up tatted charismatic guy with martial arts offense and goth gimmick, Vampiro was a poor man’s Chris Champion. Post stroke for a charismatic tatted up ex druggie with martial arts offense and a AAA type gimmick Chris Champion essentially is Vampiro. This was a fun lil match. I haven’t seen Fear in ages, Ardetti is a XCW regular and I’ve never seen J Boy before but he really did the bulk of stuff for his team. Post match Ian with heartfelt speech about Roland.

PAS: This was a showcase for the faces, and they all looked great. Ian has an awesome Buddy Landell elbow drop here, and Mickie throws some nasty headbutts. I enjoyed all of the heels bumping and talking shit. Ian is really great at emotional speechmaking.

Sexy Shawn Cook v “Mean” Mitch Page

TKG: Mean Mitch Page is a guy who I think is retired but doesn’t look the least bit rusty in the last two matches I’ve seen with him (Mean and Hard v Vulgar Display of Power and this one). His stuff looks really great and he eats Cook’s stuff really well with his legs going al wobbly in neat ways. Mitch Ryder should try to get him out of retirement and run Mitch Page v Freezer Thompson series. Page/Thompson v Hawk/Cook would also rule. Page and a young babyface partner. I want Mean Mitch Page as a regular.

PAS: This was pretty short but Page did look good. His strengths are clearly the kind of brawls which you wouldn’t do on a tribute show. I was pleasantly surprised how good he was in this kind of undercard face v. heel match.

Mitch Ryder v Tracy Smothers

PAS: This is a show with no great match, but where everything was totally satisfying. Tracey Smothers does his classic shtick, and does it well. Ryder looks good, has the crowd behind him and works well around Tracey being Tracey. I imagine they have a great match in them, this wasn’t it but it was a blast

TKG: Smothers comes out and announces that he loves Roland but hates these fans and we’re off. Smothers with a bunch of nasty combinations in the corner and a match that just puts a smile on your face.

Flash Flanagan v. Chris Michaels

PAS: This was for the title and was worked like a title match. Both guys have been in very good matches on previous XCW shows, but always as the solid hand against a guy with some flash. This was technically good, but a little dry. Flanagan really looked facially like Curt Henning which isn't something I noticed before. Good match with a fun finish, but not a top ten XCW match

TKG: Flanagan eats everything in this really really well. This starts really great and is a fine showcase match. The superplex into roll up finish was executed better than usual.

Bull Pain v. Todd Morton

PAS: These are my two favorite guys in this promotion, and two of the best wrestlers in the world. I imagine that this feud will produce one of my top matches of 2009, and I am going to want to see them all. This wasn't that kind of match, but man was it a total blast. Morton comes out with Sexy Shawn Cook so Bull calls to the back and brings out Little Roland and Crackbaby to even the score. Whole match was Morton and Cook with really nasty cheap shots leading to a Crackbaby low blow and a little Roland shot with the Kill Whitey sign for the pin. Really great moment and so much more heartfelt and classy then your WWE tribute show shtick.

TKG: This was being reffed by Mitch Page with Roland’s kids as Bull’s seconds, and so I was expecting more fun than “classics”. Still the wrestling was really good with lots of neat uses for Brother Pain. Bull is shockingly effective face. But this was a match about the kids. That’s what the whole show was about. On some level I’m used to wrestling memorial/tribute shows as being classless and really exploitative. This show wasn’t that. It really felt like a bunch of guys getting together to entertain two kids whose dad had just passed. Those kids coming out for the main event to take out Todd Morton was really sweet. There was something ridiculously gentle and sweet about the whole show.

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