PAS: After watching the absolutely amazing Necro Butcher v. Mr. Insanity match from the IWA KOTDM we sort of decided that we needed to see some live Necro. Since the CZW TOD was only a couple of hours away, we figured we would make the trip. After watching the absolutely amazing Juan Diaz v. Latkva Sim fight from HBO last weekend, we decided we needed to see some boxing, so we headed down to see Gotti v. Dorin in A.C.

TKG: You watch Necro vs. Insanity and you just go, “Fuck I have to see Necro Butcher, anytime he’s wrestling anywhere near me”. Latkva Sim, what needs to be said? Why isn’t there an idiot money mark willing to shell out the dough for Necro Butcher vs. Latkva Sim. HUSTLE VI~~~!!!! Be worth it just for the entrance music. Honestly as much as I love me a Bad Ass Mongolian who comes out to “Gimme Three Steps”, it wasn’t just that fight that got me excited about seeing some live boxing. The Teddy Reid and the Raheem vs. Juarez matches also got me amped up. As I love a DC fighter who fights dirty and well everyone wanted Raheem to punch Gran Davis.

PAS: I pick up the flex car and grab Tom, and we sit in traffic, and sit in traffic and visualize pulling up to a shithole bar in Smyrna and seeing that we missed the only match we wanted to see. Luckly CZW is CZW and despite being an hour late we only miss two matches.

Mad Man Pondo v. Wifebeater

TKG: We get there as the entrance music for this match started to play. I wasn’t going to buy tickets if we had missed Necro Butcher. Asked ticket lady, what match had already taken place, she didn’t know. I asked the fans standing around what match had taken place, no one could tell me anything more than “you missed a couple of skinny kids” and well I knew I hadn’t missed Necro vs. Green Phantom. So I’m stoked. Pondo comes out and I watch him eat some stuff. Pondo’s lost some weight and looks really athletic taking stuff from the smaller Wifebeater. Nasty bump with corner of TV among other things. Maybe he just looked athletic next to Wifebeater. Bah, no need for negativity. I’ll be generous and say maybe Wifey was conserving energy, saving it up for the later rounds. Either way this was a lot of Wifebeater awkwardly trying to do shit and Pondo eating Wifey’s awkward offense. I’m normally not a guy who would argue that a wrestler should mail it in. But Pondo is a name guy. Wifebeater is a known commodity among this crowd. They have Wifebeater going over name outsider in first round, just seemed no reason for Pondo to eat as much as he did. I mean it would have made sense if it was against a lesser CZW deathmatch guy (an Ian Knoxx or something), make him look like a worldbeater. But Wifebeater always goes to the finals here, no need for all that. Mail it in.

PAS: Tom saw more of this then I did as I was parking. But I caught the tail end which was Wifebeater blowing his finisher and then powerbombing Pondo on a car door. At least he didn't break his skull, like he did Yamakawa.

Sexxxy Eddie v. Ian Knoxx

TKG: I had seen Eddie working a ladder match on a IWS DVD before. Before the match he and a female stripper do a strip tease together which ends with him pulling on her g-string and sticking his tongue in her cooter. Immediately after this his opponent did face mic work implying that Eddie is gay. Which is one of the dumbest thing I’ve seen in wrestling. The guy didn’t just mime cunnilingus, he actually performed cunnilingus and was sporting wood…Yet his opponent calls him gay? Straight guys don’t go down in Canada? Is Canada that stuck in the Eighties?

PAS: Battle of superflous X's. Eddie does a long mike section talking about his huge dick
and then does a stripshow with Zandig's wife. He then does a bunch of stalling at the beginning of the match, acting like he doesn't want to any garbage stuff. The early scientific sections between these two were painfull, hardcore stuff wasn't much better. I was amused by Eddie's cheap heat shit, although that was useless by the end of the night

TKG: Eddie is working a heel stripper from California gimmick. Which is ridiculous, as he has the most Canadian accent in the history of wrestlers with comically Canadian accents. I mean why you gotta be from California? Honestly, Guelph male stripper gimmick is far sleazier.

PAS: I think around this point we noticed we are sitting in front of a bunch of backyarders. One guy tries out his weapon on his buddies arm, and the kid starts bleeding. His girlfriend wraps a towel around arm and kisses it tenderly. Later in the day she hits her boyfriend with a balloon with thumbtacks on it, in the kind of flirty way a girl might hit a guy with a pillow. I don't want to know what her uncle did to her to make her a yarder rat.

Green Phantom v. Necro Butcher

TKG: In IWA-MS, Necro comes out to “”When the Man Comes Around”, here he comes out to generic metal. Green Phantom has one of coolest masks you’ll find and really should have sold some at gimmick table.

PAS: This was the match we came to see and it was pretty great. Necro butcher will take some nutty fucking bumps, but the beauty of his work is all in his stiffness and selling. This match didn't have the bumps of other matches,but was the only match that really felt like a fight. They were beating the shit out of each other, including Butcher busting Phantom's nose and Phantom spraying blood out of his masks mouth opening. Spot of the match was Phantom doing an ollie off the top rope to the floor, on a ligthbulb tubed skateboard.

TKG: This was pretty fucking great. The yarder group legit are convinced that the guys were shooting on each other. “Oh shit they’re shooting”.Part of this comes from the tightness of the strikes and takedowns, that Phil mentions. Part of it comes from the selling. And part of it comes from a general recklessness of the brawl. A lot of hardcore wrestling ends up looking very gentle as both guys are carefully setting up big visually nasty spots. The spots are nasty, but the process leading to them, feels very cautious. Your ECW brawl has lots of stiff dangerous chairshots right to top of the head. But they involve one guy leaning down and handsignaling for other guy to hit him. Necro and Phantom here were working less ECW and more like Moondog - Concession – Stand - Brawl. The Moondogs and Lawler just pelted chairs at each other recklessly. It may not have destroyed as many brain cells as taking repeat shots to the head but the sheer recklessness of it made you suspend disbelief. Phantom powerbombs Necro on filthy parking lot, Necro throws chairs at Phantom, Phantom just gets on skateboard ready to grind , fuck where he lands. There was no spots in this that the backyarders were going to go home and try to recreate, this was a fight. Wish this was a second round match up or main as would’ve dug seeing more live Phantom. It would be hard for him to do another round since I imagine its impossible to breathe in that mask with a broken nose.

Chris Cash v. J.C. Bailey

PAS: This really looked like New Found Glory member v. New Found Glory member: BATTLE FOR GLORY. Cash is one of the flippy floppy CZW undercarders and this was his first deathmatch. Bailey is an old pro at this kind of stuff, and takes it right to him. Cash gets a lightbulb tube broken in his underarm which was icky. We spend the rest of the match fantasy booking a match built around working the underarm. You could do the Delphin rope spot, bunches of abdominal stretches, maybe finish with an oriental spike right into the pit, Beniot should have worked like that when he got stuck working Knobbs in WCW.

TKG: I was thinking less New Found Glory and more like Sum vs. 41. But that’s neither here nor there. Bailey actually did work on the pit, a bunch of kicks a bite and an attack with broken tube. It would have needed Cash to tease a Pit Stop as his finisher to really make the fantasy booking work. I wasn’t as distracted by fantasy simming this as Phil, and it was actively good. At one point in the match, one of the yarders yells “my girlfriend wants to fuck you” at Bailey, which just seems like a weird time to work out that transaction...wait till the match is over to offer her up. There’s a guy in the audience who starts demanding that all the wrestlers must wrestle bare chested. “Make HIM take his shi-IRT OFF!!”, “Make HIM take his shi-IRT OFF!!

Sexxxy Eddie v. Arsenal

TKG: Here's to free Canadian health care! As both of these guys just had complete disregard for their bodies in this one. I've liked Arsenal in the IWS I've seen before. He looks like a little nasty fuck has some nice offense, takes some crazy bumps but can't sell. No he can't. In the past Eddie impressed me less, I'd seen him work a ladder match with an erection which is pretty nuts...and well his put a trashcan over my head and try a moonsault in the first round was pretty ill advised. But here both guys just completely threw their bodies and each other into this match. Arsenal keeps his shirt on, cemeting him as the heel and really pissing off at least one member of the audience. I think Arsenal also took some of the crazier bumps including the finish where he was laying headfirst in a trashcan filled with broken lightubes, while Eddy went up to moonsault onto trashcan. But in this kind of match the fans don't remember the biggest bumps so much as the most blood...and Eddy bled and bled and bled.

PAS: Both guys start working heel claiming that they wanted to "wrestle" not to deathmatch stuff. After that stuff, they went on to kill each other the most. Their were lightbulb tubes taped to the ropes and both guys went face first into them multiple times. At one point they tease going off the truck, which when they don't enrages the backyarders. By the end of the match Eddie has nicked an artery in his arm and their is blood squirting out like a fountain. He shows some showmanship and poise by squirting that blood into his mouth. This was definitly the most bump heavy match of the tourney, but the match psych was really fucked up. Having two heels, both working pussy heel is dumb, especially considering the punishment they were planning to take. Also teasing the truck, just turned the crowd on the match. This is a CZW crowd, they don't want plot, they just want money shots, and guys without shirts. Eddie's blood loss really babyfaced him at the end, with the crowd chanting for him, but that ovation was counter to everything he had been trying to do before that. The arm fountain saved the match, which I really think would have been undeservedly shit on without it.

Wifebeater v. J.C. Bailey

PAS: Wifebeater is really lumbering and crappy. Bailey will take as much punishment as anyone, and he bumps like a freak, but Beater is useless. The big bump finish was off in the corner, and we missed it.

TKG: Bailey was working a my opponent is so tough I have to sacrifice my own body to take him down. So every big offensive move he did involved him being willing to hurt himself. Legdrop ontop of lightubes ontop of ladder on top of Beater. Lots of spots where Bailey was dropping his own back onto the lightubes. Bailey sold this story and it might have worked if Beater understood what was going on or knew how to sell or something. I'll be generous and say maybe Wifebeater was conserving energy, saving it up for the later rounds. But this match woul've worked alot better if it was Bailey vs. Pondo. This match stank.

Nick Gage v. Necro Butcher

TKG: and somewhere a man screams "TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF!!! MAKE HIM TAKE HIS SHIRT OFF!! HOW CAN YOU BE THE FUTURE OF HARD CORE WRESTLING WHEN YOU WEAR A SHIRT!..Gawd Mommy make him take his shirt OFF." Me on the other hand , I could live a nice life without seeing Nick Gage's aureolas.

PAS: This was a pane of glass match which is just a ludicrous idea. Gage looks like he has fetal alcohol syndrome and really stinks. They had punch exchanges where Gage was putting his hands up to avoid the impact and then firing back with Lash Laroux level bad punches. Necro does bust out a narsty Kikuchi brain damage headbutt. Both guys take some nice glass bumps, but this match wasn't much

TKG: Fetal alcohol syndrome? Gage is announced as being from Salt Lake City and I always figured he was working some kind of angry guy with repressed Mormon childhood gimmick. How does a Mormon get fetal alcohol syndrome? Was he adopted by his family while on mission in Ireland? The glass bumps are crazy and I'll give Gage credit for eating them. Necro does everything in his ability to make this work including at one point whipping out the crazy top rope rana through plane of glass on top of chairs on the floor. Gage sissying out of chops but willingly taking glass bumps really exposed the buissness. This was better than Phil remembers it being. It ended with a long run in distraction spot which essentially meant "the work in this match is meaningless while the booking is all that matters".

Wifebeater v. Necro Butcher

TKG: Big planned spot involved fire and it started to rain so they were in a hurry. Its his third match in tourney and well I can no longer be generous to Wifey. They did some other spots but nothing was gonna matter but the big spot. Well Wifey threw a plastic vagina at Necro which Necro deflected...old juices flew on front row. Necro makes the fight to roof of truck actually make sense as he throws chairs and fights Wifey back as Wifey chases him up. Normally you'll just get a meaningless two guys go to next spot thing in this type of match and Necro made the climb count. I was briefly afraid that Necro was going to do the nutty American Kickboxer/Chris Hero rana spot. But instead you get Wifebeater attempting to side suplex Necro through a plane of glass and two lit tables. Wifebeater looked to have slid off the truck and almost lost his skull against the edge. Not really a match

PAS: This was really more of a spot, then a match. Both guys basically run up to the truck and Beater puts Necro through two tables and a glass pane for the finish. It was a lunatic bump, especially because WB slid off the truck, at this point though I was so jaded that before they even landed, I was "let's go to A.C"

TKG: yeah , off to boxing.

PAS: I have never been to big time prizefighting before and it was quite an experiance. I would love to go again, but next time it is going to be two Mexicans, or two Black Guys or a Mexican v. a Black Guy, or a Thai fighter v. a Puerto Rican, no more Gatti fights. The discos of New Jersey must have been ghost towns, because every Guido in the East Coast
was in Boardwalk hall.

TKG: They announce celegbrities in attendance. Willy Mays gets polite applause. The guy who plays Pauly Wallnuts on Sopranos, is met with a deafening standing ovation. We're surrounded by guys who are so busy coming up with new clever insults to toss at the Romanians( Dorin fans), that I don't think any of them actually caught the Leija fight.

PAS: There would be spontanious Dorin chants from the small pockets of Dorin fans. Each time they would start a guy would get up behind us and scream "Sit down you fucking faggots." Because everyone knows that Romanians are gay, not the guy with the tight black shiny shirt, shaved chest and $125 worth of hair product.

TKG: We catch the last three rounds of a four round undercard match between two guys who didn't look like they had alot but threw everything they had. Neither backing down. Fun. Wish I knew who they were.

Jesse Jame Leija v. Pachito Bojhado

PAS: Really great fight, Leija is in his late 30's and was basically brought in as a scalp for Bojhado who was the young up and comer. Really tactical fight as Leijha comes very close to being knocked out, but continues to adjust to Bojhado and eventually guts out a win. Lots of toe to toe stuff, and I enjoy watching old fighters win fights.

TKG: This was a ton of fun. The constant adjustments were really neat live. When you're watching boxing live, the most obvious thing is who is advancing. Somehow TV either doesn't capture that or captures so much else that it doesn't stand out as much. But live it really stands out. Live you kind of get the impression that, that maybe it might bias you from noticing other aspects of the match. But in the later rounds when Bojhado decided that he had to set the pace, you could still really pick up on Leihja's counterpunching and adjustments. Lots of stuff going on. I think it was the third round that had this great section of toe to toe stuff followed by Bohjado finding a comfortable space working with his back to the ropes followed by Leihja figuring out how to end that comfort and just absolutely working Bohjado over against the ropes. Neat, neat fight.

Arturo Gatti v. Lenord Dorin

TKG: Dorin is tiny. The story on Dorin was he had real good chin but nobody has good liver. The first minute or so of second round really got me excited for the fight and then the knockout was about as spectacular a knockout as you get. You knew Dorin was out before he went down.

PAS: Alot of people predicted this would be the fight of the year, and it wasn't, but it was still a hell of a spectacle. Pretty even first round, but Gotti knocks Dorin out in the second round with one of the most brutal body shots I have ever seen. I could feel my liver twitching in the upper deck. Really happy Gotti fans was the only downside, as I am sure there will be drunken date rapes and fumbling gay hookups in celebration.