IWA-MS King Of The Death Matches 2010 Night One

Don't ask me why, but someone had to do it.

IWA-MS King Of The Death Matches 2010 Night One

Jonathan Greshem v. Jimmy Jacobs v. Drake Younger

This is your standard indie workrate sprint. Ian is clearly intent on pushing Greshem who does all the splashes the cool kids do and also has some bizarre twisting moonsault variation that I've never seen before that seems to be his go to spot. I need to watch Jacobs v. Jon Moxley soon before I sour on Jimmy completely. He's really been involved in some weak shit this year, this match included.

Devon Moore v. Mason Cutter

"Bastard offspring" jokes really aren't something I want to lean too heavily on here, but Mason Cutter actually does look like the bastard child of Tank Abbot and Hack Myers. This was a thumbtack match and was kept reasonably quick and to the point. At one point Moore couldn't figure out how to put on a thumbtack covered kick pad Moore took a couple of pretty impressive bumps into the tacks and took the win in the end.

Bull Pain v. Kyle Threat

I'm watching these shows for two reasons. One is Necro Butcher and the other is Bull Pain. Pain is an old, cranky, biker dude who's gimmick is beating the shit out of people. His weapon of choice is a baseball bat and this match is filled with gimmicked basbeball bats of all shapes and sizes. We've got bats wrapped in barbed wire, bats with tacks, bats with glass, bats with water jugs attached to them, et. Threat is pretty funny in this as he keeps taking these vicious shots from Pain and then will stomp and clap his hands and get the crowd all worked up and then Bull just beats the shit out of him some more. Bull takes some pretty nasty stuff in this too to be fair and I really liked his weeble wobble selling on the floor after the water jug shots. Bull advances and gives his trademark sick smirk post match with a face covered in blood. I hesitate to call anything this violent "fun" but it's the best word I can come up with at 3:15 in the morning.

Mitch Page v. Simon Sezz

Page is enormously fat and Sezz is skinnier than me. These guys are bleeding seconds into this. Gimmick here is bizarre as there are basically a bunch of household items everywhere and they are just waffling each other with them. In general these prop spots are kind of hit or miss, but there are some incredible spots in this. At one point Page gets his fingers mashed up pretty brutally in some shutters which leads to the most violent moment in the whole match - Sezz brutally punching Page in the face as hard as he can twice and Page responding with a shot to the throat of even greater force. Later those same shutters get broken over Page's back in a pretty epic fashion. Death matches really need effective finishes to work and this had a terribly uneventful one, but for immobile fat guy v. male with bulimia this was better than I would have expected.

Balls Mahoney v. Michael Faith

This was actually a well worked match. It was billed as a hardcore vet trying to regain his street cred v. a young kid trying to earn his street cred and was worked accordingly. Balls knows where his bread is buttered and takes a glass shot to the head early, but he also isn't stupid and doesn't take much else other than some pretty decent traditional offense from Faith. The crowd does the "Balls" chant along with his comeback and I really liked the finish to this as they actually built to the one really crazy bump in the match - Faith getting powerslammed into a pile of light bulbs held up by plastic forks. Aside from an early cheese grater spot from Balls this was the most low key match so far and not surprisingly one of the best. Still gotta feel sorry for the guy as he went from dealing five card stud to half naked divas on WWE tv to dueling chairshots with fat scrubs in front of half empty high school gyms in less than five years.

Neil Diamond Cutter v. Devin Cutter

"NDC" is working an unbelievably egregious Spike Dudley rip-off gimmick right down to the mohawk haircut and feuding with his fat older brother. By this point I'm totally disinterested in seeing guys stabbed with sharp shit or getting hit by plunder so I sort of admire the number of actual wrestling moves these guys attempt even if they are almost universally executed poorly. "NDC" hits Spike's double stomp and shortly thereafter advances.

Whacks v. Chuey Martinez

Supposedly Chuey is wrestling with a broken leg. This is mercifully short and consists almost entirely of shots with light tubes before the admittedly inventive finish which is Chuey getting suplexed onto a light tube encrusted pogo stick.

Necro Butcher v. Nick Gage

I would call this a disappointment, but Gage really sucks so this being pretty shitty isn't that surprising. This was worked a lot like the Necro v. Kasai disaster that Big Japan ran earlier this year. It sounds strange to say but the death mach style really seems to tame the feral spirit of Necro which is what makes him great. Domesticated Necro is not good (see Ring of Honor) and this is a really subdued Necro, waiting around for Gage to set up his shitty pre-planned spots and looking outright bored at times. To make matters worse the big "gimmick" here is plexiglass in the corners, which results in lots of visually unimpressive bouncing around and a shitty pay off.

Ian Rotten v. J.C. Bailey

These sort of mentor v. protege matches don't work out really well when the protege is so much worse than the mentor. I'm not a big fan of garbage wrestler Ian Rotten, but the guy can work when he wants to. Bailey is pretty uninteresting even as a human pin cushion. This match has your typical disrespect from youngster spots, old vet laying on a beating spots ("You Fucked Up Your Life!"), and culminates in the big sick spot where the protege finally eclipses the mentor. There was some visually impressive spots in this but a Death Match tournament doesn't lend itself to something of this sort and Ian Rotten's obnoxious kid on commentary being indifferent to the suffering being inflicted upon his father made an annoying match uncomfortable.

Needlessly to say I'll be skipping ahead to the Bull Pain match on the second night and not going any further.