CZW Tournament of Death 4 - 7/30/05

I recently sat down to watch a DVD that I picked up at a local flea market that gained my interest, a tag team death match tournament. The review of that particular DVD will come in time but since then, death matches have peaked my interest. I used to think death matches were just total slop and garbage, but after watching a few, I now know otherwise. In order to be a true purveyor of the sport that we all love so dearly here on NHO, I’ve decided to jump into the world of death matches by checking out CZW, an American company known for their hardcore ultraviolence, and their fourth annual Tournament of Death.

1) J.C. Bailey vs. Sexxxy Eddy – Barbed Wire Madness Match – 3
2) Mad Man Pondo vs. Toby Klein – Ultraviolent Light Tubes Match – 4
3) Brain Damage vs. Beef Wellington – Best of Three Ultraviolent Tables Match – 3
4) Necro Butcher vs. Ian Rotten – Home Run Derby Death Match – 5
5) Nick Gage vs. Spyder Nate Webb – Ladders and Light Tubes Match – 4
6) Eddie Kingston & Robbie Moreno vs. Zandig – Handicap Fans Bring the Weapons Match – 1
7) Brain Damage vs. Necro Butcher – Fans Bring the Weapons Match – 3
8) Toby Klein vs. Zandig – Best of Three Light Tube Log Cabins Match – 3
9) J.C. Bailey vs. Nick Gage – Panes of Glass Match – 4
10) Ultraviolent Rumble w/ Security Guard Sean, Andy Sumner, Whacks, Danny Havoc, Blood, Ravage, Heretic, Rick Feinberg, The Hellaware Assassin, Shawn Bishop, and D.J. Hyde – 3
11) Nick Gage vs. Necro Butcher vs. Zandig – Squared Circle of Fear, Pit of Pain Three Way Elimination Death Match - 4

This is an outdoor show set up in the middle of a field in Delaware and, unintentionally, given the stipulations of the tournament, it feels like a backyard garbage show. Sexxxy Eddy has popped up on all of the death match shows I’ve watched recently and I don’t know why. He begins the show with a long diatribe about his mammoth schlong and brings three girls in the ring to get all up in them, as the kids say. Bailey seemed as if he was the prototype for wasted youth, with facial piercings and a “trailer trash” type look. The match had stuff hanging from a barbed wire structure that you could climb a ladder and grab. Eddy is working the match in nothing but a faux leopard-skin jockstrap and wrestling boots. All of the plunder involved seemed to really get in the way if they were trying to execute a maneuver. The announcers were trying to hype the tension between Eddy and Bailey by claiming they’re former partners, but that heat was blown away faster than a campfire in last September’s windstorm. Eddy tried to do a moonsault while wearing a trash can and landed with a thud on the mat. Bailey won and then stripped Eddy’s jock away, leaving a visual that no one wanted.

Pondo and Klein had a good, fun fight. Light tubes were strapped to the ring ropes and leaned up in the corner. Klein came to the ring carrying a board covered in pencils. Damn, he’s hardcore! The match was mainly them smashing each other into light bulbs. I cringed at the part where Pondo placed som lights on Klein’s yambag and then threw a bowling ball into said area, thus neutering him. The end came when Klein slammed Pondo into the pencil filled board and. Aftewards, Pondo cuts a promo about Klein giving him six new assholes. The tables match was pretty terrible. Wellington is nothing but a stupid comedy character and Damage just really didn’t do shit in the way of impressive stuff. There was a pretty sick spot where Wellington landed neck first through a fire table. Wellington had something called the “ass punch” but I could care less about that shit.

Butcher and Rotten was tons of fun. The object of the match was to beat the shit out of each other with assorted gimmick baseball bats. The bats were loaded with your standard deathmatch fare such as barbed wire and thumbtacks. They brawled around the ring for the majority of the match with each man one-upping each other with just dehabilitating shots. Rotten whacked Necro so hard that thumbtacks flew everywhere! They get in the ring and punch and kick and bludgeon each other. Necro finally wins with the Asiatic Spike. You could tell they were having tons of fun and I had a lot of fun watching it. Gage was very intense and destroyed ol’ Spyder Webb in their match. Webb eats a table right off the bat. I hear table shards are full of fiber. The ring eventually filled up with light tubes and ladders and was very hard to manuever in. The finish was utterly sick as Gage superplexes Webb off a ladder through a log cabin of light tubes that causes the annoucers to simultaneously scream in their best Joey Styles impression “Somebody call 9-1-1”! A decent bout but all the shit got in the way of the match at the end.

The handicap match with Zandig was total dog shit. There was random interference from Ruckus which the referee did nothing about and a lot of bullshit that had me questioning if it was a good idea to continue watching. Alas, I did and then some dude named Joker ran down and joined the match to help Zandig. All five guys did very little and the Joker got the pin even though he wasn’t a legal participant to allow Zandig to advance. Umm … ok. It’s Zandig’s company, I guess he can book shit however he feels like. Butcher and Brain Damage had a decent little bout althought it seemed like Damage was overmatched working with an experienced death match veteran like Necro. The weapons were just totally ridiculous. Somebody brought some kind of fruit with thorns sticking out of it. The semi-finals concluded with a panes of glass match that was painful to watch because of the lights and glass involved. Gage has been impressive throughout the whole tournament with his no-nonsense style. Bailey still didn’t do much for me except bump painfully on weapons. Gage bridged some light tubes across a few chairs and hit a sick top-rope piledriver to polish off Bailey. Back to the drive-thru window for you punk, I’ll have a spicy chicken with no tomato, got that!

To give the tournament competitors a rest, we are presented with an “Ultraviolent Rumble” before the main event. This thing consisted of a bunch of dudes, who came in at 1-minute intervals, beating the crap out of each other to the delight of absolutely no one. I didn’t know a single person involved in this chaotic clusterfuck of a battle royal and there were too many weapons for anyone to even do proper stuff. One of the dudes, I think it was Blood, took a sick fall on a shopping cart of weapons during his elimination that put a giant hole in his leg that they showed close-ups on afterwards. That was completely un-necessary and utterly dangerous. To show how even more of a joke this match was, one of the ringside photographers (Whacks) ended up winning the match. Great … that was pointless.

The finals of the tournament closed out the show and was an unorganized mess because of all the stipulations. The announcers were acting like total idiots, asking themselves if Zandig would “pull a Triple H”. I guess they’re thinking Zandig would book himself to win the tournament because I know he sure wouldn’t be able to get to Stephanie. Zandig got eliminated early, allowing Necro and Gage to thrill, and I use that term loosely, the crowd with a main event. Oh, did I mention that the special ref was Gypsy Joe, who apparently forgot the memo about pants because he reffed the match in his wrestling trunks and a striped shirt. The old dude had trouble getting down to make counts and when he did, they were slower than frozen molasses. The big spot of the match was Gage setting some wild contraption on fire that was bridged between the rail and the apron and putting Necro through it. However, Gage would up the worst of it because he caught fire and had to be extinguished quickly. Soon after, the match was over and Necro was crowned the victor. For all its faults, death match wrestling has its moments but it’s not for everyone. If you have a weak stomach or are squeamish, I would avoid these types of shows altogether. However, if you’re sick and twisted, like us here, then these should be right up your glass-covered, barbed wire-lined alley.