IWA Mid-South Kings of the Crimson Mask 2

So, at the time, this was supposed to the be last show for Ian Rotten’s family business, IWA Mid South. Yeah, we all know how that turned out, don’t we. At least this show was shot professionally and doesn’t have resident play-by-play guy Mike Z introducing the video in some child molester’s creepy basement like with some recent stuff from these nimrods.

1) Jonathan Gresham vs. Jimmy Shalwin vs. Matt Cage – 2
Notice how Mike Z said “if this is the last show” right at the get go. These fuckers didn’t even know for sure if it was or not. Cage looked like a fool busting his face on the gym floor on a really wild plancha. Shalwin sold an eye poke as if he tripped off a curb. Shalwin’s offense was pretty basic for the most part but I dug the triple backbreakers he hit on Gresham. Gresham seemed the most competent of all the competitors. The double sit-out chokeslam spot at the end was nice but completely telegraphed. Afterwards, Shalwin walks up to a guy with an IWA t-shirt on and says “I-W-A”. Wow, you can spell! Stupid bastard.

2) Dog Collar Match: Jimmy Jacobs vs. Michael Elgin – 3
The major problem with this is that the chain is way too long. Both guys got their foreheads busted open very slightly and the color guy called it “gory”. Really dude? Did you ever see a Takashi Miike film? Elgin’s diving shoulderblock from the top wasn’t bad. Jacobs hit a spear that looked better than Edge’s. I blame Goldberg for making that the most overused move in the business. This had a very slow pace to it that never really picked up. Almost like they were doing the minimum required to garner their payment of smack and crabby prostitues (so called because they have so many crabs they could open up a seafood restaurant).

3) Falls Count Anywhere Match: Ryan Phoenix vs. Dingo – 3
Dingo’s manager could easily pass off as a stand-in for Joe Chin from Ghost Hunters. Phoenix reversing a springboard into a nothern lights suplex was pulled off effortlessly. Fun little spot where Dingo puts Phoenix in a tree of woe on a scaffolding and then pulls off a running dropkick on the bleachers. For a falls count anywhere match, they sure didn’t venture too far from the ring. The nearfalls were pretty lukewarm on crowd reaction. Not a whole lot to this one, just a long match without any real heat.

4) Barbed Wire Boards, Barbed Wire Ropes, and Light Tubes Match: Mephisto vs. Chris Havius vs. Dixieland Destroyer vs. Joey Grunge – 2
Light tubes came into play early with everyone killing each other and Destroyer carving on Mephisto with some kind of gardening tool. If you’ve never seen this Destroyer character, imagine a 450-pound dude wearing bib overalls and a confederate flag mask. Grunge is a wanna-be Public Enemy member that would make Rocco Rock puke. What’s that you say? Rocco Rock is dead? Well I guess he’ll have to rise like Lazarus, vomit, and die all over again then. Very short bout with Grunge bleeding buckets and getting his life ruined by Mephisto with hard-ass chair shots. The awesome part of the match was Dixieland tried a flip piledriver off the second rope and failed miserably. Finish was hard to figure out exactly what happened.

5) Texas Tornado Taipei Death Match: Jon Moxley, Sami Callihan, & Mickie Knuckles vs. The Hooligans & Neil Diamond Cutter – 4
We got a wild brawl and not much else. Neil took some of the most crazy bumps of the match, including a body slam on a bed of glass right at the outset. Mickie’s punches were just lethal. So much stuff going on it’s hard to pin down who was doing what. Callihan broke a chair over one of the Hooligans heads. Both Hooligans took hard powerbombs on a bed of glass. Wait, Callihan was slicing up Neil with a DVD? That’s rather inventive. Moxley was his normal crazy self, wailing on people with a ball bat, taking bumps into barbed wire and glass among other things. Referee at one point was just standing around with his arms crossed and had a look of utter loss and confusion on his face. Sami’s jawbreaker lariat was pretty nasty. Neil got stuffed and brutalized in a trash can courtesy of Mickie and Callihan. German suplex on broken glass to end it was quite brutal, especially due to the fact that Neil’s head caught the corner of the wood that the glass was on. Match went on a bit too long but thus far, the best thing on the show.

6) No Ropes, Barbed Wire, Fans Bring the Weapons, Electrified Light Tubes Match: Elkview Adam & Viper vs. Mad Man Pondo & Ian Rotten – 2
Ian trying a tarantula in the barbed wire? Why on earth would he think that would even be close to a good idea? He was gassed after the first exchange! Viper’s backcracker with lights in Pondo’s back was good. Wait, did Mike Z just call someone a “DaVinci of Deathmatches”? That’s like saying that a script for a porno film is Shakespearian. Pondo using an electric drill on Elkview Adam’s cranium was a rather disturbing sight. The majority of this was just these four hitting each other with random weapons and slamming each other on the electrified lights in a debris filled ring in your typical, run-of-the-mill deathmatch. Nothing new, exciting, or fresh here.