BRM Reviews IWA Mid-South Something to Prove (JOE VS. NECRO BUTCHER!)

[Big Red Machine]

IWA Mid-South Something to Prove (6/11/2005)- Philadelphia, PA


Hello and welcome to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! As teased last month, we’ll be watching some IWA Mid-South today, which is the first time we’ll be watching it for this series. It seems fitting, then, that we will be watching IWA Mid-South’s first show in the ECW Arena, with the main event being a first time ever match-up between Samoa Joe and Necro Butcher. That match is the reason I bought this DVD many years ago, and it is yet another of those DVDs from my shelf of shame that I am now forcing myself to finally watch. Why? Because that way I can prove to myself that I didn’t waste money on it by finally sitting down and watching IWA Mid-South Something to Prove.


THIS IS IWA MID-SOUTH DOCUMENTARY- dull
We started off with a seven-and-a-half-minute “documentary” portion to introduce some of the roster and to put over IWA-MS. They even had some fans speak. There was a lot of breaking of kayfabe, which is absolutely not what I want to see right before I start watching a wrestling show. The most interesting bit to me was Eddie Kingston saying that the person who inspired him want to become a pro wrestler was Eddie Gilbert. Other than that, this wasn’t interesting at all.


SAMOA JOE PROMO- fine build for tonight’s main event

JIMMY JACOBS PROMO- great
I’m amazed that we were able to hear him so clearly, considering that this was taped outside, on a windy day, on a relatively busy street corner. Jimmy did a great job of tying his own history- both at the ECW Arena and in the time since he has last been there- into the Arena’s history, and imbuing meaning into both his match tonight and IWA Mid-South’s debut there.

MICKIE KNUCKLES PROMO- meh
This was taped inside, and due to noise, it was harder to hear her than it was to hear Jimmy on the street corner. She built up what it would mean to her to regain the championship.

IWA MID-SOUTH LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Delirious(c) vs. Josh Abercrombie- 6.75/10
Dave Prazak and Jim Fannin start us off on commentary. At one point, Fannin decided to comment on the heat, saying “it’s no wonder that other wrestling promotions in this building go bankrupt or just plain suck. It’s too damn hot in here. Prazak, having some political sense (and also working for at least one of those promotions), quickly said “Oh yeah. XPW.”
The wrestlers start us off with some Delirious comedy. They went back to it, but it was the kind of comedy that is more “LOL, what a goofball” rather than breaking kayfabe. They had the kind of opener that you want to have in your debut in a building. Abercrombie won the belt, immediately making this show newsworthy as well.

HOMICIDE vs. CM PUNK (w/Davey Andrews, Matt Turner, & Shane Hagadorn)- 7.25/10
Tracy Smothers replaced Fannin on commentary. I guess his gimmick is that he doesn’t know anything? AFTER Homicide’s music started playing, he asked “is this the girls match?” He also outright asked Prazak “who’s the babyface and who’s the heel?” and “What’s Punk’s finish?” He also doesn’t know what the word “alumni” means, or the fact that it is a plural word, because he referred to both wrestlers as “Ring of Honor alumnis” even though they were both still in ROH at the time.
Thankfully, Steve Mack came out and replaced him after a few minutes, although he wasn’t great either. He came off as very fanboy-ish. I was also quite annoyed when he talked about how the crowd was being “respectful” by “cheering both wrestlers and booing both wrestlers.” In kayfabe, how the hell is it respectful to boo someone? And, out of kayfabe, Punk was trying to be a heel but Homicide wasn’t, so how is cheering and booing both guys being respectful through that lens, either?
Punk not coming out to Miseria Cantare threw me for a loop. The match was these two going out there and managing to have a great match while still remembering that they are just the second match on the card. That’s how great these two are.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very nice
Ian Rotten came out to thank Punk for everything he has done for IWA Mid-South. This is one week before Death Before Dishonor III.

ELIMINATION MATCH FOR THE IWA-MS WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP: MsChif(c) vs. Mickie Knuckles vs. Allison Danger- 6.75/10
Danger entered first and cut a promo that we couldn’t hear because of the bad audio quality.
Jim Fannin was back on commentary, and went on and on about his love for Mickie Knuckles. He was replaced early on by CM Punk, whose first comment was “I like three-ways.” I wonder if he helped Colt Cabana come up with that list he had in ROH a few months before this. Punk’s commentary crossed several lines it shouldn’t have.
The wrestlers did a lot of stuff. It certainly wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly coherent, either. Danger was eliminated via referee stoppage after being misted in the face by MsChif. The referee also got misted, which allowed MsChif to use her spiked vest as a weapon. She busted Knuckles open by putting the vest on her face and hitting her with running knee strikes. That was a cool spot. MsChif got a visual pinfall. Knuckles made a comeback and got the win soon after the second referee came out.
The booking here was very questionable to me, as Knuckles and MsChif were the women the crowd would likely be least familiar with, so having them in at the end was a risk (especially with Danger getting eliminated in such a lame way). Knuckles was also the homegrown star for IWA-MS, and thus having her regain the title in front of her hometown fans probably would have meant more. The crowd responded well to the post-match celebration, though, so that was good. Ian giving the big speech instead of Mickie was quite odd, though. It felt more than a little bit like he was stealing her spotlight (especially because he gave the speech while he was in the ring and she was on the outside).

TRACY SMOTHERS vs. CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI (w/Jade Chung)- 4/10
The fans chanted “WELCOME BACK!” at Tracy Smothers. Punk made fun of them for this, because Tracy wrestled in this very building last night. Both guys did some pre-match mic-work to get the crowd into things (although they really didn’t seem to need it).
This is the match with the famous commentary exchange “So what you doin’ tonight, Punk? Are you sticking around for that CZW show?” “F*CK NO!” Punk also flat-out called Jade Chung the C-word. By which I mean the rude word for a woman, not the rude word for an Asian person. Given some of the other stuff Punk said on commentary (including referencing Pearl Harbor), I felt the need to clarify. I had forgotten that indy commentary used to be this way.

This match was a relatively dull eighteen and a half minutes of mostly gaga and managerial shenanigans.

SIX-TEAM ELIMINATION TABLES MATCH FOR THE IWA MID-SOUTH TAG TEAM TITLES WITH ROYAL RUMBLE-STYLE ENTRIES: Ryan Boz & Trik Davis(c) vs. Brandon Thomaselli & B-Boy vs. Chad Austin & Eric Priest vs. Davey Andrews & Shane Hagadorn vs. Iron Saints (Sal Thomaselli & Vito Thomaselli) vs. the Fannin Family (BJ Whitmer & Eddie Kingston) (w/Jim Fannin & Jade Chung)- 6/10
Priest’s originally scheduled tag team partner Silas Young was apparently a no-show (or at least a kayfabe one), so he said he wanted to team with a former ECW Television Champion… and he found Chad Austin. He’s clearly confused, as Austin never held a belt in ECW. Also, Davey Andrews and Shane Hagadorn apparently just inserted themselves into the match, according to the commentary.
Priest completely botched a double-legged moonsault and landed on the back of his head. He was immediately met with chants of “YOU F*CKED UP!” from the crowd and mockery from the announcers. It might be a gimmick, though, as Prazak said “he’s tried that many times and it never really works out for him.”
Punk claimed Jim Fannin was wearing a pink shirt. It looked white to me, but that could be because of bad production values.
They did a GREAT spot where Kingston and Whitmer started to pose, with BJ going down and doing the HBK part of the Two Dudes with Attitude Pose like he would with Jimmy Jacobs, and Kingston standing behind him but doing a crotch chop… and then Priest speared Whitmer so that the back of Whitmer’s head bumped into Kingston’s nuts, taking Eddie out, too.
The first two eliminations came when Kingston powerbombed Hagadorn onto Austin, through a table, so just like that, we’ve eliminated a third of the field. Good.
This left the Fannin family alone with time to recover as they awaited the fourth entrant. Jim Fannin decided to use this time to cut a good promo announcing that in three weeks, Jade Chung would be replacing him as the leader of the Fannin Family, because in three weeks, in Valparaiso, Indiana, he would gain control of IWA Mid-South because “Ian Rotten, someone very close to you will betray you at War Games.” Oooh. Intrigue. And a War Games match. Surely this will convince some people in the crowd to pick up that DVD when it comes out. On commentary, Punk and Prazak pointed out that the two minutes since the last team had entered had way past expired.
The rest of the match filled out and we got some meh action. Whitmer put Trick Davis through a table, ensuring that we would have new champions. B-Boy and Thomaselli eliminated the Fannin Family via Superbomb, with the added touch of thwarting Jade Chung’s interference by having her be the one who got Superbombed onto Whitmer to put hi through the table. It was good to see Jade getting her comeuppance after so much interfering tonight, but maybe don’t have three of your five eliminations be a variation of a powerbomb out of the corner through a table.
After B-Boy suplexed both Thomaselli opponents at the same time, Punk made fun of him for having small arms and then asked “has your belief been suspended? Mine has.” This is not how you get people over. The Thomasellis won after a very good final-two segment, but not good enough to make up for how slow this was at times. This really didn’t need the staggered entrances.

HARDCORE MATCH: JC Bailey, Tony Klein, & Mad Man Pondo vs. Nate Webb & Bad Breed- 3.5/10
Allison Danger replaced Punk on commentary. She hoped she might get lucky that a cinderblock would be thrown “into some retard fan’s face.” Bad Breed were supposed to be teaming with Balls Mahoney, but Ian Rotten got on the mic before the match and told us all that after accepting a “one-night-only contract” from Vince McMahon, Balls Mahoney demanded three times his agreed-upon booking fee from Ian to make this shot (for context, the first ECW One Night Stand was the next night). Ian told Balls not to come to him looking for work after Vince has kicked him to the curb. Ian actually kept his word for a while and Balls wasn’t back for almost four years. He then introduced Nate Webb as their new partner.
Ian then gave a big speech about violence. Then they all did weapon stuff to each other. Within about three minutes, we had had a chairshot to the crotch, people bleeding everywhere, multiple chairshots to the head, and multiple people with bills stabled to their face. A few minutes later Danger said that she had “overwhelming desire to throw giant-sized tampons in the ring to soak up all of this blood.” She later said “I want nothing more then a shower and an AIDS test right now.” They packed a crazy about of weapon stuff and blood into six and a half minutes. You can read that as a complement if you want, but that’s not necessarily how I am intending it. On the “bright” side, they did at least finish with the craziest thing, so that was good.

Prazak noted that this was the first time JC Bailey and Nate Webb had faced each other in IWA Mid-South since their Texas Deathmatch, which had a stipulation attached to it that they couldn’t face each other in IWA Mid-South for one year.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Ian Rotten pulled Pondo up (he had pinned him after a double-chairshot to the head) and cut a big promo thanking him. This, again, was after murdering him with weapons. He said that Pondo was working a lot in Japan now, but as long as Ian had a wrestling promotion, Pondo would have a job. Pondo also thanked Axl Rotten for training him, and thanked the Smart Mark Video crew. On commentary, Prazak and Danger started a “SMART MARK VIDEO!” chant. They kind of pooped all over everything other than the Smart Mark thank you. Ian vowed that IWA Mid-South would return to Philadelphia. They came back once, two years later.

GAUNTLET MATCH FOR THE IWA MID-SOUTH HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Jimmy Jacobs(c) vs. Danny Daniels vs. Arik Cannon vs. Chris Hero- 7/10
On commentary, Danger said “I used to know a girl who had her gimmick waxed into a mohawk.” I hope it’s Christina von Eerie. Call me a traditionalist, but I like the carpet to match the drapes. Prazak and Danger spent a while making fun of Arik Cannon’s weight, and also making light of child abuse.
Daniels beat Cannon, then had to face Chris Hero. A joke turned the conversation to Daizee Haze, at which point Danger noted that Daizee was in Mexico right now and wondered if she could pay someone to stuff marijuana in Daizee’s bag so Daizee would get arrested and not be let back over the border into her native country. What are the odds that Takuya Sugi bought a copy this DVD?
Hero beat Daniels. There wasn’t much going on in the first three competitors that wasn’t basic stuff, and after the previous match with staggered entries, I had little patience for that. Tell me a coherent story with it, or don’t do this pointless gimmick.
Jimmy ran right in and attacked Hero before even taking his leather jacket off. Allison Danger said “he’s like baby Edge, without the whore by his side.” Jimmy continued to work over Hero’s midsection, and just generally beat him up and got heat on him. Hero made his comeback but Arik Cannon came out and hit him with a Saito Suplex to set up a good nearfall and to give control of the match back to Jimmy. Jimmy then failed to follow up and Hero countered a Contra Code and hit the Hero’s Welcome, but Cannon pulled the referee out of the ring at two. Apparently this is not enough to warrant a DQ here under the NWA rules that this match was operating under. Jimmy threw powder into Hero’s eyes and hit the Contra Code for the win. This whole thing only went about fifteen minutes, but it felt much longer than that.

After the match, you could hear Hero telling Bryce Remsburg something along the lines of “there is no way this CZW show is starting on time.” Why would you not edit that off the show? There was no reason to go back to Hero in the ring in the first place.

SAMOA JOE vs. NECRO BUTCHER- 9.75/10
Eddie Kingston and CM Punk joined Prazak on commentary for this match. Unlike the commentary in previous matches, the commentary here really helped this match, as their pure and utterly glee at the violence they were seeing mirrored my own. They came off as fans in that dumbstruck phase of “oh my G-d, I can’t believe I just saw that!”
Joe and Necro immediately got into each other’s face… but the bell hadn’t rung yet, so instead of ordering the bell to be rung, the referee tried to separate them, and got shoved for his troubles. He got up and tried to separate them again, so this time Joe threw him over the top rope. Dumbass referee got what he deserved.
They started brawling and just beat the sh*t out of each other. Necro was bleeding within a few minutes, but none of that was from weapons. That was from plain old forearms, fists, and a headbutt. This is the famous match where Joe- in the words of CM Punk- somehow managed to powerslam Necro onto his forehead. This happened on the concrete floor, not in the ring. Yeah. OUCH. And yet, later in the match, in a spot that somehow isn’t even more famous, Joe seems to be trying for some sort of Head-and-Arm Suplex off the apron, except Necro once again doesn’t go all the way over, so he smashes his forehead on the floor once again, this time from higher up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Necro screaming in pain like that.
All of this has taken place in the first six and a half minutes, by the way. The referee recovered and started counting pinfalls, even though we never heard an opening bell. He also didn’t seem to have an issue with weapon shots. I was pretty sure they had said that all matches were under NWA rules because IWA Mid-South was part of NWA Midwest (and Ian specifically declared that his match wasn’t), but maybe that’s just title matches? I don’t know. They seemed to have DQs in all previous matches. Does anyone know exactly what IWA Mid-South’s rules were at the time?
At about ten minutes into the match, Joe kicked Necro in the head, and won by technical knockout when Necro couldn’t get back up to his feet and stay up. Yeah. They ended this dream match at the ten-minute mark with a simple standing kick to the head, without even a big windup first like Tajiri would do… and it worked perfectly, because this match had been so brutal that you could completely believe that 1) a kick like that might be enough to take someone out, and 2) Necro had taken so much damage that he couldn’t fight anymore.
The bell rang and the referee raised Joe’s hand in victory and Joe posed a bit… then Joe went over and gave Necro a little kick in the head, so Necro got up and they went right back at it. Necro quickly knocked Joe out of the ring, and security broke them up. This is another thing I would normally hate, but it all worked here. We knew Necro had more fight in him, but Joe believed he had proved his point (he was going to beat some respect into Necro for beating up some ROH students at a past IWA Mid-South show) and won the match and had nothing left to prove, so he had no reason to continue fighting. This whole thing easily could have come off as a kind of cop-out, making Joe’s win seem fluky because Necro clearly had fight in him here, but the brutality of the match combined with the important thirty seconds or so that Joe took to pose before going back over to Necro ensured that it didn’t. We knew that from the time Necro went down until the time Joe came back over to him, Necro really was beaten, and the referee was absolutely right to stop the match. If not for question of the what the rules actually were and the lack of opening bell, I would have given this the full 10/10. It was the most brutal match I have ever seen.

POST-MATCH STUFF- okay
Ian Rotten came out and vowed to put together a rematch. The fans chanted “HERE! HERE! HERE!” The match would take place six months later, but not in Philly.

SAMOA JOE BACKSTAGE PROMO- great!


This was a great show from IWA Mid-South, but mostly on the strength of the main event. It started off very well, too, but the overreliance on gimmicks to elongate matches really hurt it. If those matches had been better, the Claudio vs. Smothers match would have been an aberration and the hardcore six-man would have been something unappealing that passed by quickly. As predicted last month, the production values were not great. What surprised me the most was how bad the commentary was, up until the main event… but boy did that main event deliver. For that reason, I think that next month we’ll venture off of BRM’s shameful shelf of unwatched DVDs and instead head over to Japan for a show with another match I’ve been meaning to get around to watching for a very long time.