Ian Rotten is credited with being a pioneer of modern ultra-violent wrestling. So if you’re a fan of that then he’s someone to look up to, I guess. And clearly a lot of wrestlers are fans because his style of lumbering plunder matches and casual promos at the top of his shows have become commonplace on the American and British indie scenes. He’s also a giant scumbag as evidenced by an absurd number disturbing business and personal issues that make Vince McMahon look like… oh my god there are like no purely good CEOs. I was going to say Dan Price for the way he’s pioneering equitable salaries, but his ex wife accused him of abuse (which he denies). Then I was going to say Pat Gelsinger because of how popular he is with his employees, but he’s part of a movement to convert all of Silicon Valley to Christianity (no hate at all to Christians, love you guys, but I find proselytizing creepy as hell). I guess he makes Vince McMahon look like Eric Yuan? He seems mostly harmless and popular with his employees. Watch that sentence age like a banana in the sun. The moral of the story is, Rotten is by most accounts a bad dude and an unsuccessful one at that. But he’s a big part of the reason you know who CM Punk and Seth Rollins are, so he’s got wrestling cred.
Rotten started IWA Mid-South after getting fired from ECW. After about a year of running weekly shows in Kentucky, he put on a tournament to determine a champion for his company. The product looks like most nineties indies did, which is to say the video quality is terrible and the buildings are lit like a dentist’s office. It’s a tough hang by today’s standards. Hell, it was a tough hang back then because the worst-produced thing those of us had seen was ECW, and that was the SuperBowl compared to this.
April 3, 1997 – Louisville, Kentucky
Tower of Doom def. Bull Pain and Ox Harley {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Elimination Match}
From Crowning a Champion. The tournament that got us here saw Doom beat War Machine #1, Pain beat Ian Rotten, and Haryley beat Chris Kidd. This was from the hard cam only, which did nothing to disguise how lazy the work in this match was. Harley got eliminated after a couple minutes when the other two hit him with a Hart Attack. I was glad to see him go, because the story of the match to that point made no sense. Two guys would pair up to double team the third, and then for no reason the person being double teamed would change. You can do that in a triple threat, but it helps when the person who goes from double teaming to being double teamed shows some visible shock or hint of resentment that the guy who was helping him just turned on him. But this was emotionless. Near the end of the match they suddenly switch to a hand held camera, which gives a closer look at the action but was also shaky as hell. I can’t tell if the finish was funny on purpose or not. Doom, who seems to just barely be a wrestler, hit a powerbomb but then shoved Pain away rather than go for the pin. Then he did the exact same thing again. The second time, Pain got right up and Doom sold the powerbomb he’d delivered. Then, Pain hit a Superfly Splash for 2, and then Doom just rolled over and pinned Pain for 2. WHAT?! I can’t stop laughing. Then, Rotten slugged Pain from the floor and Doom hit a legdrop for the win at 13:49. This is actually worth watching for the absurdity of the last few minutes, but it’s awful. Doug Gilbert beat Doom for the belt three weeks later. ½*
July 19, 1997 – Louisville, Kentucky
Ian Rotten def. Bull Pain {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Barbed Wire Cage Match}
From Extreme Heaven. Highspots wrongly has this listed as the ‘98 version of the show, but it’s ‘97 all the way. Les Thatcher and NWA President Dennis Coralluzzo were at this show to accept this company into the NWA. A reminder, this is what the NWA looked like around this time. Not so prestigious. Anyway, the audio cuts out as the commentators are explaining why Gilbert had to vacate the title, so that remains a mystery. My guess based on the smallest amount of research is that Gilbert was doing a tour in IWA Japan (no relation) and Rotten got tired of waiting for him to come back. This is a legit barbed wire cage match in that almost the entire cage is made of barbed wire. The commentators spend nearly as much time making OJ Simpson trial jokes as they do calling the match. This was mostly free of the asinine stuff that the first title match had, with one notable exception when Pain hit a powerslam and was too tired to cover Rotten but not too tired to immediately sit up and adjust his knee pads. The rest of the match was plodding, but very little of it was offensive. I guess the blading on camera was pretty bad. And the lack of drama around the barbed wire (they were both bloody within the first couple minutes) was lame. And Rotten’s seeming inability to bump the way you’d expect someone to was distracting. But other than that this was just a whatever deathmatch. Rotten countered a back suplex to a crossbody (though it looked like he was trying to make it look like some kind of cutter) for the win at 14:37. *½
The title changed hands 11 times in the 16 months between this match and the next one I could easily find. You can check the Wikipedia page for this title if you’re curious who held the belt. Spoiler alert, it was a lot of Bull Pain.
July 30, 1998 – Louisville, Kentucky
Ian Rotten def. Billy Joe Eaton {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Extreme Heaven. IWTV has the date listed as the 28th but everyone else says this event was on the 30th. The hard cam is looking down on the ring at a 45 degree angle. This is an insane way to watch a wrestling match. This was actually alright for the first 10 minutes. Rotten wrestled like a human being and took bumps that made Eaton look good. He also did actual wrestling moves that got the crowd fired up, like a solid running dropkick. But then a million people interfered, and the referee and ring announcer Dave Prazak even got involved in a brawl. Woof. The match had a weird clip right before Rotten hit Eaton with a fisherman suplex for the win at 13:57. Oh, and Rotten once again bumped on his side for a DDT. If he was afraid to take DDT bumps on his face, he probably shouldn’t have been taking them at all. **
There were 18 title changes between this and the next match I could find. In that time, the state of Kentucky basically kicked Rotten and his crew to the curb because their matches were too bloody and gross. I don’t personally blame them. They moved their homebase to Indiana, the first of what would be two significant changes for them.
August 5, 2000 – Charlestown, Indiana
Bull Pain def. Mean Mitch Page {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Falls Count Anywhere Match}
From Hardcore Hell and Back. Notable: Colt Cabana vs. CM Punk was the opener on this show. Also notable: the show is in a backyard, the fans’ cars are visible in the background. That is, until it gets dark out. Then, one spotlight is the only thing making the ring visible. And it’s not that visible. And it’s raining. Pain totally buries the title before the match, making it clear that winning the title is just his way to get a match with Rotten. If you ever needed a red flag for knowing a promoter is bad, making himself more important than the top title is a big one. This wasn’t announced as a Falls Count Anywhere match, but there were pin attempts on the ground. I’d call this a boring brawl in the rain, but there was so much more walking around than there was punching and kicking that it’s hard to even call it a brawl. It was just boring in the rain. Despite the weapons used and the pin attempts on the floor, the referee stopped a count for a rope break and Pain snuck in brass knuckles. Neither of those things make sense. A punch with the knucks got Pain the win at 24:35. I guess I’m impressed they didn’t botch anything given the weather, but then they barely attempted anything. *
Another eight title changes occurred before footage of these things became more readily available. At this point, Rotten started moving the focus of the company onto technical wrestlers and keeping the death match stuff as an add-on at the end of shows for the fanbase that wanted to see that. Local yokels were clearly more interested in the bloody stuff, but I think we can attribute that to Rotten being a terrible promoter as much as anything.
May 19, 2001 – Charlestown, Indiana
Trent Baker def. Mean Mitch Page {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From an unnamed show. This show was headlined by Punk & Mark Wolf vs. Chris Hero & BJ Whitmer, to give you a sense of how the winds of the American indie scene were shifting. They’re indoors again and the referee is being very strict about closed fist strikes. Sure, at least it’s something. The venue appears to be a small warehouse. Did IWA MS call every venue they were in (or outside of) the House of Hardcore or does Cagematch incorrectly list that as being the case? Anyway, this is lame. It’s a juggalo and a rugby player putting on an unconvincing pantomime of a fight. Page tries to get Necro Butcher to interfere on his behalf, but Butcher accidentally hits Page with (checks notes) a rugby ball and that gives Baker the win at 9:54. A deathmatch wrestler falls to a sports ball. No thank you. ¾*
July 21, 2001 – Charlestown, Indiana
Suicide Kid def. Mean Mitch Page {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Fans Bring the Weapons Match}
From the Heavyweight Title Tournament. Baker lost the title to Hido in a three-way match also including Chip Fairway. Four days later, Hido lost a Loser Leaves Town match to Butcher, so the title was held up. As the name of the event suggests, this was the finals of a tournament to crown the new champion. Page spends the first two minutes of the match on the microphone and for some reason unilaterally says it’s a Falls Count Anywhere match. The stipulation never comes into play and the match is stupid boring. So stupid. Crazy stupid. At one point I snap out of my stupor because a referee who I can’t identify (there’s no commentary) attacks Kid, then that referee is attacked by a fan, and that fan is chased by his dog. Yep, there’s a dog just walking around in the building. So that’s cute. Then, Kid hits a Shiranui out of nowhere at 9:15 to get the win after getting pretty much no offense in the entire match. Yep, it was 10 minutes of Page hitting a punch then walking around and talking trash over and over. It was brutal. Page might be the worst wrestler I’ve ever seen. Two weeks later, Kid lost the belt to Baker. ½*
October 20, 2001 – Charlestown, Indiana
Chris Hero def. Trent Baker {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the 5th Anniversary Show. It’s probably a coincidence that the production of the show took a big leap forward (multiple cameras, better cameras, commentary that focused on storylines and the matches) around the same time that Hero won his first title. But it’s important because as he and the likes of Punk, Cabana M-Dogg 20, BJ Whitmer, and an important visitor were trading the title, the indie scene took an interest in guys like that. So it was important that they be able to watch their matches in IWA MS without feeling seasick. The match wasn’t embarrassing like just about every title change before this was. That is, until the finish. After a fine, just fine fifteen minutes of fighting, Jim Fannin pulled out the referee. That’s weird, because he and Hero were the babyfaces. Prazak and Punk interfered on Baker’s behalf, taking out the referee completely. A second referee came in and beat up Prazak and Punk and counted the pin after Hero hit the Hero’s Welcome at 17:19. That ending sucked. Hero lost the title to Punk a month and a half later. I’m kind of bummed I can’t find Punk’s first title win. **¼
March 1, 2002 – Indianapolis, Indiana
Eddie Guerrero def. CM Punk and Rey Mysterio {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Triple Threat Match}
From Spring Heat. This match has become kind of famous. It was during Guerrero’s brief unemployment stint and just before Mysterio’s WWE debut. Mysterio is unmasked. Punk as a WWF Tag Team Championship belt, but I think it’s actually a knockoff serving as the MAW Heavyweight Championship. He’d lose that belt a week later to Rotten. The most interesting part of this match to me was hearing the commentators lose it when Geurrero hit Mysterio with a turnbuckle powerbomb because they’d never seen one before. I wish I could see so many wrestling moves again for the first time. This was fast and fun. I could have used five more minutes of the kind of work they were putting out here. Guerrero helped Mysterio hit an avalanche hurricanrana on Punk, then dumped Mysterio and hit Punk with the frog splash for the win at 11:55. ***¼
March 2, 2002 – Morris, Illinois
CM Punk def. Eddie Guerrero {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Morris Mayhem. Guerrero is still in full blown, no nonsense heel mode. It’s an interesting take and probably came from how he was feeling after WWF fired him, but a little Latino Heat would have been fun to see in this setting. He attacked Mysterio after Mysterio’s match against Ace Steel, which led directly to this match starting when Punk made the save. Story time: The way Samoa Joe tells it, Kenta Kobashi was ready to go out and act like a generic foreign heel for their Ring of Honor match against each other. Kobashi didn’t think the fans would be familiar with him so he figured he’d do the heel tropes and help get Joe over that way. Joe convinced him to fight as he would in a NOAH main event and the rabid crowd did the rest, leading to one of the best indie matches of all time. I bring this story up because what Kobashi wanted to do is kind of what Guerrero did through his whole indie run. He didn’t dog it, but he did generic, grumpy heel stuff. He didn’t even do the kind of fun cheating he was known for. So this was alright, and the kids in the crowd were vocally anti-Guerrero, so I guess it worked. But it wasn’t great. Mysterio slid Punk a chair which he dropped Guerrero on with a Scorpion Death Drop for the win at 16:02. ***
April 19, 2002 – Dayton, Ohio
Colt Cabana def. CM Punk and Eddie Guerrero {IWA MidSouth Heavyweight Championship Triple Threat Match}
From an unnamed show. Guerrero was already back with WWF at this point but was making good on the indie dates he’d booked. The production value on this show is basically nil, and I’m pretty sure it’s just filmed by some dude in the audience who is there with his kids. If I had to guess, I’d say Cabana knew the guy and asked for this to have a record of the title win. You can watch this match free on Colt Cabana’s YouTube channel. I’m not sure what the angle was here, but Prazak turned on Punk mid-match (which the crowd did not respond to) after accompanying him to the ring. For a while it felt like this was Punk and Cabana doing their usual with Guerrero jumping in wherever there was an opening, but by the end it drew me in with some nice work from all three that really clicked. Guerrero shoved Punk right into Cabana’s roll up, which gave Cabana the win at 12:47. ***¼
July 12, 2002 – Clarksville, Indiana
Chris Hero def. Colt Cabana {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the King of the Death Match tournament. Whatever happened to Hero’s valet Nadia Nyce? Lots of veiled misogyny and anti-semitism from Prazak on commentary. Punk makes sex jokes about Nyce throughout the match on commentary too, though I use the word jokes lightly. You’d think he’d never seen boobs before. The finish of this match was one of the laziest I’ve ever seen. The referee was bumped so Cabana took a risk and went for a moonsault. That missed so Hero casually got up and hit the Hero’s Welcome. The referee just barely leaned up and made the count while on his back, giving Hero the win at 15:43. What makes this so lazy? Hero just suddenly not selling any of the damage he’d taken during the match but worse was the referee looking like he was napping while counting the winning pin in a match where the title was changing hands. Sell the drama, you idiot. Prazak was equally flat on commentary discussing the outcome. The rest of the match was just okay. **¾
October 5, 2002 – Clarksville, Indiana
M-Dogg 20 def. Chris Hero {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the 6th Anniversary Show. Prazak makes fun of the fact that 20 is getting this title shot even though this match is his debut. It’s a dumb move, but Prazak’s edgelord voice on commentary making fun of it makes me hate him. How were people duped into liking this guy’s play-by-play? The only time Hero insisting on getting more time than he needed was a good thing was in NXT UK against Tyler Bate. But here (and in a famous match a bit farther down in this review) it didn’t do the match any favors. 20 got the crowd on his side with a few flashy dives that were impressive even by today’s standards. The way he climbed a support pole with seemingly no traction was pretty neat. The fact that he mostly missed the dive from high on the pole was less neat. He also mostly missed his final dive, a twisting moonsault, but enough connected that the fact that it got him the win at 23:10 wasn’t absurd. This was largely boring when 20 wasn’t doing something crazy. Three weeks later, 20 put up the title in a gauntlet match and lost it to Punk. **¾
November 2, 2002 – Clarksville, Indiana
BJ Whitmer def. CM Punk {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Ted Petty Invitational finals. Punk had successfully defended the belt throughout the tournament. This was the first tournament after Petty’s death, and so it’s the first time they called it this and not the Sweet Science 16. It never should have been called the Sweet Science 16 because it wasn’t a boxing tournament. You can’t just pretend sweet science means technical wrestling (at least in comparison to your hardcore garbage) when the phrase already has a meaning. Rotten and Steel are on commentary for this match, and while they do a good job of staying focused on the wrestlers they talk with the energy level of two half drunk guys discussing their local softball team at a bar. Come to think of it, Rotten’s whole promo style sounds like a dude casually telling stories at a bar. It’s so boring. Given that it was both guys’ third match of the night, this was damn good. Punk came in bloodied and irritated, doing cool things like fighting off Whitmer even while he was hung in the Tree of Woe. Both guys tried to do a bit more than they were capable of; in particular, they should not have been attempting Shining Wizards. Woof, that looked bad. The finish was also pretty weird, seeing Whitmer kick out of the Pepsi Plunge and then more or less immediately recover and hit an avalanche brainbuster for the win at 17:49. Aside from the Wizards and the Plunge, this worked very well as a tournament final. ***½
December 14, 2002 – Clarksville, Indiana
CM Punk def. BJ Whitmer {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From another nameless show recorded only from the hard camera without commentary. It makes some logical sense that a match between these two while fresh would last longer than one in which they’re not, though I could make the case for either scenario. The coolest thing about IWA MS is that they ran shows constantly so guys who really gave a damn got to do things like go out for runtime of a sitcom and work on their craft with the knowledge that they could do pretty much whatever and almost no one would see it. I presume this is what they’re going for with the WWE Performance Center, but there are two major differences. One, even if there are only a few fans here, there are actual fans here who aren’t paid by the company. And two, no one was under contract so they were able to work against a wider variety of people. Pretty much all white people in IWA MS though, I’m noticing. Curious. At any rate, this match was slow. They spent ten minutes on the mat before arbitrarily moving on. It looked like the transition might be because Punk was going to target Whitmer’s leg, but then that just never happened. From there they did the tl;dr version (I realized recently that saying digest version or CliffsNotes version are very dated references) of their Ted Petty match. There’s very little to latch onto here. Punk won with the Pepsi Plunge at 24:29, though I’m not sure how since Whitmer had no trouble surviving that move at the TPI. **½
February 7, 2003 – Clarksville, Indiana
Chris Hero def. CM Punk {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship 2/3 Falls Match}
From When Hero Met Punk. There is a 90-minute time limit on this match because these two had been wrestling super long matches in the months leading up to this. It was clear they’d use up the entire limit. The fact that this went on after the night’s deathmatch, which was usually put on last because they wanted people to be able to leave before it started if that wasn’t their kind of wrestling, was a dead giveaway. I remember when this happened people on the internet were very upset that these guys would put on this match in front of fewer than 100 fans. And while there’s something to be said for the atmosphere more fans might have given a bout like this, the truth is that the word of mouth was enough to draw plenty of eyeballs to the match. Further, with more fans would come a greater possibility of the crowd turning on the extended action. I know I’d be pretty pissed if I was there live and felt I needed to stay for the whole thing. In fact, the first 35 minutes are an obscenely extended feeling out process. I mean, who has the time?
That’s not to say it was all boring, but it’s still a 35-minute feeling out process. Some of it was fun, but none of it moved the match forward. It made the WrestleMania XII main event look like a Dragon Gate six-man tag. One way they could have made this a bit more palatable is if they’d made the first fall a submission match. Then at least there’d be a reason for them to be on the mat that whole time. As soon as the ring announcer says 35 minute have elapsed, Punk gets the first near fall of the match when he nearly puts out Hero with a headlock. Punk wins the first fall about 54 minutes in with an ugly, rebound Shining Wizard. Gotta love pre-WWE Punk trying all sorts of things he couldn’t really do. About 14 minutes later, Hero hit Punk with the Pepsi Plunge to tie it up. Not much of note happened in between. At 80 minutes it started feeling like they were stretching for time with a very long headlock stretch. It was also at this time that the commentators started fetishizing how long the match had gone. More than half of the match was spent lying on the mat. It’s not unim[ressive, but now I’m why many were annoyed by this at the time. Seconds before the time limit elapsed, both guys draped their arms over each other and the referee counted a double pin. So the match continued into overtime. They could have gotten the same result if they just hadn’t done a stupid double pin and tied 1-1 to require an overtime. At 92:15, Hero got the win with the Hangman’s Clutch. There’s just too many annoying things happening in a match that’s too long for me to really recommend you sit through it. That is unless you’re on a long match binge, in which case this match is pretty influential in terms of modern indie wrestling. **¾
June 7, 2003 – Clarksville, Indiana
Mark Wolf def. Chris Hero {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From When Good Friends Go Bad. The video quality on this show is awful and the commentary is almost impossible to hear. Just a terrible transfer. Speaking of terrible, I am not pleased at the way Hero just assumed he should be having super long matches with everyone. The biggest problem with working matches that way is the last ten minutes of the match, which were actually pretty entertaining, were totally disconnected from the first 17, which were meandering and pointless. Wolf caught Hero in a cloverleaf for the win at 27:51. Wolf vacated the title a couple weeks later because he was all banged up, and only wrestled a couple dozen matches after that in his career. **¾
July 12, 2003 – Clarksville, Indiana
Chris Hero def. Danny Daniels {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship 2/3 Falls Match}
From another nameless show. Wolf wanted to hand Hero the title, but Hero didn’t want to become champion again that way. Daniels suggested that he and Hero fight for the title with this stipulation because he was in the mix with Wolf and Hero and had never been pinned by either of them (except in a different 2/3 Falls Match that ultimately went to a draw). I don’t think history backs that up, but whatever at least they tried. I was nervous going into this because there was no time limit and I didn’t want to see a 45-minute match as these two had already had one of those. Thankfully, that’s not what happened. Hey, Hero is the wXw Champion here. Hero won the first fall relatively quickly with the Hero’s Welcome. Daniels came back not long after that with a piledriver on a chair to tie things up. I found myself liking this match more than most from this company, but the finish is really dumb. Daniels hit Hero with a chain for the win. Then the referee found the chain and restarted the match. He had a problem with that but not with Daniels hitting a piledriver on a chair earlier? That’s so stupid. Hero immediately hit the Hero’s Welcome for the win at 23:11. That finish totally ruined this for me. After the match, Daniels attacked Wolf, so Rotten fired him. **½
August 2, 2003 – Clarksville, Indiana
Danny Daniels def. Chris Hero {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Texas Death Match}
From King of the Death Matches, but not part of the tournament. It took less than a month for Daniels to be reinstated and become champion. That’s wrestling for you. This is a real Texas Death Match, in that to win you need to keep your opponent down for a ten count after you pin or submit him. There’s a handy graphic showing the ten count on the screen. Totally unnecessary. Daniels sort of breaks the gimmick by tapping out to submissions immediately because doing so wouldn’t put him at risk of being counted down afterwards. From there, Hero stopped bothering with holds. I like that! Actually, I liked this match quite a bit. Hero screwed himself, repeatedly lifting Daniels up after pins because he hated him so much. That let Daniels recover and hit two piledrivers and a belt shot for the win at 27:19. Best title change from IWA MS yet. ***¾
January 16, 2004 – Oolitic, Indiana
Jerry Lynn def. Danny Daniels {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From A Matter of Pride. This wound up being a fun, throwback main event style match. Daniels cheated in ways that made sense and were irritating for the right reasons, while Lynn plugged away trying to win with what brought him to the game. It wasn’t flashy, but thanks to Daniels’ schtick it didn’t need to be and shouldn’t have been. Fannin repeatedly tries to interfere on Lynn’s behalf, and Lynn finally taking Fannin out almost gave Daniels the win with a tight pulling-assisted roll up. But Lynn kicked out of that and with Fannin gone there was nothing left standing between Lynn’s cradle piledriver and the win at 15:24. ***½
April 9, 2004 – Oolitic, Indiana
BJ Whitmer def. Jerry Lynn {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Iron Man Match}
From April Bloodshowers. I suppose this is as good a place as any to say that I don’t understand why itle changes in this company always occurred in the middle of a show. I get why they wouldn’t go on last because of the deathmatch afterparty nonsense, but why not second to last? Here we have a match that will necessarily go thirty minutes that has to be followed by a bunch of other bouts. I don’t get that. Why is a Chad Collyer match on after this? Whitmer has Fannin in his corner, so I guess he’s a heel now. One of the bright sides of this happening in a company where matches sometimes go obscenely long is that a thirty-minute match doesn’t have a drawn out feeling out process in the beginning. Whitmer wins the first fall with a rope-and-Fannin-assisted roll up. Things got a bit dull after that with a pointless brawl through the crowd, followed by Lynn focusing more on wiping Whitmer’s blood on himself than on tying the match. Eventually, a very good rapin exchange of pins led to Lynn getting a three count on Whitmer to tie the score. With seconds to go in the match, Lynn hit Whitmer with the cradle piledriver. Fannin distracted the referee, so Whitmer tapped quickly when Lynn put him in a crossface. Lynn got up to see where the referee was, allowing Whitmer to hit a wrist-clutch exploder to win a second fall and get the title at 30:00. The beginning and end of the match were fun, while the middle ten minutes were pretty weird. ***¼
May 29, 2004 – Highland, Indiana
Petey Williams def. BJ Whitmer {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From A Shot of Southern Comfort. This is sixth from the top. Williams had just won a six-man elimination match to earn this shot. This was like a reverse Money in the Bank match, where Whitmer attacked immediately hoping to make quick work of the challenger. But it bit him in the ass when Williams hit the Canadian Destroyer out of nowhere for the win at 3:19. That was pretty great, and makes the Destroyer look insanely dangerous from a damage done and ability to hit from anywhere perspective. The match was surprisingly boring for the three minutes preceding the finish, though. *½
September 18, 2004 – Highland, Indiana
Arik Cannon def. Petey Williams {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Ted Petty Invitational Quarterfinals. This is fifth from the top, but given the tournament structure it makes sense here. Williams coming out to Rage Against the Machine doesn’t make sense for a Canadian patriot gimmick at all. This was as run of the mill a match as you’re ever going to get until the interesting but ultimately strange finish. Williams was being counted out, but when Cannon boastfully turned his back Williams snuck back in the ring and told the referee to keep counting as if he was still on the floor. Why legendary referee Bryce Remsburg would go along with this doesn’t really make sense. Neither does Cannon countering Williams’ subsequent Canadian Destroyer attempt to a slam into the corner and then hitting the Shining Wizard for the win at 12:40. It was cute, but it made the referee and Williams both look awful. Cannon did not put the title in his semifinal match against AJ Styles, which he lost. If he’s a heel then why did they give him a big babyface title win?! This company is so dumb and didn’t deserve the level of talent they employed. **¾
October 21, 2004 – Evansville, Indiana
AJ Styles def. Chris Sabin, Christopher Daniels, and Petey Williams {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Four Way Match}
From Autumn Armageddon. Cannon had a match with Austin Aries moments earlier where he legit broke his collarbone. The injury was very obvious, but he gutted it out and hit a low blow and a weak powerbomb out of the corner to pin Aries and get the hell out of there. Oh, that match went second from the top, and on this show it’s a good thing it did because they saw how bad off Cannon was, stripped him of the title, and made this already scheduled main event (of four TNA wrestlers) a title match. Only two guys are legal at a time so there must be tags, which is dumber than hell. If someone stays in the ring for more than five seconds when they’re not legal, how are you going to disqualify them? Things should make sense! And of course it all goes out the window in the second half of the match when they totally stop enforcing that rule. If you can ignore that bit of rampaging idiocy, you’re left with an above average X-Division style match in front of a much smaller crowd. Styles pinned Daniels with the Styles Clash at 21:13 for the win. ***¼
October 23, 2004 – Highland, Indiana
CM Punk def. AJ Styles {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the 8th Anniversary Show. I wonder if Punk was always meant to win the title on this show, or if they just needed to get the belt off of a TNA contracted wrestler before the end of the weekend. This is actually the main event and there seem to have been zero deathmatches on this show. And it’s terrific. It has two things that almost all of the IWA MS title matches I’ve seen so far have been missing: intensity and a coherent storyline. Punk worked over Styles’ arm for the first half of the match, never straying from that game plan no matter what Styles threw at him. In the second half, it looked like Styles’ strength and agility advantages would be enough for him to overcome the handicap. But Punk stayed sharp and waited for his moment until he was able to put on the Anaconda Vice and roll into an inverted version for the win at 23:50. This match would have worked as the main event of any wrestling show anywhere. ****¼
February 4, 2005 – Valparaiso, Indiana
Danny Daniels def. CM Punk {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Indiana State Title Tournament. This is second from the top, but that’s because the finals of the tournament for the eponymous belt is the main event. If they’d cut the first five minutes out of this match I’d be a lot more excited about what I’d just watched. As it is, I’ll give them all the credit in the world for how much they cranked up the volume on this thing by the end. I just didn’t need fifteen minutes of action before the tempo started getting faster. Daniels countered a hammerlock DDT to a roll up for the win and the title at 25:35. ***½
April 1, 2005 – Herrin, Illinois
Jimmy Jacobs def. Danny Daniels {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Match}
From April Bloodshowers. I moved into an apartment in Kalamazoo with two of the three guys in the ring a few months after this (Jacobs and the referee, my dear friend Jake Ziegler). This is the main event, so maybe I can stop complaining about the title being a midcard attraction for a while. The venue is some kind of theater that isn’t well set up for wrestling at all. The ring is on the stage, there’s no hard camera, and the ringside cameraman is filming everything from an absurdly low angle. It’s a nightmare; I can’t imagine what it was like for folks in the crowd to have him (I assume it was a guy given IWA MS’s reputation with women) blocking the action for much of the match. I like Jacobs’ Red Bull tights a lot more than Daniels’ Daredevil singlet. Jacobs was feeling it here, bringing a ton of energy to everything he did. He also brought a lot of weight down on Daniels for the finish, hitting three diving sentons that looked like they legit took the wind out of the champion. When the first two only got two-counts, Jacobs put his feet on the ropes to make sure the third finished the job at 28:45. I want to say that this should have been shorter, but it didn’t actually feel long to me. The one thing holding it back was Daniels just not being all that interesting a champion figure. I feel weird saying that since his matches have been some of the higher-rated ones in this review, but the truth is he’s consistently good without ever being truly great. He’s at his best when he’s heeling, but the story here was that these two tricksters were playing it mostly fair until Jacobs changed things up at the very end. The finish worked especially well for me because of Jacobs desperate, bloody journey to become champion throughout this match, how that drew in the fans and how he threw away his need for their approval at the end. ***½
January 21, 2006 – Midlothian, Illinois
Arik Cannon def. Jimmy Jacobs {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship Falls Count Anywhere Match}
From No Retreat No Surrender. Jacobs had that title for a good long time there, the longest reign in the belt’s history to that point. BJ Whitmer is handcuffed to a ring post to keep him from interfering on Jacobs’ behalf. The mat is as loose and baggy as Cannon’s pants. That can’t be safe. Referee Remsburg is limping throughout this match, I guess because of something that happened earlier. I actually didn’t notice it until the commentators called it out, so props to Remsburg for staying invisible even while selling. Jacobs eventually attacks that leg when he gets frustrated with the officiating. Whitmer also gets involved when the action comes near him, which is neat. The finish saw Vito Thomaselli free Whitmer from his handcuffs, only for Whitmer to accidentally hit Jacobs. Then, Cannon took out Whitmer and hit Jacobs with the Contra Code on a pile of chairs and a Shining Wizard for the win at 21:48. I was pretty tuned out for a lot of this match, in part because the baggy canvas was distracting and because these kinds of slow brawls don’t usually do it for me. But the crowd loved it, and that ain’t nothing. ***¼
April 22, 2006 – Midlothian, Illinois
Darin Corbin def. Arik Cannon {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Any Given Saturday. Wait, so is Baron Corbin’s ring name a rib? This was a rather unconvincing main event. Corbin has such strong just-a-guy fumes pouring off of him that’s bizarre to me that they’d give him the title here. That haircut alone should be a midcard life sentence. That and the fact that his match was all punches and kicks with no drama to speak of left me feeling obscenely neutral on it. They traded roll ups until Corbin came out on top with a clean win at 21:51. **½
June 3, 2006 – Plainfield, Indiana
Trik Davis def. Darin Corbin and Arik Cannon {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Elimination Match}
From King of the Death Match. Corbin’s belt is the old WWF Undisputed Championship belt replica with a picture of his face taped to the front of it. This is some indie nonsense right here. The commentators have to bend over backwards to try to make it seem like an elimination match is worse for the champion than a standard triple threat would be. No, it isn’t, so just don’t bother. I hate this and the bell hasn’t even rung yet. Actually, the match isn’t terrible. They kept it short, gave us a cute little walk-n-brawl, kept the stupid nonsense no a minimum. Corbin pinned Cannon with a rope-and-manager-assisted Gedo Clutch and then Davis almost immediately beat Corbin with the Hangman’s Clutch at 10:05. **¾
June 17, 2006 – Streamwood, Illinois
Toby Klein def. Trik Davis {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From School’s Out. They’re still using the replica WWF belt, but now with an IWA MS decal slapped onto it. Good god. I don’t understand what Klein’s gimmick is. Is he a caveman? Why does he have a regular Jewish dude’s name then? This was a midcard level match at best, though not a bad one. Davis kicked out of Klein’s supposedly unsurvivable DVD, but then fell to Klein’s twisting splash at 9:34. **½
September 30, 2006 – Midlothian, Illinois
Chuck Taylor def. Toby Klein {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Ted Petty Invitational. This was not part of the tournament. Before the match, Jacobs ran in to help Josh Abercrombie beat Tyler Black in a loser leaves IWA MS match. But then Abercrombie and Fannin turned on Jacobs and had Page and Pain (looking old and very fat) attack Jacobs. Klein made the save and got all beat up. Taylor seemed okay postponing the match, but Klein decided to fight anyway. The match was pretty whatever, just going through the motions until a woozy Klein stumbled on the turnbuckle and Taylor hit him with a neckbreaker for the win at 9:32. Fannin and friends beat everyone up after the match until Butcher made the save. **¼
September 29, 2007 – Midlothian, Illinois
Mike Quackenbush def. Chuck Taylor and Claudio Castagnoli {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship vs. IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship Elimination Match}
From the Ted Petty Invitational finals. Kind of a neat gimmick here as both titles were up for grabs throughout the tournament so this title vs. title match was inevitable. Also, Castanoli is there. Taylor had a normal title belt again (the one pictured above), though not the red title belt that was used for most of the championship’s history. He had won the Women’s Championship for a month, so at first I thought it was possible that this was that belt (though by this point he’d been defeated for that title by Daizee Haze). The reason I thought that might be the case was that it was the same belt the Shotzi Blackheart won when they brought the title back from a ten-year hiatus in 2018. But then I found a photo of Taylor holding this belt and another IWA MS Women’s title belt, so I guess Rotten actually plopped down a few dollars for something new. Taylor beat Jacobs’ longevity record with this reign. This was a lot of fun. It wasn’t complicated, just all three guys doing the things that people wanted to see from them for an appropriate amount of time. Quackenbush hit Castagnoli with Quackendrivers III and II to eliminate him. Then he put Taylor in the Chikara Special for the win at 17:42. ***¼
December 7, 2007 – Plainfield, Indiana
Eddie Kingston def. Mike Quackenbush, Chris Hero, and Chuck Taylor {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship & IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship Elimination Match}
From A Rotten Farewell. This started as a de facto tag team match between Quackenbush & Kingston vs. Taylor & Hero. As much as I appreciate a bit of nuance in a match, it wasn’t fun until Hero turned on Taylor and things got chaotic. From there this was balls to the wall spotty fun. Taylor eliminated Quackenbush first with a sunset flip after a failed Omega Driver. So he became the Light Heavyweight Champion again I guess because the only other guy who qualified for that title was now gone. A couple minutes later, Hero hit Taylor with a cravat stunner for the elimination. Then, things get kind of weird. During a boring walk-n-brawl, Kingston seemingly injures his arm. But then back in the ring the injury magically appears to be gone. Maybe Kingston is just a real tough dude; I’m no expert. He beats Hero with two spinning back fists, between which he gets very dizzy. What? Why? Isn’t that his finisher? Anyway, that wins him the title at 29:35. Kingston was stripped of the title four months later because he wasn’t able to make it to two shows in a row. ***
May 3, 2008 – Joliet, Illinois
Chuck Taylor def. Claudio Castagnoli {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Night of Champions. This was the finals of a tournament to crown a new champion, and it was quite good. Being the third match both guys fought that night, they started slow and then built to a full blown main event level of intensity. I probably would have appreciated this even more had I been invested in the tournament. As it is, I still found it damn enjoyable. Taylro countered the Ricola Bomb to a hurricanrana for the win at 15:32. ***½
June 20, 2008 – Sellersburg, Indiana
Dingo def. Chuck Taylor {IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From King of the Death Match. There wasn’t much to this one, but if you want to watch a match happen outside during magic hour, this is the one for you. Under the amber rays of the sun, Dingo countered the Omega Driver to a roll up for the win at 10:28. Dingo held the title for over 500 days, beating Taylor’s longevity record. He vacated the belt because of a broken neck, which is a bummer of a way to end a long reign. **½
IWA MS started having undeniable management problems in 2008. I’ll let you search yourself for the 2008 Mike Levy incident because the details are very easy to find. In addition to that nightmare, Rotten would play the victim and lament money issues. He’d say he had to close the company to goose ticket sales for various final shows, only to say that increased sales allowed the company to continue. After Dingo vacated the belt, the company had no champion for five years. During this time, the threats of closure continued, only for the company to miraculously return a couple months later each time. Rotten supposedly left the company for a spell, only to return in 2013. We’ll pick things up in the next review the following year, when they finally put the belt on someone new.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
