The Edition
By Daniel Taylor
Welcome to the first edition of The Edition. I am Dan, and to understand my opinions you’ll need to know a little bit about me. I’ve been watching wrestling for as long as I can remember casually. I have memories of sitting at my cousin’s houses watching old episodes of WWF Superstars and cheering for my favourite wrestlers. My opinion was basically if I come across the shows I would watch them, but I wouldn’t set time apart to watch the wrestling. I can remember when I first got Foxtel sometime in 1998 flicking through the channels, until by chance Raw Is War came on. This was during the peak of the Degeneration-X vs. The Nation feud, and this particular show included the infamous DX imitation of their enemies. I loved the comedy, the characters, the testosterone… I loved wrestling. And since that show I’ve been hooked. A year or so later I found out that there was more than just the WWF! I began watching WCW as well. I would tape Nitro and watch Raw so I wouldn’t miss the shows. When I got the Internet in late 1999 I discovered ECW. I bought a bunch of ECW tapes, but unfortunately my sister decided to tape over them later. I was into wrestling a hell of a lot until mid 2001 where I just lost interest for one reason or another. I was a casual watcher again until recent times, and I am now into wrestling more than ever. However not as a WWF, WCW or ECW fan. I am now mainly into independent and Japanese wrestling, and this is what my columns will focus mainly on. So now that you know a little history, let’s get into the column.
Today I am going to talk about a few problems that Combat Zone Wrestling has encountered over their recent couple of shows. First and foremost is two of their biggest tag team stars leaving through controversial circumstances. Now I’m not going to pretend to be some insider or a CZW expert so I’m not going to speculate on why they are leaving. I’m mainly concerned with the impact this will leave on not only their tag team scene, but also their singles competition. CZW has one of the strongest tag scenes on the independent circuit a few months ago – The SAT’s, Divine Storm, The Briscoes, The H8 Club, Midnight Express, VD, The Rachies and a few more. Now The SAT’s, Divine Storm and The Briscoes have left, and the Rachies are gone now that Adam Flash is the Iron Man Champion. So that leaves us with three contenders – The H8 Club, VD and The Midnight Express. The problem with the Midnight Express, however is that they were a Briscoe rip off. Their gimmick for a while was that it was the Briscoes under a hood, however apparently it was eventually proven that the Express were different wrestlers however I haven’t seen this show so I cannot comment on this too deeply. They’ve got in some new talent at the moment that will hopefully help fill the void, like the Hardcore Ninjaz, and M-Dogg-20/Josh Prohibition. The Backseat Boys are occasionally tagging, as is Kashmere and Steve Rives. Jay Briscoe had been wrestling as a single while his brother was hurt, and had been doing quite well with that. The Briscoes are a big part of CZW’s talent not just because they are among the most talented teams, but because the fans could relate to them. Jay and Mark are both young guys, and a lot of CZW fans who aspire to become a wrestler look up to them.
But the Briscoe’s aren’t the only wrestler’s who featured high in singles competition on the CZW cards who have left in recent times. Brian XL, Ric Blade, Reckless Youth, Red and a few others have vanished through either quitting, firings or whatever. Personally I don’t give a shit about the sloppy Ric Blade – all he’s done since he left is hurt himself and other people. Brian XL and Red are a bit of a shame, as the two of them were brilliant together. I don’t know what the deal with Reckless is, but I believe they’re still on good terms. But anyway, these four guys in particular were big in CZW, and it hurt the company when they’ve left (recent of not). Zandig has made the effort to bring the roster back up to scratch with the bringing in of various wrestlers, and pushing of tag team guys as single wrestlers. The biggest example of new talent is The Messiah, who is unbelievably popular after his falling out with Rob Black’s XPW. Adam Flash has also prospered with the Iron Man title around his waist, and become a legit threat to Justice Pain’s world title. Jerry Lynn has been bought in for a few dates, however he was put over Pain in a non-title match that made little sense to me. Why bring in a guy from the outside, and have your top guy job to him? Doesn’t make sense to me. Zandig has also booked the first ever women’s match in CZW with Lacey and Rain – two big female names on the indy circuit. But the point is, even though some big talent has been lost on bad terms, it’s not affecting CZW’s reputation as bad as it would hurt another similar organisation. This cements the fact that CZW is one of, if not the top indy in the United States today.
Now I am going to do begin hopefully what will become a regular part of my columns, which is my Wrestler Wrap Up. In this section I will give my opinions on some guys in the business and what I think of how they are going about their careers currently. The first wrestler I will be reviewing is CZW’s ‘Sick’ Nick Mondo.
Nick Mondo is one of the best Death Match workers in the United States today for a number of reasons. The most obvious being that Nick can work a good match in AND out of the Death Match environment, which the average garbage worker cannot. This helps Mondo as he does not have to rely solely on sick bumps and bleeding buckets to get a pop. His finisher itself, The Mondo Sledge is a difficult maneuver that many average DM workers could not hit. When Mondo works with another DM guy who can also work (Jun Kasai, Ian Rotten, Justice Pain, Winger, Shadow WX, etc) the matches are not just sick, but exciting. The key to a good deathmatch is the psychology, not the amount of blood or unbelievable “holy shit” spots. Teasing the bump gives the maneuver twice the impact on the crowd than just going out and hitting it in the first twenty seconds. Another reason for Mondo’s success is that he is fit. A lot of workers in the garbage environment are unfit, and must rely on bleeding buckets as they cannot work for a period of time without getting long winded. Guys like Madman Pondo, Ian and Axl Rotten, Zandig and to a lesser extent Necro Butcher cannot compete for the same amount of time the more fitter DM workers are able to, such as Corporal Robinson, Wifebeater, Jun Kasai, and Nick Mondo. This also gives the workers a better look about them. Would you rather pay to see a fat, unfit, awful looking guy or a fit, buffed, younger wrestler? Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but these mainly come from reputation. Mondo has one of the best looks on the indy circuit with the SICK facepaint, puffy blue or yellow pants and the wrist pads. He also wears no shirt to the ring, so the fans can see the blood rather than the injuries being covered by the wrestlers gear.
Mondo has had many memorable DM’s, including CZW’s Un-F’n-Believeable where he teamed with Jun Kasai against Justice Pain and Johnny Kashmere, CZW’s Break Away Brawl in a three way against Wifebeater and Madman Pondo for the Iron-Man title, IWA MS’s King Of The Death Matches against Ian Rotten, and in the cluster fuck that was CZW’s Stretched In Smyrna. Mondo has been compared to Sabu, the Rotten’s and legendary Japanese Death Match workers Matsunaga and Atsushi Onita – a great feat for such a young worker. The future is bright for Nick Mondo, and I can only hope he will capitalize on what could make him one of the best Death Match workers of all time.
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