Revisiting 00s US Indies #39

Necro Butcher v Mitch Page (IWA: MS, 5/26/01)

I wonder about the turns these men took in their lives; the roads that led them to a match like this. Or really to the sort of wrestling Necro Butcher did on the regular. Throw in his fellow deathmatch specialists (I realise you may want to use that term loosely) while we're at it and I assume Mitch Page can be counted among that number. Obviously there had been deathmatches long before these guys started wrestling, but Necro made his debut in 1998, a couple years before the real indie boom. You look at his contemporaries, guys like Low Ki, Danielson, Punk, Hero, even someone like BJ Whitmer who debuted two years after Necro. These were guys who paid a goodly amount of money for 90s All Japan tapes. You know, I assume. They traded tapes and watched the New Japan juniors and maybe Battlarts and probably some joshi and heyday World of Sport. You know, probably. You can tell who gravitated towards that stuff because they outright emulated a lot of it (Whitmer was basically a walking All Japan youtube package). You can also tell who gravitated towards FMW and the King of the Deathmatch and blood and piss and mutilation. Necro Butcher might be kind of garbage as a human being but as a pro wrestling entity he's endlessly fascinating. My good man elliott from PWO called him the modern indie version of Buzz Sawyer and that feels very accurate. Like with Sawyer, I legit don't remember seeing a single Necro Butcher match that I didn't find him compelling in. And to be honest I don't know if this match was any good or not, but I was sort of mesmerised by Necro's performance in it. There are about 40 people in attendance, in this tarped-off venue that looks like the setting of a deep web snuff film, and Necro hits a somersault senton off the top rope into Mitch Page and several non-foldable chairs. It's met with the meekest of applause. Necro holds a wad of light tubes to Page's forehead, then uses his own head to smash those tubes over Page's. One nearby fan hands him a broom. "Do something with this, dancing monkey." Page mostly stumbles around being hit or stabbed in the head with various weapons - many of which brought by the fans - shambling from spot to spot, every now and then lending a hand in setting up whatever nonsense they're going to put themselves through next. Necro takes a scoop slam on a blanket of chairs and light tubes, then another, shirtless, on a pile of broken glass. One kid holding a cheese grater nodded approvingly. By the end Necro's back is a bloody canvas and in one of the goofier but also crazier Necro Butcher spots he douses his leg in gasoline, sets it on fire and hits a top rope legdrop. "Ten minutes gone by," intones our ring announcer. "Ten minutes." Page valiantly fights back and responds to being hit with a flaming legdrop by setting his own head on fire and giving Necro a diving headbutt. You might hate this wrestling match. If you gravitate towards 90s All Japan then I would suggest it's a probability more than a possibility. But then you have your tape collection and All Japan Classics and there is no space on King's Road for the likes of the Necro Butcher anyhow.