Samoa Joe vs Necro Butcher (IWA MS, 6-11-2005)

IWA Mid-South Something to Prove, Philadelphia, PA

“Ian had tried to put us together before, and (Joe) had told Ian he wanted no part of me. And not the good kind of ‘I don’t want any part of him,’ like, ‘He’s a piece of shit, I’m not getting in the fuckin’ ring with him.’ … I called the entire match. Every spot, everything. … I would say 90 percent of my better matches, I called the entire thing. The entire thing.”

Necro enters second, gets right in Joe’s face, and throws Bryce Remsburg aside. Bryce comes back, Joe tosses him out of the ring, and they’re trading forearms immediately. Just drilling each other. Necro gets the better of it for a moment, but Joe fires back.

Necro off the ropes, runs right into an enzuigiri from Joe. Joe with a forearm suicida, and the fight goes into the crowd. Necro seated in a chair, Joe with a series of kicks to the chest. Necro gets up, headbutts and chops Joe. Joe with headbutts and slaps. Necro’s Big Japan cut starts flowing.

Rights and lefts from Necro. Necro throwing chairs at Joe recklessly, just chucking them at the big man. Necro lifts Joe and dumps him over the guardrail onto the entrance ramp, then back over the other side guardrail. Forearm from Necro, then he walks into a powerslam, where Necro doesn’t rotate over and smashes his forehead on the floor. Joe throws a chair at Necro’s head.

Olé! It’s time for the running Samoa Joe kick! Necro with shots to the body, Joe just fires away on him, then lands a hard knee strike to the head. Joe dumps Necro back over the guardrail to ringside. Back in the ring, Joe covers and gets two. Crowd going nuts chanting.

Joe with kicks to the head of the downed Butcher. Necro back up with a headbutt, then a big boot. Joe back to the floor, sent into the guardrail. Necro gets a piece of guardrail and slides it into the ring. Joe back in after him. Necro throws the guardrail at Joe and drops him. Then he throws it on top of him, and drops a senton.

Necro with straight right hands on the apron, clocking Joe twice, but Joe grabs him and takes him over with an exploder to the floor, where Necro lands on his head again and leaves — I don’t want to say pools of blood, it’s, like, chunks of blood. He was already bleeding, and now he’s a mess.

Joe with a chairshot to the head. Back into the ring, where Joe sets up the guardrail over the middle rope in the corner. Knee to the head from Joe, then a power bomb onto the guardrail. “SOMEBODY’S GONNA DIE!”

Joe covers with one foot, arrogantly, and Necro, the man impossible to kill, rolls his shoulder. Joe opens a chair in the ring, and looks for a German. Necro blocks it once, but does take the German onto the opened chair. Two count again. Joe can’t believe it.

Chop from Joe, another, a third, Necro back with a combination of punches, all he’s got left. Joe covers up and just SMASHES him with palm strikes and hideous looking knee strikes, with Necro’s body collapsing but Joe refusing to allow him to go down, pulling him up by his hair for a final knee. Necro staggers up, Joe kicks him in the fucking head, and he’s down again, just pouring blood. Bryce Remsburg counts Necro out.

After the bell rings and Joe is announced as the winner, Necro gets up and fights him some more. Joe bails. Samoa Joe, baddest man in wrestling at the time, decides to run away from any more of a fight with this man.

Rating: 5/5. It’s about 10 minutes long, and it’s about as real a feeling as a wrestling match can have. It’s all action, zero downtime, almost a gritty cinematic feel to it, with an amazing display of badassery on both sides. On one hand, you have the trained fighter, the pro wrestling champion, and on the other, the street brawler, the baddest motherfucker on the block. It’s the best match in IWA Mid-South history, and that’s a company that, whatever you think of Ian Rotten or anything else about it, has had a lot of great matches in 20-plus years. Add in the wildly enthusiastic commentary from Dave Prazak, CM Punk, and Eddie Kingston, and you have an all-timer, period. I imagine even today there are people that don’t totally get what the hype is about, but for me, this is a Mount Rushmore indie wrestling match.