Ian Rotten vs Steve Stone (IWA MS, 9-18-2004)

IWA Mid-South Ted Petty Invitational, Highland, IN

MORE non-tournament action! But this one was advertised and had some hype. Rotten had fired Stone from IWA MS, and Jim Fannin (who owned 20% of the company) brought Stone back as a mercenary. So we’ve gotten to this match, a non-sanctioned (remember, IWA had just recently joined the NWA), anything goes, falls count anywhere showdown.

Loved the cum font Steve Stone used for “GOT METAL?” on his ass. Ian knows what people want out of this, so it goes right to the floor for fighting, including a stiff forearm exchange that ends with that old IWA standby, the shoot headbutt, this one from Ian to Stone. They keep drilling each other from there. I understand there are a million reasons a million people have for not liking Ian but these dudes are laying it the fuck in and this rules.

Rotten comes in with a bad shoulder and after trying to go toe-to-toe with Ian, Stone finally goes to the shoulder and rest of that arm, after constant shouting to do so from Fannin.

They brawl around the building, Stone getting the worst of it including being rammed into the wall and getting his head cracked with some sort of toy someone brought.

Jim Fannin interferes and Ian chases him, but Fannin exits a side door and blocks it from the other side — until CHRIS CANDIDO, basically out of fuck off nowhere in the entire wrestling world at this point, emerges to attack Rotten.

There’s a legit stunned silence with Candido and Stone dominating Ian as Jim Fannin shouts on the mic. I know people say “stunned silence” a lot when they mean crowd isn’t reacting, but I was there, people were legit shocked to see this guy, all standing.

There’s a long beatdown from Fannin’s new “Dream Team” that follows Candido’s arrival, and the match itself never actually ends, though it could have had a pinfall at some point, being anything goes and all that. Jim Fannin gets on the mic for what feels like an hour to shout shit people quickly get sick of hearing, as he wasn’t the most popular guy with the crowd anyway, and not just in a heel way. Personally I always thought he did a solid job as a heel manager. He was no Carmine DeSpirito, but he was alright.

This could all be shorter, but it drives home the main point, that Ian Rotten has nobody who cares about him enough to come save him, while Fannin is building a team of mercenaries to take over IWA Mid-South ownership for good, not by buying Ian out, but by driving him out. The only person who even tries to help is Ian’s wife Patti, who wields a chair but doesn’t do anything with it other than walk around and yell at Fannin and NWA official Ed Chuman, who refuses to do anything because this was (at Ian’s insistence) not an NWA-sanctioned match.

Finally, Iceberg runs in to at least stop this for now. They do backstage post-match promos where Candido basically reminds you what a good wrestling promo is like (Fannin is fine, Stone is young, and Candido is the real deal), and then

The short-term payoff would be Ian recruiting his childhood hero Dusty Rhodes to team with him at the next month’s Highland show, which I also saw, and it was neat to see Dusty (also one of my childhood heroes) live.

Can’t rate this as a match or whatever but it’s a fun few minutes of Stone and Rotten slugging the fuck out of each other, and Candido’s shock appearance is one of the great moments I’ve ever had as a fan live at a wrestling show. That Candido would go on to prove himself so good a performer and such a great guy at IWA shows after this made it all the better, and later made it hurt so much when he died just seven months after this return to IWA MS. As a fan, that one sincerely hurt, because I’d gotten to seem him start re-building his name up close for a while, and he’d gotten himself back on TV with TNA. Things were going well.

Rating: NR, But Good