IWA Mid-South Autumn Armageddon, Evansville, IN
Evansville was once a pretty hopping wrestling town, back in the glory days of Memphis when it was a regular stop. By 2004 it was not. IWA Mid-South ran shows there that never drew fuck all despite often being loaded up with good talent. It just wasn’t Evansville talent.
Anyway, this is a first-ever meeting. Abyss was a star in National Wrestling Alliance Total Nonstop Action, of course, while Joe was king on the indies, the ROH champion. So you had these two big lads in a first-ever match, fun stuff. For, I dunno, 30 or so fans.
CM Punk and Ace Steel are on commentary. Punk is eating and immediately launches into commentary that would simply not cut the mustard at NBCUniversal Peacock.
Joe gets overpowered and shoved hard into the corner on a collar-and-elbow; Joe being overpowered was really unusual for this time period because, let’s be real, he was bigger than basically everyone he wrestled. But Joe always worked these monster-vs-monster type matches really well, he was never afraid to let the other guy show strength because he knew how good he was and that he wasn’t gonna lose the crowds that liked seeing him dominate.
This is really just a rugged match early, not a war of bombs but heavy fire. It gets a little clumsy at moments, first time matchup and all. Joe goes for a tornado DDT and Abyss just tosses him as he looks to make the turn. Punk continues to eat on microphone: “Where do you think Abyss gets leather pants that size? And do they cost a lot?”
Abyss cranks the neck. Punk “hated friendly Hawaiian giant Crush.” Abyss misses a splash from the second rope and both the big lads are down, so up from that they’re trading shots, Abyss getting the better with clubbing shots, then Joe with the rapid fire slaps, to which a southern Indiana hick squeals out, “AW YER SLAPPIN’ LIKE A BITCH!”
Joe with a bearhug, Abyss with a bearhug. The loud hicks are Abyss/TNA fans for sure. Joe with the elbow suicida out onto the hardwood. They both get up to slug it out some as referee Rudy Charles makes the count and they tumble into chairs and keep fighting for the double countout, which is funny because Joe hears Charles yell out “nine!” turns to run back in, and then decides to not, going down to apply a clumsy choke to Abyss and then acting surprised when the count hits 10. Everyone boos at this shit.
In all honesty, this is not a good match. A rare miss from ’04 Joe; they weren’t familiar with one another (they’d go on to have many more matches in TNA in particular) and that showed, and the small ring — which Punk actually talked about — seemed to mess with their timing with one another at points, too. And the finish was not exactly executed great. And the inspiration and fire wasn’t really there from either of them, which, y’know, can you blame them? This was the Thursday night shot of a three-day IWA run in front of 30 or 40 people. You can tell there’s a good Joe-Abyss match from this match, but this match ain’t that match.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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