This review was commissioned by Matty Ice over on my Ko-fi account. As of this writing commissions are still open, they’re going for $10 a pop.
I quite like John Wayne Murdoch. He have a very down-to-earth, blue collar appeal to him that works equally well as either a babyface or heel. While I probably prefer him as a stooging and big bumping heel, his best babyface work has come as the ace figure to the ICW: No Holds Barred promotion. This match is the inception of that as it’s ICW:NHB’s first WrestleMania weekend of shows, only a few months into its existence into the rebrand of the promotion into what we know today. At the last minute, it is announced that the winner will be crowned the inaugural American Deathmatch Champion.
The first thing worth noting is that I quite like the set up of the ring in this match. ICW’s famous chains are a bit of a double edged sword in that they sacrifice some mobility for an added sense of danger, so that’s a wash. But they up the ante here by stripping away the canvas to expose the ring boards, and having some delightful lighttube bundles in play as well.
I’m always sort of tickled when these big deathmatches open with more chain wrestling than gimmickry, but I’d say that it works especially well in this particular instance given that the most fundamental sequences feel more intense when down on wood. Hell, I even enjoy the escalation of this idea with Ryan crunching up a box lighttubes to pour out onto the wood before returning to the hold for hold work yet again. Murdoch using some glass shards to carve up Ryan’s face is a nice touch too.
The odd thing is that when things are supposedly meant to escalate with more weaponry coming into play, it feels like a few steps were missed. By the time they’re crowd brawling, there’s a certain sluggishness to their movements that slows the pace of the match down. It’s further hurt by the crowd in attendance not quite being the truly rabid hardcore fans you might want. There’s more of a polite air about the fans in attendance that commentary tries to spin into stunned silence.
The slowness of the action in the middle doesn’t play right for me. It feels like it’s pointing to an exhaustion or a battering not supported by the action we’ve seen up to that point. It’s possible this is a failure of performance, but also this match happens towards the end of a WrestleMania weekend of shows. The dudes might just have felt all the bumps bruises starting to catch up to them. Either way, it doesn’t quite work.
There’s some decent stuff at the end of the match. Punching lighttubes into each other’s heads? Cool. Bumping into those round lighttube fixtures? Also cool. There finally feels like a tangible explosion in the energy of the match, but it’s swiftly followed by the finish itself. An unfortunate example of too little, too late in this particular instance.
Not horrible by any means but far from the best I’ve seen from either man involved.
