If you didn’t catch episode one, welcome to 31 Days of Deathmatches. This is an advent calendar style countdown to Halloween offering you a door of deliciously gory wrestling per day. Our trip to the spookiest day of the year will take us around the world and through time. This will chronicle some of the most significant deathmatches throughout the years but will mostly consist of my absolute favourite barbed wire bouts and glass shattering matches. Without further ado, let’s open the next door.

Continuing the trend of threes in our opening duo of days and as a way to make our Impact editor, Steph happy, I will take you to Impact Wrestling and the notorious Barbed Wire Massacre series. These matches actually mean quite a lot to me as Barbed Wire Massacre II (Abyss vs Judas Mesias) was one of the first pieces of Impact content I ever saw and it got me hooked on the product. Barbed wire ropes and weapons litter the ring. No rules other than be the one to survive. This was one of the companies unflinching dives into the hardcore aspects of wrestling that was a joy for younger me to watch and still is now.

Barbed Wire Massacre III saw two generations of LAX join forces with their leader Konnan to take on the devious forces of oVe. It was the Crist Brothers and Sami Callihan taking on Santana, Ortiz and Homicide in a 6-Man deathmatch of devastating proportions. Jake Crist was turned into a barbed wire burrito during the course of the match, Dave Crist had skewers sticking out of his face and multiple boards, both barbed wired and ordinary had been broken with bodies. It was a bloody mess but incredibly enjoyable. Even Konnan got involved to avenge a fireball attack he had suffered at the hands of Callihan by attacking with a barbed wire bat. Also, we got a moment of pouring tequila in the wounds…. Ouch.

The best part of this match on the calendar is that you can watch it for free! The match was classed as too hardcore for TV and so the company aired it on Twitch. It eventually found its way on to Impact’s YouTube channel and can be watched at this very moment. Which by the way, you totally should. Barbed Wire Massacre is Impact at its hardcore best which LAX and oVe took to whole new levels.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBgF0qEGgc]

Tune in tomorrow to open the next door in the calendar.

All images courtesy of Impact Wrestling. Video courtesy of Impact YouTube

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