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.
Time to bring violence to Scotland. Welcome to Insane Championship Wrestling, Scotland’s biggest promotion and home to some of the most insane matches and sweariest commentary. We go to the biggest show of their 2017, Fear and Loathing X. A big show needs a big deathmatch and it doesn’t get much bigger than this.
Chris Renfrew vs Jimmy Havoc vs Mikey Whiplash vs Stevie Boy Xavier. Four huge names in ICW and four even bigger names in the world of wrestling violence. So, what happened when these guys went to war? Everything you could possibly imagine. There were staple guns, barbed wire, a crucifix, Renfrew got sent to hell by being put through the stage and I’m genuinely surprised someone didn’t die. This was a match where they used psychological evaluations to promote it!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4_Z5s6wtc]
This was the starting point in the rise of Stevie Boy. He won here and would proceed to take their biggest Title at Barramania the next year. As for this match, he had to survive against three other guys who all wanted to murder each other. We say finishers onto cinderblocks, Mikey Whiplash’s priestess (now Aivil or known to others as Jokey the Clown) got a taste of the action trying to come to his aid and eating her own finisher from Renfrew and more spots than I have words to list them. Just believe me when I say that. It took a Glasgow Destroyer from Stevie Boy off of a ladder through a table with a broken Whiplash to put the match to bed whilst Havoc watched on taped to the ropes.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jRN1zcVks4]
As an introduction to ICW, there is nothing more violent. It’s fun, mental and fast-paced. Not to mention it was a standout match of a standout card. It is still currently my favourite match from the company and helped me appreciate Mikey Whiplash, Stevie Boy and Chris Renfrew as wrestlers. I have always loved Jimmy Havoc and he was the only one I was familiar with when I first saw this. Now I’m a massive fan of all of them, even if I don’t see some as often anymore.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPO173jYd_M]
Come back next time for your next deathmatch treat.
All images courtesy of ICW.co.uk and Voices of Wrestling Videos courtesy of ICW YouTube