WARNING STRONG VIOLENCE AHEAD AND LANGUAGE AHEAD

Welcome back to 31 Days of Deathmatches Volume 2. The second edition of the annual deathmatch advent calendar put together by yours truly. Each day we will open another bloody door on the calendar and explore another deathmatch until we hit Halloween. We’re going to explore a ton of different companies, wrestlers, and stipulations as the days go on with a few surprises here and there. So, strap in as we prepare for another round of blood, broken glass, and barbed-wire on our road of deathmatches.

So, I can’t have a proper deathmatch calendar without a trip to one of the companies that pushed deathmatches to new levels in the early 2000s. IWA Midsouth was one of the premier companies for deathmatches and to this day, still goes out of its way to put on annual bloodbaths with some of the hottest deathmatch talents around. Even pulling a deathmatch animal out of some more traditional wrestlers at times. The match I’ve picked is the most popular YouTube suggestion from the company. J.C Bailey vs Mad Man Pondo in the US’s first Circus Deathmatch from Ultra Styles Clash Night 2, all the way back in 2003.

Now a Circus Deathmatch takes place on a scaffold over a gigantic net made out of barbed-wire. The concept is fairly simple, fight as hard as you can to not be thrown onto the next and pray like hell you can get back off it. This one had a bit of a twist as you could fight on your knees in the ring, under the wire. J.C Bailey got dragged under that wire for the first couple of minutes and took the fight to the scaffold. They brawled on the scaffold with Pondo giving the young Bailey no slack. Bailey responded in kind by throwing him into the net and diving off the scaffold to hit Pondo with a rolling senton. Both men were pulled off the wire by crew and fans. Bailey was dragged off but Pondo had to be cut free. The fight resumed and Pondo instantly climbed straight back up. They brawled up top again and Pondo slammed Bailey’s head into the platform multiple times. Pondo then did the unthinkable and broke the platform as he dumped himself and Bailey into the net with a Russian Leg Sweep. The ring ropes were broken from the fall and both men were once again dragged out. The match was called off with that second fall as the owner didn’t want the guys to kill themselves. Instead, both men ignored it in favour of a clear winner and went all the way to the top. They were brawling 20ft in the air with nothing but barbed wire or concrete to catch their fall. Pondo locked in a Superplex and sent both of them crashing down into the wire below. Both men had to be cut free of the wire and the match was over. No one could continue after a fall like that.

It feels nice to finally include IWA Midsouth in the deathmatch calendar. The company has been a bastion for the deathmatch arts for a long ass time and is still going strong now with the 2020 King of the Deathmatches going down a storm. Mad Man Pondo was already a deathmatch icon at this point and just continued to prove himself with matches like this. Bailey was only young but was a growing name and would go on to be an icon himself before his untimely death in 2010. This match was a testament to sacrifice and further proof that barbed-wire sucks, especially when you land on it like that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for the next deathmatch delight.

All images courtesy of midwest territory, IWA Midsouth Facebook, video courtesy of IWA Midsouth YouTube