WARNING STRONG VIOLENCE 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.

COVID has been a bastard to wrestling. With venues in the UK continuously closed down and US/Japanese companies running shows with very limited capacities and precautions, it’s been a strange time for wrestlers to flourish. One such wrestler to gain newfound fame from this trying time is the Death Samurai AKIRA. Now I have covered AKIRA a lot this year and that continues here as not only has he become one of deathmatches hottest commodities, he put on a barnburner against his fellow Reject, Reed Bentley. This was the match that put AKIRA on the radar of so many people and led to the bigger and nastier matches we’ve seen him in since. It’s only fair that it gets a spot here too.

We opened with Bloodsport music, haunting country, and a ring full of light-tubes. Bentley and AKIRA ended it with a ring full of blood and broken glass with a ton of broken deathmatch plunder left in their wake. They had put on a wrestling classic in the confines of a deathmatch show. AKIRA had shown off some freakish kicks and adaptive takes on breaking fuckery. We got proper wrestling mixed in with the glorious breaking of multiple tubes, tube cabins, tables, and more. Both guys bled buckets and we got to see the joyous sadism Bentley could show when given the proper outlet. Both men could have KO’ed each other at any moment with the bombs they were hitting each other with. The crowd couldn’t get enough of it and the commentary team was cringing with each sickening thud. This would be the match that saw the first daring tube-bundle senton of a roof and the infamous vinyl record bat that AKIRA told me himself, sucked immensely. This wasn’t your average car crash deathmatch, this was a fight with a lot to prove. The ICW NHB debut for AKIRA and Bentley was determined to steal the show and it definitely threatened to. By the end of it, the crowd was in love with AKIRA and Bentley had a very hard-earned win. This match ensured the continued bookings of both men and showed that ICW NHB was going to continue bringing in high-class matches, COVID be damned.

Now, I imagine a lot of people would have expected me to use AKIRA vs Matt Tremont but I wanted to go back to where AKIRA-mania started. This match put him on Tremont’s radar and set up the match between them that would see AKIRA cement himself as a big player with a win over a deathmatch legend in Tremont. AKIRA has a long road ahead of him and I know he’s going to kill it wherever he goes. I ain’t sucking up, just telling the truth. In the next couple of years, he’s going to be everywhere. It’s nice to remember where it all started. That’s part of the reason I started the calendar, to celebrate some of the best and worst of deathmatches. This right here was one of 2020’s best. Come back tomorrow for the next deathmatch delight.

All images courtesy of Earl Gardner photography