WARNING: STRONG VIOLENCE AHEAD
It’s spooky season once again. You know what that means. It’s time to dive into another 31 deadly, bloody, horrifying deathmatches as we go into the 3rd annual deathmatch calendar. As always, this will be a day-by-day calendar of gore as we break into some of the greatest, nastiest, and most infamous of deathmatches across the years culminating with my pick of the year so far at the number 31 spot. With the preamble out of the way, let’s see what is awaiting us in this year’s tour of wrestling terror.
Cactus Jack was a legend in Japan. With wars across the years against some of the best of the best in the 90s, we’ve covered the Funk war before so let’s go for something a bit different. One of those opponents was the legendary Terry Gordy. Much like Mick Foley, Bam Bam Gordy was famous around the world and worked for a multitude of different companies. He was known for his works across the US, Japan, and multiple other territories, especially for his work against Bruiser Brody. By this time, he wasn’t operating at his best but he could still go and Foley made sure he looked the part for this occasion. Today, we’re focusing on one of his nasty wars with Cactus Jack in the 1995 King of the Deathmatch tournament for IWA Japan. It’s a lesser-known match that I found through some very painful-looking gifs and the power of YouTube, let’s investigate the violence.
The pair charged the ring and Gordy, an already stiff fighter, started beating on Foley with a barbed-wire baseball bat. He kept pummelling Foley around the ring and nearly hip tossed him into a pit of tacks. The hands were thrown on both sides and the pair danced around the pit of tacks. They kept brawling around ringside and Foley momentarily stunned Gordy before eating a backdrop driver. Foley returned the favour with a backdrop over the ropes and Gordy sent Foley to the floor with a deadly drive. Both guys had now felt the concrete of Kawasaki Stadium. Foley fell into the tacks and Gordy stomped his face right into them. That fired Foley up and with blood streaming down his face, he gave Gordy a face full of the barbed-wire bat. He snapped Gordy’s neck with an apron leg drop and Gordy sent Foley flying over the guardrail with a clothesline. Foley crumpled after a table piledriver and it just went downhill from there as Gordy dropped him with two Fire Thunder Bombs into the tack pit. Foley saved himself with a handful of tacks to the face and quickly ended Gordy with a Double Underhook DDT into the tack pit. Cactus Jack had advanced through the round but he’d been beaten to hell by Gordy. It was short, sweet, and mixed the Memphis Brawl with tacks and barbed-wire, earning its spot on the calendar. Come back tomorrow for the next deathmatch delight.
All images courtesy of screenshots, Video courtesy of Premier Pro YouTube