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CZW
Cage of Death 4
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Cage of Death 4
For those of you who don't know who Combat Zone Wrestling is, they're an organization out of New Jersey, who moved to Philadelphia to run shows out of the old ECW arena, and they're the only one to run a successful show out of the old arena since the closing of ECW. Their MO is that they're a very hardcore based style, but there's a lot more to them than just the hardcore. Their hardcore stuff is more extreme than ECW, but their actual wrestling is just as good as old ECW was.
Cage of Death is their premier event each year. Basically its their WrestleMania and on December 14th of 2002 they ran their big show out of the ECW arena and its their biggest show to date. The tape begins with an opening music video that's just great. This isn't an amateurish production, they took their time making it and you can tell. It then goes through the matches on the card and they have animatronics as good as the WWE's in terms of quality and style. The reason why I mention this is because many indys don't spend the time or money doing stuff like this and you can tell, they worked really hard on the production of this and its paid off.
The show begins with this girl coming out to sing "God Bless America". From looking at her face, she's really nervous, the first thing out her mouth is CZW and the fans start chanting C-Z-W. It seemed to have helped her nerves and she does her rendition and the fans were respectful and gave her a nice ovation afterwards.
Then Lobo and his army comes out to announce that Zandig will not be there that he signed a contract not to do the match (their match is for control of CZW, Lobo won ownership from Zandig in a previous show). And it cuts to a skit where Lobo and his army kidnap Zandig and they proceed to beat him up but they fail in getting him to do it. It then cuts to another area where they're hanging him with hooks attached to his shoulders (similar to The Cell, if anyone saw that movie). Basically Lobo forces him to sign the contract.
Cuting back to the show, Lobo continues to brag, but then Zandig comes out all bloody and tells him the match is on, he has the contract. He gives it to Z-Barr and we're led to believe Z-Barr turned on Lobo, but alas, he takes the contract and rips it up. But, Zandig had an ace in the hole, its Adam Flash, he's the man who turns on Lobo and brings the contract and Zandig gives it to a guy who brings it up to the Cage and places it on the hook.
The set-up of the cage is like an old school WWF cage except instead of blue its yellow and on the top of the cage a big scaffold is up so they can go for the contract. Inside of the cage, there's a table, glass panes, a cactus and other items (hence the name Cage of Death). Zandig finally enters the ring and the match begins. Its your normal brawl, but the highlight is 3 big spots. The first one is where Lobo is on the outside of the ring on top of a table and Zandig goes to the top of the cage and does an elbow drop through Lobo and the table. The second one is on another side of the ring there's 2 tables stacked up and Lobo does a Death Valley Driver on Zandig from the top of the cage through the tables. And lasty, when both men are going for the contract Zandig press slams Lobo through the tables and glass in the ring, Zandig collapses, finally gets back up and gets the contract and Zandig is once again the owner of CZW and the fans are estatic.
Zandig gets the mic and gives a little speech to the crowd and especially to his lockeroom. He basically apologizes to the lockeroom for last year's Cage of Death (COD 3 he booked some old ECW guys and they screwed things up. One of the guys booked didn't even know the name of the wrestler he was attacking) and tells the fans tonight is all about CZW. The match itself was not too bad, but the emotion behind it made it really good, the announcers, the crowd and the wrestlers themselves. I didn't mind the big bumps, but it definately shortens careers, as Lobo retired after this match. The biggest thing I'm surpised about this match most is that this went first, because when watching the match listings, they had this one last, which led you to think it would be the main event which it wasn't.
Its now time for a ten man elimnation tag team match. First Rockin Rebel and Greg Matthews comes out, if you watched the first season of Tough Emough you remember Greg, he was the one who had to leave because of a shoulder injury. They're followed by Doomsday Danny Rose, who comes out to Michael Jackson's Billy Jean, followed by Chri$ Ca$h and GQ, 2 up and coming junior heavyweights. Their opponents are the Irish Drinking Team (Ian Knoxx and Chris Styles) followed by Derek Frazier, Jon Dahmer, and Adam Flash.
The very second Flash gets in the ring, Rebel, Matthews and Rose immediately jump him for turning on Lobo and it starts off as a big brawl that leads to outside the ring, where Dahmer does a tope on everyone leaving Flash as the only one left in the ring. Everyone continues to brawl, Flash then gets on the top turnbuckle and does a very cool dive unto all combatants. The match finally settles down with Frazier and Ca$h starting in the ring. Frazier becomes the bitch boy for about 4 minutes for Ca$h, Rebel and Greg Matthews, but he got in this nice spinning bulldog on Matthews before getting elimnated by the SnowPlow. Styles comes in and gets in some offense on Rebel before getting hit with fire followed by the legdrop of DOOM.
Flash comes in to try and make a comeback for his team and elminates Matthews with the Spanish Silky Drop (X-Factor from the top rop, given a different name on every show, dubbed the move of the month). But Rose and Rebel team up on Flash, he's given the DVD by Rose followed by the legdrop of DOOM by Rebel and he's elimnated and its down to 4 on 2. Dahmer comes in and attacks Rebel and Rose, Flash comes back in hits Rebel with a chair while Dahmer hits Rose with a lariat and Dahmer then pins both men and elimnates both of them at the same time. Its now down to Knoxx and Dahmer and GQ and Ca$h. The big story being told is that Dahmer trained all 3 men in the CZW school. Its turns into a suplex battle with Ca$h hitting Styles with a nice cuthroat suplex (Burning Hammer with the arm across the throat). GQ then sets up Knoxx in a tree of woe, then does a series of dropkicks, one leaping in from the outside rolls himself up, does another one, then goes for a Van Terminator, but gets hit with a clothesline by Dahmer, who then picks him up for a Razor's Edge, but drops him straight on his head in a very cool piledriver and elminates GQ. Cash then comes in, takes out Knoxx with the Ca$h Flow (over the shoulder face slam) from the top rope and its now down to Ca$h and Dahmer. Dahmer misses a moonsault and Ca$h gets him up in a Guerrero special and drops back and slams Dahmer face first and gets the win. This was a big spotfest nothing too extradionary, but it was fun to watch. 83
Madonna's Touch You Up With My Love starts playing and Z-Barr comes out. Never in my life did I think someone would use a Madonna song, let alone that one. And he's out for his Handicap Match against Rick Feinberg and the Hurricane Kid (if don't know RF is a take off of Rob Feinstein owner of RF Video and Ring of Honor, a competing company in Philadelphia). There's some story behind this match about how Feinberg has a crush on Z-Barr and they got together or something like that and Barr didn't like it too much. Hard to believe they would do an angle like this in wrestling, let alone in that crowd. The kid is funny in that he does this thing where he's reving up a weed-whacker and the flexes his little bicep. The match itself is eh, kinda blah, with lots of gay innuendos going on throughout the match. Barr hits the double jump moonsault followed by the Donkey Punch (runs the ropes, stops, does the wiggle then hits a fist) for the win. 53
Now on to more serious things, Josh Prohibition comes out for his submission match against Nick Berk. Prohibition is a straight edge guy who doesn't drink and Berk comes out drinking a beer. Previously, Prohibition submitted Berk knocking him out with brass knucks and Berk is now out for revenge. The other story the announces are telling is that Berk is 0-3 in Cage of Death matches, implying during the big show he can't cut it. A funny line said during the match "Nick Berk has a Cobra Clutch locked in, 15 years ago Prohibition would've won $15,000." There were your usual submission attempts used throughout the match, but there were some different ones not really unique in the sense but its different in that they're not normally used in submission matches but yet are perfect for them. Prohibition eventually gets out the brass knuckes and uses them to KO Berk, and gets him the Path of Resistance (a version of a full nelson where he prevents you from dropping to your knees to escape) but Ian Knoxx comes out and offers Prohibition a beer. That gives Berk time to recover, hit Prohibition with the Last Ride then gets him in the Texas 2K2 (variation on the Texas Cloverleaf) for the win. Knoxx offers Berk his flask and he takes it and celebrates. Berk definately looked better here than in his other match I saw him in and Prohibition showed a lot of promise for a backyard wrestler. If I had to give this a grade it would be an 81.
Its now time for the 3-way match for the number 1 contendership to the CZW-Big Japan Junior Heavyweight title between M-Dogg 20, Sonjay Dutt and Rukkus. M-Dogg reminds me of AJ Styles when he was doing the Role Model gimmick with the athletic pants and athleticism. Sonjay Dutt is a dancing Hindu, he's called "The Playa from the Himalaya". Rukkus is a stocky black guy who doesn't look like he can do much but can fly and do flips. Its your usual 3-way match with the usual spots, some of them are contrived, and some of them are really good. Like Rukkus holding Sonjay in a powerslam position and M-Dogg trying to take the legs out from Rukkus, but Rukkus throws Sonjay on M-Dogg and he tries to take the legs out and eventually just kicks him in the stomach. Throughout the match all 3 are fighting for the fans affections and throughout the match it looks like Sonjay's winning them over. At one point during the match Chris Ca$h comes out and tries to attack all 3 men because he feels he should've been in the match also, but they all team up on him. They get him in a corner and Rukkus hits a nice moonsault legdrop, then Sonjay goes up and hits a 480, which the fans really take to, then M-Dogg hits a shooting star press and Ca$h goes back humiliated. Back to the match M-Dogg tries to roll up Sonjay but he drops on his knees and pins M-Dogg for the win. Sonjay then gets a couple of little girls about 8-9 years old and he dances with them. One of them starts doing some booty shaking dancing, scary that little girls learn this stuff. Anyways, everyone is groovin to the music, then Sonjay attacks both men leaving them laying. This was a fun spoteriffic match to watch. I would give this match a grade of 84 as I enjoyed the match and the aftermatch stuff. Sonjay looked better than he did when he came down to Wildside, Rukkus and M-Dogg were good but Sonjay was the star of this match.
Chris Hero from IWA-MS came down and started talking some trash to the fans of CZW, and he said he was accepting the H8 Club's open challenge for their tag titles. He announces his partner, which is B-Boy, a guy from San Diego who seems like he would be influenced by Rey Misterio Jr. Anyways, the second the H8 Club's theme plays the fans erupt, these guys are over. Before the match starts the crowd starts going "H8 Club's gonna kill you!" quite funny. There's not much to this match, its basically a glorified squash, B-Boy got some nice spots in but he also suffered the wrath of the chokebreaker (chokeslam into a backbreaker) from Nick Gage and the decapitator (big lariat) from Nate Hatred. But Chris Hero really got the worst of it, he took the face scrapes from the boot of Gage 3 times and got a trash talk from Gage and Hatred, while B-Boy left him to take all of it. But they're really over with the fans. But this was basically a squash match. I would give this one a grade of 65, because it was fun to watch and the fans really got into the H8 Club. I like Gage, but Hatred needs a new look, it just reminds me a lot of Kane.
Its now time for the Tables, Ladders and Chairs match, for what belts you ask? For no belts. The Backseat Boyz of Trent Acid and Johnny Kashmere come out, Acid with the CZW/BJW JR. Heavyweight title belts and Johnny comes out with a baseball bat with a mistle toe attached to it. Of course he uses it to get kisses from all the ladies at ringside, one them really makes out with him. Once they make their rounds, the crowd is split in their chants, "BACKSEAT BOYZ" "SUCK!". They go back to the back to get a table. They get in the ring and await their opponents, first comes out Ric F'n Blade. This is his first match since being out 18 months ago with an injury of sorts. He has a ladder with him and gets in the ring and waits for his partner. Which leads to "Sick" Nick Mondo he comes out and acknowledges the fans who are dressed up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And the match begins, with Mondo and Kashmere starting. Then it becomes Acid and Blade, they do an impressive set of moves and kicks, which is different, but the same in that they stop, let the crowd get their applause in.
Then the fun really begins when the brawl starts the BSB do a few cool moves, one of them is tandem powerbomb on Blade in the corner, but there's a ladder on the corner, and it bent in half. Then the ever so famous Dream Sequence, if you ever to see them work look for this. I'm always impressed when I see this. But don't count out Mondo and Blade, they do a few cool tandem moves of their own. They bring the BSB to the stage area and place them on tables and place ladders on top of them, then they go up to the announce area and do stereo moonsaults on the ladders and BSB. Back in the ring, they place the BSB side by side, place a ladder on top of them and Blade does a swanton bomb off the top corner followed by a top rope legdrop by Mondo. It looks like its going to end when Mondo hits Kashmere with the M Bison but Acid hits him with the Yakuza kick, and they set up Blade for the Gator Mouth, Acid basically throws Blade and while he falls, Kashmere gets him with the ladders in between so that Blade is in the middle when it hits the canvas for the win. This was a good match but my problem was that why did they do this? There was no belts on the line, it seemed as if they did this match just to have a TLC match. If you're going to have something like this, make it for a special reason. This was good, but it could've been much better, I won't mention a few blown spots throughout the match but there were a few that also hurt it. 78.
Its now time for the main event of the evening, for the CZW World Heavyweight Championship. First comes out the defending champion, Justice Pain, to the theme of "I Don't Know Anything" by Mad Season. He's then followed by his opponent, the CZW Iron Man Champion The Messiah, but his title is not on the line. From the beginning this has the feel of a big time main event. For the most of the match the crowd was very quiet, being respectful of the story being told. These two first met at the beginning of the year when The Messiah came from XPW as their World Champion but being fired but never losing the belt and losing a very close match to Pain. The Messiah then won the title in 64:00 at High Stakes in a 4 way match with Pain, Adam Flash and Nick Mondo. Pain then regained the title in a 3 way match with The Messiah and Nick Mondo, but he pinned Mondo to win it never pinning The Messiah. After that, throughout the year Pain avoided The Messiah; taking on opponents that didn't work for CZW like Billy Fives, while ducking The Messiah, until tonight.
In July, The Messiah was attacked in his home and he lost his thumb during the attack and it was thought he wouldn't be the same. But he's worked hard and adjusted to be the same worker he was. Rumors persists as to who hired the attackers, but no evidence has been provided.
Back to the match, both men did a great job building up to the big finish, or so we thought. Nick Gage of the H8 Club comes out and attacks both men, giving each one a chokebreaker. He then brings in a bag and empties it out, revealing thumbtacks. He has a long standing war with Justice Pain that goes back to the beginning of CZW back in 2000 and it continued on this show. Back to the match The Messiah hits Pain with the Fall From Grace (Burning Hammer Slam) but only gets a 2 count. Pain recovers and hits him with a Pain Driller (Angle Slam). The Messiah then goes for an irish whip but Pain tries to hit him with a second Pain Driller but Messiah hits him with a Pain Driller of his own for a 2 count. The fans are starting to get into it now. He then hits a superplex on Pain on the tacks, but Pain kicks out again. Messiah hits Pain a few time, but Pain again tries to hit a Pain Driller, but Messiah rolls him up for the surprise 3 count. They shake hands and The Messiah celebrates. In terms of workrate, this was the best match on the card, 89, they told a great story, it clicked on all cylinders.
This was my first true CZW show (my other show I have is Tournament of Death, which is mainly deathmatches), and on all accounts, this was a great show to start off with, it ended many stories and continued many others as well. If you're looking for an ECW replacement, this is a good place to start.
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