[2000-02-25-JAPW-Valentine's Day Massacre] Homicide & Glenn Strange vs Jay Lover & Louie Ramos (Weapons Barbed Wire Death)

[soup23]

This was a big ol slice and dice brawl. Chairs, barbed wire, tables, cinder blocks you name it. This again is a guilty pleasure type match for me so I enjoyed it but I can see how some wouldn’t. A weird moment happens in the beginning when Lover and Strange turns on their partner. The lights flicker after the match and I have no idea who comes out there in a pair of underwear. Homicide smacks him with a chair shot right away. This show really put over this unit as a juggernaut. **3/4

[Loss]

The dog ate my homework when it comes the original post I had for this match, but I'll just say I liked it quite a bit, even though it has a lot of stuff I normally don't care for. Light tubes are normally such stupid weapons in my mind and they aren't sold that much, but here they didn't bother me that much. I also liked how they were able to execute a turn at the beginning and still work a logical match around it with Homicide mostly working with Jay Lover and Glenn Strange mostly working with Louie Ramos. It's tempting to say this match resembles ECW, but it really doesn't. I haven't seen an ECW brawl this year from Mike Awesome, Sabu or anyone else that contains this much hateful wrestling and inspired brawling. I appreciated how they didn't substitute crowdhugging for actual intensity either, as was becoming commonplace in these types of matches by this time. This was more a throwback-type match, just with crazier weapons and a few bigger bumps. Give this credit for making me either not be bothered or even actively like stuff in wrestling that I normally don't like at all because of how it was executed. ***1/2

[Tim Evans]

This must have been before JAPW got in trouble from that MSNBC interview and the commission made them cut out the Hardcore stuff. This is different from the usual hardcore action you would see at the time. Not as violent as something like CZW and even IWA MS. But more violent than ECW and WWF. Louie takes a beating and sells the light tube shots where they actually mean something. The two white guys were pretty interchangeable. I like how they were managed by the same guy, Foo Foo but on opposite teams. Lots of botched moves in this but you would expect that. Good brawl.

[Migs]

I was totally confused by what happened here, with the two white dudes turning on their partners but then the match just sort of continuing. The intensity was good, though, with no time filler, just bumps. Fun enough.

[Moonsault Marvin]

I wasn't paying close enough attention on this one and got confused with the double turn. They all sold the vicious weapon attacks well and screamed when they were hit. Cheese grating the head always hurts to watch. Fun match.

[GSR]

Some character called ‘Foo Foo’ is seconding both Strange and Lover, and this is being fought over no DQ, anything goes rules. Strange and Lover immediately seemingly turn on their partners, and there’s a lot of hitting each other over the head with weapons to start with until Strange adds a bit of variety with a fork to the balls of Homicide and a cheese grater across the forehead of Ramos. Lover places a cinderblock across Homicide’s groin and wallops it with a steel chair, and then Strange digs the barbed wire into Ramos’ arm and you can see him repeatedly blading it after. Homicide breaks a crutch over Strange’s back and the remnants over Lover’s. A barbed wire board is set up perched between two chairs and Strange goes to sideslam Ramos through it, however he struggles to get the big guy up and Ramos knocks the board off the chairs. ‘You f*cked up!’ chants and Strange has to reset everything, although this time manages to get Ramos up to put him through it. Things are pretty wild as action goes on inside and outside with the camera struggling to follow it all. Ramos picks up a saw and runs it across Strange’s forehead (although not sure how sharp it actually was), and then grabs some light tubes which he places between a couple of chairs. Strange cuts him off with a cinderblock and repeats Lover’s earlier spot to Homicide, this time on Ramos. ‘Rock Bottom’ on ‘Lowlife’ Louie through the light tubes. Homicide and Strange team up on Ramos and with him laid out on a table on the outside, Strange tells Homicide to “hold the bitch!” He double crosses him though and as Strange comes diving off the apron, Homicide moves Ramos and he crashes through it himself. Louie makes the cover on the arena floor and Strange is the first man eliminated. Saw across the forehead of Lover while Homicide sets some more barbed wire boards across chairs in the ring. He uses shards of broken light tube to cut Lover, however as he comes off the ropes it appears Foo Foo hits him in the back with something (the camera completely misses the shot). Lover then powerbombs Homicide through the boards for a three, and it sounds like he and Ramos will face off at a later date for the JAPW Suicidal title. Da Hit Squad and Low Ki attack Strange and Ramos after the match but the lights in the arena go out. What looks like Foo Foo doing a Goldberg impersonation by the chants (‘Fooberg, Fooberg’) gets into the ring, however he gets brained with a chair, superbombed off the top and finally the cinderblock treatment.

 

The opening confused me with Strange and Lover attacking their partners, to the point that I thought maybe it was a four way match instead, a thought which stayed with me all the way through (no commentary to clear things up). I’m torn on the match itself as I generally don’t think it was very good, however it kept me engrossed for the duration and the time flew by. I’ve never seen or heard of either Strange or Lover before, and they reminded me of those random death match workers who would show up and lose in the first round of the IWA-MS KOTDM and you’d never see again. Ramos is bad but he’s got no problem in carving his body up, and then there is Homicide who you can’t really tell much about in this setting. The match was wild in places, gruesome at times (everyone including Foo Foo bled), although there were quite a few blown moves along the way. Post-match seemed to be about giving Homicide his heat back and cementing the DHS/Ki/Cide group at the top of JAPW.

[Edwin]

This was crazy. Everyone's fighting all over the place and hitting each other with a ton of weapons. Not a particularly great match by any chance, but Homicide hitting people with crutches was the highlight for me. Lowlife Louie putting over the light tube spots by screaming in agony was neat.

 

The post match buffoonery with Foo Foo? coming out to Goldberg's music in underwear only to get recked by the Da Hit Squad, Low Ki and Homicide was awesome.

 

Aside from that, there wasn't much else noteworthy.

[Stiva]

Homicide was always one of my favourite mid-2000s indie guys so I'm super interested to see his early stuff and I'm watching this with most of my attention on him. I echo what Loss said about this standing out above the other crowd brawls we've seen so far and Homicide was/is always great at avoiding the head-holding style of crowd brawling. It's also clear that he "got " the brawling style almost immediately as there's a cool sense of escalation with enough little call-backs and shifts to stop this from being a meandering, violence-for-violence sake type of match. As an aside, I have heard nothing but good things about early 2000s JAPW so I'm super excited to see more of this going forward.

 

Another point; it's a simple thing but guys motioning to objects or raising them above their head to build to the use of them will always get a pop out of me and to see that one dude do it with a cheese grater warmed my heart.