[2000-03-17-MAW] Ian Rotten vs Corporal Robinson (Last Man Standing)

[soup23]

I really dug the opening of this. Snug mat work and big punches. The match kind of losses it way a bit as something is going on in the crowd which distracts everyone but without a camera angle or commentary, we have no idea what is happening. Things step up with Ian taking a reverse DDT onto a light tube outside busting him open in sick fashion with blood coming into his face from the back of his head. A gruesome visual is a young fan in the crowd having to turn away from the gore. Ian regains control with his barbed wire bat, some tube carving and a signature chair shot that gets the crowd cheering furiously. They do one of the best ballroom brawling double punch knockout spots I can remember with both not pulling any punches at all. I thought the delayed selling here made everything dramatic that helped emphasize the last man standing stipulation. Ian hits a powerbomb and tombstone and appears to have the match in hand when some interference allows Corporal to regain the advantage. The finish is disappointing with all the interference and bullshit as up to that point this really felt like a classic hardcore match that had a unique narrative of a slow burn. Still, this match went 30 minutes and felt intense throughout with a great escalation of violence. ***3/4

[Loss]

So much to say about this one. It's half trainwreck, half masterpiece. I guess a lot of your take on this will depend on whether you judge matches as a presentation or as the composite effect of the work in the ring. As a presentation, this was a trainwreck. A very sweet woman is handcuffed to Dave Prazak to start to keep him from interfering, someone who I'm sure makes nice baked goods and runs a hell of a church potluck, but her presence makes this seem a bit silly. Then, when these fans are given actual wrestling, they have no clue what to do with it and don't respect it, chanting for tables and blood during compelling matwork. (To their credit, Ian and the Corporal only double down on what they are doing in response, which I'll touch on in a moment.) Then a fight breaks out in the stands ... or something. The ring announcer has to ask fans over the PA to return to their seats and focus on the action in the ring four times over the course of ten minutes. The run-ins at the end are incompatible with the match that precedes it. So if you're looking at a match as a presentation, this was constantly threatening to fall apart, and came very close many times.

 

However, if you are looking at this as a performance and a match from two pros, it's hard not call this a masterpiece. I appreciated that they started with the solid matwork, ripped their shirts off to do the chopfests and laid in some great punches to really build to the big weapon shots. I loved that they had to leave the ringside area and go to the back to get their desired weapons. I loved all the selling and the super slow pace designed to get over the brutality. But more than the action and selling, I loved their response to the trainwreck happening around them. This was a match threatening to fall apart constantly, as I mentioned before. However, no matter what, these were two guys who just refused to let that happen.

 

You always hear vets like Cornette and other Southern territory types say that in their day, when crowds chanting "Boring!" when a wrestler applied a side headlock, the response was to stay in the headlock even longer until they got it out of their systems. You saw that here with fans rejecting the matwork outright, but with Ian and Robinson determined to lead the crowd instead of the other way around. For ten minutes, these guys are beating the hell out of each other and continue building to the payoffs no matter how impatient or distracted fans are by all the bullshit happening around them. No matter how little they respect what they are doing. And when the big moment happens -- Robinson's DDT on the light tube outside -- it does two things: it gets the blood-and-guts crowd their pudding, and it also accomplishes that on their own terms.

 

I thought about the other top brawls of the year as I was watching this. As a wrestling match, I do think this is right there with both HHH-Cactus matches and ahead of anything from FMW or BJW (and definitely ECW). Those matches had more controlled presentation and better production values that this one didn't, but the quality and thoughtfulness of the work here was likely better, and this match had way more obstacles to overcome.

 

I'm conflicted on the conclusion, because the stuff out of their control does bring this down some. If I was just rating this on Ian Rotten vs Corporal Robinson, blocking out all the other noise, and if this had a finish without any run-ins, I'd probably give this one ****3/4 and we'd all have a Merry Christmas. The work itself was that awesome. But that's not the match we had unfortunately, and it's a reminder that sometimes a statement on a match's quality isn't a statement against the wrestlers themselves. It often is, but it isn't necessarily that. If anything, I guess this proves that while I know and appreciate great performances when I see them, at the end of the day, I am a presentation guy. And I'm not even sure I like that, but it is what it is. ****1/4

[Moonsault Marvin]

The little girl sitting on her father's lap hiding her eyes should not have been there. What was the guy thinking bringing a kid to that kind of show?

[Tim Evans]

A part of me was wondering when the fight was going on in the crowd and the guys were laying in the ring, why didn't the ref start counting 20? I mean there were no submissions and they were just laying there. Unacceptable. I don't remember ever hearing an announcer on an indie show tell the crowd to sit down. As for the match, it was violent as expected. Ian just gets destroyed and is bleeding everywhere. I think this match went a little long and the finish was just awful. Indie version of the neverending NWO beatdowns.

[GSR]

Last man standing match with no DQ, no time limit, where pinfalls and submissions don’t count and the only way to win is by knocking your opponent down for a twenty count. In addition, as was finalised at the end of the Taipei Death match last month, Carmine Desperito and Dave Prazak are both handcuffed to members of the audience to prevent them from interfering.

 

Lock up and the two of them are jockeying around the ring trying to gain position and an advantage. This hasn’t even gone twenty seconds and some mug in the crowd is shouting “boring” at them. They continue to trade holds (top wristlock, hammerlock reversal, drop toe hold) until Corp breaks the STF with a back elbow to the head. Great looking punches from Ian to Corp’s ribs followed by some of the stiffest sounding chops you’ll see from both. The stiffness continues with a Rotten clothesline. He slaps on a ‘Tazzmission’ trying to wear Corp down, and those “boring” chants are back, along with someone yelling to “put him through a table”. Ian picks the leg and traps it, and I really like the way he’s throwing punches to the knee of that trapped leg at the same time. A fight breaks out in the audience and the MC tells the crowd to stay sat in their seat and respect the wrestlers in the ring. This crowd? Not a chance, they’re watching the fight! Rotten sees what’s happening so grabs a front chancery (that Corps escapes from and transitions to a crossface) and they pretty much just lay there waiting for everything on the outside to die down. A suplex/brainbuster by Ian and he then picks up his barbed wire baseball bat (which should silence this bunch). A couple of shots to Corp’s back before he heads backstage to collect some light tubes which he lays between two chairs on the outside. Corp gets in first with a shot to the mid-section, then reverse DDT’s Ian through the set up. That’s cut the back of his head/neck pretty badly. Corp picks up the barbed wire baseball bat, grinds it into the cut and you can see a little girl in the front row covering her eyes from this while her dad looks nonplussed! Robinson collects some more light tubes and a facebuster onto them. As he’s choking Ian over the ropes, Rotten with a back kick low blow. Barbed wire baseball bat shot to the head! Ian then picks up one of the broken light tubes and slices Corp’s forehead and back with it. Brutal chairshot, with the chair getting stuck over Corp’s head and Ian telling the official to “count”. He looks done for, but at the count of nineteen Robinson just about gets back to his feet. Eye poke and Corp returns the favour with the chairshot, although clearly not to the crowd’s satisfaction as they yell “swing it” and “again” at him. He delivers three in total, but none as vicious as the one Ian gave him. ‘Bootcamp’ Russian legsweep onto the remnants of the light tubes. The two start swinging for the fences, both drop to their knees still swinging at each other and we get a double knockdown (Ian’s a right bloody mess at this point). As these two are putting together a compelling match and laid out after all those punches, someone is now shouting “get the barbed wire”. DDT by Corp and both are showing the effects of the battle. Ian takes a tumble through the ropes to the floor and Corp follows him out where he unloads with some more punches. The action is taking place on the opposite side to the one camera filming this and Ian does something to turn the tide back in his favour. Nasty lariat on the floor and you can see Desperito throwing water on Corp trying to revive him. Back inside and Ian with a powerbomb onto the final remaining shards of the light tubes. ‘Rikishi Driver’ and then Ian slugs someone who had gotten up on the apron. Thirty minute announcement by the timekeeper but they’ve shaved a few minutes off that. Ian goes for a suplex, and now someone else is in there and takes his legs out from under him. More people are getting involved and they’re killing this match. Double armed DDT by Rotten, but he then gets clocked in the head with a beer bottle by the guy who a matter of seconds ago looked to be helping him. That bottle shot was the difference as Ian can’t beat the twenty count and Corp wins to regain the MAW Heavyweight title. It looks like the interferees are part of Desperito’s stable, and they beat on Ian some more and leave him bloodied and handcuffed to the ropes.

 

This crowd were hideous, every bit as bad as the lowest dregs we’ve witnesses on some of those ECW Fancams. Not bothered at all by wrestling and just interested in barbed wire and breaking tables. Seriously, to start a “boring” chant after less than twenty seconds? Someone should’ve just chucked that person out the building right then and made an example out of them. That might’ve made the rest of them think about their behaviour a bit. Personally, I really enjoyed the wrestling and wish we’d actually seen more of Corp and Ian trading holds and counters. The best thing about this was how the match escalated; we started with the wrestling, the stiff offense and it built to the violence, the nastiness, the hatred you want from a ‘last man standing’ match. Ian was a bloody mess and that reverse DDT cut the back of him up something chronic. Folk should also study these two on how to throw a convincing and effective looking punch. As excellently as this was laid out and built, that finish left a sour taste in my mouth. To go thirty minutes and have that? You’re left feeling why did I bother investing in this? I have to rate this below Ki/Mack for the month, but if it lost five minutes (as it did drag towards the end) and had a more satisfying finish that wouldn’t be the case.

[Edwin]

Huh? The ring announcer asks the fans to sitdown and stay seated out of respect for the wrestlers? That's a first.

 

This was pretty brutal and intense from the start. Tons of blood and violence. Ian particularly was bleeding buckets.

 

I like how Ian used the broken light tubes to cut up Corporal which is something I recall digging when Kanemura and Kobayashi did it in their death matches from February.

 

That unprotected chairshot, yikes...

 

I would comment on the brutal strike exchange between them, but considering everything they've done to each other, that's not really much.

 

They should've really considered trimming 10 or so minutes from this as it went on forever and it was brutal enough to finish before they actually did.

 

The post match stuff felt unnecessary.

 

Brutal stuff.

 

***

[TravJ1979]

I have a problem when wrestlers are stiff only because their pulled stuff looks like shit.

I have a problem with guys using weapons because they don't know how to put a match together.

I have a problem when guys just lay around and visibly cut themselves to bleed only because they don't know how to produce drama by working.

I have a problem with stipulations and poorly over-booked finishes to get the crowd to leave feeling like they've just seen chaos equating that to "good match."

 

Ian ruined Corporal's career. Corp could have had an amazing run in PPW or MCW.

Ian is and has never been good at any aspect of wrestling.

 

Fuck this match.

 

- *****