[2000-09-09-CZW-Cage of Death II...After Dark] Justice Pain vs Lobo (Cage of Death)

[soup23]

Segued straight from the Lobo vs Zandig match is this one. H8 Club is on the outside looking on. The cage does contain these guys so we don’t get any long wondering through the crowd brawling and taking forever to set up spots. Some cool spots here with the big superplex and the powerbomb from Lobo into the exploding side of the cage looked really good. Lobo as a worker struggles to do anything compelling within the spots. I’m not sure whether his character is supposed to be portrayed as a dangerous or aloof. They both climb up to the scaffold area which was pretty dumb. Sure enough, Lobo gets shoved off into a barbed wire board shortly afterward. After an impressive first portion of the match, we are now in you do one big spot, I do one big spot plodding territory. Justice Pain hits an Angle Slam through a pane of glass and wins the title. Again, some fun spots but not much of a match and the main event scene in CZW booking wise is subpar at best. **1/2

[AstroBoy]

This had a lot more charm and brutality to it than something like the Acid vs. Mondo match. At least here the big spots feel like brutal attempts to hurt the other guy and win the match instead of just put on a showy performance. There is minimal build but the spots get increasingly more crazy and Lobo takes the insane bump off the platform into the barbed wire. This hit the right line for me between spectacle and brawl.

 

***

[Tim Evans]

Lobo is intriguing to me. I don't think I've ever seen him in a non-deathmatch or even hit a wrestling move. He mostly takes sick bumps. Like a methed out Cactus Jack circa 1989. That bump from the scaffold to the floor really should have ended the match. Pain kicking out of a powerbomb from the top through a table was dumb. OK match

[GSR]

The previous match pretty much segues into this one with the H8 Club putting the boots in on Lobo before leaving Justice to it.  He clubs Lobo across the jaw with a clothesline, climbs the cage but then completely overshoots the moonsault.  It was supposed to be that Lobo rolled out the way and he ‘missed’, only you clearly see Justice turn around to see where Lobo was (checking he had moved) before jumping and it frankly just looked bad.  Lobo shows some fire with his punches and gets a two count following a ‘Death Valley Driver’.  A series of hip tosses are blocked and countered as they slowly edge closer to a bunch of light tubes, Lobo eventually taking the bump into them courtesy of a Pain superkick.  Justice places a garbage can over his head and then wallops it with the lid.  He again climbs the cage, this time with Lobo in pursuit, and something is coming as the cameraman moves back in order to get everything in shot.  The problem being that he ends up moving too far back to the point you can’t see what happens (as an educated guess I’m going for another ‘Death Valley Driver’ from the top of the cage)!  Lobo powerbombs Pain into the exploding cage and that visually looked great.  Check out Justice’s forearms aswell now, they’re shredded from the barbed wire.  Both start climbing up opposite sides of the cage and up onto the scaffold in one of those moments that makes no kayfabe sense.  The security guys are having to provide additional support to the cage from the floor because that thing is buckling noticeably with the two wrestlers fighting on the scaffold that bridges across it.  Justice throws Lobo off the scaffold and through a barbed wire board on the outside as the fans chant “C-Z-Dub”, bleeding ‘Hat Guy’ front and centre as usual!  That really should’ve been used for the finish but Lobo is up and making his way back inside the cage less than ten seconds later.  He counters the top rope Frankensteiner by superbombing Justice through a table, Pain barely getting a shoulder up as I was convinced Lobo was going to escape with the title yet again.  After Yamakawa slams the cage door into Lobo’s head Justice positions a pane of glass in the corner, ‘Olympic slam’ through the glass and Lobo’s luck finally runs out as we have ourselves a new CZW World Heavyweight champion.

I did like the brief bit of wrestling that we got after the missed moonsault, but this very quickly descended into a series of bumps and spots.  I also have problems with things such as how bad the moonsault ended up looking with Pain checking Lobo had moved, the double climbing of the scaffold and that there was no way Lobo should’ve been up so quickly after that fall (something that you could probably say about Justice to after that ‘DVD’ from the top of the cage).  The title change was a surprise as I was expecting Lobo to fluke another win somehow.  In regards to Lobo he tends to remind me of a hardcore Mikey Whipwreck circa 93/4, in the sense that somehow he would keep lucking into, fluking a win after taking a pounding most of the match.