[2001-02-17-CZW-Break on Thru] Ric Blade vs Nick Mondo (Barbed Wire Ladder)

[GSR]

Not a promising start as Blade struggles to execute a cartwheel when looking to escape a wristlock.  You expect the ‘big botch’ out of him, but not on the ‘simple’ stuff.  Fair play though as he takes Mondo down off a hammerlock, tying him up in a nifty little submission and forcing him to reach for the ropes with his leg.  After barely managing that cartwheel, they then screw their timings up on a Mondo assisted back flip, Ric just about rescuing it.  Oh dear, this is getting worse.  What looks like a complete miscommunication between the two sees Blade not duck low enough on Mondo’s flying back elbow and he’s caught by the point of it square in the forehead.  Not the ideal thing to be on the receiving end of considering he was concussed a fortnight ago.  Blade whips him into the corner, Mondo leaps to the top turnbuckle in one motion and springs backwards, catching him with another elbow.  Ric still looks to be feeling the effect of that first one and rolls under the bottom rope.  He’s paying no attention whatsoever to his opponent here.  Baseball slide dropkick fails to even reach, so Mondo tries a twisting springboard senton to the outside.  That goes even worse!  He was supposed to jump to the top rope and springboard backwards out over them to the arena floor, twisting in mid-air, but fails miserably.  The twist seemingly disorientating him and HE LANDS IN THE RING not even clearing the ropes, let alone hitting his intended target!  After whipping Blade into some chairs Mondo collects a ladder which he lays out in the ring (no sign of any barbed wire just yet).  Rolling belly to back suplexes by Mondo before a ‘Blue Thunder Driver’ onto the ladder.  Tilt-a-whirl powerslam for a two.  Blade reverses the Irish whip and a Samoan drop on to the ladder.  Nip up, standing moonsault and Blade leaves the ring to grab the barbed wire ladder.  Rolling fisherman’s suplexes finishing with a ‘Ki Krusher’ onto the barbed wire ladder that lacerates Mondo’s back.  He takes to the outside but Blade nails him with a corkscrew press from the top turnbuckle, although this was another situation similar to Acid/Berk where Mondo walked a shit ton around ringside to get into position and then had to just stand there waiting for Blade.  Mondo avoids the double jump springboard 450 as Blade crashes and burns to the mat.  He throws Blade to the floor, attacking him with chairs as they make their way past the concession stands to the back of the arena.  DDT onto the bleachers and Mondo briefly disappears, returning with a barbed wire and light tube covered table.  Blade counters whatever Mondo had planned and puts him through that contraption with a variation of the ‘Acid Bomb’.  He drags Mondo back to the ring, whipping him into a cluster of chairs on the way, although ‘Sick’ Nick somehow raises a shoulder up on the cover.  Blade gets a fan to pass him another chair, but before he gets the chance to use it is low-blowed.  ‘Dominator’ and Blade returns to the arena floor to compose himself.  Mondo throws the chair at him, jumps to the top rope for a springboard, but Blade launches the chair at his head as Mondo then shoots backward across the ring landing on the barbed wire ladder which had been propped up against the ropes on the opposite side.  That looked tremendous, contrived, but tremendous, and shreds Mondo’s back up even more.  Blade puts Mondo over his shoulder and carries him to the back by the entrance curtain where he lays him on a table.  He then climbs to the top of the building for the craziest swanton bomb you’ll ever see.  There was no margin for error on what was easily a 20ft dive and nuttier than that leg drop off the basketball back board from a year ago.  He picks Mondo up again, carrying him back to the ring so that he can get the pin, but the cover is broken up by Z-Barr and Trent Acid who jump him.  ‘Kryptonite Krunch’ by Barr and a huge “bullshit” chant breaks out.  I don’t blame them on that one!  ‘Acid Bomb’ onto the ladder however Blade kicks out.  They tie Blade in the ‘tree of woe’ and bridge a ladder across the middle ropes, laying Ric on it.  ‘Coast to coast’ leg drop by Mondo, but Blade lifts himself up out the way and Mondo fucks himself up royally when landing on that ladder.  Blade takes out Barr and Acid before making a Mondo ladder sandwich.  He moonsaults the sandwich, fucking up Mondo even more in the process and that’s enough to put him away for the win.  It looks like that moonsault broke his nose and Mondo is in a real bad way, unable to walk due to that ‘coast to coast’ and being helped from the ring, although getting a huge standing ovation as he does so.

I thought this was going to be an unmitigated disaster by the way it started with all those terribly blown spots, topped off by that horrendous twisting springboard senton to the floor where Mondo didn’t even make it out of the ring, let alone hit Blade.  After that they got their act together and this turned into the expected stunt show with all sorts of crazy spots that you’d expect from these two.  It was contrived, but on seeing how beaten up Mondo was at the end of this and the effort, and daring, they showed, I’m not going to be too harsh on this.  I’m also very glad that we got a clean finish in the end.  I was in disbelief when Barr and Acid interfered, fuck, you’ve had Blade risk his life and can’t even give him a pinfall after doing so?  Luckily there is no rhyme or reason when it comes to disqualifications in CZW so the match went on and Blade ended up getting the better of all three and coming out on top.

[soup23]

The opening two minutes of this had it trending towards Worst Match of the Year status. That botch by Mondo in particular was awful. THen something changed and the rest of the match was nearly flawless featuring some of the best spots we have seen before this match and quite frankly since. The bump by Mondo into the ladder was filmed perfectly and he went full impact into the ladder adding to the impact. Blade follows that up with the swantom which is absolutely fucking nuts and could have resulted in broken neck or worse but was hit perfectly. The crowd and announcers going nuts felt fitting. I had no idea how to rate this overall but it is worth watching absolutely. ***1/4 (6.7)