Stirring the Pot #2 Necro Butcher

[sek69]

So I'm trying to shake off the dark cloud of the Benoit situation by continuing my series of (hopefully) thought provoking threads.

 

Next up: Necro Butcher, what's the deal?

 

I hear him get talked up a lot, and while he's not bad by any means, I don't get the amount of love he gets. I know he does non-deathmatch stuff but he's primarily known for taking horrific amounts of abuse in matches to a Foley-in-Japan-esque level. I'm sorry, it doesn't take a lot of talent to get torn up by weapons and barbed wire. Some people are into the deathmatch stuff, and that's fine. Whatever floats your boat, different strokes and all of that. I just always thought the point of pro wrestling was to convey the idea of what is going on is causing physical pain, not to actually inflict bodily injury on yourself.

 

 

He's the most indy-est looking indy guy I've ever seen, he's like the Little Spike Dudley of the 80s WWF Hillbilly family. I can see how he can be a cult favorite or a niche star, but people are seriously saying things like "Necro: best wrestler of 2006?" and I just don't get it. Is it some form of ironic LUV that I'm missing the boat on or do people really think losing 3/4ths of your blood in a weedwacker-barbwire-broken glass-cage match is some form of high art?

[anarchistxx]

I love Necro, pretty much the only wrestler I enjoy watching these days.

 

Unique look, fits the character, and I like his style. The matches are fucking sick, and I love it. You totally buy into the fact that he's a crazy homeless guy who doesn't give a shit.

[Loss]

Most of the praise for Necro is usually because of the way he can lay out a match and because of his great selling, more than it is his ability to take insane bumps, although that does help. Mick Foley is an easy comparison, but they're really two different kinds of wrestlers. At this stage of Cactus's career (1988-1989), I'm not sure he was as complete a wrestler is Necro is.

 

I implore you to watch the Super Dragon match from PWG last year if you haven't seen it, Sek. It's a great match, and while there are a few psychotic bumps, it's the match structure and the performance aspect that really pulls it all together and takes it to the next level. For me, it's the best non-ROH indy match of 2006.

 

There are a lot of wrestlers out there who are very similar to each other, and even among great workers, very few old-fashioned tough guys in modern wrestling. I'm not sure I'd call Necro best in the world or anything, but if I had to fight someone currently in wrestling based on the image they put forth in the ring, Necro would probably be the last guy I'd choose, just because he really seems like a lunatic.

[Jingus]

The weirdest part? Necro's actually a perfectly normal guy while not in the ring. Even seems pretty smart, not "smart for a wrestler" but actually intelligent.

 

Too many people dismiss him on the "he's just hardcore, he can't work" theory. I once watched him have non-hardcore match with a gooseshit green trainee in which they used not a single weapon, and I think they never even went to the floor. It was mostly just the trainee working over his leg Flair-style and Necro selling it. To steal an old Joey line: "He CAN wrestle, he just prefers not to."

[Tim Evans]

I think Necro's best stuff is his non Hardcore stuff. The joe match the first one is pretty good. I loved his match as CP Munk in Chikara. Necro is more entertaining to me than 99% of the guys on the TNA roster. I can see how some people dismiss him because of the hardcore stuff, which can get teidous at times. However, when he wants to, he can wrestle. Like Jingus said, He can wrestle, he just doesn't have to or want to.

[sek69]

See, the fact that Necro can wrestle when he wants to makes it all the more baffling to me he'd rather tear himself to bits in front of small deathmatch crowds. I get the old "different strokes for different folks" argument, but like Bobby Heenan said if you're in wrestling for anything other than to make money you're in the wrong business. Doing deathmatches won't make you a lot of money. That style has a lot of devoted fans (which kind of scares me, but that's a different topic), but it's not the path you'd choose for financial security. In fact, it lends itself to serious injury that would wipe out any money you'd make.

 

Necro is really good at what he does, he's also good when he wrestles without gimmicks. I've seen a couple of his matches and they were indeed quite good. I guess my argument is while someone like Ian Rotten pretty much has only the deathmatch gimmick to go with or be out of a job, Necro has shown he doesn't need to do that stuff to have a good match and still does it. It just seems a waste of talent IMO.

[kjh]

I'd argue that Necro's probably made more money going down the death match route and making himself a cult favourite than he would have done otherwise. I mean sek, you called him "the most indy-est looking indy guy I've ever seen, he's like the Little Spike Dudley of the 80s WWF Hillbilly family", which pretty much rules out WWE ever being interested in him and that's the only place you can make significant money in the business today.

[MikeCampbell]

I may get a little heat for this comment: But I like Necro for more or less the same reasons I like John Cena. Neither of them is Ricky Steamboat for basic wrestling, but they're both good at laying out a match and sticking to the story.

[Tim Evans]

See, the fact that Necro can wrestle when he wants to makes it all the more baffling to me he'd rather tear himself to bits in front of small deathmatch crowds. I get the old "different strokes for different folks" argument, but like Bobby Heenan said if you're in wrestling for anything other than to make money you're in the wrong business. Doing deathmatches won't make you a lot of money. That style has a lot of devoted fans (which kind of scares me, but that's a different topic), but it's not the path you'd choose for financial security. In fact, it lends itself to serious injury that would wipe out any money you'd make.

 

Necro is really good at what he does, he's also good when he wrestles without gimmicks. I've seen a couple of his matches and they were indeed quite good. I guess my argument is while someone like Ian Rotten pretty much has only the deathmatch gimmick to go with or be out of a job, Necro has shown he doesn't need to do that stuff to have a good match and still does it. It just seems a waste of talent IMO.

Weed is a hell of a drug man. I wonder if he takes the Kenzo Suzuki method. If you remember last year, Kenzo did all those deathmatches to try to get him noticed in WWE but all it got him was a deal with CMLL then AAA.

[Phil Schneider]

I may get a little heat for this comment: But I like Necro for more or less the same reasons I like John Cena. Neither of them is Ricky Steamboat for basic wrestling, but they're both good at laying out a match and sticking to the story.

 

What basic wrestling did Ricky Steamboat do? He was a guy who did some armdrags, a bodypress and shitty looking karate. He wasn't Blue Panther, he was amazing at selling, pacing and simple bumping. I would say that Steamboat would actually be a great guy to compare both Necro and Cena too.

 

Phil

[Jingus]

...are you kidding, Phil? Yes, he was often quite the Armdragon in the WWE, but Steamboat did all kinds of holds, counters, and pinning predicaments that would just leave Cena scratching his neanderthal brow.

[Loss]

Like what?

 

My first instinct was to disagree with Phil too, but really, try to think of specific examples.

[Phil Schneider]

He had a nice backslide, pretty good small package, but Steamboat wasn't about technical wrestling at all.

[MikeCampbell]

He was just the first name that popped into my head, since I'd just watched the Steamboat/Youngblood vs. Slaughter/Kernodle cage match.

 

Would Dory Funk Jr. or Jack Brisco be a better comparison?

[Jingus]

Dory, maybe not, he did rely on about five million euro uppercuts in a row in a lot of his matches. Brisco, perhaps. But to make it simple & easy, just say Malenko and leave it at that.

 

 

And how can you guys say Steamboat didn't use wrestling moves? Firstly, from this very board:

Steamboat, as the face, went back to the armlock about 20 minutes in;

 

Anyone who points to Joe/Punk II as an example of how to work a headlock and make a match interesting needs to see Steamboat and Youngblood in this match. They're never lazy about it, and always find creative ways to either apply it, or work back to it. I loved the spot early on when Kernodle almost made the tag and Steamer just yanked him back and grabbed the headlock.

And then, there's the 27 different rollup variations from Wrestlemania III. And if you need more proof than that, just pop in a tape of him vs. Flair 2/3 at the Clash, at least 15 minutes of that is Steamboat working arm holds.

[Phil Schneider]

Necro worked Euro catch style against Chris Hero, and faux MMA style against Drake Younger. Still isn't what he is about

[Jingus]

I'm not saying his technical skills were what made him a top guy, it's a combination of his selling and general athleticism you can thank for that. He could've been the exact same guy and relied on a Hoganesque moveset and still gotten 90% over as he did anyway. But you said he never did "basic wrestling", which, well, was wrong.

[Tim Cooke]

Lawler works as many (I believe many more but haven't watched the Clash match in a while) variations of the headlock against Race in 77 as Steamboat works against Flair in the Clash VI match. And Lawler isn't a technical wrestler by any means.

 

Steamboat as a technical wrestler just doesn't make sense.

[Guest Spunk]

I think the big thing about Necro and what draws me to him is that when I watch Necro Butcher, I believe that he is indeed Necro Butcher. His character is so believable and so off the wall, that I seriously believe that he is insane. Of late he has kind of toned down a bit and kinda seems like the weird dude who hangs out in vans smoking weed with high school kids, which is a shame, but I know for a while at least he had such a really awesome aura about him.

 

If I saw him walking down the street, slug an old lady, rip through her purse and then beat her over the head with it, I wouldn't think it was out of the ordinary. He just makes everything about him work so well; his mannerisms, the way he communicates, his style. He is exactly what he should be.

[sek69]

See what gets me is if say Dean Malenko (not suggesting they're equal in talent mind you) was doing deathmatches people would be in an outrage over someone wasting such talent in garbage matches. Because Necro looks like a crazy homeless dude it seems ok for him to spend 90 of his career getting ripped to shreds.

 

I don't see why with the talent I saw him display, he couldn't have been a straight wrestler w/o the insane stuff and have a decent by indy standards career in a place like ROH where the crowd pops for SKILLZ.

[kjh]

Just like ROH staple BJ Whitmer gets crowd pops for his technical SKILLZ I suppose?

[Jingus]

As far as I can tell, Necro does the deathmatch stuff because he likes it. It's sure as hell not for the money. Forget relatively high-paying (bwa ha ha) gigs like IWA Midsouth, I've seen him do the same crazy lightbulb shit on li'l indy shows with about sixty people in the crowd.