[2001-02-03-IWA-MS-1st House of Hardcore Anniversary] Madman Pondo & Mitch Page vs 2 Tuff Tony & Rollin Hard (No Rope Barbed Wire)

[GSR]

Pondo and Page are dressed like they’re going to war with those daft looking helmets.  The Madman talks about how they were supporting Kid Rock in front of 20,000+ fans the other night (ICP maybe?) and they were telling him about Suicide Kid using his music without paying any royalty fees.  Apparently if he uses it again Rock is going to come down here, sue Suicide Kid, sue Ian Rotten and sue the sound man.  Yeah, right!  He says how tonight the fans have seen all kinds of action but now it’s time for four fat asses to get in the ring and get hardcore.  That gets a funny “Tony’s not fat!” chant from the fans.  We’ve already heard ‘Last Resort’ and ‘Bawitdaba’ tonight, Rollin completes the early 2000 nu-metal trilogy with Limp Bizkit.  The fans are supposedly calling Mitch “Bitch” and Pondo “Pongo” according to the Madman, who threatens to leave if they don’t start showing the two of them some respect.  Does anyone ever leave?  Well these two didn’t, although maybe they should have as Pondo gets hotshotted into the barbed wire, completely wiping out one side of the ring.  Page and Tony head to the floor while their partners remain inside.  The camera is flitting back and forth and as a result we’re not really seeing much.  Pondo tries to ram the end of a baseball bat up Rollin’s backside, that seems to be a favourite spot in IWA.  Rollin gets crotched on the barbed wire before he and Pondo too take it to the outside.  There’s a huge mountain of chairs on one side of the building, the fans all hurling theirs like it’s the ECW Arena in 1995, which Rollin suplexes Pondo onto.  Tony with a tarantula on Page.  A quick reminder, there are no ropes, that’s barbed wire he’s doing that on!  Pondo staples a dollar bill to Rollin’s head.  After splashing Page against the wall Tony cuts off a section of the barbed wire which he wraps around him.  He then launches himself at him again with a running splash off a chair. We miss the set up to the finish as the camera is concentrating on Rollin and Mitch, but Pondo is stood on a half dozen opened up chairs in the ring, holding Tony, who he piledrives onto them for the win.

Very hard to follow on tape and I imagine one that played better live due to the mess they make of the arena.  Okay match considering who was involved.  I didn’t watch everything on the show but this was a highly enjoyable IWA card that featured something for everyone; from pure wrestling to flying to brawling to Death matches.  Three matches were, at a minimum, very good and there was nothing bad.  If this doesn’t help Ian to swell the numbers for future shows nothing will.