CZW Tournament of Death XIII Review

Written in June of 2014

Fans Bring the Dildos - First Round

Jaki Numazawa vs. Lucky 13

They worked this pretty intelligently to start things off. Lucky was on the offensive early on as he was able to bloody up Numazawa pretty early on in the match. I certainly wasn’t expecting so much offense from Lucky early on but I guess it worked. Once Numazawa got some offense in and started controlling the match I felt things got better. Lucky took a few crazy bumps including the always scary German Suplex when your head is between 2 ladder rungs. Apparently it doesn’t actually kill the person taking the bump but it really looks like it does. Thankfully the dildo use was kept to a minimum and they had a serious match. The ending was surprising as I never thought Lucky had a chance at getting out of the first round. It’s not that this wasn’t good but I really don’t understand why Numazawa was brought in if he was just going to go out in the first round. Still Lucky making it to the second round does leave open some interesting possibilities. He seems to be on his game and if I feel like he could do something awesome with the right opponent in the second round. Here’s hoping he draws Masada in what would be an awesome pairing. Anyway, solid, if unspectacular match. But hey, it’s the first of 7 death matches so I can see why they wouldn’t go too crazy.

**¼ 

Barbed Wire Madness - First Round

Aero Boy vs. MASADA

Well this was pretty fantastic. They started out with some mat stuff and I got the impression that they probably could have had a decent match without the barbed wire and that stuff. They set the tone with the early stuff and I really appreciated it, even if the live crowd didn’t. Basically Masada is the fucking man and has fought and beat just about everyone. But Aero Boy was different and presented a whole new style. And he got the upper hand against Masada for a while as he tried to adjust to his different style of offense. Masada was getting in offense but it was always some type of lucha move that would break up his momentum. I also loved the Masada tore at the mask early on and him doing so would have a huge impact later on in the match.

Anyway Masada eventually is able to overcome the difference in style and starts kicking some ass. And honestly, it’s a little scary when he looks pissed off (which is  a huge compliment). Aero Boy missing on a dive and sending himself into a barbed wire board was a good spot but then his mask came off and his face was exposed (which is a pretty big deal for him I would imagine). So now he’s in a really bad spot and Masada responds by bending the board over and sandwiching him, climbing to the top rope and hitting a senton. It was brutal and just incredibly badass. Masada pretty much takes over from there but Aero Boy takes the beating like a champ and plays a really sympathetic underdog. He came in not over with the fans in the slightest and they ended up loving him by the end because he was that good. I couldn’t have hoped for a better match in the first round. I know some people don’t like this style of wrestling but I would say that this is a great example of how you can use weapons and blood to tell a kickass and compelling story in the ring. This was NOT just two guys hitting each other with stuff, it was an awesome match that also happens to be a death match.

****¼

Ultraviolent Pits - First Round

Masashi Takeda vs. Danny Havoc

This was nothing like the previous match but still pretty awesome. I spent the most of review talking about the compelling story that kept me highly entertained for the entire time. This was just 2 lunatics trying to kill each other. They meshed together perfectly because they really appeared to be playing the same character. It was a war and it was a blast to watch because the pacing was incredible. It wasn’t very long but it was a constant battle and they never really slowed down. Unless I start talking about the spots (and there were some good ones) or the blood (which there was a lot of) there really isn’t much left to cover.

***½

Light Tube Bundles - First Round

Matt Tremont vs. Jun Kasai

This was fun. You could tell Kasai must have been happy to be in the US as he basically played a traditional American heel here. It was actually really funny to watch and very entertaining. It didn’t even matter that the crowd loved him anyway. It’s great to see something like an eye poke in a deathmatch. He also did heelish things like as a fan for a shoe to use as a weapon, the fan gave him a shoe, he hit Tremont with it and then he threw the shoe as far as he could into the crowd. It actually was these cheap heel tactics that ended up winning the match for Kasai as it was a low blow that let Kasai set up for his finisher. While the match was fun it had it’s flaws and almost all can be blamed on Tremont. He peeked at Cage of Death again DJ Hyde and I don’t think anything that he does will ever be on the same level as that night. He just didn’t sell anything until the end. It was annoying to see him take a big bump off the top rope to the floor through light tubes and then see him up and screaming less than a minute later. While that wasn’t good to see overall this very solid and fun to watch. Glad Kasai advanced as well.

**¾

Alexander James vs. Joe Gacy

I can’t imagine anyone would really want to be in this position. The fans want blood and they’ve been getting blood and they’re going to get more blood. But these guys had to go out there and have a standard match. The crowd didn’t want to see this at all. They tried and it wasn’t a bad match or anything just unspectacular. They went through the motions got through the match and it was passable.

*½

Panes of Glass - Second Round

MASADA vs. Lucky 13

I can’t say I was a huge fan of this. Lucky really didn’t play the underdog here as he was getting in a lot of offense. But his offense wasn’t great it never felt like he did anything that actually gave him a chance at winning the match. He did take some great bumps and I liked that he would throw all of these moves at Masada only for Masada to take control of the match with a big move. It was decent and the ending was bad. I don’t know if it was a botch but it looked like Lucky took a brutal bump into the glass and Masada took nothing. But Lucky was up first and went for a top rope move which Masada reversed for a roll up and the win. Considering how great of a match MASADA has previously this was a pretty big let down as this was a match that I was really looking forward to.

**½

Combatants Choice - Second Round

Jun Kasai vs. Danny Havoc

Kasai comes out with a cross that has razor boards all over it and Havoc has a board covered in gusset plates. I don’t believe that there’s one specific emotion that a wrestling match is supposed to make you feel as long as you are engaged in the match. I certainly was here and I was scared. Both guys were already bloody, there was dangerous stuff in the ring, and one of them was going to have to wrestle Masada. I thought they did a really good job building up the suspense while still giving the crowd what they wanted. There were even some really good near falls towards the end of the match that had me fooled. Havoc delivered his second good match of the day and it was similar in that I knew I was watching 2 lunatics go to war but I think I liked this more because it really made me nervous while watching it. Yeah they looked bloody and battered afterwards but nobody was seriously injured (which is really the art of the deathmatch I think) and it was great to watch.

***¾

CZW Tag Team Championship Match

The Juicy Product(c) vs. Drew Gulak & Sozio

I really don’t think there’s a worst position to be in than in front of the TOD crowd when you aren’t in a deathmatch. The crowd just did not want to see this despite the fact that they actually liked some of the guys in the match on other shows. Sozio and Gulak had to form an uneasy alliance to go against the champions and they did show throughout the match that they really didn’t like each other. As the match wore on they started working better as a team before Sozio walked out on Gulak. Juicy Product was solid here and they did mess with the crowd over the fact that they weren’t going to use weapons, or even do anything flashy at times. I enjoyed them doing this to the crowd even if the crowd really didn’t. Anyone there wasn’t anything great about this but I wouldn’t call it bad either. Gulak must be a lot more loyal to CZW than I thought if he was willing to go out there under these circumstances.

**

Fan Bring the Weapons - Non-Tournament

Ron Mathis vs. Devon Moore

I really hated this. Matches like this are why people shit all over CZW and deathmatch wrestling as a whole. Honestly the term “garbage wrestling” is what’s coming to mind after seeing this. There was no semblance of them really trying to do anything here other than hit each other with stuff and do cool moves. I’ll give Mathis credit for some of the bumps he was taking (which Moore took none of really) but that’s where my praise has to end. These guys fought each other inside Cage of Death so you would think that they would hate each other. I never felt that they did and I really didn’t feel any emotion other than being amused when Mathis would talk shit to the fans. It really was just 2 guys hitting other with weapons.

½*

No Rope Barbed Wire Scaffold - Finals

Jun Kasai vs. MASADA

I actually want to say that this was old school, obviously I don’t mean that in the spots they did but in how they acted. I was reminded of a different time period while watching this. Kasai was doing things like throwing bloody bbq skewers into the crowd (hell even a cheese grater I think) and when they would cut each other up they would do it right on the guardrail so everyone could see them. It was such a different mentality that they had had and it was really refreshing. I know if I was in the crowd and I saw them coming I would get out of the way.

Things started with Kasai using his 80s heel tactics to take control of the match when he hits Masada with a low blow. From there he controlled the match for a long period of time and really messed Masada up. From there they transitioned to brawling through the crowd and around ringside. Now I’m really not a huge of fan of this but I can’t fault them because they gave their crowd exactly what they wanted to see. I think just about everyone there got an up close experience from these two. You had fans holding chairs, coolers that fans brought being used as weapons, and just general chaos in the crowd. This is a match that would have to go on last because they just destroyed the ringside area. Things really picked up again inside the ring after the brawl. That’s really what I liked about the match as well, things escalated perfectly. They started high, came down for a while, started building again, and ended at the perfect time.

At some point Masada hurt his leg and while I hope it’s not serious it really added to the match. Masada is the man at CZW. He’s been in the ring with everyone and he’s beaten just about everyone. You usually don’t see him in a position where it looks like he’s totally beaten like you did in this match. Seeing him hobbling around and trying but failing to keep going was an unusual sight but a pretty great one. Even in defeat he still looked like a badass so that was also a plus.

Between the way they built up to a great climax, interacted with the crowd, and just had a war made me love this match. These guys have had great matches in the past and I would put this up there with some of their other stuff I’ve seen from them. I enjoyed this more on my first viewing than I did their match from Wrestlecon last year when I watched that back after being there live. I think it’s always important that a finals match deliver and this certainly delivered. I would go even higher if the match didn’t drag a bit in the middle. Still this was pretty great.

****

Overall, great show. I got my money’s worth for sure. Glad I ordered it as it’s a nice change of pace from what I’ve recently been watching and I really do like seeing the current indy product. Obviously all the fly-ins really helped and I hope we continue to see them in CZW because I don’t really know how well this tournament would have went down without them.