Hair match tame by foreign standards
For all his moaning and crying about his new chrome dome, Vince McMahon can be happy he lost only his hair at Wrestlemania 23 in his little bet with Donald Trump.
Frankly, the hair match is one of the oldest in the book. If you?ve wrestled for a while there?s a good chance you?ve had your golden locks hit the squared circle at one point. Heck, Brutus ?the Barber? Beefcake used to shave the loser every time he won a match.
With that being said (and if you?re a bit squeamish don?t read any further) how many can say they?ve had a firecracker shoved up their rump and detonated? Show of hands please.
The wrestler known as ?H? can attest to that pain as he lost the one and only Exploding Death Match to Mr. Gannosuke, a weird form of death match put on once by Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. Chances are, it was hard to find takers willing to put over the other guy as I?d say the loser was later known as Preparation H. Oh, it?s true. Some people will work their butts off.
The aforementioned match is one, and perhaps one of the most painful, of a genre of matches known as death matches. These matches go beyond the realm of hardcore and into the kingdom of insane using devices of pain nearly too painful to imagine. But, these are all real matches voluntarily participated in by wrestlers around the world, who will apparently do anything to please the crowd. Japan is especially a hotbed for death matches.
Besides the firecracker up the tailpipe, Big Japan Wrestling has also given us the Desert Death Match. To win the Desert Death Match you enter a ring surrounded by prickly cacti flanked by red-hot space heaters wrapped in barbed wire. Oh, and I forgot to mention in the middle of the ring is a tank of scorpions. You win by putting your opponent?s head in the tank of scorpions for 10 seconds. You can also win if your opponent passes out due to heat or pain.
Japan also gave us exploding rope matches where small charges of C4 explosives are positioned on different parts of the ring ropes. When a wrestler hits them, boom, explosions. Our friends from the Far East also gave us the Fist of Fun match where the competitors put on gloves and dip them in strong glue before in turn dipping them into shards of broken glass and using them to aerate their opponent. Ouch.
And don?t forget the Circus Top High Tower of Death match where the combatants start on a scaffold suspended by a ring which is topped with a net of barbed wire hung from its turnbuckles. You win by pinning your opponent on the barbed wire. What?
Of course, the Japanese don?t have the market cornered when it comes to death matches. The Lucha en Jaula Electrificada held by AAA in Mexico provides fans with a shocking experience as the cage in which the wrestlers are wrestling is electrified, making contact with it tantamount to grabbing an electric fence. The cage is opened every so often to permit an escape as crawling over the top is pretty much out of the question.
Now before you say I?m down on American Hardcore, let me point out Unlucky 13 was invented right here in the good old U.S. of A. The idea behind Unlucky 13 is that there are 13 one dollar bills lying in the ring and a pair of staplers. You win by stapling seven of the dollar bills to your opponent?s flesh. Some people will do anything for a buck.
Hey, we even invented the crocodile match. The match itself against your opponent is quite tame. The problem is the loser must wrestle a live crocodile as penalty for losing the match. Talk about eating your opponent alive.
For me, death matches are a bit much. Give me Flair and Big Show in the thumbtacks last year on ECW or Mick Foley getting thrown by Edge through a flaming table. Call me a sissy, but scorpions and rear loading firecrackers, make me squirm. I?ll keep my Hardcore a little softcore. Devon, get the tables!