BEYOND WRESTLING BLOOD DRIVE ON IWTV REPORT

Beyond Wrestling “Blood Drive”

12/27/20 - YouTube Stream (but also IWTV)

Like MOST indies, Beyond has had a start and stop year thanks to our lovely quarantimes. Owner Denver Colorado is closing out the year with a push to get the Beyond YouTube account up to 3 Million Subscribers. In lieu of the normal New Year’s Eve show, we’re getting a 4-hour livestream of the bloodiest matches in Beyond Wrestling’s history. As is common for their YouTube offerings, most of the matches are being presented without commentary (a first for some of these matches we’re seeing today). I’m gonna go play-by-play lite on this and encourage y’all to check out these matches on IWTV.LIVE (PROMO CODE: BEYOND). Links to shows provided below!

Match 1: Masada vs Kevin Steen (No DQ)

From “Americanarana 2013”. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/VBx4pDZ4kd

It’s wild to see a crowd this packed. I really miss the vibe of Fete Music as a wrestling venue. And also the grilled cheese truck out front. Masada skewers Steen which pisses him off. Steen fires up with a cannonball and taps Masada out with asharpshooter which driving skewers into his knee. Sick. Masada basically wrestled this whole thing on a blown knee and they killed it.

Match 2: Biff Busick vs Matt Tremont (Fans Bring the Weapons)

From “Uncomfortable” in June 2014. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/bdZvMQQvla

This is for the CZW title, which Busick (NXT’s Oney Lorcan) was holding at the time. This is a battle all over Fete Music, Beyond’s home for many years. Lots of plunder. Biff & Tremont are VICIOUS to each other. Biff throws Tremont from the top onto a pile of plunder to retain his belt. Wild wild stuff.

Match 3: Nicholas Kaye (w/ Mike Quest) vs Anthony Stone (w/ Natalie Stone) (Throw in the Towel Match)

From Americanrana 14. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/Wl1vOgKvNA

On the YouTube chat, Denver Colorado says “This is not a FINESSE match”. Accurate. Stone starts whipping chairs and bloodies Kaye almost immediately. The violence picks up from there. Kaye is a mess as the crowd chants “Let him Die”. Kaye gets handcuffed to the ring and Stone brings in and REVS A F***ING CHAINSAW, prompting Kaye to immediately quit. Wow. Basically a squash but wow. Nicholas Kaye is forced to retire as part of his loss here and tears into the crowd on his way out. This was great.

Match 4: WAR GAMES. Team Beyond Wrestling Originals (Myke Quest, Eric Corvis, Davey Vega, Rickey Shane Page) vs Crusade For Change (Devin Blaze, Tommy Trainwreck, Dany Only, TJ Marconi, Darius Carter)

From “The Real Thing in May 2015. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/ZGg7D1gv2x

Crusade for Change was a great heel stable for a while in Beyond. We have a great one-ring War Games match here with the heels having advantage both in order and overall numbers. C4C own the match beyond with chairs, skewers and a thumbtack baseball bat. Beyond Wrestling offers up a surprise 5th member to finally even the odds (Dave Cole had a broken leg and was removed from the match): It’s Anthony Stone, flying from the top of the cage into the contest! Nicolas Kaye and Johnny Cockstrong enter the cage and swing the numbers advantage even further. Devin Blaze gets thrown over the cage into the crowd! RSP gets suplexed out of the cage onto tables. Darius Carter is forced to watch Dany Only get stabbed in the head with a corkscrew repeatedly and submits for C4C when Eric Corvis turns to do the same to him. Johnny Cockstrong puts a cherry on top and gives Carter a muscle buster from the top rope. RSP lets Corvis corkscrew Carter anyways. WOW. This match was in the dubious position of following Chris Dickinson vs Samoa Joe on this show...but GOD, this delivered hard.

Match 5: Matt Tremont vs Stockade (Casket Match)

From Americanrana 15. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/eVxL26wLnm

MY FIRST LIVE BEYOND SHOW! I miss the balcony at Fete so much. This is one of my go-to matches if I want to show someone a wild hardcore match I’ve seen in-person. This match is memorable to me for the following reasons: I THOUGHT I was far enough away from the action that I wouldn’t have to dodge anyone. I was wrong!  The spot where Stockade breaks a water jug on a pole over Tremont’s head. The double fall through about 40 carpet tack strips. The slam, backdrop, and Powerbomb onto concrete cinder blocks. Stockade tries to fight out of the casket but Tremont clobbers him in the forehead with a cinder block to close the lid. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Yeah, I loved this match then. Love it now. This show was great and set me on the path of regularly following Beyond.

Match 6: Joey Janela vs JT Dunn (Dog Collar Match)

From “By Popular Demand” in Feb 2016. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/VBx4pNr7kd

We transition to Club Aurora in Providence. Janela was on the rise and not the indie legend he is today. The crowd HATED him here and was way behind JT in this fight. Dunn tortures Janela through much of this, bloodying him with a chair. Suge D and Larry Legend are fantastic on commentary here. Janela battles back but gets DVD’d onto a trash can at ringside. Janela eats a powerbomb but managed to choke out JT with the chain for the win.

Match 7: Nick Gage vs Joey Janela (w/ Penelope Ford (Anything Goes)

This is from “I Want It All” in Feb 2018. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/1Rw4A2eLNl

The Old Country Banquet Hall in Enfield, CT is around the corner from a restaurant called “Mark’s Diner”. Good food. Great name. This is a chair spot fest. So many slams on chairs as they keep popping back up in defiance of each other. Gage gets out through a chair pyramid. A pair of package piledrivers onto chairs but Gage don’t quit. Gage can’t put Janela away either after a jumping piledriver onto a chair fort. A pair of chokebreakers finally puts the bad boy down. Damn. Chaos.

Match 8: Rickey Shane Page vs Eric Ryan (Death Match)

This is from Uncharted Territory Season 1, Episode 6 in May of 2019. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/dZvMOPQLla

THIS MATCH. It was Beyond’s 10 year anniversary show. We’re at Electric Haze in Worcester, MA. There’s a lot of things that happen in this match. It gets bloody right quick. Lot of forks involved and one nightmare-inducing spot involving a syringe through RSP’s cheek, spraying the crowd with liquid. It’s crazy some of the things here...but yeah, a f***ing syringe. Ryan gets powerbombed off the top onto a shopping cart covered in forks. Ryan finally stays down after an inverted powerbomb through a barbed wire door. This match is crazy, just watch it.

Match 9: Kris Statlander vs Kimber Lee (Steel Cage Match)

From Americanrana 19. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/GE7KMBn40J

The first (and likely ONLY) show from Foxwoods Resort & Casino in CT. Statlander was hot as hell and on the rise here. Kimber was looking for her first great match on the indies since returning from her time in NXT. They delivered a super aggressive sprint of a bloody classic here. Both taste the steel several times. Kim’s a furious heel, trying to reestablish dominance over an Indy women’s scene that she believes has forgotten her. It’s not to be as a bloody Statlander hits a 450 for the pin. Loved this.

Match 10: Nick Gage vs Maria Manic

From Uncharted Territory Season 2, Episode 4. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/xaLQO5Nv89

Now we’ve moved to Beyond’s current home at The White Eagle in Worcester, MA. Maria Manic wanted Gage at his most violent. The leader of MDK obliges, putting the Maneater through doors, carving up her forehead with door shrapnel and a cheese grater, and just devolves to biting her forehead while Ref Quinn looks on in horror. Manic gets a couple brief moments of comeback but this is a LOT of Nick Gage in violent control with door parts and chairs. Gage finishes the contest with a series of chair shots to the head that Manic cannot respond to. It’s an uncomfortable watch at parts but if you’ve been watching these matches right through, you’ve got a taste for the ol’ ultraviolence clearly.

Match 11: Bear Country vs Team Tremendous (Fans Bring the Weapons)

From “Heavy Lies the Crown 2019” https://independentwrestling.tv/player/Bx4poNlvkd

Kicking off just after the New Year’s ball drop, this was the first match of 2020. FBTW has become a new year’s tradition for Beyond at this point. Owner Denver Colorado had publicly disposed of a mail covered dinosaur earlier in the night, to give you an idea of the plunder brought to this dance. And yeah, this match is all “fun with way too much plunder”. This goes all over the room, Dan Barry locks Bear Bronson out the fire escape for a bit. Boulder returns to beat up TT with a car bumper he ripped off a car, presumably. So many bad landings onto painful looking objects interacting with human flesh in uncomfortable ways. This is a long war but Bear Country puts Team Tremendous away with an elevator drop to both of them. This was the goddamnedest thing and in hindsight, the best way to ring in this absolute trash fire of a year.

And that’s it fo—SECRET 12th Match encore whaaaaaaaat???

Match 12: Mack Hetfield vs SLADE (“Hardcore” Rules)

From “Beyond Championship Wrestling” in Feb 2020. https://independentwrestling.tv/player/dxLBgM97NQ

This was the last Beyond show a lot of us got to be at in person, live from the Melrose Memorial Hall (simultaneously one of the best and worst venues Beyond has run). I was in the middle of my “broken ankle phase” of 2020 for this so thank you AGAIN to Beyond for accommodating my hobbled self that day. Mack Hetfield is Matthew Justice in another gimmick, because his normal persona is “too hardcore for the network”. SLADE tries to swing chairs but GM Swoggle says the network won’t accept that and bans chairshots to the head. This show was great. Swoggle ends up banning chairs entirely so Hetfield has to bring doors into it. SLADE wants to light them up. Would you be surprised to hear Swoggle banned fire? A plunger is determined to be an acceptable weapons but Hetfield blasts him with a garbage can lid to lay out the man from Riker’s Island for the pin.

And that’s it for “Blood Drive”. I fully intended to watch this in the background of Sunday chores but the level of GOOD SH*T here was off the charts that I couldn’t help but get sucked in for the full 4 hour run time. Beyond says the stream will NOT be saved to their YouTube page but might make it to IWTV eventually. In the meantime: if you want to support Beyond, subscribe to IWTV and check out the shows linked above. Head over to their YouTube channel and click that subscribe button ( https://youtube.com/user/BeyondWrestling ). Head over to the IWTV shop and pick up some Beyond merch ( https://shopiwtv.com/collections/beyond-wrestling ). It feels like I’m shilling but this is how we’re going to keep our favorite promotions afloat during these unreasonable times. And sometime next year, hopefully we can be around a Beyond ring again, singing the chorus to “Bro Hymn”. Until then! Have a happy new year and good riddance to you, 2020.

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