IWA Deep South – Underground #1 (2021)

Scatman's Paradise

Another DS show, another gamble! What will it be this time? Slap fights or a surprisingly entertaining flea market deathmatch? The opening montage makes me hope and fear for everything at once. It contains slap fights, deathmatch spots, and even some clips from the weird cinematic fetish matches that assaulted my sanity in the past.

There is a ring. A no ropes barbed wire ring. There's a ladder – but also a table that suspiciously looks like a slap fight setup. The first entrant is Hardcor... No, it's actually a woman called Cousin Cherry, and Hardcore Hillbilly just accompanies her. Oh no. Oh god no. It's a slap fight. Emergency skip!

15 mins. Still slap fights, now between an exceptionally misshapen bald guy and some other dude. 21 mins. New guy, old slap fight. I think one of the competitors is Freight Train. 30 mins. Still slap fight. Still guy I think is Freight Train. 40 mins. Hardcore Hillbilly and Jay Blade, but it's a slap fight! 48 mins. Jay Blade is now Slap Fight Champion or something.

Cut, and now DS original Jeff "Hitman" Hart, reigning King of Crazy Shit Champion, $5 Rasslin Champion, and $10 Rasslin Champion appears with all of his belts. Is the deep south running low on wrestlers? Why does this guy have so many titles? These are actually good looking custom titles, not replicas with stickers. Jeff Hart is a regular in Brannen's traumatizing 'cinematic' matches. Ever went to grab a drink during a show, and when you came back to the monitor, there were 2 rednecks in tighty whities, fighting over a dissolving chocolate bar on a mattress in a crackhouse? It's THAT Jeff Hart we're talking about here. I'm afraid.

But not for long. A new camera angle reveals Hart's opponent and my savior: John Rare. Quick, my angel of death! Vanquish the hellish abomination before he finds a chocolate bar!

Hart has to be heaved into the ring by two people. The ring now also has lighttube bundles, a lighttube cross, loose tubes, chairs, and two grey boards of some kind. I'm not sure if there's commentary. Somebody is talking over the match, but it could just be people standing near the camera. It's very faint and sometimes drops out altogether. Not sure how many people are involved either. At least one guy and one gal, but it could be more. There are also rags on the barbed wire. BURN THE HERETIC, JOHN RARE! Yep, the rags are set on fire.

Other than that, not much of note happens. Hart smashes weapons on Rare. The camera goes a little crazy at some point, and when my dizziness settles, Rare has the upper hand and smashes lighttubes on Hart. A first wrestling move takes place. After placing Hart on a table with lighttubes, Rare hits a swanton bomb from a ladder onto him. A little later, there is also an armbar from Rare. The barbed wire is reignited and of course it's Rare who goes into the flames. Whoever is talking next to the camera compares it to Kane and Undertaker. The match doesn't get any better. I even hesitate to call it a match, but John Rare wins and gets all the shiny titles.

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Can it get worse? Hell, yes. After a cut, the ring has ropes and 4 boards, at least one with barbed wire, and there is a carpet strip triangle along with what I think are two cookie sheets. Sounds normal, yes. But in the ring is also IWA Deep South Ass Slap Champion The Shithook Icon Boriss Dukkee aka Kevin Brannen with a green mask. Be afraid, delicious friends. Be very afraid. This is going to be terrible, no matter what.

Next, the lady 'on commentary' says "And here's James Taylor", just when the on-screen graphic displays "Big James Mayhem". I remember that name from the other show. Not the guy though. Must be a graduate from the Jay Blade School of Whatever.

My god. ಠ_ಠ They hit each other with cookie sheets, then stumble backwards through a barbed wire board. This is so awkward. Picture the first face to face encounter of two middle-aged, married men who met on Grindr with the intention to hook up behind the toilets of a highway rest area. That's the vibe of this 'match'. Skipping, it appears Brannen, eh, I mean Dukkee won.

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For the next match, the ring still has ropes, and one side is lined with lighttubes. The competitors are IWA DS Slap Fight Champion Jay Blade and Blaine Evans. For once, Jay Blade manages to look more like a wrestler than someone – Big James Mayhem, to be precise. Blaine Evans, on the other hand, has no such worries. There's something about him that makes him naturally very wrestler-y. It's not his gear although he usually ranks very high on the Actual Sports Attire scale. I think it's his overall shape. He's naturally wrestler-shaped. There's also a good intensity about him – something entirely absent from Jay Blade. I think if Evans put some more thought and effort into a gimmick, or just adopted a catchy moniker, he could get himself booked beyond the limited DS circles.

Anyway, everything I'm seeing here now looks promising. Two of the more capable IWA DS guys in a proper deathmatch ring, no slap fight table to be seen. Wait. What now? Hardcore Hillbilly appears. He grabs a trash can with a barbed wire bat and enters the ring. I guess it's a three way now. Wait, what now? "The Juggalo Assassin" Mr. Krystal – who is probably the person I described as 'exceptionally misshapen bald guy' earlier – appears. He's wearing a singlet now, which I am grateful for, and apparently he too joins the match. Is this a battle royal? Gauntlet? Free for all? Guess its a four way because the match now begins. I wish Hardcore Hillbilly was also wearing a singlet because of unfortunate camera placement. I also wish this was a singles match. Blade vs. Evans had the potential to be decent. This... not so much. They are trying, yes, but the addition of Hillbilly and Krystal is nothing but a hinderance. More weapons – a staple gun is introduced at some point – don't help, nor does the attempt to use firecrackers.

This was a tag team match. lol Evans and Blade were in a team all along. Without discernible commentary or a coherent match, I couldn't tell. Anyway, you didn't miss much here. It was exactly the kind of match that gets deathmatches a bad rep. Kinda sad because it didn't need to be. I'm pretty sure Blade and Evans could have done a lot better by themselves.

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~̷̝͓͐͛ ̷̨̲̿͗F̸͉̗͌͝E̵̹̪̎Ä̴͔́R̴̟̗̆!̵̰̪͂̏ ̴̤̃̕~̸̞̳̓

A neon-green room. A shirtless Boriss Dukkee. OMG. John Rare, help! I need some vanquishing RIGHT NOW! Hardcore Hillbilly, with some title on his shoulder and thankfully not shirtless, is also there. Along with a woman in black latex who wisely wears a mask. Brannen and Hillbilly talk about something, but I'm not listening. Dukkee and the woman leave and an enormous masked man in a black shirt joins Hillbilly instead. It is, according to the graphic, "Ass Slap Championship Tournament Entrant Chipper Shitstain". Why does this exist. Why am I watching it. Morbid curiosity, I guess.

Rules are superimposed over a referee against an orange-brown wall. 20 Rounds. If you fall to the mattress, you have until a 3 count to rise again. Wins only by KO or Submission. Winner advances to the finals for the championship. Cut to Dukkee and Shitstain, on all fours, on beds in what looks like a motel room. The masked woman holds a camera. JOHN RARE WHERE ART THOU?! Skipping. The woman proceeds to slap the... 'entrants of the tournament' on the ass. It's 1 hour 35 mins into a 1 hour 44 mins show. Skipping to 20 secs before the end, to a still of Boriss Dukkee raising his arm, presumably in victory.

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

Well. I said I wanted to review an absolute trainwreck. Now I did. #feelinghollow. Somewhere around the Jeff Hart mark, something inside me curled up and died, and I expect it to be rotting there for quite a while. Maybe the NPU show wasn't so bad, after all.

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