This is hard-core #1

NOTHING makes my adrenaline pump more than a bit of the old ultra-violent rasslin’.
“Red makes green” is the old wrestling adage, but I’ll add my lil’ twist to it: “red makes wood”.
Yep, I’m not ashamed to admit I get my jollies watching one man destroy another in a match for a ridiculously small amount of money and the mindless praise of 50 morons chanting, “He’s hard-core! He’s hard-core!”
I recently got to see two prime examples of cock-swelling human cockfighting.
First was the infamous NWA Main Event bout from April 2003 pitting the walking scar tissue New Jack against 70-year-old masochist Gypsy Joe.
The match starts out relatively sedately with Jack laying in a few stiff shots and Joe replying with a legit headbutt, the crack of skulls reverberating round the small arena for the 30-odd folk in attendance to hear.
The tempo of the contest changes, however, once the pair go outside the ring and start brawling near the fans.
Jack has subsequently claimed he was repeatedly called “Nigger” by some punters. It’s hard to hear the “N” word on the tape, but clearly something’s said to set him off, ’cos suddenly Jack goes off and starts laying into Joe as hard as he can.
The chairshots, punches and kicks are bad enough. But then Jack rolls back into the ring, retrieves a baseball bat, then heads outside once more to use Joe’s head as a makeshift baseball. This is vicious shoot stuff.
Eventually, the promoter Mike Porter rushes to the ring to end the carnage.
Remarkably, that tough old lunatic Joe gets up from the beating and wanders off unassisted.
As for Jack, well…it’s just another aggravated assault masquerading as a hard-core match he can add to his “impressive” résumé.

Next we have Big Japan grapplers Jun Kasai and Naoki Numazawa teeing off in a “Barbed Wire Board/Razor Cross Board & Alpha Death Match” (June 8, 2005).
I gather this was match six in a seven-match “death” series. I hope the pair survived to complete match seven.
Whenever you get these two fellas in the same arena, you can be guaranteed blood-drenched insanity.
Jun and Naoki start things off, not with a handshake but rather with a full-on tongue kiss, further entrenching wrestling’s homoerotic reputation.
The niceties over, they proceed to beat seven shades of shite out of each other.
Naoki’s the first to go head-first into the barbed wire board and bleeds profusely. Soon afterwards, Jun’s launched into the razor blade encrusted crucifix-shaped board, the aftermath being possibly one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen in a wrestling ring.
Next comes thumbtacks and, rather than being the climax, they serve as an…ahem backdrop to an ever-escalating series of violent moves that leave both men covered from head to toe in the lil’ pointy buggers.
Eventually, after more than 20 minutes of this brutality, Jun wins the match. I use “wins” in the loosest sense of the word..
Now I know how it must have felt to see all those Christians fed to the lions back in Roman times.
* This “you-won’t-believe-it-till-you-see-it” match is available from Matwarz @ www.ringwarz.com/.