Combat Zone Wrestling, should it be viewed in a different light: Should it be viewed as more than just mindless hardcore matches?
CZW is NOT just mindless hardcore violence.
Yes, CZW may be ran by a bunch of idiots, it’s fans may be sick people just wanting to see blood and the death matches may be brutal and dangerous. However, this does NOT make the wrestling just hardcore mindless violence. CZW has had some amazing wrestlers pass through its ranks, the wrestlers use just about everything as a weapon including light tubes, glass, barbed wire, fire, cheese graters etc. The death matches always have blood and wrestlers cutting themselves, but ask yourself this, if it was just mindless violence, why haven’t they been closed down? Why have a lot of their roster gone on to find success? And how has there been no serious injuries?
The answer is that the CZW wrestlers are skilled performers who can entertain the fans with or without weapons. If you haven’t watched much of CZW, you may not believe me. However, unfortunately for CZW, their reputation precedes them, they are only known for their hardcore death matches and nothing else. This brings me to my first point…
CZW‘s quality wrestling matches are ignored.
CZW have an annual event know as ‘Best of the Best’, this tournament offers brilliant technical wrestling matches with very little use of weapons, don’t believe me? Have a look yourself;
Now, whilst there were hardcore matches at the event, none of them were in the actual tournament. So far there has been 9 ‘Best of the Best’ tournaments, all showcasing technical wrestling, however, CZW don’t get recognised for this, people only focus on their hardcore death matches.
CZW has been graced with some of the best high flyers and pure wrestlers in America, showing off fantastic athleticism and innovation, if CZW focussed more on this, they would be competing with ROH and Dragon Gate, because their high flyers really are something to behold. It’s a shame that CZW are known solely for their death matches, but even though they are, this doesn’t make it hardcore mindless violence because…
CZW’s Hardcore and Death matches take skill to perform and perform safely.
Have you ever taken a light bulb shot? A cheese grater to he head? Ran into barbed wire? Gone through a pane of glass? Actually I have done that last one, when I was 4 and I’m still scarred. Now when you think about it, it’s amazing that these wrestlers aren’t dying or seriously hurt, they would be if they were just performing mindless violence, but their not. There’s a huge amount of skill when doing a hardcore match, obviously people get hurt and cut, but the wrestlers have to make sure their opponents are safe and not at risk of serious injury or even death. Now let me ask you, how could they possibly be protected if CZW was just mindless violence? They couldn’t, to perform a high quality and relatively safe hardcore match it is necessary that you have…
High Quality performers.
CZW has been graced with some of the best wrestlers in the business today, including the current World Heavyweight Champion in the WWE. Here’s a short list of some of the alumni of CZW;
A.J. Styles, Alex Shelley, Amazing Red, Charlie Haas, Chris Sabin, CM Punk, Homicide, Hernandez, Jay Lethal, Justin Credible, Juventud Guerrera, Lance Hoyt, Low Ki, Petey Williams, Sabu, Sandman, Sonjay Dutt, Spike Dudley, Tajiri, Tatanka, Tommy Dreamer.
What an impressive list of wrestlers this is. Considering CZW has only been around 10 years, that’s a very impressive alumni list of very skilled performers, who had what it takes to entertain, not only in CZW, but in bigger promotions such as TNA or WWE. This is the reason CZW is NOT hardcore mindless violence, the impressive athletic skilled wrestlers. Now whilst CZW was ran by a total idiot in John Zandig who cared about nothing but violence and shocking people, if he had focussed more on his impressive roster of gifted wrestlers and their ability to thrive in and OUT of hardcore matches, CZW may be competing with the bigger indy’s like ROH or Dragon Gate.
Closing thoughts.
I don’t see how people can just call CZW mindless violence, I can understand that at times they have too many of these matches, it still takes a huge amount of skill to perform in one of these matches. CZW might be more well known for blood and gore and hardcore matches, but there is no doubt in my mind that they’ve had quality matches without weapons, considerably in the ‘Best of the Best’ tournament.
CZW has had some of the best talent in America work in their promotion, but it also has some amazing young stars to look out for, for example, Drake Younger, Sabian, Chuck Taylor, Carter Gray etc.
They have some of the best hardcore matches in the world, but they also have amazing high flyers that actually leave you saying holy shit. Let me leave you with a video to demonstrate some excellent aerial and wrestling ability in CZW;
