IWA MS Shutting Down Operations

[X]

We regret to inform all of our wonderful fans that after 13 years of doing business, IWA Mid-South will cease operations after the Kings of the Crimson Mask show on Friday night August 28th.

We simply do not have the money in order to continue doing business. It breaks our hearts that this day has finally come but we just can't hang on any longer.

If you have placed any ticket orders for TPI or the Double Death/Anniversary show, please print out a copy of your paypal receipt and mail it to the PO Box in Morris.

IWA Mid-South
PO Box 647
Morris, IL 60450

We do not have internet access anymore so please do not send emails as we do not know when we would be able to view them. The fastest way to get refunds would be to send the copy of the receipts from paypal to the PO Box so we can have them in hand to know who is owed what.

If you purchased TPI tickets and have the tickets in your possession, please send a picture of the tickets since we do not have records of who actually received their tickets.

Kings of the Crimson Mask in Bellevue will be our final show. Necro Butcher will not be on the show as we can not afford to bring him in for the event anymore.

The new main event for the final show will be Ian Rotten vs. Mad Man Pondo.

IWA is going to go out like they came in in a rematch from the first ever main event.

I would like to thank everyone that has worked for IWA in the past, all the fans that have supported the product and all the people that have helped out along the way with security, selling merchandise, concessions, etc.

It has been a tremendous ride these last 13 years and it is heartbreaking to see it all come to an end like this.

I would type up more but it is too painful at this time.

Thank you.

Ian, Patti, Mickie, Jim, John Calvin

Source - http://pwinsider.com/article/40987/...uth-announces-they-are-shutting-down.html?p=1

Well, I knew this day would be coming pretty soon. Still a bit of a shock though to see one of the last few indies go under. They did feature a lot of shit garbage wrestling, but they also gave us quite a bit of classic match ups with guys like CM Punk, AJ Styles, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Hero, the list goes on and on. 13 years is a damn good run for an indy like that, and it's sad to see them shutting down operations. I'll miss some of the great stuff they gave us.

Thoughts everyone?

 

[jmt225]

Thoughts everyone?

I say... good. After that debacle where that kid got crushed for pretty much no reason, they deserve this. I don't think you had an internet connection when that ridiculous shit when down, X, so to give you and anyone else who didn't hear about it a rundown, here's what happened:

In mid June there was a thread on the C***** message board promoting IWA Deep South's upcoming death match tournament in October. One of the wrestlers announced for the show was "The White Lion" Mike Levy. Once a picture of Levy, as well as a couple matches, were posted on the board, many fans were sarcastically praising Levy as an amazing wrestler.

Levy is a North Carolina based wrestler who has very little actual training and works primarily for very small independent groups doing a hardcore style. In the matches posted on the internet he appears to have little regard for his own safety, let alone the safety of his opponents. Mike Burns suggested they use Levy as a funny little nod to the mock popularity he had received of late, which was a poor show of judgment on his part.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon's show. Mike Levy was booked as a replacement in a woman's tournament with the angle being he wanted to prove himself in death matches and wanted in the death match tournament, with Ian Rotten agreeing to his request but saying he'd have to do it in the woman's tournament. He faced Mickie Knuckles (Total Nonstop Action's Moose) in a fans bring the weapons match.

During the match Knuckles and Levy began to exchange shots that increasingly became stiffer. Levy eventually gave Knuckles a head butt between the eyes that gave her what was described to me as a bruise/bump the size of a golfball and the situation quickly deteriorated from there. Eventually the match ended with Knuckles winning, however that was not the end of the incident. After the match several members of the IWA Mid-South roster entered the ring and began assaulting Levy in what was described to me as a "gang style beating" that included weapons that were in the ring for the match. Even Ian Rotten's pre-teen son got involved in the melee. The beating was described to me by someone as "the worst beating they've ever seen" which covers a lot of ground considering some of the things they've seen.

There was some speculation among fans on the internet that this was in fact an angle, however that is not the case. Initially the reaction on C***** was excitement, however as the details of the brutality began to surface, thanks in part to posts made by IWA Mid-South commentator Ben Jordan, the response turned extremely negative.

Behind the scenes there were those who felt that he deserved what he got and they thought it was "great", while others used words such as "embarrassing" to describe the assault. For what it's worth Levy went to the locker room and was apparently marking out over it all, not realizing what exactly had gone on or simply didn't care. In my opinion that doesn't excuse what happened, though there are those who seem to be using that to do so.

The bottom line is that Mike Levy should never have appeared on the show, and no one should have been surprised when he ended up being unsafe. Someone who is barely trained, and thus does not know any better, certainly does not deserve to be beaten in such a manner, and any incident that did occur should not have taken place in front of the crowd. Regrettably this situation has overshadowed the rest of the weekend's festivities, which are annually among the IWA's biggest shows of the year.

It appears that the incident is going to be turned into an angle, as Levy has been told they'll be bringing him back. Whether or not that happens is uncertain. Levy attended the evening's event as a fan, and is reportedly excited about the possibility of coming back. source indywrestlingnews.com

Pathetic, huh? You'll never, ever read anything as unprofessional as this in the history of pro wrestling.

So, yeah... good fucking riddance, IWA Mid-South. Sure, we got CM Punk/Hero, Samoa Joe/Necro and some other great matches there, but those guys haven't been apart of that piece of shit organization for years now anyway. Seriously, IWA Mid-South hasn't put out a DVD worth purchasing since Punk's last show, and even that wasn't all that great outside of Punk's hour match against Delirious.

Here's hoping CZW's next. It's time for the Death Match style to finally die all together.

 

[X]

I say... good. After that debacle where that kid got crushed for pretty much no reason, they deserve this. I don't think you had an internet connection when that ridiculous shit when down, X, so to give you and anyone else who didn't hear about it a rundown, here's what happened:

Pathetic, huh? You'll never, ever read anything as unprofessional as this in the history of pro wrestling.

Yeah I was pretty appalled when I read that a few months back, what an unbelievably stupid thing to do, did Rotten really learn absolutely nothing from the Mass Transit incident?

So, yeah... good fucking riddance, IWA Mid-South. Sure, we got CM Punk/Hero, Samoa Joe/Necro and some other great matches there, but those guys haven't been apart of that piece of shit organization for years now anyway. Seriously, IWA Mid-South hasn't put out a DVD worth purchasing since Punk's last show, and even that wasn't all that great outside of Punk's hour match against Delirious.

They've had some very good matches, but yes, they've also had quite a bit of terrible garbage wrestling as well. I really enjoyed the work that Punk, Hero, Styles, and Guerrero among others did there though.

Here's hoping CZW's next. It's time for the Death Match style to finally die all together.

While I'm not a big fan of the death match wrestling that CZW does, they're another promotion that can still deliver a great straight-forward wrestling match when they want to.

But I agree...garbage wrestling needs to die. That shit was old when New Jack was doing it a decade ago, the US doesn't need to rip off every Japanese wrestling idea.

It's just sad to see any wrestling promotion close, even one run by a moron like Ian Rotten. The loss of IWA-MS is big for the indy scene, and put's alot of people out of dates they had already booked and desperately needed. Damn shame for those in the indy scene.

 

[Freddy4190]

Never cared for that death match bullshit. I don't understand the mentality with the fans or the wrestlers themselves that make them think that's a good wrestling match. Someone surrounded by C4 and being bludgeoned in the head repeatedly with glass bulbs and all kinds of shit? Nah. I know almost nothing about Indy's but after CM Punk debuted in the WWE, a few months after his Survivor Series match with DX I wanted to find out as much as possible about him and I looked up some of his IWA stuff. I enjoyed what I saw, him and.. um Delirious? I think? Indy noob, excuse me. I thought his promos were pretty badass and I enjoyed this new side of Punk i've never seen before. It's always sad to see a business go under, but it doesn't seem like they had much going for them anyways.

 

[X]

IWA MS wasn't really a deathmatch fed Freddy, not like CZW. They had a few death matches every so often, but they also had a hell of a lot of regular wrestling matches. There were actually some damn good matches in the promotion, I remember Eddie Guerrero having some excellent matches there during a break from the WWE.

Keep in mind though that this is Ian Rotten we're talking about here, and this is probably the 12th time they've announced they were going out of business, so I give it about a month before they start running shows again. They never close.