This was an oddly dry barbed-wire match, with both guys getting some scratches, but no visible blood. It probably had too many things going on-not sure if you need skewers and ladders and tables in a match that already has barbed wire-but for a 2010s stunt show, it had some very big stunts. The finish was pretty wild, with Santana sticking wooden skewers into Dave Crist’s head and suplexing him off a ladder through tables. Jack Crist entered the match in an all-white shirt, jeans, and vest combo like a cater waiter I was very excited to see the outfit covered in red, but he somehow escaped the match with it still shining white. Impact is a promotion that isn’t afraid to get red, but despite a cut or two on the arms or back, this didn’t really get bloody. Homicide was the star, taking very big bumps for a guy with some miles on him, including: getting thrown chest-first into the barbed wire, exchanging fork shots with Callihan, and, in my favorite moment of the match, pulling out a bottle of Patrón Silver and pouring it all over Sami’s cuts. This was a match in which all six guys clearly had a lot of ideas, and could have probably used an editor. It was advertised as being “too violent for TV,” airing instead on Impact’s Twitch channel. This match-dubbed Barbed Wire Massacre III-was a six-man stunt show between the oVe team of Sami Callihan and the Crist brothers taking on LAX (Homicide, Santana, and Ortiz). Sabu rolled on top and pinned Funk to win the title, but it was hard to watch them scream in pain as they had to be cut out. This intertwined them both in a ball of barbed wire, and they just rolled around the ring stuck together like necklace chains stored together in a jewelry box.

For his second dive, Sabu wrapped himself and Funk in wire and put him through a table. Rob Van Dam came out to attack Funk and set him up for a dive with Sabu wrapped in barbed wire. Funk was the babyface in this match, but it was hard to root for him as he ripped off Alfonso’s shirt and raked his back bloody. Funk had to vamp a bit while Sabu recovered, and he violently beat on tiny Alfonso with a fist covered in barbed wire. That threw off even Sabu, and he had Bill Alfonso help him by taping the wound shut with athletic tape. The match fell off the rails when Sabu missed an Air Sabu dive off the chair and landed hard on the wire, slicing his bicep wide open. There was some early circling and punching, with both guys tasting the wire. Funk was 53 years old and the ECW World Heavyweight champion, defending against ECW icon Sabu, who at the time was working a WWF invader gimmick. Terry FunkĪ grisly, messy match, but certainly a memorable one. I could have done without the three-on-one Good Brothers run-in finish-which left the ending of the match feeling a little flat-although if the time-bomb spot looked better, that would have been forgiven, but it was a dud, and that is why the match is so low on the list. A lot of the early teases looked good: they built well to the impact of the first falls into the wire and the paradigm shift into the barbed-wire landmine was really nasty looking, even if the landmine didn’t look great. I loved the spot when Moxley broke up the pin after Omega’s finisher, the One-Winged Angel, by kicking the wire and setting off an explosion.

It was so bad the crowd started booing, which was a bummer because both guys worked really hard. Unfortunately, if you add a time bomb to a match, the explosions have to look good, especially the final explosion here, it looked like crap, like a couple of 12-year-olds lighting sparklers. Omega used Onita’s Thunder Fire powerbomb, Bryce Remsburg was dressed in the same sort of Hurt Locker suit as the ref in the FMW match, and the sacrifice by Eddie Kingston was very similar to the Onita sacrifice. Onita match (which we will discuss later). This “Exploding Barbed Wire” death match was a great effort from both wrestlers, a match with some very clever and well-done spots that has one famous fatal flaw: This was AEW’s attempt to do its version of the Funk vs.

Broken watcher chronicles matches