Colette and Joseph Discuss Cage of Death: Team ROH vs. Team CZW
A perfect match? A perfect match?
Hey! Colette here! Joseph and I wanted to say thank you for checking BIG EGG out this week — this project grows every day, but it turns out that a lot of people are pretty fond of the ROH/CZW Cage of Death Match, resulting in our biggest spike of new subscribers since launch week. So we’re making our usual Sunday discussion of the week’s match free to all. In any case, why not stick around for awhile?
If you like it and decide to become a paying subscriber, you’ll receive early access to Joseph’s best of the month feature and my upcoming YANO STUDIES series on the brilliance of Toru Yano, the Greatest Wrestler of All Time. You’ll also gain access to these Sunday conversations in full. Next month, those conversations are going to be about SHIMMER. We’re pretty stoked.

Anyhow, there’s not a whole lot to say about this match by way of introduction, so let’s get going!
Joseph: The ROH vs. CZW Cage of Death Is Perfect
Colette: The Team ROH vs. Team CZW Cage of Death Match Is a Careful Balancing Act

Joseph Anthony Montecillo
Obviously, we both knew that Cage of Death is one of the Big Ones as far as matches to talk about. It's commonly cited as one of the greatest matches of all time, a peak among peaks from the 2000s super indie boom. Even then, I don't know that I expected our coverage of it to have such an effect that we basically sparked an entirely out of season nostalgiafest for this match. I think it speaks to the lasting legacy this match has, and how deeply it affected all those that have seen and enjoyed it. Did you expect the kind of reaction that the match brought out of people online?
Colette Arrand
Not at all, but it makes sense. It is one of those matches that is a Moment in Time, and one whose influence is keenly felt in terms of the talent involved. The only wrestlers here who haven't made it to mainstream TV or creative are Nate Webb and Necro Butcher, and I think the lowest bar for everybody is that they make it into something like the Independent Wrestling Hall of Fame. Rather than saying we're out of season for nostalgia about this match, I guess there's always the potential for something this good to go wide, like a Dusty Rhodes promo or an Attitude Era pop, only a bit sneakier because maybe you haven't seen the people you watch on Raw or Dynamite in this context. This match has a lot of hooks.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
That's very true. As with a lot of truly classic wrestling, there's a timelessness to it too. Even with the surface level trappings of this being a CZW stipulation match in a mid-2000s indie rivalry, there's actually nothing too outlandish here. Certainly, there's grosser violence in matches we've covered this month. And even as the "ultraviolent" contingent, the CZW wrestlers take far more too classic heel tactics than deathmatch wildness.
Colette Arrand
Yeah, despite the fact that the match ends on a pinfall, this is classic WarGames. It is content to explore the provided space, and if something happens that's outside the expected, so much better. We're playing with classic tropes and working at a classic pace, and nothing that finds its way into the match hasn't at some point made its way into mainstream wrestling — even barbwire and forks were mainstays of territory-era violence.
A lot of dorks who watch this sport say that it's impossible to beat tradition. I think this match is so good because it doesn't even try. Here are a bunch of guys who grew up watching WarGames running a WarGames match. You have your stooges and your hero moments and the spectacle of a wrestling ring full of bodies and blood and things that hurt much worse than a cravat. It even has a guy who worked those matches. Maybe you don't expect tradition given who is in the ring, but then again maybe you should.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
I think 2000s indies work has stayed so resonant with so many people because it's at a perfect crossroads in time where a group of wildly talented workers were drawing from some of the most critically acclaimed wrestling of all time. The WarGames stipulation obviously gives that away, but then you have the wild suplexes and head drops from 90s All Japan, the sort of innovative offense mastered by beloved junior heavyweights, the blood and guts of FMW, Puerto Rico, Mid South, all of it. And executed by guys who, to varying degrees, just Got It.
Colette Arrand
It's a real melting pot. The most surprising thing is that they were able to pull it off, honestly. Interpromotional feuds are somewhat more common elsewhere, particularly in Japan, but are relatively rare in the United States, probably due to the egos involved. One reason why this match works so well is because it feels real, and to some extent it is. The fans are partisan. ROH's opinion of CZW is not uncommon. I imagine that there was real heat somewhere in all of this, but it manages to stay contained to promos and matches. I've used the word "miracle" to describe a couple of things we've covered, and you did for this match, but here the miraculous element isn't just that it's so good, but that it happened at all.
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Joseph Anthony Montecillo
It really is quite something. And perhaps one of the things that neither of us have quite touched on yet is that, for my money at least, this is the last stand of WarGames as a stipulation. There'll be Lethal Lockdowns and WarGames and Blood & Guts matches to follow, but I don't really think any of them quite capture that same magic that's here. It's a match that has all the best qualities of those old WCW WarGames matches, that sense of danger permeating everything, and a red hot crowd that's with every single entrant.
Colette Arrand
The dirty secret about WarGames is that a fair number of those matches are bad, and the things that are bad about them have bled into modern interpretations as much as the good ones. The last time WCW got anything right about a WarGames match was when Sting became Crow Sting, and Danielson's interaction with Joe is like a shitheel inversion of that — he is selfish and he does not give a fuck about the fate of his promotion, and that betrayal flips the script on the match so that it functions as intended, with the heels having the advantage until Homicide hits the ring.
The new stuff, or at least what I've seen, is trying to blend modern television wrestling sensibilities with a warped understanding of classic match structure. Cage of Death doesn't have those pretensions, or the pretensions of later, more complicated Cage of Death matches. It finds ways to be new, but the way it hits its marks as a planned out gimmick match is, like you said, really the last gasp of the format, some 12 years removed from the previous great WarGames match.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
There's something to be said too about how a setting like this can actively aid the workers involved. All due respect to them, but BJ Whitmer, Adam Pearce, and Ace Steel are not really the names of this era people turn to when we talk about "greatest match of all time" potential. But this is a match that allows greatness if you just fulfill what's asked for you. For the babyfaces, it's simple. Cause havoc when you step in, bleed your guts out and bump for the rest of it. And all three of those guys do well with that expectation, Ace Steel's entry with the cowbell especially stands out in the memory.
Colette Arrand
They're perfect for the environment — tough guys who can throw a good punch and, in Whitmer's case, a hell of an exploder. Guys you want if you're expecting a brawl, and guys whose reputation can sustain an extended period where they're getting beaten down. ROH's hopes, pre-Homicide, are almost entirely pinned on Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson. You see what they're capable of, then that gets cut off. Ring of Honor is meant to lose that match because its leaders planned poorly. But in the end, they're willing to cheat, to stoop below CZW's level, and Homicide's energy is such that ROH's three non-stars are able to rally around their new leader's undeniable vibe.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
With something as grand as Cage of Death too, there's a lot of small details that contribute which can get lost in all the spectacle. For example, the choice to not have commentary on this match is perfect, and also highlights just how cleverly everything is structured. There's a lot of story going on here — Hero and Kingston's very tense ceasefire, Bryan's betrayal of the home team, Homicide's eventual rescue — and none of it is unclear in the slightest or incoherent despite no one talking into our ears to explain it all.
Colette Arrand
As you're aware, I saw this without months of prior matches or promos in my ear. I'm new here, basically. But none of that is necessary — everything is clearly signposted, even Hero's introduction of Kingston, which is interrupted when he takes a garbage can to the dome.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
Peak of Ace Steel's career, I'm pretty sure. Even the referees get in on the action here. There's a rather tense moment between Bryce Remsburg and Todd Sinclair on the floor that has its own little pay off. When Homicide finally hits the climactic Cop Killa, Bryce leaps onto the apron to dispute the call or otherwise interfere only for Pearce to rip him back down to the floor as Todd counts the winning fall. Amazing stuff from literally everyone in the octagon.
Joseph Anthony Montecillo
Next month, we'll be doing our very first promotion-centric month of BIG EGG. As announced in the LGBT in the Ring podcast, March is an all SHIMMER month, and we're kicking it off with one of the promotion's first truly memorable feuds. We're settling in to the Berwyn Eagles Club to see Sara del Ray vs. Mercedes Martinez from Volume 5!