Necro Butcher & Toby Klein Go Bigger, But Not Better, at KotDM 2004

In 2003, Toby Klein and Necro Butcher secured a bit of indie wrestling infamy during their first round match at IWA: Mid South’s King of the Deathmatch when Toby hucked a VCR at Necro’s head. It’s a glorious moment of spontaneity in a kind of match — a fans bring the weapons deathmatch — that paradoxically doesn’t invite much of that kind of thing. There are, after all, so many kinds of weapon a fan can bring: a joke weapon, an elaborately constructed Saw trap-looking thing, or a disused home appliance. Plucked from the blood and glass and carnage of the match and colliding full-force with Necro Butcher’s head, that VCR is iconic, as is the match.

So you can’t blame anyone — Ian Rotten, the fan who brought a computer monitor — for falling into the common sequel trap of believing that bigger is better. King of the Deathmatch is a weekend-long affair, and a second fans bring the weapons match between two guys who had a particularly brutal one nearly a year to the day makes sense. What will the twisted freaks of Indiana come up with? How will the twisted freaks in the ring think of using all of that plunder? 

The computer monitor and how it’s employed are an immediate answer: something bigger and more outwardly dangerous than a VCR, thrown by Necro at Klein in a spot that both gives Necro a bit of revenge for the VCR bit while immediately clearing the ring of the dumbest thing someone brought with them from the local Goodwill. 

The issue, if you want to take issue with anything these two do, is that there’s nowhere to go but down after a spot like that, and they take much longer to get there. The giddiness of the first match’s other bits of plunder — a Papa Johns sign, a barbwire-wrapped lawn Santa — are gone, so there’s nothing else to build to in terms of delight or surprise, unless more glass is your idea of a good time. If that’s the case, hell yeah, brother — there’s so much of it here that for most of the match it sounds like Necro and Toby are walking around on a sea of broken plates — but if not, this one arguably peaks at the 40-second mark.

I would almost agree, but there’s something magnetic about Necro Butcher, about the way it seems like the whole world can change at the point of his fist. Two minutes in, Klein has recovered from having a computer take his face and has Necro writhing in glass on the tarped-off hardwood floor, but then he gets cracked in the jaw. Then Necro starts throwing vacant chairs. The VCR last year was brutal. The computer monitor, that’s fine. You couldn’t pay me to take any of the chairs Necro throws at Klein. There’s nothing cute or funny or even surreal about it — he’s a violent man doing violent things, and because you have a pro wrestling context for the chair, it somehow hurts worse. 

This is the last match on an 11-match card, the eighth deathmatch in a row, and the third of three fans bring the weapons matches on the show. The Oolitic Community Center is not particularly packed tonight, and the fans sitting on the floor are in a constant state of motion trying not to get caught in the crossfire, but there’s a palpable sense of exhaustion from them at the start, and CM Punk and Dave Prazak’s commentary runs into inside joke territory way, way too soon. Sometimes you’re shaken from this malaise by something sick – Klein powerbombing Necro off the bleachers, for instance — but for the most part I’m surprised that this one has a better reputation than its predecessor. Is it the part where Klein salts Necro’s wounds? The promise of weapons unused, like the crucifix bearing an nWo Sting doll or the mop with lightbulbs tied to the end of its strands? The fact that they work more spots? Or is it the length?

Most of that, I think, plays into a kind of patronizing view a lot of wrestling fans have of wrestlers who are mostly known for brawling, regardless of the level of brutality inherent to your Alley Fights, Street Fights, Hardcore Matches, or Death Matches. The sight of glass or thumbtacks or barbwire awakens the inner Hunter Hearst Helmsley in the back of some of our minds, so the inclusion of a big high spot like Necro’s senton atomico to the floor or the introduction of traditional wrestling narratives like a ref bump leading to a visual tap out victory for Necro that isn’t called because the ref is dealing with the glass in his back is the mark of something “better,” of two wrestlers wrestling, even if there is a bunch of shit in the ring. 

I don’t want to argue with an amalgamation of 9.0 and 10.0 reviews on Cagematch that say things like “Much to the shock of the announcers and everyone else, like a rose through hardcore wrestling concrete, a wrestling match threatened to break out a few times,” but I feel like I must: it’s the Wrestling Match trappings of this match that drag it down. Not much, mind you — this is a lot of fun and well worth the watch — but the impulse to do something different from their first singles match doesn’t lead them anywhere new or fresh. The big spots are cool, but they don’t go anywhere, there is no build or release. In the 2003 match, it’s all punches and weapon shots until the end, but there’s a desperation, a bleakness to the affair that’s hard to shake. The fans don’t move an inch, so Klein claws at a fan’s blue tank top while he’s getting mauled by Butcher, and there’s no commentary, so everything is soundtracked by Klein’s screams.

The atmosphere is just better in 2003, closer to the spirit of the sort of Japanese deathmatch tapes that’d make their way over to the US with no commentary, as if no words could pay witness to the spectacle of the carnage in the ring. It feels like a heavyweight superfight, too — tight and compact, turning on a dime on a punch or a weapon shot or a thrown VCR. If you want some wrestling narrative veggies to go along with this bloody meat, Klein spells it out for you when he says that he promised to make Necro Butcher bleed and succeeded. He’s the underdog in that match, and just when it looks like he’s managed to sway things his way he gets caught in a sleeper and ends up choked out. 

It’s a better match, and that is only made more clear by the 2004 follow-up’s multiple callbacks — the computer monitor, Klein’s late-match VCR pull, his attempted escape from the asiatic spike by using the few remaining unbroken light tubes in the ring — feeling like they’re firmly in the shadow of that first match. Maybe the point here is Toby Klein’s growth over the past year, that he’s not only capable of taking Necro Butcher to the limit, but of beating him. Fine. But there’s something about that notion, about this match in general, that feels a little too respectable, a little too much like both men are seeking validation for their skill after creating something that was already timeless.

It’s a game effort, but like many sequels I find myself with renewed appreciation for the original. That’s the way it happens sometimes — you get more time, a more hype, a better place on the card, and just like the sequel to a groundbreaking film it turns out that much of the charm of the first outing was what seemed, at the time, to be a limitation. 

Rating: *** & ¾