The Best Version of RVD vs. Necro Butcher Is In Your Head
Sometimes a dream match should stay a dream. Or the blurry smear of a screenshot. Either or, really.
I’m gonna be up front with y’all and say that this is not a good wrestling match. It’s so shoddily constructed that it’s not even a good soapbox for my usual anti-triple threat match screed, and it’s so lazily wrestled that I now find myself completely disinterested in the rest of Rob Van Dam’s wilderness years between his 2007 departure from WWE and his 2010 debut in TNA. It’s not that Van Dam had nothing in the tank at this point, but the change of scenery and circumstance seemingly did little to inspire him the way it would Rey Mysterio a few years later. Given that his 12 matches from 2008 take place in Portugal, Spain, and Japan, it’s not unfair to speculate that this match was more about the paid holiday than about testing himself. That’s fine and all, but you kind of get the feeling, a moment or two into the match, that this is the least interesting part of Van Dam’s trip. Toru Yano isn’t even around to steal his taunt.
With due respect to Inoki loyalist Kendo Kashin, the draw here is seeing RVD share a ring with Necro Butcher, whose aura really takes a hit when the intro to “Freebird” is cut awkwardly and replaced with standard-issue J-rock. There are shockingly few RVD matches against the generation of independent wrestlers who built the post-ECW scene – there’s a triple threat against Pac and M-Dogg in Spain, a 1PW match against Davey Richards that I can’t imagine is any good, and a PWG triple threat against Chris Hero and Roderick Strong in the period between his WWE and TNA runs, but the money in those days was in ECW nostalgia and putting him in the ring with fellow WWE exiles, so this is as exotic as things get.
Unfortunately, it’s Kashin taking most of Necro’s punches and chops, and Kashin dishing out most of the offense on RVD. Every now and again Van Dam looks at Necro Butcher in total bewilderment, like he’s watching the world’s most violent Moondog stomp around a high school gym, his six years in WWE leaving him completely clueless as to what to do with that sort of wrestler. Hit him with a chair, maybe? Hell no — the match’s one chair shot is for Kendo Kashin, it’s the tower of doom for ol’ Necro. Inokism is a sham!
As disappointing as that may sound, there are some pleasures to be had here. A lot of this match involves either Necro, Van Dam, or Kashin going “aw, fuck it” and bailing from the ring so that two guys can work an awkward spot, but in the brief moments when Necro and Van Dam physically interact, there’s a little spark of anti-chemistry that reminds me of RVD’s partnership/rivalry with Sabu, only here the part of Sabu is played by a lumbering oaf. The best bits of this match play on that dynamic, whether it’s Van Dam faking out Necro while he’s basing for a double team move in the corner to hit him with a dropkick instead, Van Dam dropkicking the guardrail Necro is trying to hit Kashin with into Necro, or a legitimately thrilling stage dive from Van Dam to a brawling Necro and Kashin.
Most of this is reaction to the chaos Necro Butcher brings to the table. He doesn’t get too crazy here, but after he throws a Hulk Hogan-level belt shot at Kendo Kashin, things pick up. Kashin helps a lot by responding with a belt shot to Necro that issues like a shotgun, as if he was animated by the spirit of Toby Klein, the faux IWGP title he ends up surrendering to RVD a VCR in his hands. Necro bleeds from this, really tapping a gusher on the outside, and seeing red makes him turn the match into the sort of midcard brawl you’d see on a Spring Stampede or Uncensored.
Again, it’s not Cactus Jack getting hit in the face with a shovel or Raven/DDP/Benoit, but Necro Butcher is one of wrestling’s great improv brawlers, capable of turning anything into a weapon. When he hits Kashin with a guardrail, it’s with the whole row of guardrails. When he sees a tree at the foot of the stage, he tries to use it. The sequence on the outside, beginning with Necro bulldogging Van Dam on the elevated walkway to the ring and concluding with Van Dam jumping over a rail on the stage to get back into things, is very fun, as close to what you want from the gaudy freakshow promised by the names on the marquee as you’re going to get. It’s a shame there wasn’t a money mark out there who ran Van Dam and Necro as a tag team, though — I think there was something there.
Once Necro is gone, the match turns to ass real quick, as Van Dam had already fallen out of rhythm with what was going on and Kashin isn’t able to make the disjointed nature of things between them feel like a feature instead of a bug. Simon Inoki gets involved, distracting the ref while Kashin is trying to sink in an armbar, an extremely punishing moment of time as I think Inoki is trying to alert the referee to the armbar. It’s a very feeble bit of sports entertainment that ends in Inoki taking a Five Star Frog Splash, which you’re only going to get once tonight, so what Kashin takes the fall to is a Rolling Thunder.
At least their fumbling around includes a pretty cool take on the Tarantula, where Kashin arcs over the ropes with Van Dam’s head in a figure four, RVD’s flexibility really making it look brutal, otherwise the match was better off ending when Necro got eliminated. Some of it is fun enough, but if you close your eyes and think hard enough, you can dream up an infinitely better version of Rob Van Dam vs. Necro Butcher than what we got.
Rating: * & 1/2