10 Most Painful-Looking Wrestling Matches Ever
1. Samoa Joe Vs. Necro Butcher - IWA Mid-South Something To Prove
This does count as a pro wrestling match, as best we can tell. It was a cooperative exercise in performance art. At some points, both men ran the ropes.
Elsewhere, this was the most infamous match of an infamous career. Necro Butcher, more avant-garde performance artist than pro wrestler, used light tubes in his other matches. He took DDTs on barbed wire boards. He took curb stomps, throat-first, on standing chairs. He took ladders to the back of the head. Broken beer bottles sliced across the forehead. Apocryphally, he also once considered chopping his finger off, with the intention of preserving it in ice for the post-match trip to a local medical facility.
And yet, this match was appreciably more disturbing, for its jelly-brained, concussive aura and gladiatorial atmosphere. The incredible work of Samoa Joe, with his brow furrowed more in anxiety than intensity, lent it a sense of realism in comparison to Necro's other, more convoluted stunt shows.
The opening seconds were incredible; Necro and Joe, to put this over as lawless horror show, laid waste to the ref before piling into one another's faces with sick forearms. Necro ran the ropes; Joe responded with an enzuigiri. Why bother slapping the thigh when, to create the necessary audible impact, you can simply crack, with full-force, the back of the head?
Blood spilled as the action spilled to the floor. Migraine-inducing headbutts were thrown, as were chairs, and chairs, and chairs, directly into Joe's face. Necro didn't take moves "properly", putting this over as something distressingly none-too-real. He didn't rotate when taking body slams and overhead suplexes, instead choosing to absorb the impact on his crimson-soaked forehead.
The commentary team legit squealed for the full ten minutes, like kids swarming a fight, because that is precisely what it was.