Battleground of Brutality – A Review of RISE Underground: Games of Death III!
Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another Severed Cinema Deathmatch rasslin’ review! It’s been a long time because my Severed brother, Chris can only take so much. However, recently I did an interview with the legendary, Mad Man Pondo (see Beyond the Ring: Inside the Twisted Universe of Deathmatch Legend Mad Man Pondo here) and that was a hit among many.
Usual bit now, my genesis into this territory of wrestling — when I was a lil’ Creepy child, we had cable TV and, aside from WWF, now and then old school promotions would pop up such as Southwest, Florida and many more. Now these obviously had a huge array of grapplers and brutes passing through, but there were also the monsters that were wrestlers and hardcore brawlers. Abdullah the Butcher, Bruiser Brody, and the Sheepherders (later to become something horrible in the WWF) bled everywhere, set fire to people, pounded victims into oblivion and so on. My young mind was captivated. These guys were something else!
Fast forward to 2005ish and I watched a copied DVD of CZW’s Tournament of Death III. Next level insanity. Around that time there was a wrestling channel on Sky, that also fed me with the so-called indie companies, you know what? Fuck WWF/WWE and that shit!
What is it about Deathmatches? Yeah, it’s the blood and sheer violence, but there’s much more. It’s like the territory era of rasslin’ all over again, when people could move company to company, do so much more than what the bigger promotions do. It’s about the comradeship. It’s about the intergender thing. Women are the same as the men in this world, they fight and bleed buckets against the men. It’s about the mixture of lumbering beasts who just hit ‘n’ pour blood against the technical hi flying technicians in a match filled with a mass of weapons. It’s not for everyone. To most it’s outlaw mud show garbage. And it absolutely is that!
So, RISE is one of a few UK-based wrestling places that have Deathmatch as a predominant factor in the shows. Their home city isn’t too far away from my own, and they regularly appear in my city, Hull, twenty minutes walk from our house. My Partner in Gore, Willow, my two sons, and I went last year (all of ‘em are so deeply into Deathmatch, in fact, my youngest son, Kane is deeper obsessed than I am!) with a friend to an event that had been hit with some trouble. Due to being sued because someone was hit by glass in a place that you know the risks entering, especially on the front row as we all found out (more on this later) thus only a few matches were bloody.
RISE Underground: Games of Death III, however, promised to be the biggest UK (probably Euro) Deathmatch event ever. Historic because a handful of big USA wrestlers from the company, ICW (I’ve reviewed a couple of their things) were setting foot on British land (first time for two of em) alongside some of the biggest UK names like Big F’n Joe, Iceman, and Lou Nixon. Joe has won tournaments in places such as the above mentioned, CZW, appeared in XPW (see review of Xtreme Pro Wrestling: Killafornia Deathmatch Wrestling here) and done so much. RISE and ICW have an ongoing healthy relationship that has gone on for a few years. Long may it reign. GOD III was the first of three huge events over the weekend — we were at all of ‘em of course.
Okay, onto the big day. I’d contacted a couple of folks via a Facebook Deathmatch group (including a wonderful fella who sold me a load of t-shirts cheap) and meanwhile the page filled with posts by people arriving in the UK, or travelling hours across Britain, to some turning up in our city looking for the best place to drink and eat. Big Joe picked up a Japanese legend, Abdullah Kobayashi from the airport then took him to an English pub, finally for a few sausage rolls at a Greggs. This was building up to be something…
Deathmatch Wrestling attracts a ton of metalheads, oddballs, weird freaks, and standard rasslin’ looking fans, all queuing for over an hour with us outside the building. Willow and I had grabbed a few snacks and drinks from the ASDA nearby (Walmart to the USA folks), seeing Lou Nixon walking in for a bite to eat. Whilst in line, we chatted to a few people, Abdullah came out to look at us all, talking in broken English. Quite a big turnout from far and wide.
Once we were all in, my lads and their friend, Miles, propped up the guard rail in front of the main camera, whilst me and Willow grabbed a couple of seats prime central view of the ring. I had a few texts from the boys laughing at us, “You fucked up” etcetera. I’d paid for these seats and was damn well using ‘em! So, what they were going to be seen on TV and DVD over and over?
After a few intros from the company owners plus warnings about shattered glass and if a wrestler is near you, get out of the way or be at risk, things kicked off with ICW boss, Danny DeManto versus UK legend, Clint Margera in a non tournament match. Almost instantly due to a few light tube strikes, Clint’s head split open around his eye and gushed crimson, causing him a lot of issues but he got taped up then did everything one eyed. Both guys take a lot of punishment, this is hard hitting as hell. On DVD you have commentary from RISE owner, Danny O’Doherty and he’s unbelievable. Down to earth pure British, so many “Fookin’ ‘ells,” “It’s fooked!” and “Pissin’ ‘im orrff!” shouts among his incredible arsenal of enthusiastic vents really warms the heart.
Match two is the first tournament one, the UK’s heavy drinking, Danny Darko (wow, there’s so many Danny’s around here) against a massive USA name, Atticus Cogar. Atticus is in his late 20s and has been doing this since 2015. What he’s accomplished and the image he’s created is utterly phenomenal. He leads a faction called the 440H! across many companies plus his mannerism is totally villain to the max. This one had a lot of traditional wrestling which had us all chanting “Wrestling!” then loads of folks cringed as Atticus stabbed skewers into Darko’s shoulder, arm, forehead, and mouth. I managed to grab a handful afterwards off the floor, hehehe. However, my eldest son, Jack pocketed a chunk of light tube covered in blood, little twat!
Next, we have Krule. I’ve mentioned him in a prior review for ICW (see review of ICW: No Hold’s Barred 19 Deathmatch Horror Story here) and he’s a spectacle. Nearly seven feet tall, dominant, wearing a fantastic mask and eye contacts. Seeing him in person is another matter altogether. The whole room changes. I think a majority of us bearing witness to this tower of meat felt the same (I saw my boy’s faces genuinely fall as he strode over the ropes into the ring). His match against second gen wrestler, Jack Harrop (Iceman’s son) is eighty per cent one sided as Krule obliterated him. Blood all over the place. Krule can be hit by whatever and shrug it off. He walked along the sides of the ring and snarled into Kane’s face. Kane says his expression is a genuine look of fear as he didn’t expect it. Kane also got loads of Krule’s blood on him later that night.
Big F’n Joe battled Michael Caden in a brilliantly presented bloody back and forth war, Joe is another guy who must be seen live to really appreciate. Fifth match of the night was Iceman taking on Abdullah. Abdullah got on the mic, “I love…. fish and chips!” which started one of the weekend’s best chants from the crowds. Both men fought out into the street at one point, soaked in blood. In fact, the area is one of the rougher parts of Hull so I doubt passers-by would have been bothered.
The only dull match of the weekend came next, ICW’s Tommy Vendetta against Emersyn Jayne. Didn’t build up to anything. However, the next day and night (many of these workers were pulling triple duty) both absolutely delivered against other people. Emersyn particularly took a nasty bump to her head from the metal side of the ring the next night.
One of the best of the night, for me, was the upcoming and fantastic, BA Rose challenging Lou Nixon for the European Deathmatch Championship. This is carnage. Lou is a bad ass bastard, but BA Rose is a big guy who is hard to take down. The grand finale has the winners of the tournaments smash each other to pieces all over the place. There is no doubt whatsoever that the winner deserves everything. Totally beautifully violent.
This event (and the two ICW ones from the next day) are on IWTV (really cheap to subscribe for over 200 rasslin’ companies) whilst RISE Underground: Games of Death III is out on DVD via their website here. If it doesn’t appear on there at the time, here is their email: riseprowrestling@gmail.com.
So, a few bits and pieces from the whole weekend. We all got covered in glass, yep, it’s real glass. We spoke with a few of the wrestlers (pics below). Atticus nearly broke his legs in a match. Some goons front row near me and Willow apparently moved a table out of position so when he fell, he as good as missed. He told Kane that he noticed out of the corner of his eye but did it anyway. The boys saw Krule unmasked. Willow, some lady, and I were chatting to divert our eyes. He’s real to us! We didn’t want to see! Krule choked Willow for a pic. Abdullah wandered around at the intervals and afterwards eating pizza and talking to everyone. A very loud American near us spent most of the Saturday chanting “USA!” The heckling and chants through all three events are hilarious. Danny DeManto stated afterwards that the UK crowds are so into it (personal addition, when me and him shook hands, he still had his blood on him, I said I’d take his DNA and make an army of Dannys. “There’s only one me.” he warned) and whilst the crowd chanted, “Tommy is a wanker!” Tommy Vendetta’s tag team partner, MM3 said, “I didn’t know what a wanker was ‘til now. Apparently, it’s Tommy!” He had the best line of the weekend for me on night two as the gathering multitude chanted, “Who are ya?” He said loudly to everyone, “Who am I? I’m the guy you suck the dick of every time you buy my merch.” Solid gold.
I also found a seedy shady wrestling DVD in the men’s toilets not far from a pint of piss (see review for Human Cockfighting ’96 here).
I’ve been to a few rasslin’ shows in my time, but without a doubt this one (and the whole trilogy over two days) was the best for atmosphere, blood n fun. Highly worth watching on IWTV or the DVD.
Special mention goes to Mittens, the man with the best brush skills in the world of wrestling. Long may you reign sweeping the glass and fuckery.
Produced by: RISE Underground
Music by: Various
Cast: Danny DeManto, Danny Darko, Krule, Atticus Cogar, Iceman, Abdullah Kobayashi, Big Joe, BA Rose, Lou Nixon, Clint Margera, Jack Harrop, Emersyn Jayne, Michael Caden, MM3, Tommy Vendetta, Shiny Shoes, Mittens
Year: 2024
Country: UK
Language: English
Color: Colour
Runtime: 2h 30min
Distribution: RISE Underground
