That Wrestling DVD I Found in the Men’s Toilets – A Review of ‘Human Cockfighting ’96!’
I’m the Severed Cinema Deathmatch Wrestling guy, as many will have figured out by now via old reviews and my recent interview with Mad Man Pondo (see Beyond the Ring: Inside the Twisted Universe of Deathmatch Legend Mad Man Pondo here). This time around it’s gonna be something very different – however, allow me to tell you a quick story as to how I obtained this random oddity of a rasslin DVD.
My Partner in Gore, Willow, my two sons, and I attending a huge Deathmatch Wrestling weekend event; three shows over two days in my city, via RISE and ICW No Holds Barred, whom I’ve reviewed before once or twice (see reviews for ICW: No Hold’s Barred 19 Deathmatch Horror Story here and Impact Championship Wrestling: No Holds Barred Vol 6 here) and mid-way through the blood and gore of day two, I headed to the men’s toilets.
The circumstances were set up to perfection. Within the urine-smelling-graffiti-coated toilets stood two broken down cubical doors, a pint glass that someone had pissed into and filled to the brim, water all over the floor, and sitting on top of a sink basin, a very dodgy shady looking copied DVD in a case — Extremely Strange Wrestling: Human Cockfighting ’96. Since nobody was around it had obviously been left behind for me, so it entered my pocket.
Now, aside from Deathmatch and Mexican rasslin, I simply love trash wrestling, the trashier the better, yet I’d never heard of this promotion. After many hours of witnessing hardcore bloodshed and us being showered with glass, I researched a bit. It’s considered to be the most offensive show of its era — a time where the WWF was stepping into its Attitude phase, when ECW was around, when IWA was just beginning. This was a wild west time in pro wrestling so to be deemed the most offensive? Well… Wrestlers with names such as The Rapist, and The Abortionist (he carries a coat hanger with him) that gives you an idea.
A very short-lived company, but it goes like this — all very well having shock value names, etcetera, but is it actually any good? “This is something beyond violent, this is something beyond sick…” says a bearded guy as a long introduction and he properly emphasizes how sick and twisted this shit will be. I assume he’s the owner, I have no idea as there isn’t much info on the web to confirm nor deny (this is incorrect as he appears later on).
The title card with The Doors playing in the background, “…when you’re strange….” is a nice touch, then we go to our first wrestler (JR Benson) and his promo is how he went to the commissioner, Paul E and demanded the most insane sickest dangerous match ever. Pauley drooled a little bit, took a sip, took a piss on his leg (cue quick clip of a dude urinating on a car) and listened. “Paul E! What is the most feared thing in the country today?” It turns out after a long energetic speech, he wants an AIDS needle match. Each needle in the ring must be tested and be full of AIDS. He’s going against the before mentioned Rapist later on, so that’ll be a treat. Paul E agreed it, of course.
Chop edit to the homeless guy who was pissing on the car. He’s laughing and swigging a bottle. Then there’s a quick interview with some bloke called, Redrum Ron Head (our intro bloke). He’s calling out to all of their “junkie drug addicted fans…” to send their needles over so this match can happen. There’s more build-up stuff, and the homeless fella talking (big twist, he’s Paul E!!!), then a woman called Brenda is lap dancing in the wrestling ring for $5. Okay, so this is starting to drag a fair bit, all yapping, the bite had better be worth it.
Redrum is the MC of the event, he explains how for the AIDS match (the camera zooms in on a box of needles by the side of the ring) the competitors must be cut by a razor blade hanging at the side every chance they get; thus the AIDS can infect them quicker. What the fuck? To be fair, the match itself is okay, fun, bloody, violent, Redrum’s voice constantly becomes annoying, but hey ho.
Things slow down forever afterwards as we have back scenes shit, more of Redrum talking trash in the ring, shaving a man’s head, then The Abortionist comes out masked to fight another masked bloke. It all winds up as The Abortionist is about to shove a coat hanger up Brenda (or was it The Rapist attacking her? I was across the room changing CDs at the time and glanced once or twice) before she’s saved by JR who threatens him with a huge dildo wrapped in barbed wire…
Enough of me describing all of Human Cockfighting ’96, I have to leave some surprises if you can find it anywhere. Throughout there’s loads of clips intercut, homeless Paul E, old interviews from the territory days of rasslin, wow, even Chicken John, ex-member of The Murder Junkies is shown slapping himself ala the Hated documentary (see review for Hated: GG Allin & the Murder Junkies here) for a few spontaneous seconds. JR confirms that both he and The Rapist are now HIV positive, by the way. The Rapist was at that time running around trying to take advantage of every woman he could and infect them, as you do.
Extremely Strange Wrestling: Human Cockfighting ’96 is below maggot level trash, but quite watchable for about fifty percent of the time. It’s kind of like Bumfights with a bit of passable wrestling. The gang only did a few shows, the follow up and final one was Breaking Kayfabe and had JR vs The Rapist one last time destroying themselves with everything in the building apparently.
There’s really not that much information on this nowadays, but JR Benson put a book out in the mid-2000s called Extremely Strange (see here). Plus, there’s a YouTube channel which hasn’t been used for a few years. JR Benson was a name on the underground for a while however, hanging out and selling drugs to various now big-name wrestlers, influencing a few characters, and he was around certain promotions when they were in their early days, witnessing some wild things (written about in his autobiography).
Had I not found this disc in the way I did I wouldn’t have reviewed it, but the stars and the pint of piss aligned that moment to discover something new and low. As much as half of the footage bored me or frustrated me, I couldn’t look away. It’s extraordinary and a capsule holding offensive humour now lost in this modern world. I was born in 1974, I’ve seen some crazy shit in my years, on TV and in front of me, but Human Cockfighting ‘96 is genuinely one of a kind.
Massive respect to JR — he’s a huge GG Allin fan.
You can see it right here; this has some extra matches whatever at the end that I haven’t watched as I only viewed the DVD. Thank me or hate me later…
