♪
When people say,
"What's the roughest match you ever saw?"
[Crowd] Oh!
That's the one, that's... man.
If I could describe that match in one word...
- [screaming] - Oh!
It was real.
It was shocking at times.
It's personal.
It was unbelievable.
[Narrator] One of the most brutal wrestling matches ever
took place far from the big leagues.
This wasn't on national television.
This was in Philadelphia, in the arena.
[Narrator] It happened on the independent wrestling
circuit in the early 2000s.
They were two guys at the tops of
their own mountains.
Samoa Joe was carrying the flag
of pro wrestling.
Undeniably a world champion level talent.
I'm Samoa fucking Joe.
I know how to whip somebody's ass.
And then you had Necro Butcher, man...
who was king of the deathmatches.
Necro Butcher was the wild-eyed monster
of deathmatch wrestling.
When he'd just punch the guy in the face,
the fans heard the punch connect.
[Announcer] Oh!
Necro would just plain kick your head in.
He was also in this movie called The Wrestler.
There's a fine line between madness and genius,
and that was Necro.
[Necro] The mainstream wrestlers,
they thought I was beneath them.
So, when I got Samoa Joe to fight me,
I wanted to show the world what I could do.
[Narrator] For Necro Butcher,
it was an opportunity for redemption.
This match had an air of danger.
This is not fake.
They just beat the shit out of each other.
The energy was like, you know,
somebody's gonna die tonight.
[Announcer] Holy!
[Narrator] Decades later, those who were there
reflect on the legacy...
Oh, my God!
[Narrator] ...of one of the most violent matches
of all time.
This is a fight, but it got pretty crazy.
Forearms. Suplexes. Punches.
Chairs thrown. Power bombs.
[Announcer] Holy shit!
This is fucking nuts.
[Necro] That was the breakthrough moment
for deathmatch wrestling.
Whatever he was going to do to me would not stop me.
♪
[Crowd chanting] Holy shit! Holy shit!
♪
[Necro] The world's a dark place sometimes.
The world can be really mean.
I've had so many horrible things happen to me
when I was young.
And wrestling became my escape.
It was a false reality.
A place where no one can hurt me.
You know, that's why I get into wrestling.
Maybe I could be somebody else's escape.
[Crowd] Holy shit! What the fuck?
[Necro] But I wanted to make it more believable.
[Announcer] [indistinct shouting]
[Necro] I take incredible amounts of punishment...
[Announcer] Oh!
[Necro] Because the more believable that is,
the more they're going to get into it.
[Announcer] Someone call 911!
You know, and forget about what's bothering them.
My name is Dylan Summers.
But you probably know me better as
the "Necro Butcher".
[Crowd] [Chanting] Necro! Necro!
[Dylan] I got into deathmatch wrestling
because I wanted to test myself,
and I saw the guys in the main event
doing deathmatches, and I said, alright,
I want to be in the main event,
so that's what I have to do.
- Agh! - Oh!
A deathmatch is death defying wrestling.
My name is Dave Prazak, and I was one of the
commentators for Necro Butcher
versus Samoa Joe.
Necro Butcher developed a reputation as one of the
very best at the deathmatch style of wrestling.
He was very reminiscent of someone like a Bruiser Brody,
with the crazy hair, a wild demeanor.
You never knew what he was going to do next.
[Announcer] He's got barbed wire
wrapped around his fists!
I've seen that guy do things to his body
that I couldn't ask a man to do.
Glass, thumbtacks...
[Announcer] Oh!
Mousetraps.
Fluorescent light tubes.
Anything that might cut you.
[Announcer] Jesus!
Night after night, he volunteers himself
and he will always be the
king of the death matches to me.
- That hurt, man. - Jesus!
I'm Mad Man Pondo.
Me and Necro, we wrestled each other for years and
always left a statement anywhere that we went.
[Announcer] No, he's not!
[Dylan] I want people to believe
they're watching a physical confrontation.
- Agh! - Oh!
[Dylan] That psychology comes from a very real place.
[Narrator] As a child growing up in rural West Virginia,
Dylan Summers excelled in school,
setting him apart from those around him.
[Dylan] West Virginia isn't exactly known
for academic excellence,
so I'd face the wrath of my schoolmates.
That was like a daily thing when I was in school.
If I had a bad day in school,
I was going to watch wrestling
with my dad on the weekends.
You know, that's what I looked forward to.
My dad was my best friend.
And then I woke up one morning and
my mother said there was a fire.
♪
[Dylan] My father was burned up.
So...
you know, didn't even get, didn't even get to
see him at the funeral.
Had a closed casket.
I just really dove deeply into wrestling because
it's something I did with him.
After that, I was by myself all the time.
It was super tough.
Through my entire school years,
bullying is not the word, like it was way worse.
I mean, punched, kicked, knock you down stairs.
I couldn't tell you how many times
my head was in toilets in high school.
You know, and I just learned to flip that switch.
You know, I'd just act like I was fine,
and I just didn't want to let them know
they were hurting me.
That's why sometimes I can take
incredible amounts of punishment.
When I flick that switch, you can't hurt me.
You can't hurt me.
No matter what you do, you can't hurt me.
[shouting & screaming]
[Dylan] And once I showed 'em what I could do,
I was the main event to stay.
[Crowd] [Chanting] Necro! Necro!
[Eddie] Necro Butcher, man, my dude was
carrying the flag for deathmatch wrestling.
I'm Eddie Kingston, pro wrestler,
and I was there when Necro and Joe
decided to go at it.
In the early 2000s,
there was one company, folks...
WWE.
[Announcer] Here's how we're kicking it off!
[Eddie] That's on TV.
Then you got guys over here killing themselves
doing independent wrestling.
We wanted to show we're different from WWE.
Doing it our way.
[Narrator] Dissatisfied with mainstream wrestling
on TV,
hardcore fans flock to the independents...
where performers push the limits.
[Eddie] Almost every company,
there was some type of deathmatch in it.
-Oh! - That is not right.
[Eddie] But some people considered it
garbage wrestling.
Then Ring of Honor came out.
You know, hold for hold, hard hitting, all that stuff.
The Ring of Honor set a standard for
independent wrestling with guys like Homicide,
Low Ki, Bryan Danielson,
Christopher Daniels, CM Punk.
Then you had Samoa Joe,
who was carrying the flag of pro wrestling.
[Announcer] Samoa... Joe!
[Narrator] Although Samoa Joe is a top star today,
in 2005, he was still making his name
on the indie scene.
There was never a doubt in my mind that
I was one of the best wrestlers in the world.
Once that curtain brushes past my face,
and we're out there in front of the crowd,
the switch is turned and we're ready to go.
Agh!
My name is Nuufolau Joel Seanoa.
And I'm one half of the war that was...
Joe versus Necro.
My whole life is pretty much been on stage
with my family's Polynesian show.
I probably did 2 or 3 world tours before I ever
stepped foot in a wrestling ring.
You know, it definitely prepared me for this career.
In entertainment, you need your hook.
And, at my core, my style is...
walk you down, smash you in the face.
- Ah! - Oh!
[Nuufolau] The Ring Of Honor, at the time,
I had become champion.
I've had a two-year run with the
heavyweight championship, and the rest is history.
- [grunting] - Oh!
[Dylan] At the time, I was a consistent
main eventer doing deathmatches. I said,
"Alright, now what?" And I wanted to test myself
against the best in the business.
But, what had gotten to me was that
he didn't want no part of that.
[Narrator] At the time, Ring Of Honor wrestlers
had a reputation for dismissing
the deathmatch style.
So crossovers were rare.
[Nuufolau] I always saw this with a lot of
deathmatch wrestlers, they always felt like
they were kind of looked down upon.
The truth of it is, you know,
guys in ROH, we had our style.
You know, we had what we were proud of,
what we were doing.
It's a very different world.
I mean, me personally, you know,
I'm down to wrestle whoever.
That's never been an issue for me.
But as far as, like, wrestling Necro Butcher,
you know, it was never brought up to me
or ever brought up ever.
♪
[Nuufolau] I think the fans probably have more
to do with this than anything else.
[Rob] Before social media, we had message boards
where super hardcore nerdy fans like me would go,
and they would just talk to each other and
talk about matches they've seen.
If you went to the Ring of Honor board,
it was a little bit like noses up in the air,
like all of the wrestling was beneath it.
My name is Rob Naylor,
and I worked at places like CZW and
NXT and FCW, and I at the time went on
the Ring of Honor message board,
and I was like, "I want to see
Samoa Joe wrestle Necro!" And then, oh my God,
the barrage of other angry other wrestling fans.
"You're an idiot! He sucks!"
They just didn't want big bad Necro Butcher to
sully their wonderful organization.
But then,
there was an incident at Chikara!
[Announcer] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to Chikara!
[Narrator] Stepping out of the hardcore scene,
Necro Butcher and Mad Man Pondo
enter a family friendly tag team tournament,
putting Necro on a collision course
with Samoa Joe.
[Rob] Chikara was, bring Grandma,
bring the kids, you're gonna have
a fun time watching the wrestling,
in this lovely, little cafeteria.
[Dylan] It might have been a bit weird on paper.
But I could not say no because that was
my only source of income.
I didn't care who these guys were.
I was just gonna beat their ass.
It just so happened that two of them were
Ring of Honor students.
[Announcer] Matt Turner and Anthony Franco!
[Rob] Ring Of Honor didn't want to send someone
they were gonna beat.
They just sent a couple of their students.
[Anthony] I was nervous 'cause I didn't really know
who Necro Butcher was, and he's like,
"We'll just go out there and we'll just brawl."
I didn't really learn that in, in school.
Tonight, it's gonna be
nothing but curtains for you two.
[Andrew] We were definitely a little nervous,
but we figured, hey, we got this, we got this.
Boy howdy, we were wrong, buddy.
[Mad Man] Agh!
[Announcer] Not even waiting for the ring introductions
to make them bleed.
[Dylan] You had to try to make a believable match with
someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Agh!
[Dylan] And when they start stinking the place up,
I'm just gonna beat their ass.
[Anthony] Oh! [Announcer] Oh-ho!
[Dylan] I do what I do because this is my job
and I need the money.
What package are you offering to promoters?
You have to offer something different.
I think I'm pretty darn different.
- Oh! - I can hear the thud!
[Eddie] Some people were very concerned and believed that
Pondo and Necro took advantage of the students.
The Ring of Honor board, forget about it.
They were really mad at Necro Butcher.
It was only another reason for them not to like him.
'Cause it was just like, "How dare he?" you know?
"That's breaking the code."
"Oh, he's unsafe."
[Announcer] Goes for a suplex off the apron!
[Rob] "He's reckless."
[Anthony] Chikara, you don't really do that stuff.
[Dylan] Who cares? [laughing]
♪
[Announcer] Gets his head taken off!
[Dylan] I think people found it entertaining.
That's what I do.
I beat people up in an entertaining manner.
[Andrew] He was knocked out from the clothesline.
I got knocked out twice in the match.
His chest looks like hamburger meat.
I have no idea where I'm at.
It was just survival.
[Anthony] Yeah, it was a little rough.
[Andrew] Yeah.
[Dylan] Turns out I got the last laugh.
That's how I got Samoa Joe to fight me, you know.
[Eddie] After the match, message boards
had their little rumor mills going.
The rumor was that Joe was not happy.
[Dave] Because Joe was one of their mentors
coming out of Ring of Honor,
and I think he may have felt ROH was
disrespected by these guys.
And it perfectly set the stage for Joe to
face Necro to get some revenge.
[Announcer] Getting a standing ovation!
[Rob] The fans bought into it and they're like,
all right, like, he's going to get dealt some justice
via Samoa Joe.
[Narrator] As discussion on the internet heats up,
promoter Ian Rotten sees an opportunity.
[Ian] Ian Rotten here, owner,
promoter of IWA Mid-South Wrestling.
[Dave] As an independent wrestling promoter,
Ian Rotten had to come up with unique matches.
There is no television program to try to really
build a story, you have to use the internet.
And Ian Rotten was gearing up for his first event
in Philadelphia at the old ECW arena,
and he needed a big match to fill the seats.
[Narrator] The match that had long seemed
impossible suddenly became inevitable.
After the Chikara incident,
Necro Butcher and Samoa Joe
signed with Ian Rotten and the match is set.
[Eddie] This was the first time that I remember that
this legit went down between a deathmatch wrestler
and a pure pro wrestler.
Here we go.
[Dylan] For one night in Philadelphia,
I'm gonna have the fight of my life against
the baddest dude of all time.
I have a chance to show the world
a deathmatch wrestler could compete with
the biggest, baddest in the world.
[Announcer] Face to face!
[Dylan] Which is all I wanted all along.
[Announcer] Here we go!
[Narrator] With Necro Butcher versus Samoa Joe set,
Joe takes to the mic to go after his opponent.
[Dylan] I don't agree with being called a bully.
[Mad Man] You have no idea how
intense Necro was about that promo.
He would recite sentences to me
about that promo every day.
That affected Necro.
[Dylan] I thought to myself, wow,
so he thinks I'm not good enough to be there with him.
Okay, fine, I got this.
And now is my chance to make a statement.
[cheering]
[Announcer] Making reference to Necro Butcher!
[cheering & applauding]
[Nuufolau] So, you know, dude, can I be honest?
Dude, legitimately, I look back and I literally
knew nothing about all these moving pieces
that were a part of it.
Like, yeah, I never trained a kid at
ROH's school a day in my life.
Like I never watched the match.
It was mentioned to me for a promo about, "Oh yeah,
he roughed up a couple of kids at the ROH school
so you're, like, gonna get revenge.
Are you cool with that?" I was like, "Yeah, sure."
It's part of the show, man.
But, the more I hear and the more I realize,
old Ian Rotten may have been telling people
a lot of different tales, trying to get
certain reactions out of that.
[Dylan] Well, I mean, there was gossip.
You weren't talented.
You were doing something that was beneath them.
I don't know if it was true or not.
I said, "A lot of people are gonna watch this."
So I just knew I had to show them what I could do
so they did not deny me any longer.
♪
[Nuufolau] For me personally, my wife,
then girlfriend at the time, she lived close to Philly.
So like I had literally took the booking...
because I was trying to get some ass.
[Laughing]
We were definitely different mindsets,
walking into this match.
Until I got to the arena, then,
I realized it was something different.
[Narrator] On June 11th, 2005,
hundreds packed the ECW Arena
expecting a bloodbath.
This is IWA Mid-South wrestling.
[Nuufolau] As I get to the building...
you know, the boys are standing outside.
And I'm just like, "What's up, fellas?"
And then they go, "Yo, what's up, man?
I've been waiting for this." And I'm like,
"Alright, you know, cool, homie." You know,
what the fuck is going on here, man, like...?
[Dylan] I had just come back from Japan,
having flown all night, drinking.
[Laughing] I'm gonna sober up.
I'm gonna get in my '72 Ford pick-up and
drive to Philadelphia and fight Samoa Joe.
I had arrived within an hour of showtime.
Went down to my little secluded spot and,
just waited my turn.
[Bryce] Typically in a pro wrestling match,
a referee will check in with opponents.
"What is the planned finish?
Is there anything I need to know about?"
There was none of that on this day.
My name is Bryce Remsburg, and I was the referee for
the infamous Samoa Joe - Necro Butcher match.
The conversation that I might have had with the
two of them was definitely shorter than 30 seconds.
[Dylan] My mind was made up beforehand.
Whatever he was going to do to me would not stop me.
Not in that building, not on that night.
[Nuufolau] I know what I'm going there for.
I'm gonna get cracked.
He's gonna get cracked, and it's gonna be a brawl.
[Dave] Everyone in the locker room had the same questions
as the wrestling fans did about,
do they really hate each other?
Is this going to turn into a real fight?
What's going to happen?
[Nuufolau] All that shit went into creating an atmosphere
and a vibe where it was like,
somebody's going to die tonight.
[Announcer] And we are ready for a
long-awaited match up.
[Bryce] I recall being in the ring before
the match started, looking up
and seeing pretty much the whole locker room
lined up around the commentary table.
[Dave] I did commentary with Eddie Kingston
and CM Punk.
We weren't doing professional commentary
by any means.
It was just us reacting to the spectacle
that we were seeing.
[Eddie] I walked up with a hot dog, sat down,
and I said, "Let's do this."
[Announcer] This is the match everybody's
been waiting to see!
[Rob] By that point, everybody was
foaming at the mouth to see this thing.
[Mad Man] I went up to the balcony to watch this
and was like, holy shit,
the whole building was chanting.
[Crowd] [Chanting] Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe!
[Nuufolau] Then as I'm kind of walking around the
ring here, you started to hear,
"Fuck him up, Joe."
"Necro's gonna fuck you up."
[Rob] Philadelphia is just very bloodthirsty.
They wanted to see violence.
They wanted to see blood,
and they wanted to see Joe kill Necro Butcher.
[Announcer] There's the man right there who wears
the shirt that says, "Choose Death"!
[Eddie] There he is, look at this. Ha-ha!
[Rob] All the combustible elements were there.
They were just primed and ready to just
kick the shit out of each other.
[Announcer] Face to face they come!
[Nuufolau] You obviously know they didn't
come here to see any goddamn wrestling.
They came here to see a fight.
Let's let everybody know what this is really about.
The easiest way to make sure everybody knows
it's a no-rules brawl without announcing it is,
you know, take the rules and
throw them over the top rope.
[Announcer] They don't need a referee!
♪
[Bryce] There was already, like
a bunch of gunpowder in the keg.
With no referee, it's chaos.
[Nuufolau] Now we've got everybody where we want them
and now we take them on the journey.
[Announcer] Here we go!
Break it down in Philadelphia!
[Dylan] These forearms were I'm telling this guy
how this match is gonna go.
[Nuufolau] He wanted to establish that's
how hard he wanted to throw? I said, "Alright."
You have now just set your punishment gauge.
He could've done it much easier. [Laughing]
[Dylan] It's all about believability.
I want them to think he's trying to kill me.
If I'm going to have any chance of beating him,
I want to fight with him on the floor.
I want to brawl.
[Announcer] Oh! [Indistinct screaming]
Upside the head of the Necro Butcher!
[Dylan] And that is a way you can suck in the crowd.
I want him to hit me.
I was gonna fly over the guardrail.
But he hit me so hard, I couldn't go
over the guard- Oh, Jesus!
[Announcer] Oh, here comes Joe!
Down goes Necro!
[Dylan] I'm gonna just calmly walk over
the guardrail now. [Laughing]
I'm gonna sit down and compose myself
for a minute after that.
[Announcer] All these fans are moving!
They're parting like the Red Sea!
[Nuufolau] Trying to beat the deathmatch wrestler
with pro wrestling.
Using my body as a weapon to try to break you up.
It was meant to accentuate that contrast of styles.
[Announcer] The Necro's back to his feet
with a head butt!
[Eddie] And oh, there's the head butt.
You don't head butt a Samoan.
That's like a rule you're taught.
[Dylan] I had a very bad cut on my head.
I knew a stiff breeze would bust me open,
let alone a Samoan head butt.
[Nuufolau] Any deathmatch wrestler will tell you,
if they've already got something open,
they can't wait for you to work it.
And, we got that fucker open.
[Laughing]
[Announcer] Necro's busted open!
[Rob] Authentic head butts, and then Necro's bleeding.
So, the fervor only grows from there.
[Mad Man] Necro learned a secret from me.
If you want a standing ovation,
you knock their chairs out from underneath them.
[Announcer] Everybody in this building is on their feet!
[Mad Man] Standing ovation.
[Dylan] I don't think Samoa Joe was really
enjoying himself at this point in the match.
I was having a grand old time, myself.
[Nuufolau] [Laughing] I mean,
it's not the best feeling, but...
[Dylan] I was trying to get him to a place
where we could safely to do the power slam,
or so I thought.
You know, when you make people get out of their seat
and move around,
you run the risk of spilling drinks.
[Eddie] You can see it all over the floor.
There was just wet spots everywhere.
[Dylan] So maybe a power slam wasn't the best idea.
[Laughing]
[Nuufolau] He ran at me. I went to scoop him.
Now, I don't know if his foot slipped
or whatever, but like as we went for the lift,
I felt him grab me real tight.
He was just stuck to me.
And then, pushed my hips through
and he was going over.
[Announcer] Power slam on the floor!
[Nuufolau] That didn't quite work the way
he wanted it to.
[Dave] And we're wondering in the commentary position,
how is that physically possible?
[Announcer] I've never seen such a thing!
[Nuufolau] And I turn around, I go,
"Jesus, you good?" And he's- [groaning]
[Bryce] I hear that sickening thud of skull on cement.
That right there is, is a sign of danger.
That's something you're not gonna see on
Monday Night Raw.
[Crowd] [Chanting] Necro! Necro!
[Nuufolau] You know, in today's wrestling world,
that match shouldn't continue probably.
But that match and that night, that atmosphere...
that energy from the crowd, it was like,
now we're in the flow,
and it just got more violent and more fucked up from there.
[Chanting] Holy shit! Holy shit!
[Narrator] Just two minutes into the match,
Samoa Joe drives Necro Butcher
face first onto the concrete.
[Eddie] At that that time we didn't stop.
We go until the wheels fall off.
[Dylan] Maybe a normal person would have been hurt.
But I was fine.
[crowd shouting]
[Eddie] Oh, that boot definitely did not tickle.
[Announcer] Oh, Joe's wiping the blood off him.
[Rob] Oh, that's a great touch.
Wiping the blood off his head
and wiping on his chest.
The fans are such an integral part to all this.
They're so into it.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Nuufolau] If you look at that floor right now,
it could be any number of bodily fluids, so...
when things got to the outside,
this was Necro's environment.
But anytime we're inside the ring, you know,
that was my domain.
[Announcer] Over the rail and back they go.
[Nuufolau] Body language is,
"I don't think much of you."
Arrogant pin, you know, elbow on the chin,
not really scooping the leg.
But in the face of that, you know,
here he is fighting back.
[Announcer] Necro kicks out.
[Rob] He is not giving up. He is continuing to fight.
He puts the arm up.
And then the very pro Joe crowd,
you start hearing more,
"Necro, Necro, Necro," chants.
[Crowd] Necro! Necro!
[Rob] And it's because of Necro's
selling, selling, selling.
The fans get louder and louder.
[Crowd] Necro! Necro!
[Rob] And now you have that dynamic,
the fans fighting with each other.
They're turning.
[Announcer] Wait 'til you hear all these fans
right here in a chorus.
[Nuufolau] I understood what role I played in this.
This is somebody fighting against all the odds,
you know, fighting to break out of his box
in the face of this insurmountable entity.
[Announcer] Off the ropes comes Necro!
Connects with the boot.
[Dylan] Joe's weapon is his killer instinct
and his ability. Those are just tools.
For me, the opponent,
the guardrail, the ring itself.
Those are the tools of my trade.
You don't really have time to be hurt,
because you gotta think, okay,
what am I doing next, what am I doing next?
Oh, yeah, I was trying to find
a piece of guardrail I could rip off.
I'm going to smash you with the guardrail.
[Dylan] No, no.
[Laughing]
He was a good sport about it.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Nuufolau] Yeah, it sucks.
It's not pleasant, you know, it's not pleasant.
[Laughing]
[Crowd] Oh!
[Nuufolau] What people don't realize
is that Necro is blind also.
Very blind. [Laughing]
[Dylan] I have my glasses here.
I can't tell who's who.
There's a red light there, red light over there.
But I can't see nothing.
[Announcer] [indistinct commentary]
[Eddie] [Laughing] He did that
and I was like, Jesus! I did not expect it.
[Nuufolau] This guy just swings for the general
fuzzy mound that's in front of him
and he hopes that it connects.
[Dylan] I hit him with the perfect punch.
Like, I felt all of my knuckles
hit him right in the jaw.
[indistinct shouting]
[Dylan] And I thought, I'm gonna do it again.
♪
[Nuufolau] That's the worst thing you do for me.
Now the switch turns an extra couple degrees.
And I have come to destroy worlds,
and this is the world before me
which I must lay waste to.
[Dylan] Before I could do it a third time,
I went flying through the air. [Laughing]
[Announcer] Did you see the...
holy shit! Ah! [screaming]
Holy... fuck!
[Rob] Good God. This is...
it just...
[Eddie] Look at that blood everywhere, man.
This was wild.
[Mad Man] That was the one where I was like, holy shit.
That one made me stand up in my chair and,
I was thinking about going down there.
[Announcer] What the fuck is happening?
[Dylan] Not me, not the kid. A normal man, perhaps.
[Dylan] That's not gonna hurt me.
I know what I'm doing.
[Nuufolau] You know, everybody talks about
his face hitting the floor.
What they don't talk about is his shoulder
coming down on top of my face
and the back of my head being driven
into the cement.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Nuufolau] Thought my nose was broken.
Thought I'd shattered my orbital.
I broke my nose a billion times,
so it wasn't uncommon.
But yeah, this one put another fracture in my nose.
I'll give him this, at least he looks
worse for wear for the whole deal.
[Dylan] There's an old Johnny Valentine quote.
He said, "I can't make you believe in wrestling,
but I can make you believe in Johnny Valentine."
No one is ever gonna watch that match, and say,
"Yeah, that's, that's all fake."
I'm tough enough that I can take that shit.
Let's exploit what we have.
the legendary ECW Arena, eaf
Samoa Joe and Necro Butcher
leave everything in the ring and on the floor.
[Dylan] Now see this is what you call
long-term storytelling, guys.
Remember they had that Chikara match.
[Announcer] ...goes for a suplex off then apron!
[Dylan] I suplexed the kid off the apron.
[Announcer] Off the apron to the floor!
[Dylan] And then, a month or two later,
the master suplexes me off the apron.
[Announcer] Holy shit, ah!
[Dylan] Long-term story telling at its finest.
[Nuufolau] You know what sucks?
I wish I could've said I planned all this shit,
but- [Laughing] Happy accident.
[Dylan] Yeah, happy accidents, here we go.
[Laughing]
[Bryce] The way Necro is moving and selling,
he's definitely hurt and he's banged up,
but he's with it.
[Eddie] Just to see Necro get up, we were like...
He's like rising from the dead.
[Nuufolau] I'm not a guy that'll ever dictate to
somebody what dangerous things
they should do to their own body.
I put the ball in his court, and I said, you know,
"You tell me how far you want this to go."
But, he had a vision.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Nuufolau] It's a more primal vision.
It's definitely not eloquent in its execution.
[Dylan] I think here I was telling him,
"Put the guardrail up on the turnbuckle."
There's so many times in this match
where I just said some shit that could
easily be misinterpreted,
but every time I told him to do something,
he did exactly what I wanted him to do.
[Nuufolau] In those circumstances,
I will default to the masochist and
let him paint his picture.
[Dylan] His ability to dish out punishment,
and my ability to absorb punishment
is what I based the match upon.
[Announcer] ...power bomb coming up!
Wah! Oh!
Somebody's gonna die!
[Bryce] In some form or fashion,
they were reading the same book.
I'm not sure they're in the same chapter,
same page quite, but to be done even remotely safely
involves a breed of cooperation.
[Mad Man] The way Necro's looking at it right here is,
the more he gets beat up and still stands up,
he's becoming a bigger star.
Back in the day, before that match...
me and Necro, we was in a light tube match.
We were just bloody as hell.
I suplex Necro and one of them
went in so deep in his arm, it just,
it just cut a whole chunk out of there.
I start yelling out.
Fucking ambulance! Ambulance!
And I'm just feeling terrible that this happened to Necro.
And finally Necro looked over to me, and he said,
"Pondo, would you chill out and cheer up?"
You know, he just never complained about it.
This was his chance to get his name out there and show
the world exactly what the Necro Butcher can do,
and he just kept on going and...
here he is today.
[Eddie] It's a very old school way of
getting somebody over. It, it works.
People can register that.
People can respect an underdog.
[Dave] Is he going to get back to his feet?
The drama continues to build.
It's great storytelling.
[Announcer] Joe, with the cover. No!
[Dylan] It has to be one-sided for
the story I'm trying to tell.
Too many matches today, they're too back and forth.
The fans don't buy the comeback because
the guys don't take the time to set the heat
the way they need to.
[Nuufolau] The whole point was,
in my head was like, we're going to
put this guy through this carnival of torture
that he's wanted so badly for so long.
We're going to give him everything he asked for.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Dylan] That could have been a paralyzation there had
somebody been an inch this way or an inch that way,
that could have easily been a paralyzation there as well.
[Announcer] Cover! [Crowd] One, two!
[Announcer] He kicked out!
[Bryce] The look on Joe's face is like,
"What do I gotta do to put this guy, this guy away?"
[Dave] They're chanting, "Necro!"
He's earning the respect of the crowd.
[Announcer] The fans of Philadelphia are
going nuts right now.
[Rob] All the punishment Necro Butcher takes,
he's gonna make it matter.
He's not just gonna blow off any kind of damage.
[Announcer] And they're showing their support
for Joe as well.
Chop across the chest of Necro.
[Dylan] I wanted to look really feeble
and barely on my feet.
So that's what I was trying to do here.
A man doesn't win when he's relaxed
and thinks he's in control.
A man wins when he thinks he's losing.
[Crowd] Oh!
[Rob] There it is!
He's fighting back, boom, boom!
Oh, my God.
[Nuufolau] In the moment, I'm annoyed at that.
Like, what the fuck, man?
[Announcer] But Samoa Joe with the palm strikes!
[Nuufolau] Classic pro wrestling technique,
the open-hand palm strikes.
Bro, put your hands up. That's the first rule.
[Dave] With each slap you could see a mist of blood
coming off the face of Necro Butcher.
[Nuufolau] If I had to pinpoint a time when
my girlfriend at the time had left the match,
it was where the blood was visibly flying into the crowd.
She said she almost threw up
and then she decided to bounce.
And that's the whole point of what I was doing.
When you're dog walking somebody,
it's not a pretty affair.
And that's what that whole sequence was about.
I've had enough. I'm done with this.
It's time for you to die now.
[Announcer] Ah! God!
[Narrator] The match between Necro Butcher and
Samoa Joe barrels toward its violent finish.
[Announcer] Look at the blood on the body of
Samoa Joe from Necro!
♪
[Bryce] This was not any ordinary wrestling match,
so it wasn't gonna end any ordinary way.
Joe's here 'cause he wants to be here.
Necro has nothing to lose.
So, the story of Necro...
calling these spots that lead to his demise...
[Announcer] Stay down!
[Bryce] He's saying that, "I'm gonna lose,
but I'm gonna go down swinging."
[Dave] The lasting image of that match
is the final strike.
And Samoa Joe effectively wins the match
by knocking Necro out.
[Bryce] What is unique about this finish is that it's,
in essence, a technical knockout.
[Dave] He didn't just have to pin him for
three seconds, he kept him down for ten.
[Rob] He just could not take any more beating.
[Announcer] He's getting up though.
No! And that's it!
Samoa Joe gets the knockout!
Knockout win for Samoa Joe!
[match bell ringing]
[Nuufolau] Your great messiah of hardcore death
has been stricken down.
All justice has been served.
[Dylan] What a mess.
[Narrator] Though the match may be over,
Joe gives Necro one last parting shot.
[Announcer] Oh, he's not done.
[Nuufolau] Brother was down there selling so long,
so I went over there and I gave him like
the little kick in the head.
Just like I knew he would, he popped right up
and started swinging for the fences.
And the monster rises again from the dead.
[Dylan] Really? Really? Get out of here.
[Laughing]
[Announcer] The hardcore Jesus is pissed.
[Nuufolau] I'm like, well, I can't leave you
laying in a puddle, I mean, like,
I thought it was important to leave
the arena with him at least standing, you know.
[Announcer] What a war between these two men!
[Nuufolau] If there's no fight in somebody then
there's nothing really there to care about.
So, it was imperative to me that we left Necro
with the right kind of perception on him
of being just one of the
toughest motherfuckers on planet earth.
[Crowd chanting]
[Dylan] Match of the year, huh? Wow.
[Crowd] [Chanting] Match of the year!
[Dave] Everyone in the building knew that
they had just witnessed something great.
And when the fans finally got a chance to
see it on video, it just intensified
the buzz about the match on the internet.
[Dylan] How ironic that that event was called
"Something To Prove"
because that's exactly what I was trying to do,
and I think that's exactly what I did.
That night in Philly was special.
I knew I'm never gonna make it to
Madison Square Garden.
That was my Madison Square Garden.
After that match,
I was a made man in that building.
And that's all I ever wanted.
[Nuufolau] You know, coming through the curtain in
the post-match, it couldn't have been more...
I mean, docile. [Laughing]
You know, like...
Necro came back, dapped him up.
[Dylan] I went to Joe immediately and thanked him.
I obviously had tremendous amount of respect
for him as a wrestler.
He trusted the vision of what I had,
and helped me follow it through.
Well, after the match, I had another show to do
that evening in the same arena.
So I had to go back down to the catacombs and
put my skull back together
and catch my breath,
and get ready to get out there and
do it all over again.
[Announcer] And here comes the butcher!
[Dave] You'd think maybe he'd be tired, but no.
He just kept going.
[Announcer] Excuse me!
[Rob] He never went 80%, you know,
he was always 110.
It's a very heavy price,
taking suplexes to the floor,
taking these bumps, and he did it because
he had pride in what he was doing
and he wanted to get to the next level.
It certainly seemed to me that there was almost like
a before and after for both of those guys.
[Dave] It eventually earned Necro a regular spot
in ROH for a couple of years.
[Dylan] Ring Of Honor could not deny me any longer.
[Announcer] That's the Necro Butcher!
[Dylan] I was on every show for like four years.
[Chanting] Necro! Necro!
[Bryce] He goes on to be in the movie
"The Wrestler" in 2008.
[Mickey] Talk to me about it.
What do you want to do tonight?
[Necro] Are you cool with the staples?
[Dylan] Maybe it was a mainstream moment.
[Necro] Staple gun?
[Dylan] But, at the time, I had more wrestling to do.
[Announcer] The Necro Butcher!
[Eddie] We were in this together
as independent wrestlers.
We were all trying just to set
the world on fire with our wrestling.
We were misfits, all of us.
Even Joe was.
We saw Samoa Joe's name getting
bigger and bigger over time.
It was a sense of pride.
If any indie guy made it, we were all proud.
[Nuufolau] I finished up with ROH,
I moved on to TNA Wrestling, then moved on to WWE.
And now I currently find myself in All Elite Wrestling.
[Dylan] It was obvious back then,
what sort of trajectory that man was on.
This was a trajectory that was
closed to me.
[Dave] Necro Butcher never got his WWE run
probably because he was such an outlaw.
His home was independent wrestling,
and so it's honestly not much of a surprise that
that was where he really excelled.
[Nuufolau] Many independent wrestlers have gone on
to have lauded careers...
all around the world.
If you ask me why maybe Necro wasn't
a part of that pantheon of people...
[sighing] you know, at the end of the day,
it's just hard to put on a, on a cereal box, you know?
[Mad Man] That's the thing about deathmatches,
and people just don't understand.
They say that we make hotdogs and handshakes.
I do believe that for Necro,
the crowd would chant his name and...
to a wrestler, having a crowd chant your name,
sing your song, that means,
that means more to us than anything.
You're not gonna talk him out of what he loves.
He loves wrestling.
[Dylan] I was going to Japan like six times a year.
I'd got to Mexico a couple times, Puerto Rico.
And then in 2020,
I had just come back from Japan and I-
I didn't know what was going on,
but I knew I was really sick.
[Mad Man] So... I remember when
I first seen him, thinking to myself,
look at the weight that he lost.
[Announcer] Butcher! [Crowd] [cheering]
[Mad Man] He had lost a lot of weight.
Like a lot of weight.
And, ah...
I, I didn't understand.
I didn't know what was going.
[Announcer] He's passing the torch!
[Mad Man] Shortly after that, I went to visit him.
Took us out to eat.
Right before I left, that's when he said,
"Hey, man, if I...
if I don't talk to you from this day on,
just realize I always appreciated everything
you did for me." And I'm like,
"What are you talking about?"
And, ah...
I'm telling him, I'm like,
"If you want me to stay, I'll stay."
And he's like, "No."
So, that's when I found out that Necro had cancer.
[Narrator] Diagnosed with stage three cancer,
Necro Butcher fights for his life.
[Dylan] Turns out I had Hodgkin's lymphoma.
I was in a hospital bed for about nine months
and had no energy whatsoever.
Everything hurt.
Laying in bed for nine months gives you
plenty of time to re-evaluate things, you know.
Over the years, I've beat so many guys up it's not
even something I keep track of anymore.
And after a while, they just blend together.
Looking back,
the Samoa Joe match, let's be honest,
that's what people are gonna remember about me.
Quite honestly, I'm baffled sometimes.
People talk about this match that
weren't even alive when we did it.
I'm still very flattered by it.
It is one of the greatest brawls you will ever see.
[Eddie] It's a time capsule, man.
If people want to know how the independents were
from 2000 to 2010, that was it.
They made a moment.
For all of us on the indies, man.
Because I'll tell you right now,
more people started booking those kind of matches.
They were the spark.
[Dave] Just how believable that brawl was
is something that young wrestlers now draw
inspiration for what a fight could be like.
[Nuufolau] It's wild that so many people have loved,
and enjoyed, and taken pleasure from watching this.
I just never would have imagined it would have
taken on the life that it has.
It's cool that...
that was part of my journey.
It's neat.
[Narrator] As he wages his battle with cancer,
the Necro Butcher discovers a new outlook.
[Dylan] When I was in the bed I found something
that was unshakeable.
And that was myself.
In the game of life, you're not in charge
of where you start on the boards.
The only thing you're in control of is when you quit.
It's gonna hurt, you're gonna suffer.
But you have to believe in yourself.
If you can't believe you can do it,
then you're suffering for nothing.
We did three cycles of chemo with no improvement.
And they said, "Alright, if we don't see
improvement on the fourth one,
we're gonna quit and that's gonna be that."
Wouldn't you know it, that fourth one took.
[Chuckling] And then, got back into wrestling.
♪
[Mad Man] This is the guy that
I've seen go through the craziest bumps
that you could ever think about.
And walk away unscathed.
But, look at him today. He beat cancer.
His hip exploded, he beat that.
Still punching people in the face.
[Announcer] Good God!
[Mad Man] That puts him solid in
the bad motherfuckers club.
[Dylan] You know, I'm not moving around
great right now, but I'm moving around
pretty good for age 52.
I'm still out there on the road.
I'm motivated.
I just had a rough match last week...
about died.
[Announcer] Oh, my God!
[Dylan] I understand the way we look back at things,
the further they get in the mirror.
[Announcer] And it's June 11, 2005
here in Philadelphia!
[Dylan] That night in Philadelphia,
it was my most immediate, important event in my life.
Oh, wow! [Laughing]
That was better than I thought. Wow!
What does any artist want but for
his art to be remembered fondly?
And I think we're past the point of this being
remembered more than fondly so,
thank you, Samoa Joe. Thank you.
[Nuufolau] The feeling is mutual,
the thanks is mutual.
He managed to take a random afternoon that I was
not expecting would be what it was.
And it's become kind of a touchstone for inspiration
in the great zeitgeist of wrestling.
You know, to me, I think that's when
pro wrestling can be at its very best.
[Announcer] ...to the crowd!
[Dylan] I won 'em over with my ability to not quit.
And that's the message I try to tell people.
I haven't quit, so you better not either.
I've had so many horrible things happen to me
when I was young...
I just wanted to belong and not be by myself.
[Crowd chanting] Necro! Necro!
And I wanted to connect with other people
that had the same passions I did.
Just appreciate the fine art
that is professional wrestling,
and then to contribute to that fine art, well,
what more, what more could a man ask for?