Last time I looked at XPW, I proclaimed that their Season 3 set, was “the worst DVD I’ve ever watched”. I stand by that statement.

It was so foul; steam arose from its hideous existence, and contaminated my outlook on life forever. My innocent eyes have been spoiled forever. Nonetheless, I shook off the chunky debris and entered into viewing XPW: Cold Day in Hell, with an open-mind. After all, this, the company’s interpretation of a supershow, an anniversary, was loaded with big names, including Terry Funk (as a referee though), and featured some actual wrestling bouts, unlike the majority of the TV show.

But would it just be waste of time, and a heap of nards?

What’s on it?

Preview Show

There’s a fairly good preview show that has a lot of effort put into it. Unfortunately it’s hosted by Larry Riveria, and Kriss Kloss, who are both still awful.

Hyping the grudge match between Vampiro and Kaos, Kaos cuts a pretty good promo about being a cross-over star, and hypes up his film, though I can’t remember what it is. They get Vampiro o the phone, his interview is accompanied by clips from WSX, which isn’t half-bad at all, because in highlight form, WSX looks awesome. However, I have no faith whatsoever in this bout ending up anything other than utter rubbish.

“Hardcore-Homo” Angel (yes that’s what they call him), is set to battle in a Rubber Match with G.Q Money to settle their feud. Hilariously (or not as the case is), Angel misinterprets what a rubber match might constitute. Awful. One for the KKK lovin’ hicks probably.

Luke Hawx cuts a whiney promo that basically informs us why nobody rates him anywhere near his peers, such as Jack Evans. Pretty solid actually. Scorpio Sky retaliates with an equally decent one. And finally, Jack Evans cuts one of his promos where it doesn’t actually appear that he has is cutting a promo. This is definitely the best way to have this guy talk. Anyways, this is all great, because even though the match is an undercard Triple Threat, they’ve instilled a reason to actually give a monkey’s about what’s happening. Good stuff.

The hype for Sandman (who isn’t booked in a match), kicks off with a shot of him pissing in the street. What else could be more appropriate I guess? He cuts a terrible promo that clearly he made up while emptying his bladder.

Joey Ryan cuts a promo announcing he’s the host of the Miss Extreme Pageant. He’s certainly sleazy enough.

There’s a bit of build up for Team Revolution Pro, who are facing Team XPW, because they feel they were politicked out by the “East Coast Relics” for showing them up in their superior matches. Pretty solid foundation for another undercard bout.

I sour on this whole enterprise when they show a New Jack segment, building up his reunion with Mustafa to take on the WSN. New Jack cuts a New Jack promo and looks severely constipated throughout. The sooner New Jack has no part in wrestling, the better.

Kriss Kloss takes some digs at the WWE, particularly over their acquisition of ECW, and his subsequent claims are ridiculous. It leads to a Vince McMahon impression that makes this entire promotion look bush league. The Chainsaw Charlie gimmick is ridiculed (rightfully), and Vince blamed (nonsense, as Terry Funk admits that he came up with the idea), and they seem to ascertain that Vince is starting to take note of XPW. Jesus. Waste of time guys. The chapter skip button start to come into play here…

We get a really long segment with Sabu and Rob Black that provides some background to the “Dream Match” later on the show. It’s terrible, terrible stuff that only engages the fans when they see a weapon involved. Rob Black kicks out of billions of pin attempts, following big spots, and generally everyone looks like crap. Kriss Kloss asks “what the hell is going on”, and somehow “White Trash” Johnny Webb emerges from this whole thing with the XPW Championship. Jesus.

Supreme cuts a profanity-laden promo to build-up his…wait for it……… Dream Deathmatch – No Rope, Barbed Wire, Double Hell Deathmatch…. That’s what they call it on the packaging anyway…

Necro Butcher cuts his typical style of promo, and they show some clips from CZW, which helps with his mad-man aura. As much as I like Necro, I expect this bout to be absolutely pants.

The Preview show ends, fifteen minutes too late, with a run-down of the card. It was a good idea, but way too long, to the point where it exposed some of the matches as being worthy of no hype. Some of the card looks really atrocious.

Main Card

- Is that CW Anderson? Jesus. He’s the chauffeur for Vince McPhenom, that lame McMahon spoof. Mind-numbing way to begin this event.

- The crowd is absolutely going mental as the cameras roll. Some of them make me truly ashamed to be a wrestling fan… but to each their own… The arena looks pretty damn impressive, with some big screens and an understated ramp.

Kaos cuts a reasonable promo, slagging off Shane Douglas or something. Lots of plugs for “The Dead Sleep Easy”, which featured both him and Kaos. It could be tough to get Vampiro cheered- as the fans seem to like Kaos’ comical Crossover media star. Vampiro comes to the ring, looking very un-Vampiro like, and the match is suddenly on in impromptu fashion.

Kaos vs. Vampiro
Kaos gets the jump on Vampiro, who looks really wretched here. No makeup, in bad shape, and sand-bagging as bad as ever. Kaos looks the part at least. They decide to bore everyone by going to the outside for a stroll, occasionally picking up and dropping weaponry.

Have I ever mentioned how bad Kloss is on commentary?

Back in the ring, he offers one of his young girl yelps when Vampiro hits Kaos with a nasty Light-tube shot across the back. Kaos bleeds really badly from the back. Soon thereafter, he’s seeping from the face too. At least messy is better than boring. They go into the crowd, where I’m secretly hoping the hillbillies devour them. Instead we get a lame chop-fest in the bleachers. I hit fast-forward until they return to the ring, though sadly the action has slowed to a halt. Kaos hit’s a few big moves onto the shards of glass laying about the ring, but it’s all clumsy stuff, that Vampiro just doesn’t sell. Eventually, a big Lariat does the job for Kaos.

Hideous match. They went for the stunts, and got colour early to get the crowd interested, but even the fans live faded once it became apparent just how crap this match was once they exchanged moves. If this was an attempt to kick the card off with one of the biggest matches, for a bang, it blew up in their faces spectacularly. The Dead weren’t sleeping easy during this, they were frickin’ rolling.

Angel vs. G.Q Money
Of course, Angel is wearing a skanky ladies outfit. Money interrupts just as he’s singing Happy Birthday to himself. He can’t wrestle, due to a calf-tear. Okay then. I have no idea who is the heel here, but the crowd is booing both. Angel’s gimmick is very self-aware and he seems positioned as the babyface, but the crowd does not get it at all. Money leaves some presents at the top of the ramp for him, from “the boys”, including a “Brokeback Mountain” pillow. But a fire-work goes off when Angel opens one, and GQ emerges to attack Angel.

This is garbage. Meltzer would have the negative stars lined up already.

It’s nice that XPW have Angel as the good guy, but they’re nuts to think the crowds at these shows would appreciate him, and besides, he’s too obnoxious and annoying to do so. The match is mainly bad comedy, and homophobic spots, and it isn’t good at all. At one point, BB Cooper, GQ’s second, has a dildo shoved in his nether regions, which gets a pop from the Neanderthals. Someone called Steve Rissotto gets involved, while Money disappears, so now it’s an, erm, two-on-one. A camera man jumps on the apron, and shoots a fireball at Angel, which costs him the match. Why bother running away, and getting in a disguise, to return and do that? What’s the point? There are no rules anyways! Afterwards, Kraq comes to the ring and beats down the heels, reuniting with Angel. At times, astonishingly bad. If you like dildo spots though, this is the one for you.

- J-love comes to the ring, but orders some dude called Leroy to clean the ring before she’ll get into it. She cuts a pretty personality-devoid promo, but is interrupted by my other favourite performer… Mr Pogo. Ugh. He takes out Leroy, and is jumped by a whole pile of Ring Crew guys, but destroys them all… with unconvincing moves I might add. He’s about to take out J-Love, when the Sandman interrupts. Is J-Love a face then??? Ahh who gives a nut.

Sandman vs. Mr Pogo
Some Singapore Cane shots to start off, of course. Match only lasts a couple of minutes, which is great, because everything is botched and looks bloody terribly. Amazingly, Sandman wins with a really loose Russian Leg Sweep. Sandman and J-Love get a 12 pack and he pours some beers down her top. Wonderful. I’ve never seen that before. You can see why the WWE were so reluctant to do anything with the Sandman…

I’ll be honest, there was a segment here, but I watched about four seconds, then fast forwarded because it was worse than being smothered to death by an irate, cheesy, wayward vagina. I think Tool was involved, which explains everything.

- I’m almost certain the same segment starts all over again, but thankfully Terry Funk comes out indicating it’s a different one. Surprisingly, he goes heel in a promo, but also surprisingly, it’s not very good. Supposedly Sabu cannot wrestle due to injury, and Funk will uphold that because he’s the ref. Sabu isn’t happy about this development, and shuffles half-way to the ring, before, SERIOUSLY… being escorted away again by security. What a stinker of a segment.

Raven & “White Trash” Johnny Webb vs. Sabu & Homeless Jimmy
Khan Kussion (gettit….???? JESUS) is Sabu’s replacement. The announcer botches it and reveals he’s replacing Raven, who corrects him before booting the dude out of the ring. Fascinating cock-up. Raven cuts a promo, but considering his ability, it’s a bloody horrible one. He then retains the microphone during the match and offers live commentary throughout. The crowd is amazingly silent throughout this silliness, sorry, innovation…

Raven tags in still commentating, and suddenly it’s a million times more interesting. But when he stops doing the gimmick, it’s just dull. There’s an issue going on here in that no one, bar Kussion, is wearing proper ring gear. They’re all sporting ripped jeans and torn shirts, and thereby Homeless Jimmy’s gimmick is defunct because every douche in this whole scene looks like a derelict. Yes, that includes Funk.

Some of Raven’s punches here show more light than the sun. Sabu hobbles to the ring, despite his broken vertebrae, but the fans are just peeved off at this whole time now, and only mildly show displeasure when he’s dragged away again. Funk gets laid out with a chair but makes an eventually comeback against Raven, which is just as well, because he has more heat than the wrestlers in this match.

Anyways, this was a bad match; well… a really bad one, but luckily I can’t really remember any of it. Did Funk not cut a heel promo? What’s happening…..? Bah!

Disco Machine, Ron Rivera & Joey Ryan vs. Vinnie Massaro, Jardi Franz & Sean Waltman
Waltman gets, easily, the biggest pop of the night thus far, with his surprise entrance into this match.

They start out with some weak Cruiser style stuff and dispense with the heat period in fairly short order, heading into some nice madness and insanity, with even Vince McPhenom getting involved. Disco machine earns the pin for his team.

Eh, it was okay. Mind you, I was upset by Waltman’s Bronco Buster on this occasion. He seriously grinded that little bit extra into Ryan’s face. No need, Sean, no need.

Luke Hawx vs. Jack Evans vs. Scorpio Sky
Hawx cuts a solid promo, and then ruins it by being homophobic and saying fuck too often. Fucking hillbilly.

There isn’t much to this. They all want to prove themselves at the expense of one another, but this is mainly two one-on-one matches happening, where one guy is always laid out for the convenience of the other two. Some nice dives are featured, but nothing you won’t see out of these guys elsewhere. Hawx taps out Scorpio for the win, which I guess puts him over in this story, but isn’t this a one night-only event? So who cares really?

New Jack & Mustafa vs. The WSN
Good lord. I make no secret of my dislike for New Jack, so imagine my joy when the WSN cut a horrific promo, where yep, you guessed it… they sounded like cheap versions of the ECW original. I tried to blank out my preconceptions, and enjoy this, but it was sadly impossible. There’s also actually no point in me describing what transpired. New Jack was involved. What do you really expect? Johnny Saint style chain wrestling? The Gangsta’s take ages to enter the ring, while some awful beat-down occurred, and when they do it’s the usual, formula, fork-utilising nonsense.

Mind you, New Jack sure can bleed… which he certainly does here. But he also cuts a horrific post-match promo where he basically swears a lot, and points out exactly all the things he “represents” that I hate. Ugh. He also retires. I think. But I have to confess to something… New Jack’s speech lasted so long, I was able to abandon the show, and go cook a fry, prior to the main event. It was pretty awesome too. Nice succulent tomatoes, a bit of mushroom, a couple of really fine Pork Sausages, and an egg on top. I’d give it four stars, though the lack of any kind of speciality bread held it back from being four-and-a-half. If I had thought to work some beans into the heat period, we’d be looking at ***** easily.

Dream DeathMatch: No Rope-Barbed Wire-Double Hell Deathmatch
Necro Butcher vs. Supreme
“God have mercy on both these men’s souls” says Kriss Kloss. Hah. I’m well aware that the title of this match alone is the most ridiculous thing about this entire show. It’s up there with the Japanese exploding Electric Fenced, Barbed Wire Alligator Pillow Fights or whatever it is they do in Japan. This starts out like every Barbed Wire match, with an extended Collar-and-elbow tie-up that teases the barbs. They aren’t patient for very long though, and soon, a chair, mouse-traps, and light-tubes are in play. Really quick degeneration into Garbage there.

Necro bleeds from the mouth when he bites a light-tube. He’s committed, that lad. This is clearly what these fans came to see. Necro’s a bit worse for wear, after the do a Back-body drop through a Barbed wire table, covered in light-tubes. You gotta expect that being shoeless. This is an absolutely ghastly mess. Necro is dominating the bout, which is good, because he does actually work the crowd, something that other death-match type grapplers are incapable of. But both guys look really messed up, as he does a Side-Russian off the apron through a barbed wire table. Yuck. In another disgusting moment, Supreme introduces a bucket of thumbtacks, which Necro ends up in, and has his feet stomped into the pile. Gross stuff.

It’s hard to say much about this sort of fight, because I do firmly believe that there’s a place in Professional Wrestling for bouts like this. However, I don’t think having Deathmatch titles is productive whatsoever, and generally follow the consensus that this stipulation should be saved for extended rivalries, and only take place once every few years. That said, this match is a success in the sense that it’s really horrific and the level of brutality is unlike anything else on the card. It’s not entertaining though- more of a spectacle during which your head shakes continuously in amazement. Leaves a bad taste too. Those sausages don’t seem like such a good idea suddenly.

- A Montage of the evening’s events concludes the DVD. Well put together.

Extras

Fallen Heroes Tribute Battle Royal
The Battle Royal is prefaced by a classy video package showing highlights of the various guys who had appeared in XPW, but have since passed. Nice inclusion. The Battle Royal is a load of old nards though.

Fallen Heroes Matches
A bunch of “classic” matches featuring the “fallen heroes”. Sadly, their XPW outings sucked ass, and so do these “classics”.

Miss Extreme Contest
Joey Ryan is great value for money on the microphone, but his presence is odd, and the XPW fans would rather watch dreck like Pogo. Human Tornado, Babi Slymm and Angel are the judges. This is bizarre. I’m not going to run down who the ladies are though, but they all have pretty slutty talents. One girl takes a spanking with a Barbed Wire glove. That definitely challenges the definition of “talent”. Really, I could probably do that. Sure, it would have no place in a Miss Extreme contest, but then again, does this? New York Nikki objects to all this seedy activity, and nearly breaks barbed wire girl’s neck with a sloppy Michinoku Driver. What a cluster. Joey Ryan gets his ass kicked at the end, and there is no actual winner. Still, it was err… different.

The fans who attended this show must have been there for about 12 hours watching this garbage though.

Add to basket?
No. Not if you have any dignity. If you lack said quality, perhaps then. I can completely understand that if you’re a fan of the XPW TV show, and followed the old events, you’ll find much to enjoy here, because it’s an accurate re-tread of that material. However, I tend to think that if you did cherish that garbage… you’ve got deep, emotion-stunting issues, and should immediately seek professional help.

Thanks for taking the time to check this out. I welcome any and all feedback and I can be contacted at www.myspace.com/michaelwrestlingetc or simply by emailing me at Michael@ifight365.com. I look forward to hearing from you, and will be back soon!