===== IWA Mid-South Hardcore Wrestling =====
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An article profiling IWA Mid-South Hardcore Wrestling appears in the current
edition of the Louisville Eccentric Observer, a free newspaper available
around the Louisville area. The LEO article can be found online at
http://leoweekly.com/archives/062503/feature.shtml if you'd like to view it on
the web. Full
text of the article is below.

-----------------------------------
Fake? Don’t bet on it

IWA Mid-South Hardcore wrestlers bring the fight out of the ring and into
your seat — so watch out

Story by Greg Bartlett

Ian Rotten is on the mic again, standing alone in the middle of the ring. A
ridiculously large — but necessary — bandage adorns his forehead, the result
of a wrestling match earlier this evening. He has since gotten out of his
blood-soaked clothes, but his usually blond hair will remain crimson until he
can
go home and shower. There are fresh, still-wet stains on the canvas mat at his
feet, a mixture of blood from other wrestlers and his own.
But this is nothing unusual or illegal in the least. It’s just another
Saturday night for fans of the Independent Wrestling Association’s Mid-South
Hardcore Wrestling in Clarksville.

Phyllis Hickey of Lexington is a longtime IWA Mid-South fan who almost never
misses a show and can be found either sitting in the stands or at ringside.
She has seen and heard it all, and at the moment she is talking Ian Rotten and
head butts.

“Nothing excites me more than Ian’s head butts,” says Hickey, 51,
explaining
that the imprint of Rotten’s forehead scars can be glimpsed on other
wrestlers’ foreheads after the ka-rack! of one of his head butts. “I wish I
could do
that.”

In a lifetime of watching wrestling, she has never seen anybody as hard-core
as Rotten. And there’s more. She says she admires and respects him “more
than
anybody I’ve ever known.”

Stop. Hold on. Let’s back up. People are bleeding buckets. People are talking
with reverence about head butts and scars. Someone should explain how we got
to this point — to this squared circle where the sight of gore and guts is
glorified, where pride, passion and predetermined outcomes are blended for a few
bucks and a few hours of your time.

Perhaps the best place to start is at the beginning, when Rotten picks up the
microphone at a little past 8 p.m. and pumps up the crowd with pre-show
introductions. As he speaks, dozens of fans meander through a warehouse doorway,
finding seats in the bleachers against the walls and in the two rows of metal
folding chairs surrounding the ring. You might suppose a visual inspection of
the crowd would serve up some easy stereotypes, but not so. Groups of teenagers,
families with small children, older couples, solitary young men — they all
sit rapt during Rotten’s monologue. He thanks them for coming. He greets some
cordially and chastises others. Before the national anthem — Jimi Hendrix’s
version — blares over the P.A., Rotten makes brief remarks in support of U.S.
foreign policy. “If the Dixie Chicks can run their fuckin’ mouths, so can
I.”
The audience applauds enthusiastically.

Ian Rotten is a 33-year-old independent wrestler who got his professional
start 13 years ago — Aug. 10, 1990, to be precise, when he stepped in for an
injured wrestler whose thumb was almost bitten off. But his wrestling dreams go
much further back, all the way to when he was 4 years old and attended his first
wrestling event.

“Most kids change their minds a thousand times about what they want to be
when they grow up,” he says, “but I never did.”

He tried Greco-Roman wrestling as a youth but found that “it just wasn’t as
much fun as the freestyle.” He stayed with what he knew.

Now he wrestles locally and around the country. In the mid-’90s, he worked
for the now-defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling organization and moved to
Louisville from Baltimore. People around here began asking him to bring that
extreme form of wrestling to a local venue, as opposed to the more traditional
(and also now-defunct) U.S. Wrestling Association events that had been held for
many years at the Louisville Gardens. From those requests he started IWA
Mid-South Hardcore Wrestling in 1996. IWA Mid-South hosted regular events in
Kentucky and Indiana as its home base bounced around the region before finally
settling last June in a Clarksville warehouse at 1390 Woerner Ave. just south of
the
Colgate Palmolive Co. plant. He chose Indiana in large part because
Kentucky’s athletic commission has rules prohibiting, among other things,
bloodshed,
and also because Kentucky’s commission takes a small cut of the proceeds.

Before the first match of the night can even begin, an on-duty and an
off-duty referee exchange words. The off-duty ref chases the other one around
the
room. The on-duty ref escapes, and they both retreat to separate dressing rooms.
A third ref is summoned so the card can commence. Like most of the matches
this evening, the first contest pits a “good guy” against a “bad guy.”
It is
not entirely clear what determines these designations, but it is always clear
where audience sentiment resides. The pair quickly find themselves out of the
ring. Fans scatter. Back in the ring, the good guy wins. Both wrestlers limp
back to their dressing rooms.

The second match seems clearly uneven. A skinny man, no older than his early
20s, enters. He wears baggy clothes and does not remove his facial piercings.
His opponent is a much larger wrestler, making his first IWA Mid-South
appearance and reportedly from London. Defying logic but pleasing the crowd, the
smaller wrestler, a fan favorite, wins in short order.

The third match breaks form and features a bad guy versus a bad guy. Instead
of starting right away, the wrestlers, both from Chicago, take turns on the
mic. They profanely insult the locals. The locals boo and respond in kind. Or,
more accurately, in unkind. The wrestler known as “Classic” Colt Cabana
directs a loud barb at the female ref: “Why don’t you go in the kitchen and
bake me
a pie, you dumb slut?” He and his opponent, Danny Daniels, argue about which
guy cheats and which is the best wrestler in the world. The debate leads to
fisticuffs. During the match, Daniels chokes Cabana with thick tape. They end up
fighting outside the ring and one side of seats clears. Almost 20 minutes
into the match, Cabana pins Daniels.

To this point in the evening, the wrestling has been intense if not extreme,
recalling the brash, in-your-face fights that fans might have found at the old
Louisville Gardens many years ago. Enjoyable, but nothing too shocking.
Still, I’m starting to wonder why large rolls of barbed wire are kept in the
building. And why are fans toting homemade weapons?

IWA Mid-South relies on word of mouth for business. (Rotten occasionally airs
commercials during World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.’s “RAW” cable
television show on TNN, “but nobody’s watching ‘RAW’ now,” he says.)
Despite the
lack of publicity and the many site changes, weekly attendance has held steady
at
about 100, with admission generally less than $10 but sometimes up to $20 or
more, depending on the card. He acknowledges that many other wrestling groups
around the nation attract more people per show, but notes that most
organizations don’t schedule cards every week, either.

The word certainly seems to have spread.

“I have all kinds of interaction with people all over the country,” says
Rotten’s business partner, James Fannin of Clarksville. “There are fans all
over
the East Coast that love our stuff.”

He receives requests for videotapes, T-shirts, information and more from
hard-core wrestling buffs, but those fans aren’t contained solely within the
United States. A distributor in England sells IWA Mid-South tapes throughout
Europe.

Fannin himself became involved with IWA Mid-South after hearing people talk
about it. A few months after the group formed, he and a couple of friends read
about it on the Internet and drove from their homes in Lexington to check it
out. Over several years, he has gone from being a fan to promoting, taping
shows, ring announcing, refereeing, managing wrestlers and even wrestling.

Growing up in Chicago’s suburbs, he watched wrestling on TV every Saturday
night with his father, and, like Rotten, he recalls watching wrestling as far
back as 4 years old. Fannin, too, says he is “living out (his) dream.”

Last week referee Brent Blades insulted a wrestler known as Shark Boy, so
tonight they will settle things in a grudge match. Shark Boy wears a mask and a
plastic fin on his head, and his intro music, naturally, is the theme from the
movie “Jaws.” He promptly throws Blades through the rows of chairs around
the
ring. Fans are forced out of their seats and run from the beating. Blades is
repeatedly body-slammed onto the concrete floor before being carried away on a
stretcher. But the only clear injury he sustains is a bloody elbow, and later
in the evening he is seen walking around the facility. Shark Boy isn’t able
to enjoy his victory for long — he is jumped in the ring by another wrestler
and hit with a chair. Shark Boy is then carried away on a stretcher.

During intermission, things get more bizarre. A roll of barbed wire is
wrapped around the ring’s ropes, and soon wrestlers Corporal Robinson and
Rollin’
Hard begin a match. They cut each other’s foreheads on the wire. Both men
bleed
all over the mat and themselves. A little boy sitting ringside is captivated
and unbothered. He finally cringes when one of the wrestlers is kicked in the
“weenie.” Robinson wins, earning a spot in a future blood-and-guts wrestling
tournament.

Basically, wrestling can be divided into two types. There is pure wrestling,
also known as scientific wrestling, which is what most people know. Then there
is, for lack of a more proper term, blood-and-guts wrestling. Blood-and-guts
matches usually become so because wrestlers use items besides their arms and
legs to hurt each other. What kinds of things? Name it. It has probably been
applied.

“I never drop to my knees before a regular wrestling match and ask the Lord
to take care of me,” Rotten says. But he has “done some pretty crazy
stuff” in
blood-and-guts matches. He prays beforehand.

All of which is not to say that “regular” matches are exactly safe. Although
more than half of IWA Mid-South matches are pure wrestling, they don’t need
to involve the use of barbed wire, glass or thumbtacks to cause concern.

“Things do go wrong,” he says. There was the pure tag-team match several
years ago when he was thrown out of the ring from the top rope. He had planned
to
crash through a table, but one of his opponents, Corporal Robinson,
accidentally landed on it instead. Rotten fell onto the concrete floor and
“blew out”
his shoulder on impact.

“There are things you just can’t control,” he says.

Stay awake, ’cause the next match features a good old-fashioned sleeper hold.
Funny thing about sleeper holds — typically the victim is almost put to sleep
but inexplicably regains his senses a fraction of a second before he would
have been disqualified. As a matter of fact, many of wrestling’s dramatic
staples are performed tonight, including countless near-three counts and
occasions
when two wrestlers simultaneously lie stunned on the mat until, slowly,
inexorably, one of them barely beats the other to a move or to tagging in a
partner.

Bad news for yours truly: On his way to the ring for a tag-team match,
wrestler Michael Todd Stratton stops at the front row and directs several
insults at
me. He concludes with: “You look like a dumb motherfucker.” I meet his stare
but try not to make any discernible facial movements, hoping he’ll move on.
He does. After he and his partner lose the ensuing match against Mark Wolf and
Ian Rotten, they bust open Rotten’s head with a chair, tie up Wolf with a
metal chain, bind Rotten to the corner ropes with duct tape, clobber the ref,
wallop the announcer and assault three of Rotten’s family members, including
his
wife.

Before attending an IWA Mid-South show, take this free advice and commit it
to memory: Under no circumstances should you ever refer to wrestling as F-A-K-E.

“The worst thing that you could ever say to a professional wrestler is that
it’s fake,” Fannin says. “Fake is just a very bad word. It’s the
ultimate
four-letter word to a wrestler.”

Using that four-letter word in front of a wrestler can get you pummeled,
especially by a wrestler who got pummeled last night, even if his pummeling was
scripted.

“I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence and say there’s not a
predetermined winner in wrestling,” Rotten says. But “there’s nothing fake
when
guys are legitimately breaking their necks or shattering their elbows. Concrete
ain’t fake. Light tubes ain’t fake. Two heads crashing into one another like
goats out on the farm ain’t fake. ... (The blood) is all real.”

No surprise, then, that IWA Mid-South’s main slogan is “Fake? My ass.”

Let’s move on before someone gets upset.

The secondary IWA Mid-South slogan is, “Old-fashioned violence with a new-age
vengeance.” It hints at an important association goal.

“Our idea and our thought is to bring realism back to wrestling, which is a
very hard thing to do,” Rotten says. “So there’s more along the lines of
concussions ... and split heads from head butts. And that’s just the regular
wrestling.”

Regardless of intent, Fannin says, “when a 270-pound guy throws a punch at
you and makes contact, you’re going to feel it. It’s going to sting and
it’s
going to hurt.” Taking a single body slam to the canvas, “you feel it and it
can get you sore the next day. ... These guys put their body on the line every
night that they’re out there. While everyone will admit it’s predetermined
and
you’re not trying to kill each other, the fact remains that your body is
being slammed on top of wood that’s on top of steel.”

“(Our) guys slug the hell out of each other,” Rotten says. “The guys in
IWA
hit so much harder than the guys people are used to watching on TV.”

Longtime fan Hickey says being at IWA Mid-South is much more exciting than
watching other groups or watching wrestling videotapes. “Being there makes it
seem so much more real. ... The wrestlers get an adrenaline rush while they’re
in there, and you kind of get it, too. At the end of the shows I’m totally
exhausted.”

With the long-running popularity of WWE, which focuses more on the
entertainment side of sports entertainment, fans “forget what wrestling used
to be
about,” Rotten says. “(Jerry) Lawler and (Bill) Dundee were bleeding every
night
in the Gardens when they were there.”

“We have a lot more contact and a lot more harder contact than you would find
in the WWE,” Fannin says, “and a lot of that is because our front row is six
feet in front of the ring.”

Hickey says IWA Mid-South’s “hard-hitting” style is “the most incredible
thing I have ever seen.” And it’s not something she merely attends, she
says.
“You go and experience the IWA.” (The even-tempered, mild-mannered Hickey
also
says people “are really surprised when they find out what I do on
weekends.”)

“Sometimes you don’t get cut up,” Rotten says. “Sometimes you get sliced
to
hell. I’ve got a gash in my elbow right now from being put through a door
with light tubes on it. ... I got suplexed on it.”

The light-tube door was built and brought by a fan, an activity IWA Mid-South
not only condones but encourages. Despite suffering the “nice and deep” cut,
Rotten wrestled the next night and split it open again. Afterward, he went
home and glued the wound.

“I left the shower looking like Norman Bates got his last victim there,” he
says. “It’s actually making a pretty nice scar, too.”

The final match tonight is a tag-team bout. It lasts 45 minutes and caps a
four-hour show. The match ends with a double pin — both sides have a man
pinned
at exactly the same moment. What are the odds, right? Ian Rotten, wearing a
ridiculously large — but necessary — bandage on his forehead because of the
chair-to-face incident an hour earlier, takes the mic and declares the match a
draw. With all four wrestlers clamoring for vengeance, it’s the perfect
cliffhanger for next week.

To some degree, all wrestlers must thrive on the inherent danger of taking a
running clothesline from a large man or being hit directly on the skull with a
metal folding chair.
Rotten recalls many ill-fated incidents. Once, while wrestling Corporal
Robinson in Salem, Ind. (not the same match against Robinson in which Rotten’s
shoulder “blew out”), Rotten cut an artery above one of Robinson’s
temples.

“Every time his heart beat, blood was spurting,” Rotten says.

Then there was the IWA Mid-South wrestler who suffered a severely torn ear.
He was taken to a hospital; medical personnel there had to clean their
ambulance for 90 minutes to get all of the blood out of the vehicle.

But Rotten says there are limits to what IWA Mid-South wrestlers will do.

“Pretty much all weapons can be used,” Rotten says. “It’s pretty much a
matter of whether it can be used the way the fan wants it to be used.”

Surprisingly, hospital trips for IWA Mid-South wrestlers are rare, with only
two or three required in the past year. Still, the cycle of torture takes its
toll.

“When you actually see these guys and talk to them when they’re out of the
ring, you see them walk with a limp and find out about their aches and pains,”
Hickey says. “And it makes you respect what they do even more. Jumping off
balconies and tables — they could kill themselves doing that.”

“My medical bills are real,” says independent wrestler Danny Daniels of
Chicago, who first wrestled with IWA Mid-South in December 2001 after reading
about it on the Internet. On the day he was interviewed, Daniels made his third
visit in a week to a chiropractor. His back has felt strange lately, from
“pretty much just the constant abuse of doing this. It’s messed up my neck
and
spine. But, hey, what are you gonna do? All the guys are banged up. Your
body’s not
meant to take this punishment. It’s not something that’s healthy for the
body.”

Regarding insurance, “you’re pretty much on your own,” he says. “I just
recently got it within the past year, and a lot of guys don’t have it.” Many
wrestlers “have medical bills piling high. Thank God I can afford it right
now. A
lot of insurance companies won’t cover you, ’cause you’re a liability.”

He started wrestling because of the “typical,
‘I-always-wanted-to-do-it-when-I-was-a-kid’ thing,” he says. “I was just
mesmerized by it when I was a kid.”

That long-held fascination, along with his enjoyment of working out and
traveling and his dislike of the nine-to-five routine, meant that wrestling
“really
fit” him.

As may be clear by now, an early start is common for both wrestlers and fans.
So is the family connection. “I’ve been watching wrestling since I was 3 or
4 years old,” Hickey says. “I remember sitting at my daddy’s feet
watching”
it on TV.

It’s another night, another show, and I walk in late to find a three-on-three
match well under way inside of and outside of the ring. There is no point in
sitting because the six wrestlers are fighting all around the room, and fans
must move continually for cover.

After that chaos resolves itself, a one-on-one match begins. Some of the
“weapons” used by the wrestlers in the match include: lumber; a metal
garbage can;
metal signs; baseball bats (plastic and aluminum); all manner of light
fixtures; a crutch wrapped in barbed wire; dozens of metal folding chairs; a box
full of cell phones; an electronic Billy Bass fish; and a computer keyboard.
Many of the weapons were brought by fans. When one wrestler breaks the
computer keyboard over the other wrestler’s back, part of the keyboard flies
about
15 feet, hits me in the chest and falls to the floor. I look at the plastic
piece at my feet and notice I’m standing in wrestlers’ blood. I have no idea
which match it came from.

Spend a few minutes at an IWA Mid-South show and you will be struck by the
constant drama — and possibly by flying debris. The introductions,
announcements, fight music, moments between matches and frequent out-of-ring
sideshows — to
say nothing of the actual matches — are packed with plot twists, grandiose
statements, betrayals, unholy alliances and violence. There is seldom a second
to breathe easy. It is all by design.
Says Rotten: “I like to compare wrestling to plays and things like that.”

Hickey recognizes that approach and appreciates it. Rotten is “so intelligent
when it comes to wrestling. He knows exactly how to draw you in. ... You
laugh. You cry. You get scared. There’s so much emotion involved in every
show.”

If the ring is but a stage where every wrestler must play a part, then the
best wrestlers are often those who act naturally.

“When you go out there, you know where you’re supposed to end and what the
end is supposed to be,” Fannin says. But 75 percent of what leads to the
ending, he says, is “just you doing what you do. I guess you could say the
best
characters that are out there are the people who tend to be themselves, because
the more your character is based on your real self, the less amount of acting
you have to put into it, and you can just be yourself out there. And it makes it
a lot more fun and a lot easier to do.”

Daniels plays a “blown-up version” of himself.

“I’m cocky, arrogant in real life,” he says.

If fans approach him before or after a show or in public, he says, “I’ll
still play my character, but I won’t be rude to them. They respect what I do.
...
Wrestling (is) my version of being a rock star.”

Most wrestlers aren’t paid as well as rock stars. But, like Daniels, many are
able to earn a living from full nelsons and strangleholds.

“A lot of the guys have part-time jobs,” too, he says, “but a lot of guys
(wrestle) full time.”

The fact that wrestlers wrestle at all is enough to worry even the most
stalwart people in the business.

Rotten’s wife, Patti, met him before he started wrestling in blood-and-guts
matches in 1995. (From ’90 to ’95 he was strictly a pure wrestler.)

“When I met him, he had no scars,” she says. “I hate the hard core.”

Sometimes she is involved in plot lines that require her to be ringside.
Otherwise, she doesn’t closely observe his matches while she is in the
building,
and she no longer attends his out-of-town matches.

“It’s kind of unwritten that (wives and girlfriends) don’t really
watch,”
she says. “I’m on pins and needles and filled with anxiety” during his
matches.

IWA Mid-South wrestlers, management and fans don’t focus on the blood and
guts when they explain their admiration for the organization. Rather, they cite
its dedication and work ethic as trademarks.

“A lot of the guys give it everything they got down there,” Daniels says.
“They really bust their ass.” And with a show each week, “you gotta kind
of
push yourself into learning new (wrestling moves).”

The frequency of the shows, in an intimate environment, also dictates that
fans get to know each other well. They become friends — even like family.

“There’s a closeness,” Hickey says, “about it all.”

And at the root, both fans and wrestlers are bound by an almost religious
love and respect for wrestling and its unique style of drama, which, admittedly,
takes some getting used to. Hickey remembers the first time she attended an
IWA Mid-South show; she was shocked when other fans began throwing chairs into
the ring.

“It was so scary to me,” she says. “But it was something about the fear
they
invoked in me — it got me hooked. I couldn’t stop going. ... I guess I have
my most fun at wrestling.”

“There’s no other rush like it,” Rotten says. “Let’s face it: The
United
States of America is sex, drugs, violence and rock ’n’ roll. People in this
country love sensationalized violence. That’s just the way it is.”

Contact the writer at greg@...

For more information about IWA Mid-South Hardcore Wrestling, visit the
association’s Web site at www.iwamidsouthwrestling.com. Or call the group’s
hotline
at 569-1701. The organization’s latest and “most shocking” storyline ever
—
James Fannin ordered an attack on Ian Rotten and put a $10,000 bounty on his
head — is the current buzz.

In addition to the regular schedule, an IWA Mid-South “marathon show” for
charity is being organized for July 4. The event is for a former employee’s
son,
who needs a kidney transplant. There will be no intermissions — just six
hours of continuous matches and other activities, such as a wrestler dunking
booth. “We got guys coming in from all over the country to do it,” says Ian
Rotten. “A lot of times we’re our own insurance.” Visit the IWA Mid-South
Web site
or call the group’s hotline for more details.


IWA Mid-South News for 06.25.03
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Stacy McMackin, Moderator

--FIRST ROUND TOURNAMENT PAIRINGS ANNOUNCED!!
--CZW WRESTLERS CHALLENGE IWA TO TAG TEAM MATCH!!
--FOURTEEN MATCHES IN ALL THIS FRIDAY NIGHT!!

IWA Mid-South returns to the IWA Arena (1390 Woerner Ave.) in Clarksville, IN
this coming Friday night, June 27th for "The Revolution." Tickets are $20,
$15, & $10 and will be available at the door on the night of the show.

Featured is a one night single elimination eight man strong style tournament,
plus six other big matches. Included on the show, Mark Wolf will defend the
IWA World Heavyweight Championship against one of the men who hit the ring on
him during his match with Chris Hero this past Saturday night, Matt Stryker.
Former tag team partners Mitch Page and Rollin' Hard collide in a Dog Collar
Match. Two CZW wrestlers, Sonjay Dutt and Ruckus, have issued a challenge to the
IWA roster for a tag team bout on Friday's event, stemming from the IWA's
involvement on the CZW show two weeks ago in Philadelphia. JC Bailey has
accepted
the match, and will have a mystery partner on his side against the CZW duo.

Here's a look at the lineup so far for Friday night...

****First Round Tournament Match***
IAN ROTTEN --VS.-- BJ WHITMER

****First Round Tournament Match***
CHRIS HERO --VS.-- ACE STEEL

****First Round Tournament Match***
TAREK THE GREAT --VS.-- CM PUNK

****First Round Tournament Match***
BRAD BRADLEY --VS.-- STAN DUPP

***IWA World Heavyweight Title Match***
[Champion] MARK WOLF --VS.-- MATT STRYKER

***Dog Collar Match***
"Mean" MITCH PAGE --VS.-- ROLLIN' HARD

***CZW vs. IWA Challenge Match***
SONJAY DUTT & RUCKUS --VS.-- JC BAILEY & MYSTERY PARTNER

DANNY DANIELS --VS.-- NIGEL McGUINNESS

"Spyder" NATE WEBB --VS.-- STEVE STONE

MICHAEL TODD STRATTON --VS.-- HY-ZAYA

Don't miss all the action LIVE! this Friday night at the IWA Arena. Fourteen
big matches in all. Less than $1 per match for a general admission ticket!
Special guest ring announcer for the evening will be Jason Roberts
(http://www.jjroberts.com) of FX's Toughman and WWE Smackdown.

Below is an official revised list of 15 of the 16 competitors in the IWA
Mid-South 2003 King of the Death Matches tournament, to take place on August 1st
&
2nd at the IWA Arena (1390 Woerner Ave.) in Clarksville, IN. You can still
get tickets in the 3rd and 4th rows of the floor, as well as general admission.
Prices are $36 & $32 for two night packages, or $20 & $18 for single night
tickets. Tickets can be purchased at any live IWA events or by sending a check
or
money order payable to Jim Fannin, to: IWA Mid-South, PO Box 21476,
Louisville, KY 40221. If you live on the east coast and would like to attend the
shows
live, there are still a few remaining seats available for the bus trip. For
bus trip information, E-mail IWABusTrips@...

1. Mad Man Pondo (IWA Mid-South, Big Japan Pro Wrestling)
2. Corporal Robinson (IWA Mid-South, Mid American Wrestling)
3. "Sick" Nick Mondo (Combat Zone Wrestling, Midwest Pro Wrestling)
4. Dysfunction (Mid American Wrestling, Neo-Pro Wrestling)
5. Axl Rotten (IWA Mid-South)
6. JC Bailey (IWA Mid-South, Bad To The Bone Wrestling, Coliseum Championship
Wrestling)
7. "Mr. Insanity" Toby Klein (Independent Wrestling Revolution, Xtreme
Intense Championship Wrestling)
8. Ian Rotten (IWA Mid-South, Pro Pain Pro Wrestling)
9. The Messiah (Combat Zone Wrestling)
10. Badboy Hido (Big Japan Pro Wrestling, World Entertainment Wrestling)
11. "Mean" Mitch Page (IWA Mid-South)
12. Lowlife Louie (USA Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honor)
13. Balls Mahoney (Pro Pain Pro Wrestling)
14. "Spyder" Nate Webb (IWA Mid-South, Rok'um Sok'um Wrestling, World
Wrestling All-Stars)
15. Nick Gage (Combat Zone Wrestling)

In addition to the tournament, several other non-tournament matches will take
place on KOTDM weekend. Included will be current IWA referee Mickie in her
wrestling debut, as well as CM Punk vs. Chris Hero.


NEW IWA MID-SOUTH TAPES AT SMARTMARKVIDEO.COM!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Below is a listing of the seven most recent IWA Mid-South videotape releases
currently available at SmartMarkVideo.com.

IWA-MS June 14, 2003 - Clarksville, IN "Shattered Dreams"
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1. Hy-Zaya vs. Tarek the Great
2. Chris Hero vs. "Spyder" Nate Webb
3. Mark Wolf vs. Jimmy Jacobs
4. Chris Hero vs. Nigel McGuinness
5. Rolin Hard vs. Mean Mitch Page
Price: $15.00


IWA-MS June 7, 2003 - Clarksville, IN "When Good Friends Go Bad"
----------------------------
1. Hy-Zaya vs. JC Bailey vs. "Spyder" Nate Webb
2. Corporal Robinson vs. Brad Bradley
3. BJ Whitmer vs. Danny Daniels
4. Mark Wolf vs. Chris Hero
5. Mean Mitch Page vs. Ian Rotten
Price: $15.00


IWA-MS May 31, 2003 - Clarksville, IN ''Brothers in Blood''
----------------------------
This show was shot by Smart Mark and features commentary by Dave Prazak.
Great show from top to bottom which included Shelley vs Jacobs, Danny Daniels
and
Nigel McGuinness and a brutal barbed wire bat match between Ian & Axl Rotten.
1. Gavin Starr vs. Steve Stone
2. Nate Webb w/ Lollipop vs. Hy-Zaya
3. J.C. Bailey vs. Michael Todd Stratton
4. Nigel McGuinness vs. Danny Daniels
5. Alex Shelley vs. Jimmy Jacobs
6. Chris Hero vs. Brad Bradley
7. Barbed Wire Bat Insanity - Axl Rotten vs. Ian Rotten
Price: $15.00


IWA-MS May 24, 2003 - Clarksville, IN ''Spirit of 76''
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This show was shot by Smart Mark and features commentary by Dave Prazak,
Lucy, Ian Rotten, CM Punk and several other IWA-MS stars. Highlights of the show
include an incredible 30 Minute iron Man Match between Jimmy Jacobs and Alex
Shelley, Chris Hero vs Ace Steel and a super stiff strong style match between
Stan Dupp and BJ Whitmer.
1. Cash Flo vs. Tarek the Great
2. Superstar Steve vs. Jeff Hamrick
3. Last Man Standing Match - Steve Stone vs. Rollin Hard
4. 30 Minute Iron Man Match - Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelley
5. "Spyder" Nate Webb vs. Gavin Starr
6. Michael Todd Stratton vs. J.C. Bailey
7. Brad Bradley vs. Mark Wolf
8. Chris Hero w/ Lucy vs. Ace Steel (awesome match)
9. CM Punk vs. Chris Hamrick
10. Fans Bring The Weapons - Bull Pain vs. Corporal Robinson vs. Mean Mitch
Page (witness the insane manuever through a table)
11. Strong Style - BJ Whitmer vs. Stan Dupp (super stiff)
12. Fans Bring The Weapons - Bad Breed vs. Mad Man Pondo & Bad Boy Hido (Ian
& Axl were both a bloody mess during this match)
Price: $15.00


IWA-MS May 17, 2003 - Clarksville, IN ''Wanted: Dead or Alive''
----------------------------
This show was shot by SMV and features an 45 minute 2 out of 3 falls match
between Chris Hero and Danny Daniels. See why Daniels is the most underated
wrestler in the business. Also the return of Cash Flo as he takes on Ian Rotten,
this match features plenty of stiff headbutts. Also in a hardcore classic Corp.
Robinson takes on J.C. Bailey.
1. Tarek the Great vs. Simon Sezz
2. Rollin Hard vs. Average White Guy
3. Ian Rotten vs. Cash Flo
4. Fans Bring the Weapons - Corp. Robinson vs. J.C. Bailey
5. 2 out of 3 Falls - Chris Hero vs. Danny Daniels
6. Bull Pain vs. Mean Mitch Page
Price: $15.00


IWA-MS May 10, 2003 - Clarksville, IN "A Feud Renewed"
----------------------------
This show features the first match in 18 months between Corp. Robinson and
Mean Mitch Page. Believe me these all but destroyed the building and beat the
hell out of each other doing so.
1. Rollin Hard vs. Simon Sezz
2. "Spyder" Nate Webb vs. Mark Wolf
3. J.C. Bailey vs. Tarek the Great
4. Chris Hero vs. Nigel McGuiness
5. Mean Mitch Page vs. Corp. Robinson
Price: $15.00


IWA Mid South May 4, 2003 - Clarksville, IN "Derby Madness"
----------------------------
A awesome show from top to bottom, this tape features commentary from CM
Punk, Dave Prazak, Tracy Smothers & Lucy.
1. Corp. Robinson vs. Simon Sezz
2. BJ Whitmer vs. Nigel McGuiness
3. Street Fight - Tracy Smothers vs. Mitch Page
4. 2 ot of 3 Falls - J.C. Bailey vs. Nate Webb
5. CM Punk vs. Jimmy Jacobs
6. Chris Hero vs. Stan Dupp
Price: $15.00


DIRECTIONS TO THE IWA ARENA - 1390 WOERNER AVE. - CLARKSVILLE, IN

Coming from Louisville: Take I-65 North to Exit 0. Go straight to the 2nd
stop sign (past McDonalds and Waffle House) and turn left onto 7th Street. Go
through the 1st stop sign and turn right into Water Tower Square (400
Missouri Street). Go straight all the way to the back of the parking lot to
find the IWA building.

Coming from Indianapolis: Take I-65 South to Exit 0. Go straight at the stop
sign by KOBE. As soon as you go under the bridge, turn right on Missouri
Street. Then turn left into the Water Tower Square at 400 Missouri Street. Go
straight all the way to the back of the parking lot to find the IWA building.


IWA MID-SOUTH LIVE EVENT SCHEDULE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Event dates and locations subject to change)

06.27.03 Clarksville, IN @ 1390 Woerner Ave. "The Revolution"
08.01.03 Clarksville, IN @ 1390 Woerner Ave. "King of the Death Matches"
08.02.03 Clarksville, IN @ 1390 Woerner Ave. "King of the Death Matches"
11.07.03 Clarksville, IN @ 1390 Woerner Ave. "Ted Petty Invitational"
11.08.03 Clarksville, IN @ 1390 Woerner Ave. "Ted Petty Invitational"

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Call the IWA Mid-South Hardcore Hotline
(502) 569-1701
----------------------------
Visit us on the web at
http://www.iwamidsouthwrestling.com
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