This one is hard to tackle. Not just for one reason, but for many.
First off, this one is near impossible to write about without being THAT PERSON™️ with how much I'm willing to rant and rave about this one. I suppose I can be THAT PERSON™️for once.
Has anyone reading this heard of Icarus? Even if you have, let's do this dramatic retelling.
Icarus was the son of a renowned craftsman from the island of Crete named Daedalus, imprisoned on the island of Crete. The two of them, father and son, are both imprisoned on the island by King Midas, as Midas had commissioned Daedalus to build him a labyrinth, a maze so confusing that he himself could barely find his way out, despite having built the labyrinth, so that the design of the Labyrinth could be a protected secret. This part of the story isn't concrete, but this is Greek mythology, so what is concrete? However, what is concrete is that they were both imprisoned on a tower.
Daedalus was not just a craftsman, but rather a skilled inventor, and would never accept his fate, and started plucking feathers from birds that would fly by the island of Crete, and would create two sets of wings for him and his son, teaching his son how to fly, before the inevitable escape.
Before the flight, Daedalus warned Icarus to not fly too close to the sun, as the wax would melt, or too close to the sea, as the seawater would, too, destroy the wings. Together, they flew away from the tower, however, Icarus had later forgotten the warnings that his own father had told him, and flew too close to the sun.
You know the rest, right?
Icarus is dead in the sea.
Necro Butcher was a batshit wrestler, known for going stiff on anybody, no matter the environment. Being one of the premier names of the 2000s United States independent wrestling scene, he worked practically a lot of these promotions. Combat Zone Wrestling, IWA Mid-South, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, and occasionally making the trip to Japan to wrestle for BJW.
One notable omission from the list I mentioned was intentional. It's CHIKARA. The home of the silly, the goofy, specifically, the cartoony. Specifically, in 2005, he worked CHIKARA's Tag World Grand Prix, where a few of the ROH trainees would also be working. People that Samoa Joe were protective of, and whom Samoa Joe would not want to see get stiffed.
Necro Butcher stiffed those poor kids.
Necro Butcher had wax wings on, and as soon as he made his entrance in Philadelphia — his wax wings melted — just like Icarus.
If you want a bit of a nerdier analysis, Joseph compares this using Barthes' famous “The World of Wrestling” essay. That whole Icarus comparison was as nerdy as I was willing to go. I'm out of being THAT PERSON™️now.
What this match gives is Joe getting his revenge, he sics everything that he can, whatever Necro gives out, he gets right back. Throwing chairs at Joe? Joe suplexes him into a chair and throws another one at him. Necro uses a barricade? Joe powerbombs him right on top of it. This is reckless, this is brutal, this is carnage, this is what some of the best professional wrestling is. This is gross.
Really, this is beautiful. In fact, this is my kind of gross, a beautiful gross. Everything in it feels like a realistic bum fight. That's what's exactly so lovable about it. Everything about this goes wrong, a visually physically disgusting brawl, akin to Nick Gage & John Zandig vs. Jun Kasai & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga. It's everything I feel like I want.
In actuality, this is in high contention for greatest match ever, and if you asked me before I wrote this, yes, this would be the greatest match ever.
Is it one of? Of course, it is, this is spectacular, one that makes you rip off your shirt and run through brick walls. One that is so divisive, one Cornette would call "outlaw indie mud show bullshit." You can slap this on at any time and feel that energy rush through you.
However, what ultimately stops this from being the greatest match ever for me now, is that, there's so much more that is beautiful than this. I think that now I keep continually varying my perspective even further beyond than what I typically do with this, there's a subconscious desire for something beyond carnage, but the indescribable gut feeling. Necro and Joe do give me that, but with the match I had given five here previously in the project (El Hijo Del Santo & Villano IV vs. El Hijo Del Solitario & Angel Blanco Jr.) there's something much more intense, there's something that feels much more beautiful, especially when the tecnicos ditch all honor after being driven to their last bridge.
I can feel Necro & Joe, but the greatest makes you feel it a thousand times more.
Near perfect, yet I have to dock a quarter from my original fiver. This will still make my top 10 matches, though.