Ring of Honor is, and has always been, a wrestling promotion. A WRESTLING promotion, all caps, hard emphasis. Its mission, its whole niche, was so simple that, in a way, it felt like a cult or a religion: it was for real fans. It was for the ones who traveled the kings road, the ones who had opinions about Joel Goodhart and Dennis Coralluzzo, the men watching fourth- or fifth-generation grainy vhs tapes like monks studying old scripture.

Its first champion, and the epitome of what a Ring of Honor wrestler was, was Low Ki, one of the greatest wrestlers to ever step foot in a ring. Ring of Honor would go on to launch the careers of future WWE headliners like CM Punk and AJ Styles. It showcased high-flying action the likes of which audiences had never seen, from innovators like The Amazing Red and Jack Evans. It became a proving ground for international stars such as KENTA, Takeshi Morishima, and Doug Williams to shine on U.S. soil. Even future backstage minds like Steve Corino and Adam Pearce (who, heck, even booked the place for a while) found a home in Ring of Honor and helped shape its legacy over the years.

And yet: Necro Butcher wrestled more Ring of Honor matches than any of them.

Necro. The King of the Deathmatch. The winner of the Tournament of Death. The current and possibly eternal XPW World Heavyweight Champion. The barefoot brawler. The Texas madman. The man who chose death. Necro by rights belonged in dark dingy deathmatch feds

Despite being spiritually more aligned with CZW, IWA Mid-South, XPW, or just being a modern-day nomad, Necro worked over 100 matches for ROH. And his presence in Ring of Honor, this temple of seriousness and technical wrestling purity, was a glitch in the code. An anomaly. And also absolutely essential.

In truth, Ring of Honor’s, well, honor was always a facade. It was full of all styles and just as scummy as every other promotion. It was never as clean as it claimed. Its first show opened with a homophobic angle, the Code of Honor was an angle to get over Christopher Daniels and his Prophecy, the Carnage Crew and ECW alumni were all over the early show lineups. 

Ring of Honor’s purity was always posture more than policy. ROH was all things. And, the best of those things was Necro Butcher.

You’re probably thinking to yourself “hasn’t Dan already written about Necro once or twice?” Yes and you bastards keep eating it up, so lets dive in.

---

Class Warfare

Team CZW (Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon) vs. Team ROH (Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer & Samoa Joe)

ROH 100th Show, April 22nd, 2006

The CZW vs. ROH feud was wrestling’s id going to war with its ego. Ring of Honor brought in the Combat Zone Wrestling wrestlers and along with them their fans and essentially booked a philosophical war: Honor vs. Combat. Necro Butcher, unsurprisingly, was the chaos engine at the heart of the CZW machine.

Necro made his first few appearances seconding Chris Hero and doing various run-ins. He technically had a tag team match with Hero against Jason Blade and Kid Mikaze, but that was really more of an angle than a match. This is his first real match in ROH. And what a first match.

The match itself is an all-time great. It’s a violent, sloppy, emotionally molten masterpiece. This is one of the hottest crowds in ROH history. Samoa Joe is a star, Super Dragon is terrifying, but this is the Necro show.

Necro punches Pearce like he owes him money. He throws furniture. He makes Pearce bleed buckets. A big part of the ROH vs. CZW feud was elevating Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmed, so much of that is Necro’s doing. It feels like any legitimacy this feud bestowed upon those two is due to Necro. Unsurprisingly, the highlight is anytime Joe and Necro touch. Their interactions are short-lived, but they’re magic. It’s not always clean. It’s not always pretty. It is beautiful, though.

---

The Perfect Epilogue

No Rope Barbed Wire: BJ Whitmer vs. Necro Butcher

ROH War of the Wire 2, July 28th, 2006

The next obvious match to cover is ROH vs. CZW: Cage of Death, so of course I won’t be doing that here. It’s a perfect conclusion to an all-time great feud. It’s the best War Games match of all time. It’s a personal favorite, and Necro is a pivotal part of it, but it’s not a “Necro match.” It may be one of the few matches to feature Necro or Joe where they’re not the standout workers. That one’s about Nate Webb, Chris Hero, or Homicide.

If Cage of Death was the perfect conclusion to the promotional war, then this is the perfect epilogue. Whereas the former might not be a Necro match, this might be the most Necro thing ever booked in ROH. Necro is a man possessed in this. I talked about the legitimacy BJ and Adam Pearce get from being put over by Necro in the feud and this is the final piece of that.

It’s not just Necro taking all the nasty bumps into the barbed wire and BJ dropping him directly on his head and neck, though there’s plenty of that. The match actually starts with Necro in control, and Whitmer taking the bulk of the punishment.

When the tide turns, it’s as insane as you’d expect. Necro takes bumps through the barbed wire like he’s cannonballing into a pool, just zero hesitation. Despite all the violence, the highlights are Necro’s punches and the way he takes Whitmer’s suplexes. Whitmer’s finish is less a victory than a mercy killing. He stands tall after one final exploder suplex, the exclamation point on Ring of Honor’s victory over CZW.

---

The Age of the Fall

Irish Airborne & Jack Evans vs. Age of the Fall (Jimmy Jacobs, Necro Butcher & Tyler Black)

ROH Man Up, September 15th, 2007

This is mid-period ROH Necro, fully integrated into the mythos. The Age of the Fall were a faction out of a My Chemical Romance fever dream, but they worked because they had an emotional weight and history: Jimmy Jacobs as the cult leader, Tyler Black as the chosen boy-prince making his debut, and Necro as the feral dog they unleashed when things needed wrecking.

This match is more of a stable introduction than anything weighty. It follows the much more memorable debut angle where they hung Jay Briscoe upside down and Jimmy Jacobs bathed in his blood. It is one of the coolest visuals in pro wrestling history. If you don’t like it, then you almost certainly don’t understand Necro Butcher. Also, you’re probably lame as hell.

Necro works in this stable because he can make anything a booker hands him work. I had such high hopes for this group that they sadly never met. Worse yet, it introduced a wider audience to the future Seth Rollins.

---

The Best in the World

Relaxed Rules: Bryan Danielson vs. Necro Butcher

ROH Reckless Abandon, November 30th, 2007

Bryan Danielson (soon to be returning to wrestling to face Daniel Makabe) is basically the human inverse of Necro. Precision. Grace. This is a “Relaxed Rules” match, ROH’s polite way of saying “Necro’s gonna Necro.”

And it works. Danielson tries to ground Necro with holds. Necro fights like a dog from underneath. They meet somewhere in the middle, and for 7 short, glorious minutes it feels like magic. They never quite harmonize or gel together, but that’s the point. This match is mostly building Danielson up to face Necro’s Age of the Fall leader, Jimmy Jacobs, the next night, but it manages to be more. It doesn’t reach the level of their earlier PWG match, but it’s two men of honor doing what they do best.

---

An Odd Footnote

ROH World Title: Necro Butcher vs. Nigel McGuinness

ROH Bound by Hate, November 8th, 2008

It’s not a clean win. It’s not even a real win. But it’s a world title match, and it’s Necro’s only one in ROH and he technically gets the victory. That it happened at all is a testament to how deeply embedded he was in the company’s ecosystem by this point. The match is messy and physical, structured a lot around Necro’s legitimately(?) injured leg. The fact that I have no idea if it’s real or not is the beauty of Necro. He’s either selling his ass off or gutting through a real injury. It’s cool as hell either way.

At this point, the Age of the Fall storyline is long in the tooth and Necro is no longer a member. Brodie Lee and Delirious are new members, and they run in and attack Necro, prematurely ending the match and giving him a win by disqualification.

It’s not the match you’d hope for, but Necro is undefeated in Ring of Honor World Title matches and that’s something. It’s an odd footnote in Ring of Honor history I, but ultimately so is Necro himself. 

---

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.” – Sitting Bull

Dog Collar Match: Necro Butcher vs. Jimmy Rave

ROH Final Countdown Tour Night 2, September 19th, 2009

Speaking of ROH storylines that went on far too long, Necro vs. the Embassy felt like it lasted forever. This is late-stage ROH Necro, and even in just a few years, he is a different creature. Slower, wearier, less reckless, but also meaner and more deliberate. This dog collar match is stiff and grimy. Rave is a tremendous cowardly heel foil, and Necro is the perfect dog to sic on him. Necro has always been just as good as a monster heel as he is an underdog babyface. The last chapter of his ROH career leans heavily on the underdog family man (I KNOW) Necro.

This match won’t live up to your expectations, but to be fair, when you see two all-time greats in one of the best gimmick matches, you expect a Match of the Year candidate, if not Match of the Decade. This isn’t that. But it is so good and a must-watch.

Necro bleeds almost immediately from a chain-wrapped punch. Rave punishes him early while Prince Nana yells encouragement. When Necro takes control, he drags Rave through the crowd as the spotlight tries in vain to keep up. Necro throws Jimmy into chairs, walls, and fans, whatever gets in his way.

Nana and an unprotected chair shot help Rave take back over. Rave hits a nasty senton into a chair over Necro’s knee.

When Jimmy refuses to go down to a Tiger Driver, Necro wraps the chain around Rave’s throat and face and chokes him into submission.

Just a gritty, filthy dog collar match between two of the greats.

---

The End of Something

Butcher’s Rules: Homicide vs. Necro Butcher

ROH on HDNet #84, February 10th, 2010

This was Necro’s last ROH match. Appropriately, it’s under “Butcher’s Rules,” which basically means “Do whatever the fuck you want.” Homicide and Necro are kindred spirits: violent, deranged survivors of the only two No Ropes Barbed Wire matches in ROH history.

It’s sloppy, wild, and utterly sincere. It feels like the end of something. Not just a match, but a philosophy. The end of the era where a barefoot madman could be a semi-regular part of a workrate shrine. It was ugly, sincere, and a little sad, like watching two aging gunslingers brawl in the slice of the Wild West.

---

Ring of Hobo

Necro Butcher was never meant to fit in Ring of Honor. He never made sense there, and that’s exactly why he mattered. He was the outsider. The exception that proves the rule. The fevered, busted-up ghost of the best of pro wrestling’s past showing up to take on the best of the best of the new generation. He didn’t bring crisp technical wrestling. He brought something better: consequences, sense that things could go wrong. That someone might actually get hurt. He made pristine execution feel fragile.

Asked once if he was surprised by Bryan Danielson’s rise, Necro said no. He looked around the ROH locker room and was more surprised most of them weren’t stars already.

In a locker room full of future stars, and some that never would be, but should’ve been, Necro still stood out.

Necro Butcher’s legacy in ROH isn’t just in the 100+ matches. It’s in the blood on the canvas, the warped guardrails, the gasps from fans seeing something they weren’t prepared for.

Is Necro Butcher the most ROH wrestler ever? Is he the most important wrestler in ROH history?

No. That’s probably Bryan Danielson, and this site never talks about that guy.