Welcome to the Death Panel, a monthly round-up of deathmatch stuff that looks interesting, either for good reasons or for bad ones. This moth we’re joined by beloved members of the Violent People family Marilyn (whose blog can be found right here) and Padraig (host of Late Night With the 2012 Royal Rumble, the podcast that’s about the 2012 Royal Rumble, and only the 2012 Royal Rumble). More panel members are always welcome; see the blurb at the bottom of the column for more info.

MASADA vs. Phil Insane (SVN Violent Nature, 9/5/25 — via Sole Streaming)

So last month I said two things: that John Wayne Murdoch getting set on fire (and almost burning down the ring with him) was in contention for spot of the year, and that Phil Insane does some of the most unsafe shit you’ve ever seen, both to himself and others. This is something where I’m not sure words really do it justice. You just have to watch it, and feel the same astonishment that the rest of us watching did. Long story short: MASADA tries to bodyslam Phil Insane off of a stage, and Phil Insane miraculously isn’t paralyzed. I don’t know if it’s spot of the year, but it’s definitely a spot I kept re-watching in slack-jawed amazement. [pto]

CZW Tournament of Death 22 (9/6/25 — via IWTV)

This year’s Tournament of Death was a tried and true fiasco the likes of which you rarely ever see in wrestling these days. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong, outside of someone actually getting killed, happened, and it was complete insanity to watch unfold.

The booking was simply abysmal. DJ Hyde, in all his Hutt-like brilliance, booked possibly the worst ToD final he could have come up with. Respectfully, Judge Joe Dred has some of the worst deathmatch instincts in the game today and SHLAK, while kind of amusing to watch in an extremely morbid sense, is basically completely useless at this point in his career. Going with these two guys out of a stacked field that includes Drake Younger, Hoodfoot, Mickie Knuckles, and Dimitri Alexandrov is profoundly moronic.

And that’s not even mentioning the rain. In what seemed to be a spiteful act from God himself, it started pouring cats and dogs in the middle of the tournament, forcing the wrestlers to work slower as huge cavernous reservoirs started to form in the middle of the ring. Made for some sick visuals but practicality wise, things couldn’t have been worse for the workers.

Yet somehow that wasn’t even the worst thing to happen in this tournament, as the brilliant Baron DJ Hydekonnen decided that this year’s ToD should be livestreamed on IWTV. As you can probably imagine, this did not go well. The stream was glitchy, poor quality, and died completely during several pivotal moments of the show. To illustrate how bad it was, here’s just a small list of what I missed because of tech issues:

● Who won either of the semi-final matches
● Mickie Knuckles injury spot
● About 20% of the Tarp of Death match
● The entire climax of the finals

That last one specifically broke me because the stream never came back and I had to find out who won the next day, via Cagematch.

Yet despite all that, this was still probably the most fun I’ve had watching wrestling this year.

● The opener between Dred and Gage was a disastrously sloppy but fun affair that affirms Nick Gage as a modern day special attraction.
● Younger and Alexandrov was the match of the night, with a delightful hybrid showcase that had as much technical prowess as it did sick shit.
● Knuckles and RSP told a strangely poignant story. Through the use of ring gear and her giant ass, Mickie gave us a generational tale of her career and her evolution as a performer.
● Tim Strange died for our sins (Not blackballing SHLAK from the business).
● Eric Ryan and JJ Allin had an insane bombastic spectacle with exploding cars, meatheaded stupidity, and wanton destruction.
● The Tarp of Death was a silly, fun gimmick that showcased a bunch of interesting rookies.
● The finals, despite being composed of two highly incompetent wrestlers, had all the insane spots and glorious visuals you’d expect from a ToD final. Plenty of falling from high places, barbed wire, and grievous bodily harm to satisfy the primal urge for ultraviolence.

Even though you won’t get the unforgettable novelty of the show ending with a stream crash as soon as Dred falls from a scaffold like I did, I definitely think you should watch this show. It’s pure, stupid fun and has the most sincerity out of anything I’ve watched this year. Abandon your hoity-toity thoughts of good taste for just a few hours and envelop yourself in the glorious madness of ultraviolence. [Marilyn]

Tim Strange vs. SHLAK (CZW Tournament of Death 22, 9/6/25 — via IWTV)

In a tournament of death filled with rain delays, technical difficulties and bad matches, SHLAK vs. Tim Strange was the one standout match. Two of the strangest looking men in pro wrestling: Strange, who looks as if Stan Hansen ate 1 Called Manders and was also weirdly British, then SHLAK, whose entrance is preceded by a montage of how much coke and steroids he does. Strange gets maybe one move in before it becomes all SHLAK attacking his head. SHLAK stabs him with needles, nails in a wooden board, and everything else under the sun, leading to Strange gushing up buckets of blood, covering all of his folds. Stange can only get any offense in by falling on SHLAK but it’s no use. SHLAK gets the victory. If you only watch one match from Tournament of Death, then that’s probably one too many, but make it this one. Tim Strange, best British wrestler going. [Padraig]

Eric Ryan vs. JJ Allin (CZW Tournament of Death 22, 9/6/25 — via IWTV)

There’s a portion of this match, about 5 minutes, where both men are desperately trying to break a car window. JJ Allin puts Eric Ryan into the back of a car, then tries to hit a running boot through the car window, but the window just won’t give up. He tries about five times, gets help from fans pushing him to build up speed, but the window just won’t break. Then Ryan gets out of the car, puts Allin in the back, and tries to hit a running both through the car window but it also stays strong. He grabs a biker helmet and slams that into the window over and over but it just won’t give! The rest of the match was fine or whatever but this sequence is the most I’ve laughed at wrestling in a while. I am the window. [Padraig]

Primos Slave to the Deathmatch 16 (9/19–21/25 — via TrillerTV+)

This one almost broke me. I went in thinking “well, how bad could it be,” under the mistaken impression that indy deathmatches are like pizza. You know the saying about pizza, right? The thing is, “even bad pizza is still pizza” does have the hidden prerequisite attached, where whoever made the pizza actually knows the correct ingredients and how to work an oven.

I wish I could recommend Slave to the Deathmatch 16 on some kind of ironic “so bad it’s good” level, but no. Across three nights of shows, AKIRA, Dimitri Alexandrov, and Neil Diamond Cutter were the only people who seemed to have received even a little bit of wrestling training. The rest of the shows were mostly filled up by Denver locals whose preparation probably consisted of maybe reading what pro wrestling was on Wikipedia and thinking “well, I can do that.” Guess what?

There are flickers of silver lining, I guess. Slave to the Deathmatch 16 was a gender-inclusive, trans-friendly tournament, which is nice to see in our Current Political Moment. It had one memorable spot where some guys did the Dudley Boys “wazaaah” flying headbutt to the cock spot, but with cinderblocks (one smashing into another balanced atop the victim’s penis). I’d be shocked if that isn’t stolen by a bigger promotion at some point. On the other hand, there’s the rest of it. One of the tournament entrants wrestles a deathmatch in a leather trenchcoat, which begs the question of what you’re even doing in a deathmatch tournament if you’re that afraid of nicks and cuts. The non-tournament matches didn’t fare any better, since they mostly centered around the promoter’s pet storyline where he’s an evil cult leader being opposed by a heroic babyface, leading to epic stand-offs between two 5’3″ dudes with muffin tops and little titties.

At the end of the tournament, the winner leads the crowd in chanting “Slave! Slave! Slave!” which was just a cherry on top, as far as wondering why the fuck I willingly sat through it all. [pto]

Jack Harrop vs. Iceman (RPW Bleed for the Cause, 9/20/25 — via IWTV)

Father faces large adult son in a “Typhoon of 1,000 Tubes” match, where not only is there going to be enough fiberglass spooky dust in the air to give the entire audience mesothylioma, but also the tubes being used are the skinny kind. That alone is enough to scream “bad idea” to anyone who knows anything about the different makes and models of fluorescent light tubes. It’s a miracle they made it through all thirty minutes of the match without severing any arteries or getting a tube stuck through their arm.

Let me reiterate: this match is thirty minutes long. Neither Iceman nor his son (who looks like if a Britwres guy got inflated with a bicycle pump as part of some kind of DeviantArt fetish) have the kind of athleticism or stamina for thirty minutes, and that’s without accounting for blood loss. By a few minutes in, they’re both wheezing and lumbering their way through it, taking turns offering one another their backs for tube shots of ever-diminishing force. By the time they do the big showcase bump of falling off the stage together, through an artfully-arranged light tube log cabin, they can’t even put any oomph into it: less dramatic leap into the glass, more exhausted stumble. Thirty minutes! Jesus Christ. [pto]

El Macuarro y La Brava vs. Tesorito y El Licenciado TX8 (Zona 23 Homanaje Extremo a Pagano, 9/21/25 — via IWTV)

And just like that, after my spirit was crushed by Slave to the Deathmatch, it’s instantly and beautifully restored. El Licenciado TX8 is identified in IWTV’s card listing as “El Teporocho” (“The Drunkard”), and he looks like if Leatherface was wearing the skin of later-period Juventud Guerrera. He’s a natural, in the same way that Macuarro is a natural — untutored, unpredictable, magnetic. Not even the god-awful production of Zona 23’s IWTV VOD (where the camera cuts every two and a half seconds, in a way that seems completely random, so you’ll go from a close-up shot of two wrestlers fighting in the crowd, to two seconds of a camera showing the empty ring) could stop me from enjoying this complete clusterfuck of a junkyard garbage brawl. I grew up an ECW mutant, fiending for the grime and excess of the Arena, and Zona once again delivers the closest thing anyone this century is going to get to that feeling. [pto]

You — yes, YOU — can join the Death Panel. I’m looking for capsule match/show reviews (100 words minimum, 300 words maximum) of October 2025 deathmatches for the next edition of the column. Contact me on X at @ptotime, on Bluesky at ptotime.bluesky.social, or via the Violent People Discord at @pto if you want to add your voice to the mass of freaks baying for fresh blood.