After months of hype and build, Barbed Wired Massacre III has been released into the world. Originally scheduled to appear on IMPACT! on Pop, Impact Wrestling moved the match to Twitch. The match was going to be the first no-rope barbed wire match on cable television. The last-minute switch had the branding of the match declare that it was “too violent for tv.” In order to create even more excitement around the event, Sami Callihan and Konnan were the guests on Impact’s media teleconference.
This wasn’t the first time that the leaders of oVe and LAX had met with the media. In early December, in fact, Callihan was discussing the match. When asked his thoughts on Barbed Wire Massacre III, Callihan brought up his death match background. Many are familiar with his work with CZW. While with the promotion, the Callihan Death Machine competed in the Tournament of Death and Cage of Death. He is no stranger to violence. Or barbed wire. But as he put it, “it’s something that I had to do earlier in my career, and it’s something I never thought I’d have to do again.”
During the more recent call, Callihan was asked how he felt about the match being moved to Twitch. “It kind of sucks that its not going to be on TV, but at the same time, Twitch is becoming such a big avenue, I think more people might actually be able to watch it… I’ve been saying it for years in interviews. I think that TV, in the next five, ten years, is going to be dead. Everything’s going to be different streaming sites.” He also enjoys the idea of having IMPACT! on Pop and Twitch as compliments to one another. If content is beyond what is acceptable for cable, the segment could be aired on Twitch.
The match was presented as it was edited for television, that much was clear. Obscene gestures were edited out and the match had a commercial break. Even still, Barbed Wire Massacre III still clocked in at about twenty minutes. And the edits didn’t seem to remove any violence. Santana and Ortiz still wrapped Jake Crist in barbed wire. Literally. He also performed a spear through a table in that tangled state. There were chairs wrapped in barbed wire, tacks, tables, ladders, even skewers.
For those unfamiliar, this has been an incredibly violent feud. In fact, Callihan didn’t even get involved until what many thought would be the blow off of the feud. At Bound For Glory, Callihan helped oVe keep the Impact Wrestling Tag Team Championship in a 5150 Street Fight. When asked about how the feud grew to the level of needing Barbed Wire Massacre, Konan said “a lot of people talk about it, but they are about it. They were willing to take insane bumps, they were willing to risk injury to make a name for themselves and entertain the crowd.” As Callihan pointed out “there’s a couple times we hit the wire and it did not stay intact and we went down to the floor.” In fact, that happened almost immediately.
The ring practically falling apart throughout the match didn’t take anything away from it. This was most likely aided by oVe being experienced with this level of violence. “We’ve been in matches like this, just not on a televised scale or this big of a promotion,” Callihan stated. “We’ve done this type of stuff all over the world, and now we get the chance to do it in front of the masses finally? We’re going to go all out and do whatever we can.”
Which brings us to the two MVPs of the match, as well as the closing moments. According to Callihan, appeared to have broken his foot leaping off of the balcony at Bound for Glory. A week later he was performing like nothing had happened in Barbed Wire Massacre. In the closing moments of the match, he jabbed skewers into the head of Dave Crist while the two stood atop a ladder. Dave Crist was then superplexed through a table, allowing the Latin American Exchange to secure a pinfall victory.
“The biggest accolade that a wrestler can get is when you go backstage and the wrestlers give you a standing ovation” Konnan stated. “As you all know there are monitors during the show, so all the wrestlers are looking at all the matches. We came back and it was the first time I’ve ever seen it… It was the first time I ever saw anybody get a standing ovation for the match. That in itself lets you know it was a great match.”
And it was certainly a great match. But what is next for the two teams? According to Konnan “there really is no tag team division in Impact Wrestling, it’s just us and oVe. There are no real tag teams. That’s something they’re going to have to start doing: start bringing in some tag teams.” Ohio Versus Everything will continue to take on all comers. And LAX? It’s safe to assume they will continue to carry those belts. Konnan puts it best when he says “there’s no group like LAX, there’s never been a group like LAX.”
