| |
| |
| |
In the SPOTLIGHT!
|
FWrestling.com - Circuit News and Info
|
|
FWrestling.com - Circuit News and Info
|
|
|
|
|
Fwrestling.com news
|
Killing of the King: Part Four
You want me? F***ing well come and find me, I’ll be waiting.
As the falling out between the ClaimStakers continued, and Eli and Hornet would wage a vicious war of words all through 2001, ultimately coming to fruition as Merritt exacted his revenge on each member as CSWA Anniversary 2001 came to pass. Before this revenge, however, Eli and Troy would meet one more time – with stakes so high it was impossible to predict that they would meet again – or even wrestle again.
CSWA Anniversary 2001 would see the RAGE in the CAGE.
Eli Flair entered the cage with a badly injured knee from Elvis Lives, and Troy Windham’s neck was sufficiently damaged enough that he was refused medical clearance that evening, only making his appearance after signing a waiver. The rules were simple: no pinfalls, no submissions in the classic sense, no countouts, no disqualifications. The only way to win was for one man to make the other say the words “I QUIT.”
It was apparent to everyone in the arena that night, and moreso, to the two men who entered the cage, that there was very little chance of a happy ending.
They were right.
As predicted, the cage was not able to contain the rage that these two men carried inside. Inevitably, the action spilled to the floor, with both men showing their strength. Troy’s already damaged neck was taking enough of a pounding for him to be the first to escape, but in doing so he not only drew first blood by slamming the cage door on Eli’s head, but did not return to the ring until he retrieved a heavy wrench from underneath.
The wrench traded hands several times, but so did wristlocks, takedowns, and leg dives. Eli Flair and Troy Windham effortlessly combined full frontal brutality with very effective, very basic amateur wrestling.
Eventually, as the damage to both men was sufficient enough to grab the microphone, Troy decided to remove referee Patrick Young from the match. It was a move that gained a mixture of applause and disbelief from the crowd, and also gained him a look of respect from the King of Extreme.
This was their fight – this was their war. All of the other baggage that had accumulated with the ClaimStakers and the Playboys and their revolving door partners was insignificant at that point. This fight was between the King of the Slackers and the King of Extreme, and injuries were about to pile up.
After the referee went down, all hell broke loose. The two men once again took the fight to the floor, using everything from the cage to the guardrail to the concrete floor against each other, but neither man would stay down. The two men too the fight into the crowd, knocking chairs out of the way, slamming each other around, over, and on top of fans, and, in an image that is still visible in the CSWA’s opening credits to this day, they fought over a chair while sprawled out on the concrete floor, all the while, Troy had Eli cinched in a Figure Four leglock. Eli would win the tug of war and break the hold – and Troy’s hand – with a wild swing. Even after that, neither man would give. Eli grabbed Troy’s hand for a test of strength and Troy immediately clipped Eli’s knee.
But it was enough to swing the match back in Eli’s favor. He would sandwich Troy’s damaged hand in the guardrail and bring a chair crashing down on it, before he dragged Troy back towards the ring. One of the stipulations of the match, curiously enough, was that the words “I QUIT” could only end the match if uttered inside the cage. Ironically, while this stipulation was put in place to limit the scope of their carnage to the ring, it was turned around on itself, used to give both men free reign to shred each other without fear of the match coming to an end.
Eli’s face was a crimson mask, and his knee was swollen and bruised, and Troy’s neck was further damaged by a Slacknife on the steps – and his left hand was a purplish hue, definitely fractured somewhere. But as the other playboy, Eddy Love, approached the ring with a towel to wipe the blood from Troy’s face, the King of the Slackers ignored his plea to end it, ignored the fans’ calling for the bell, and ignored the pain that ran through his body. The King of the Slackers entered the ring, one – armed and dizzy, armed with a chair, and the King of the Slackers was the aggressor when both men stood in the ring across from each other again.
Perhaps Sammy Benson said it best in the moment. “Who’s the good guy supposed to be?”
Tragically, the fight would come to an end in a disturbing, unforeseeable way. When Eli ducked a swing of the chair, he finally got a decent grip on Troy’s glaring weak spot – his broken hand. He caught the broken limb with both his own massive hands, and forced the King of the Slackers to his knees. Then, in a move that would prove to be one of the most disturbing in wrestling history; to the point where former CSWA World Champion Evan Aho himself would later say he had to turn from the monitor, Eli stood on Troy’s broken hand and threatened him with further injury if he didn’t quit.
Troy didn’t quit. Eli broke three of his fingers. He grabbed them, one at a time, and snapped them straight back.
It was that moment that Eddy Love tossed the bloody towel he held into the ring. Referee Patrick Young made a judgment call, and ended the match on the towel. Officially, he gave the victory to Eli Flair, but the subsequent attack on Young, and the off – the – cuff interview he gave to Rudy Seitzer after the fact confirmed his state of mind – since Troy never quit, he didn’t deserve to have his hand raised.
No sooner did Rudy let him pass, than Eli was blindsided by Sweet Melissa, a purse full of bricks, and a thirst for vengeance.
It ain’t braggin, motherfucker, if you back it up.
The fallout from the Rage in the Cage was immediate and intense. No two wrestlers from that point forward would ever take a fight to each other in such a fashion. There were extreme matches between wrestlers who didn’t know how to do anything else, to be sure, but none would come anywhere close to matching the Rage. One critic commented that the match was violent even when it wasn’t violent, which is a testament to the deep hatred they shared to that point.
It was also a testament to the fact that both men continued to wrestle a full time schedule for the next six years. They both took time off in order to heal – Eli had stitches in his face and had yet another surgery on his knee, and Troy had both hands in casts and a second, and then a third operation on his neck before he was to make a full time return to the ring.
In interviews, both men expressed their deep respect for the other. It was literally a case of that which does not kill only makes stronger, but they both respected the other for surviving what they had gone through. The old adage proved true again, that when these two men were not preoccupied with each other, the sky was the limit. Eli Flair branched out to other wrestling companies and gained worldwide success as both two – time fWo World Heavyweight Champion and the most unlikely Asylum Fighting champion of all time, while Troy Windham stayed in Greensboro, consolidated his fanbase, and became perhaps the greatest (certainly the most well – known) wrestler to ever step inside a CSWA ring. Eli Flair would marry and father a daughter, all the while headline the second – biggest show in professional wrestling history, fWo’s 2005 CYBERSLAM, against The Deacon for the World Title, and Troy Windham would make history by becoming the Unified World Champion in the beginning of the CSWA’s resurgence.
They seemed to be at peace with each other in a way that was unfathomable in the weeks leading up to the Rage in the Cage, but it was pure logistics. These two men had taken everything of the other and survived it. These two men had done everything in their power to each other and they both survived it. For four years, the silence between Eli Flair and Troy Windham would be a source of both relief from the rest of the professional wrestling world who feared what another round of broken bones and bloody towels would mean, and anticipation for what the next round would actually bring.
After all, nobody was convinced that the war was truly over. But it would take the most unlikely of circumstances and allies to lead to their final battles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
