Two Damn Good NHB Matches To Celebrate John Wayne Murdoch

With NHB Volume 100 on the horizon next month, you’re gonna see me do a few pieces on this company leading up to the show... because it truly has to be one of my favorite Deathmatch companies in the United States right now. I’ve been hooked on NHB  since I found out about it in 2020 and it’s overall cool to see a company make it this far. I wanted to look at some matches of, coincidentally, one of the best deathmatch wrestlers in America right now in John Wayne Murdoch. These are from his first reign with the NHB American Deathmatch title, the first reign of the belt EVER that lasted most of 2021 going into 2022. I haven’t decided yet if I wanna look at the reign in its entirety or anything, but this will definitely not be the only JWM-related post that I make here. He's amazing, man.

John Wayne Murdoch vs. M*E*R*C - The Pit #6 (11/19/2021)
I wanna preface this by saying that ICW’s Pit/Pitfighter shows have got to be some of my favorite shows of the entire NHB catalogue. Spiritually it feels like these shows turn up the typically seedy & grimey aesthetic of ICW, especially helped with the venue choices. This TWE show exemplifies what i’m talking about here with “the pit” in this case just being a mat on the floor with a structure entirely made up of 2x4’s looking like ringposts surrounding it, with barbed wire ropes and literally whatever shit they can find thrown in. I mean like just look at this shit, man:


The match itself is fucking crazy. This might be one of my favorite NHB matches of all time. It’s about as violent as it possibly could be, with JWM and MERC using literally whatever they possibly could that wasn’t nailed down to kill each other. The crowd is not just entirely into it, but they are fully bloodthirsty the whole way through, it’s quite literally split down the middle between TWE/MERC fans and ICW:NHB/JWM fans which leads to awesome moments like the TWE fans flipping off Murdoch whenever he gets close to them. Not to mention the dueling “IC-Dub” “Sucks!” chants from both ends of the arena. Murdoch even gets into it a little with the TWE section of the arena, it’s awesome. JWM is definitely pulling his weight throughout, he actually pulls out a knife from a container and LITERALLY STABS MERC NUMEROUS TIMES. Holy shit, man. Merc gets stabbed in the face, chest, hell his back gets a little bit of action as well. His face is carved up and looks gnarly. There’s even a spot they do where JWM forces the knife into Merc’s mouth and delivers a chinbreaker soon thereafter. Merc, however, is not a pushover either. He takes control of the match midway through by escaping a brainbuster attempt, then just picking JWM up and dropping him right on his head through a chair!! (I believe Struggles calls the move a “Beach Break”, i’m not as familiar as i’d like to be with Merc so I will just trust in Struggles)
Merc grabs a trash can with a board stuck into it and looks to hit John over the head with it… but instead hands him the weapon to grab ANOTHER one of his own, with Merc giving the first shot and JWM attempting to hit back but the trash can spectacularly flies off the fucking stick and possibly either nearly hitting or just straight up hitting Struggles on commentary. Merc just batters Murdoch with the trash can a few more times before producing a chain to try and attack JWM with before Murdoch finally drops him with a brainbuster. As an aside though…. has any indy out there thought of booking Merc vs. Mad Dog Connelly in a Dog Collar match? Just a wild thought. Merc reverses a Destroyer into a pin attempt that only gets a two, then uses the chain to put Murdoch in a crossface but that’s also unsuccessful. The finish of the match is great, with both men managing to set up a wicked contraption of first four chairs with two doors stacked on top of them… then two chairs with a door that has a bundle of carpet strips taped to it. Should I also mention the ladder that’s right in front of the contraption, too? Merc tries to attempt a move with Murdoch off the top of it but Murdoch grabs him and gives a HUUUUUUUGE superplex off of it.
If you’re a big fan of plunder-heavy fights then this is a match for you. It’s nasty, it’s insane, it feels cramped with all the shit in the area and everybody in the TWE Arena just eats it up. So do I. If you’re looking for ICW:NHB matches to get a friend into, this is one I'd recommend in a heartbeat. I’m actually shocked Merc only got two bookings with NHB in general, because he does a fantastic job here.

John Wayne Murdoch vs. Justin Kyle - No Holds Barred: Volume 16 (7/10/2021)
What happens when you put a crazy person in the ring with a total freak of nature… who also happens to be really crazy in his own right? You get John Wayne Murdoch vs. Justin Kyle. Justin is an absolute beast here, to me he’s spiritually what would happen if you threw Bill Goldberg into a deathmatch environment. A big bald motherfucker who can throw guys around rather easily just because he can. Justin immediately starts throwing punches at Murdoch before picking him up with total ease and giving him a huge belly to belly suplex. He gets Murdoch with another suplex (which, might I add JWM’s face of horror before he takes it is beautiful) and TRIES to do a German Suplex but Murdoch smartly grabs some light tubes to huck right in JK’s face. Honestly, the amount of light tubes being used in this match by Murdoch alone is crazy, I dunno what the actual number is but it FELT like it had to be in the twenties or thirties. Murdoch even grabs a fucking saw to start carving up the top of Kyle’s head, the second moment tonight where i’ve actively had my hand over my mouth in shock because of how awesome something was. The visual of JWM using the saw looked insane, I can’t help it.

JWM tries to introduce a glass pane into the fray, but gets picked up rather easily again by Kyle so he can throw him through said glass. Both men spill into ringside with, like I mentioned, a lot of light tubes being used in the process. There is actually a smaller spot where Kyle punches a broken bit of tubes into the arm of Murdoch, which I thought looked cool. Kyle funnily enough at one point even grabs a broom to whack across JWM’s back! He’s so unbelievably busted up by now, just absolutely pouring blood. Murdoch drags Kyle over to the merch table for a moment to somehow magically procure a fucking knife! How did he do that? Even the commentators are confused. Murdoch not only stabs Kyle hard in the back, but in one of the funniest moments he even manages to literally stab Kyle in the asshole. No, I'm not joking. Justin Kyle gets stabbed in the butt. Kyle tries to take back over for a moment after slinging a chair into JWM’s head but gets absolutely demolished by an overkill of light tube shots by Murdoch… he does however manage a HUUUUGE dive onto the outside of the ring AND an equally big Jackhammer onto light tubes that just barely gets a 2.99. His further attempt at a Three Point Stance Spear into a door gets thwarted when Murdoch just barely moves out of the way for Kyle to almost comically run straight into that door. The finish comes with another door being introduced with Kyle looking to set it on fire this time, but Murdoch hits him with some tubes then sets it on fire and gives him a Brainbuster through the flaming door!!! Kyle looked like he landed very weirdly on the door but man it still looked awesome.
This is a fucking beaut. Centered around JWM trying to dismantle the big man as best as he possibly could, Kyle looks like a total freak even in defeat here. I was gonna talk about how he was a guy that weirdly disappeared until I found out he popped up for EMERGE Wrestling in Indiana back in April this year, which might be a match that I have to search for because I fuckin’ love this guy. God bless JWM and god bless ICW: NHB.

Another IWA:MS Match For The Soul

Chris Hero vs. Reed Bentley - IWA:MS (03/09/2014) This was a “Knockout or Tapout Match.”

It’s hard for me to exactly describe it but there’s something so surreal about seeing Reed Bentley, a person whose catalogue i’ve mostly associated deathmatches with due to watching mostly a lot of his ICW:NHB stuff, in a non-deathmatch (or at least non-deathmatch adjacent) environment. It’s not really a “new idea” mind you especially when Reed in specific had been a non-deathmatch guy for a few years to my understanding, nor am I saying this as a knock on him as a worker because I think he’s fantastic but whenever I see a match like this it just interests me heavily.

Reed at this point was a member of the stable White America, a stable that I don’t know much about but it consisted of himself, Tripp Cassidy, Adam Gooch, Trik Davis and Josh Crane. I'm a big fan of the difference in demeanors between both men during their entrances, with Hero clearly determined and focused to beat the shit outta Reed meanwhile is a cocky shitheel who actually comes out to Hero and Claudio Castagnoli’s old Kings of Wrestling entrance music. I’m not even gonna lie, things like that still manage to get an earnest pop outta me. I can’t help it.

Then you get to the match.

The first couple of minutes are spent entirely on the outside. Reed tried to force Hero to chase him on the outside and got met with a big boot, so Hero just fucking dogwalks him with some nasty sounding strikes. Like, seriously, Hero hits a shitload of elbows on this man in such a short period of time and it’s awesome. Every time Reed attempts to mount a comeback it gets thwarted, and he only gets some real respite by countering an Irish Whip attempt and tossing Hero into about four or five rows of chairs. They make their way back to the ring eventually, with Reed attempting to bring a chair he grabbed into the fold until Hero catches him and puts him in a Boston Crab while actually attempting to sit on the chair that Reed brought in, a spot that I immediately recognized from Hero’s 2007 Ted Petty Invitational match with Eddie Kingston.


If you wanted to make a counter on how many elbows both men do following this point, you’d almost assuredly lose count… because it’s a LOT. Reed manages to hold his own throughout the rest of the match, actually managing to take advantage by targeting Hero’s arm and his hand at points but Hero firmly knocks him loopy a few times in the midst of it. The best moment was Reed managing to hit a big combo of a Reed Awakening (*Pop Up Forearm, Thanks to Nick Maniwa for the correction) + Rolling Elbow and thinking he could get the win off of that before Hero pops up just BARELY before the 10 count to attack Reed with a great looking sequence of moves. This was a moment that genuinely had me for a solid minute, seeing the crowd’s reaction to it (which I'll admit, the crowd was pretty lackluster) added to the whole thing. Hero tries locking in a Stretch Plum only for Reed to bite the arm and move his way to the ropes for a break. Reed hits some awesome Saito Suplexes and a submission of his own, but that doesn’t work either. The two then just decide to go completely crazy with the strikes: Elbows, Kicks, Uppercuts… it’s just a total flurry of them man.

Near the end of the match, Reed ends up spitting in Hero’s face after Chris screamed at him to stay down which gives Hero an excuse to hit FOUR ROLLING ELBOWS IN A ROW GOOD GOD. Trik Davis tries throwing in the towel for Reed, but Hero grabs the towel and tosses it in the crowd. When Reed slowly gets up at the count of five, Hero not only hits ANOTHER elbow but stops the count to hit one more elbow AND THEN lock in a second Stretch Plum to make Bentley tap out. Good fucking god.

This match was great, a pure adrenaline rush from start to end. It’s entirely structured around both men earnestly beating the dogshit out of each other until one of them couldn’t stand anymore. Reed plays an excellent heel foil to the mega babyface in Hero, selling the offense particularly well while also managing to hold his own with some moments where I genuinely thought he could’ve had the win. If Redneck’s Kings Road is a term that could conceivably exist, this might be a good example of it although I'm probably being extra. I don’t know if I could definitively call it one of the QUINTESSENTIAL~!! Hero matches of the 2010s purely based on the fact that I have not seen every single Chris Hero match, but it’s definitely one that you should go out of your way to watch on YouTube.