The History of COMBAT ZONE WRESTLING
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- DAVE KNOWS that Combat Zone Wrestling has always had its following. And in the wake of ECW, an edgier hardcore alternative to WWE was needed and CZW filled that void. However, despite their well known reputation for ultraviolence, the history of the CZW promotion is more than just that. So let's explore that history as we take a deeper look at CZW.
www.patreon.com/daveknowswrestling - บันเทิง
I feel like ROH and CZW were the children of ECW. ROH for the high level indie work rate, as CZW is one of the mainstays of American Ultraviolence that ECW birthed.
Did ECW really have a high level indie work rate? I never thought it was known for that personally... I could see a more realistic/gritty approach to wrestling being the influence ECW had on ROH more than work rate!
Not trying to argue in a rude way, hopefully didn’t come across that way. Genuinely curious about your opinion!!!
And IWA Mid-South was the young sister.
@@yurinoworry Shane Douglas, Eddie Guerrero, Physcosis, Rey Mysterio Jr., Jerry Lynn.
@@Mondragora99 GCW is like the grandchild
CZW was king for a long time, then it became a shadow of its former self. GCW and ICWNHB took the ball and are running with it
it really did i miss early 00's czw.
You know it's bad when XPW returns to take CZW's place.
CZW Is now full of nobodies they don’t have none of the names that carried them through the 2010’s they’re going to GCW. Now it’s a boring indie fed. They don’t even do death matches anymore
@@JM-fr5ge they should take some of those wrestlers on aew dark
As the second student aka Billy Baja . Thank all my brothers for training as we were building up the company. I really thank John Z. for discovering me and seeing that I could move on to the NWA. I stopped wrestling in 2005. After getting married to my first wife and having a son. But the memories I have with all of the original guys is great! We always helped each other to get ready for the shows. We were a tight group. I miss everyone and hope all are well. God bless. #CZW #FakeYou
Thank you for sharing your background
I did DEATH MATCH wrestling for 7 years... Man i sometimes miss it but my body tells a different story😂
No way! What was it like?
@@loganprescott595 fun and painful
Wtf is wrong with you
I did boxing,college wrestling and martial arts along with logging work but I couldn't imagine what years of wrestling would do to your body
CZW made a cameo in the 2008 movie The Wrestler. DJ Hyde and Necro Butcher also made cameos in the film. Another interesting fact is that the CZW hardcore match scene in that movie was filmed in the old ECW arena.
Ron killings to
I learned about CZW back in 2002/03 when, somewhere on the internet, I found a clip of Mondo vs Zandig's rooftop spot... It was the most insane wrestling move I've watched. I became a fan instantly.
Well this was unexpected, Dave.
It won the Patreon Polls
You have the Sharingan, nothing is unknown to you :)
Agreed glad it happened though
Xtremely unecpected lol
@@DaveKnowsWrestling can u do a breakdown on the short term banning of powerbombs?
Obligatory JEEZUS there was five of em comment
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT HAPPENED!? WHAT ARE YOU BLIND!?
@@frenchfrey65 JEEEEZUS!!!
Original students that formed the original roster....
JEEEZUS THERE WAS FIVE OF EM
Awesome video, Dave!! I followed and attended CZW shows from 2003-2010, was there for the IWA-MS “riot,” when Zandig was hung from the ceiling via meat hooks, my favorite moment was when New Jack appeared as a member of Team Zandig @ Cage Of Death 5, amazing pop!! Saw Nick Gage catch on fire at Tournament Of Death, one of the best matches I ever saw was Trent Acid vs Homicide in
May 2003, the blowoff COD match vs ROH was awesome to see live.... Chris Hero was one of their best ever in CZW .... thank you again for this great video!!
Nice to learn about CZW
Thanks for this Video. CZW was so exciting back then. So many great fighters. Dranke Younger, Brain Damage, Nick Gage, Zandig, Necro Butcher and so on.
@Kevin Huber Thank you Dude.^^ Have a nice daaay! =)
@Kevin Huber Absolut! Hab mir das letzte AEW Dynamite angesehen und es war gab gute Matches. Also ein guter Tag. =D
@Kevin Huber Ooooh! Ja stimmt. Kann mich dunkel daran erinnern. Ich hoffe dir geht es gut!
@Kevin Huber Nein, sowas hab ich nicht. Bin gerade eben so 2 Mal pro Jahr auf Facebook.=D Freut mich das es dir gut geht!
Czw was a little more than I was asking for with the absence of ECW
Good video Young David...I've enjoyed your content for nearly 5 years now
ill always remember watching johnny kashmere and trent acid hanging zandig from the roof with hooks in his back shit was hard to watch
A certain somebody would have a seizure if he had to actually cover CZW.
And that certain somebody is Brian Zane I'm guessing?
@@jininycricket7089 Or Jim Cornette.
@@acceptable1609 Nick Gage is the subject of an episode of Dark Side of the Ring. Cornette has flat-out refused to review that episode on his podcast, on the grounds that he thinks that Nick isn't a real wrestler.
TIL that Cornette hates CZW more than AEW.
@@perfectprince8062 He did a shoot interview about how much he hates hardcore/ultraviolent wrestling. The story goes that his hatred boils down to how thanks to Ian Rotten, it is now impossible to do business in his home state as a wrestling promoter and his feeling that a lot of the people who do these dangerous spots are gonna die crippled/addicted to painkillers.
I first found out about them as the "He's using hypnosis!" promotion.
Great stuff as always! My favourite thing about CZW was it was a serious step in the development of LuFisto!
Always interested in the history of czw so thanks for the video
glad someone finally did a video like this on them
Wow. I never heard about this wrestling pramotion. Thanks for the history lesson my friend 👏👏👏
You are welcome
Love the history videos, Dave!
Thanks for appreciating
@@DaveKnowsWrestling very much so! I love history of wrestling. CZW and XPW have been at the top of my list for a while now. Thanks for your time and work!
"A bit of the ultra violence." Glad to see someone is an avid reader.
Clockwork reference right?
Mid-2000s CZW was soooo much fun! My first indy show was CZW Cage of Death 5 in 2003. It was a wild time but also had a majority of great technical and high flying bouts.
Excellent job, you have a great 👍voice
I heard that they're gunna have a whole episode dedicated to Nick Gage on The Dark Side of the Ring. Also, Vice had already done a documentary on CZW specifically which was very interesting as well with DJ as the guy already running the show. All in all, CZW is a very interesting wrestling promotion.
I actually got a lot more respect for DJ after the vice documentary after he got kicked out of working in finance because of his criminal record. he faced and beat his demons and is now making a living following his passion. Nick gage is just an idiot, you've been on tv so you go rob a bank, what did he think was going to happen.
Now it’s a joke
@@JM-fr5ge FACTS! It is not the same as it used to. It went from being all about hardcore wrestling & being just like ECW to being just another indie wrestling promotion
The first time I watch CZW I remember ordering it on a PPV back in 2005
my favorite stars of this promotion are M-DOG20 and Josh Prohibition
THIS IS CZW!!!!!
Was a fan of CZW when it first began and have some of their shows from 2001 on vhs . Also have Best Of' s vhs tapes for Zandig, Wifebeater .Justice Pain and "Sick" Nick Mondo . Also have a few of their dvds like Tournament Of Death and have vhs tapes of their 2 year feud with BJW and the bloody wars that went on Recently picked up a Best Of Zandig In BJW dvd with all his death matches there . Seen the explosion death match with him and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga which was the main event at BJW;s Ante Up show where he regained the BJW Death Match Heavyweight Title then cut a promo saying that CZW was done with Japan and carrying BJW on their backs but took the Death M,atch Title with him which was put up in the 1st Tournament Of Death won by Wifebeater and called the CZW Death Match Title also held by "Hardcore "Nivk Gage and Nate Hatred .CZW had national tv and toured Japan , Ireland , Germany , Italy but after Zandig sold the company to DJ Hyde the company went down imo and the hardcore death match style that they became known for was down played .Havem't as much from them in a while .Last notanle event they had was when hardcore /death match pioneer Atsushi Onita came to face "Bulldozer" Mattt Tremont in a match which was to be an explosion match which was scrapped and started out as a sibgles match then generated into a 6 man tag team match which Onita won but offered Tremont a chance to come to Japan .That was back in 2017 and not much else from them . At this rate their just another east coast indy promotion . CZW has left a bloody and violent legacy for sure in what was left after ECW folded .
I worked at a gas station and the lunch truck that came in every days driver was the re erand john dahmer. It happened that i told 2 of my friends to apply there for a job. He ended up giving us front row seats for the first 3 yeaes of czw. After going to tge first show, we all thought it would go nowhere and it was really bad. I mean really bad. But the 2nd show was amazing, and they took off big time! A lot of great memories of going to every show for those 3 years. Eventually, they put us in the 3rd row for some reason, i think they wanted to replace us with hat guy and his friends and some other guys. Dahmer must not have had the same pull and we were done with it. Plus i got tired of wrestling i general then. Sadly i and my group never went again. But we had such great times and im hrateful we got to see it grow from a tiny steaming hot, and freezing cold little warehouse.
Dave covering CZW?
Jeezus!!!
I do have to say, the promotion, booking wise, got a lot better under DJ Hyde, as Hyde's people started booking a lot more competently, even in the deathmatch stuff.
The “second wave” of death match guys coming out of Ohio and even from Japan were the real definition of hybrid death match workers, and they started booking matches with skill, similar to how they do it in BJW. Guys like danny havoc, drake younger, Moxley, Masada, etc. All came into the company when DJ took over. Most were taking the lead from Mondo after he retired.
Man the ROH vs CZW turf war was some of the best stuff in the 2000's
Huh. Crazy to think my times as an early fan are now considered history. I know time keeps going but damn that hits a nerve.
"Time is a predator that stalks you all you life." That's 2 Malcolm McDowell quotes. One in the video and one in this comment
You’re not kidding
My favorite matches are with Sabu in combat zone wrestling and CM Punk versus former heavyweight champion Justice pain. Also big Japan vs. Combat zone wrestling the Winger versus Trent acid for the a junior Heavyweight Championship. Also the combat zone wrestling vs Ring of Honor very good rivalry
I agree with you Robert also the riots between combat zone wrestling and Ring of Honor I own two DVDs were they show that also Jim cornette's promo against them
You make some good videos dave👍
Thanks 👍
I was a longtime CZW fan since discovering the company through a magazine when I was 14 and buying my first DVD not too long after. I went to my last show in 2017 for Once in a Lifetime so I could meet Onita, but ended up falling out of love with the company thanks to that show as a whole. The Janella/Rush match is what set me over the edge, but damn was that show a mess. By the end, I got serious "we already have your money, so screw your opinion" vibes.
Gage being set of fire but deciding to finish the match anyway. Nick gage in my opinion is one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time.
Didnt he flatline on the way to hospital after a tournament of death match too? Crazy
Nick Gage is the fuckin king
@@dtk4569 yea they seem to have scrubbed all tje footage off youtube but basically the fell on a broken lighttube and ended up with a 2 inch deep gash in his arm pit. It cut 2 major arteries and he almost bled to death. Thw footage was nuts, after he landed gage lifted his arm and a waterfall of blood started pouring out. Him, tje reff and the fans all freaked out. Gage got up and went to the back right away. He cut a promo while czw nurses were trying to stop the bleeding. It was really fucking bad.
i was waiting for this episode
Hope it's worth the wait
Yaaaas. There's so much more he coulda gone into,not just the history of the company, but the fact that without czw we might not have Moxley, Rich Swann, and many others. Late 2000s czw was actually pretty fuckin great
Hwll yeah! I like 2000-2006/2009-2013 eras were what kept me
I can’t believe that CZW was made in NJ. I’m from NJ and this is bizarre.
Former CZW Champ Bulldozer Tremont had a store at the Berlin Farmer's Market, and a lot of the talent is from here in South Jersey, like Atlantic City and Hammonton
Yeah I knew a few dudes from gloucester city czw early days
@@aegusa12 I’ve been to his shop! I love about 15 minutes from there. It’s been awhile so I don’t know if it’s still there but it was cool.
While their school has been in a few different locations, a lot of the time it’s been based on Blackwood, NJ, though it was based at the ECW Arena for about a year or two at one point.
matt tremonts career is my fav CZW moment
During the Big Japan and CZW feud,didn’t Zandig battled NJPW’s Tomoaki Honma?
He did, and I heard the split was because of some issues with the yakuza
Awesome video
Please do history of lucha underground or something about lucha underground
Love CZW from India
I think The Monster Abyss should win the prestigious CZW World Heavyweight Championship to strap the gold around his waist and represent Ultraviolent wrestling all over the world as well as defend the title all over the world just like Zandig and others did
CZW Best of the Best and Tournament Of Death was where CZW absolutely shined. But as of now they're really are a shell of their former selves. They cut down on the deathmatch by alot, which hurt them, but what really kicked them in the nuts is alot of the regulars just straight up stop showing up. If anyone who follows the deathmatch scene would know what I'm talking about when on twitter alot of former CZW guys just straight up trash DJ Hyde. Then around the time of speaking out movement multiple women explained how much of a creep DJ was.....
Mox made his name in czw
I love your channel
Can't believe the permanent damage or possibility of being crippled for life the wrestlers went into every match just for a few bucks and some painkillers. Some of the matches in czw are so brutal that it makes the taker vs mankind hell in the cell match look like a disney movie.
It is unbelievable what these wrestlers do just to entertain us.. and that goes beyond CZW too
Best TH-cam voice
Why Thank You
CZW man was awesome Zandig did a lot of the combat zone (unlike DJ Hyde) and also Dave another fantastic video man
Zandig def is one tough dude. And thank you
I recently discovered CZW on Tubi and was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a backyard level of quality and it surpassed that handily
CZW IS AWESOME THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT VIDEO 🤘🤔🧐
Thank you for appreciating it
btw Dave great video as always but would love to see a video with Hannibal and you, think it would be interesting
I would be down for that myself
They did a great intergender deathmatch that looked really believable (and that's not easy to do with a size disparity like that) so props to them.
Obligatory JYEEEZUS!
I actually tried out for CZW for a few weeks it was something. I couldn’t continue because I lived in Philly and was 18 with no car
Most of the people were respectful others were eh
Well ain't that something, got a taste for the business. At least you can say that
I'm from South Jersey and now living in Delaware; CZW is still popular here. I never went to their shows, but they do the death matches here. Being from Droz's hometown I'm not interested in that crazy stuff. Great video.
I was born into a family that took me to Wrestling Events in the early 80's and I grew up watching NWA AWA WCCW and ICW. Until I got old enough to go on Tour with the Dead I'd be literally on the road driving to concerts between 1990- 2000. So my last memory of wrestling before I took a ten year hiatus was Flair and Steamboat and the NWA selling their flagship show to become WCW. Unbelievably I never saw wrestling for the next ten years so I never to this day watched WWE and I never saw ECW or WCW. I mean I did see a little bit of Eastern Championship Wrestling ECW but that was tape trading after my return to active wrestling fandom in 2000. But I was fortunate that I literally began following wrestling again after a decade right at the beginning of promotions like CZW ROH TNA and Chikara. I was in my glory going to local wrestling shows and helping out at the local wrestling dojo. Unfortunately I got in into other things shortly after that and I was forced to take a second ten years hiatus again from wrestling but once again I was fortunate enough to be here just in time to see the return of the NWA, the formation of AEW and a slew of other new independent promotions that I follow regularly.
Well thanks for sharing your story
@@DaveKnowsWrestling yeah I have a tendency to do that too much. But I am grateful to have been there from the beginning to see CZW, especially ROH now that they are going on hiatus or whatever. I expect someone to come in and save the day for ROH, maybe Tony Khan or someone new. I wish I was rich and I would buy ROH and pay them to continue doing their thing
Sharing your positive memories is what this comment section is here for
i still have one of the CZW vhs tapes
I have heard of CZW but I have never seen it , and I'm a huge ECW fan
Thank you CZW for Jon Moxley
Dave Knows. 😎
CZW despite being totally different now, will always be my favourite promotion. I remember when I was young, downloading random wrestling music videos. One of them had this promotion with yellow turn buckles and ref outfits, so I had to know more. One night I downloaded a match in a crowded fire station, the famed Nick mondo and Jun Kasai vs. Justice pain and Johnny Kashmir, a fans bring the weapons match. I was hooked ever since and it totally changed by views on wrestling forever!
That was an amazing match, one of the first show I watched too, along with TOD 1
I can't even watch it anymore cuz it's so damn boring now. Like, I remember how violent & hardcore it used to be. How entertaining the deathmatches were & everything..... Now it's just a complete joke of a company. Nothing about it is special & I can barely sit thru 5 minutes of watching the product.
CZW had if not the best Jr Heavyweight division in North America outside of Mexico.
Messed it up though they had Jody fleisch and Johnny storm from the uk promotion FWA but they decided to burn that bridge which is why they never came back, CZW always made me think "good but its a shame certain things are a one and done".
I love CZW 🙋🏽♂️
Zandig took some crazy ass bumps with Mondo and Jannelia
COMBAT ZONE WRESTLING was in the italian tv several years ago, it was so brutal and funny
Oh my God. A CZW episode. This is going to be crazy as somebody who has connections to czw there's a lot of history between the zandig era and the DJ Hyde era of combat zone wrestling since 1999 I have bled the black and yellow since 1999 longer than I have been a fan of WWE which has been since 2002
I've kinda worked with them myself... they've been involved w/ Catalyst wrestling so I hear ya. The guys from there have always been super cool by me
@@DaveKnowsWrestling especially DJ he's awesome. He gave me a job opportunity when I was 19 and I almost took it but with my cerebral palsy it would be hard for me to be on the road 300 days a year
Heh, I did the pyrotechnics and invented the exploding barbed wire, and the exploding barbwire table for them.
That's awesome
SUNTAN SUPERMAN works at Hy-Vee Owatonna MN
I wear wrestling tees and STSM points me out and we talk (bullshitting assisting my "customer")
Can we get an xpw video? I don’t even care about the hardcore aspect I just wanna see you drag rob lol
Nice clockwork orange reference!
They call themselves "Ultraviolent" how could I pass that up
CZW did bring fresh young talent to the roster with those signed with WWE, ROH, Impact Wrestling, AEW and NJPW.
can you make a video on Chris Taylor the 500 pound wrestling from the awa.
That is def a request I have never gotten before
Remember the CZW song CZW a eye for a eye to live and die
You’ve been Denieeed
"Outlaw Mudshow!"
-Jim Cornette
1:46 David Flair ultra instinct form 😆
Didn't somebody wrestling for combat zone wrestling rob a bank and then appear on TV and then got thrown in jail?
Nick Gage.
CZW for life
yesssss finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope you enjoy
I remember back in high school, the long forgotten days before youtube, I used to download TV rips (in .wmv format, of course) of CZW Fake You TV from some obscure wrestling forum. I really liked Trent Acid and thought he was going to be a huge star. Boy, was I mistaken...
Well thank you for sharing your recollections of early CZW
@@DaveKnowsWrestling It was also my introduction to guys like Sonjay Dutt and Jimmy Rave (both of whom really impressed me with how hard they worked) and a young up-and-coming Alex Shelley and Jimmy Jacobs. CZW was my gateway to all kinds of other indies and wrestlers who would go on to be top guys.
Great Video, Dave. Was this the fed that did the camera-shaking to 'enhance: the exploding objects? I wonder if the AEW pyro crew thought of that last sunday?
I thought that AEW should have done that too.. even if the explosion did work
I think that was Wrestling Society X or XPW
Czw didnt do the camera shaking, they used pretty cool explosion in their c4 matches (idk if they had 5 or 6 in total? Usually loaded into cage pf deaths) The codX explosions were botched so bad that they never did it again. I can say while not near as impressive as fmw pr bjws explosions, czw was the only american vompany i know of that pulled it off decently.
Wait, are you saying glass barbed wire and fire are the only things banned in NJ? So that means someone could technically make use of a naval cutlass and it'd be perfectly fine right?
Jokes aside, I could definitely see that happening in CZW. According to Dj Hyde a fan once straight up brought a gun for a fans bring the weapons match.
You should do a video on Ohio Valley Wrestling.
A Clockwork Orange reference?
It is... since they call their brand "Ultraviolent" I just couldn't resist
loved czw from 1999-2007. wifebeater was my fav
CZW CZW CZW
What up dave
Best of Deathmatch Wrestling Vol. 2 was all CZW
2:12 "..looking at things today, with Chikara no longer around.."
And thank goodness it isn't around anymore. Yuck.
I had no idea CZW started as a wrestling school. I mean, it’s mostly violent stunts...how do you practice that?? 😅
I saw my first (and so far only) CZW show in 2014. I was not prepared. So much blood.
Yeah someone should have braced you for it
@@DaveKnowsWrestling It was during an indie supercard, and we had no idea what CZW really was. Boy did we learn.
People often forget Kevin Owens, Jon Moxley and Brodie Lee did CZW stints
JEEEEEZZUUUSSS!!!
4:28 what show is that from ?I MUST SEE IT
Dave would be shocked to knw who some of the patrons are actual known wrestlers
Really.. like who?
@@DaveKnowsWrestling I don't want to out the guy in public. You have Twitter? I can sen dyou a message
@@DaveKnowsWrestling I clicked your about tab hoping you would have an email. You did, so I sent you an e-mail with some info you may find kind of cool
PS, what was that image from at 4:28?
It was a CoD from I think 2012
@@DaveKnowsWrestling Thanks! Did you get the email?
I stopped watching wrestling like 6-7 years ago but lately got interested due to AEW. I really like GCW but its nowhere near czws glory days. CZW had amazing talent and I'm so glad some of them get to see the spotlight, cool video. CZW was a big part of my teens always fun to remember back on it
CZW is also a really cool company to work with too from my experience
@@DaveKnowsWrestling do you have any recommendations for must see matches the last 1-2 years? I used to love czw and PWG. I watched some AEW and liked what I saw!
During the past 1 to 2 years? Could you have picked a worse time period?
CZW is still awesome. Big ups to them and GCW for keeping Hardcore/Deathmatch Wrestling alive
I liked ECW, but CZW is so insane they do stuff even Paul Heyman would say is too far.
ROH is more of a successor to ECW than CZW.
U should do history of lucha underground with mlw doing Aztech underground
I do get ppl asking about Lucha Underground, the only reason I haven't is because it's relatively new and was short lived and I tend to cover older stuff. I'm not opposed to it though