Dude, give me your chair!
Give me your chair!
And this is what CZW is all about.
This is exactly what CZW is all about.
Bam!
This is gonna be insanity.
Bam, excuse me!
Oh, that's it!
Mondo! Nick!
Fuck him up, Mondo.
I definitely don't think wrestling itself
is inherently a bad thing.
I mean it's exciting, it's entertaining,
it's artful, there's some serious athletics involved.
But wrestling does tend to pull
a dark side out of me and it tends to push me
toward taking risks, and I'm not sure exactly why that is.
It's just, I have an aptitude for surviving
and thriving in a violent environment.
And death match wrestling is that sort of environment.
You're willingly going in a ring in front of a live crowd
and injuring yourself.
Drawing blood, breaking bones,
having concussions.
You know all these things are gonna happen,
yet you still willingly participate.
It's dysfunctional.
I mean, there is a fun factor for sure,
but there's obviously something not quite right going on.
And Sick Nick Mondo in there
being tortured by these two, being absolutely tortured.
He's like a Japanese World War II kamikaze pilot
with no regard for his own body.
And I said very plainly, I was like, listen man,
every day because of the stunts that you're remembered for,
CZW gets new fans.
Every day, without question.
If you search crazy stuff on YouTube, you know,
stuff that we're kind of infamous for,
and you will see that guy.
Somebody could get seriously hurt.
This is.
I just can't fathom how he does that.
Two stories, all the way down, boom.
Nick Mondo has been thrown
off of this balcony to the floor
some 20, 25 feet through a table covered in...
That was crazy shit.
Un F'n Believable.
To this day, the stuff that the man did in the ring
still holds weight and is still comparable to anything
that has been done.
He has so many fans all around the world
and even in countries like Turkey.
The guy was insane, he was sick.
People still hold onto what he did
because of how revolutionary he was.
He had the biggest balls ever, ever.
The whole atmosphere when Nick Mondo came to the ring
was just, I would say mind blowing for me.
Absolutely mind blowing for me as a kid.
He could do spots that nobody's even heard of.
I mean, the first time I saw the weed whacker.
Oh, my God, I don't know how he took that much risks.
I mean, getting hit with a weed whacker.
The weed whacker.
I'm closing my eyes.
When I saw that, it was, whoa.
As a fan, I would go back and watch that over and over
and over again and be like, what the fuck?
He's amazing, and he's just that aura.
You know, that superstar persona supposed to have
that he had, that he presents himself when he's in the ring,
that's who you believe in.
You know what I mean, that's somebody you wanna be.
That's who you believe in, he had that.
And I think point-blank, half the roster is here
because of him.
I cannot believe this, this guy is some kind of god.
We've seen that kid get dragged through
light tubes, fall off a table, fall off of a balcony
and get back on his feet.
The man is superhuman with the amount of pain
that he can endure.
The only thing that really bothers me
is to dismiss somebody and simply say,
that guy's crazy, or that girl's insane.
If you trace bad decisions back far enough,
you will find somebody who originally was well intentioned.
So if you write somebody off that way, not only are you
missing out on empathy and compassion, you're also
gonna miss out on some pretty interesting stories.
Most pursuits begin with a role model.
The desire's already inside of us.
We just need somebody to show us how it's done.
His name was Wifebeater.
In a world of bodybuilders clad in underwear,
tanning bed lobsters, fake tough guys,
he was the real thing.
A filthy jeans wearing, potato chip eating,
weed whacker carrying,
politically incorrect son of a bitch.
When Wifebeater was on the card, fans knew what to expect.
A legitimate U.S. Marine
who could walk through anything.
Panes of glass.
200 light tubes.
You could not stop this man.
No matter what you put him through.
What you hit him with.
Bam, with that VCR.
Drop him from heights.
Bash his head in.
No matter what, he'd get back up.
He was not human.
But I do wanna mention
that the fans are supplying the weapons in this contest.
A marching, undead soldier.
And when his music hit,
you better damn well be ready.
No, no!
A man so adept at violence.
So naturally abusive.
Carrying out actions,
had they been anywhere but a wrestling ring,
would have landed him in prison.
Oh, my God!
Never in my life
have I seen anything like this.
Standing next to Wifebeater
made me feel like a kid in a Halloween costume.
He was the real monster I could only pretend to be.
Look at this right there.
One day, as Wifebeater and I
were preparing for a match in the back,
I asked him, what is it that makes you act
the way you do in the ring?
He frowned at me and said, "You mean cut myself?"
I said, "Yeah."
Wifebeater blinked a couple times, then said,
"Bad childhood, what about you?"
Surprisingly, I wasn't ready for my own question.
But what came out was, "Guilt problems."
Wifebeater nodded, satisfied.
And from there, we went out to have
one of the bloodiest matches ever to take place
on American soil.
This is the finals of the Tournament of Death.
Sick Nick Mondo and the Wifebeater
with 200 light tubes.
What's in the bucket?
We cannot see from where we are what is in that bucket.
The kind of guy in CZW that almost gets there.
Oh!
Forget about it, it's on.
I don't even know why I even bother analyzing it.
Wifebeater goes face first
into the light tubes.
Who needs baseball to go on strike when you have CZW?
Who cares about baseball, Erick?
That's what I'm saying.
And barbed wire spring board leg drop.
But tonight they find themselves battling
for the very same thing,
that Zandig Tournament of Death Championship.
Bam!
This is ultra violence.
Ultra violent entertainment.
You can't get it anywhere else but here at CZW.
Ooh.
Oh, pouring salt into the wound.
That's just sick.
At Zandig's Tournament of Death, bam!
And where's it gonna end, John?
Where's it gonna end, how's a match like this gonna end?
Live in Dover, Delaware, he's got the weed whacker up.
Leave the weed whacker out of this!
It's a human being, not a plant.
The weed whacker's.
I'm closing my eyes!
My God, oh!
Excuse me, Chokenstein!
One, two, three!
It's over!
He won the tournament!
That's just about as bad as things got.
But no.
That's not where this story starts.
Matt was definitely different
than the other kids I grew up with.
I would say the man thing was
he was always coming up with
new ideas of stuff to do.
And leaves basically, they capture the sun's energy
and they change it into, and they...
If it wasn't for Matt,
we would have lived very boring lives as teenagers.
Here's round three of kegger smashing.
What was that?
Matthew had quite a lot of friends in high school
and he was kind of the leader of them, which was nice.
He got into a lot of trouble.
But it wasn't bad things that he did,
it was just mischievous things like
you know, spitballs.
And of course there were probably things
I didn't know about.
Oh, shit.
Uh-oh!
It was always interesting hanging around with Matt.
We had a friend that would supply us with M-80s
and quarter sticks.
We had a lot of explosives on hand that we used.
And if we didn't have those, we would make match head bombs.
Not anything but just for the simple fact
of blowing things up, it was just for fun.
Whoa.
Hey, there's Terry.
Hey, Terry.
I've never had friends
quite like the people I grew up with.
We did everything together.
We had time for each other.
We never worried that we were wasting it.
We were free to think about the things that made us laugh.
That made us happy.
And my friends,
they understood me.
As bizarre as I was,
they got my sense of humor.
And they'd join with me in my ambitions
no matter how strange they were.
All of us grew together.
We learned about life
and we changed, together.
I don't think we took it for granted,
but we did imagine that it would always be that way.
That the world would always just be a funny joke
to laugh at.
And that all the stress and sadness
that everybody else dealt with,
student loans, job resumes,
car insurance, home mortgages,
weddings to pay for, kids to feed,
divorce lawyers, debt.
Well, we'd just refuse to participate.
Go wipe your ass now!
Oh, shit!
'Cause who could make us?
But in reality, nobody is exempt.
Eventually, in our youth,
most of us will take a hit
that stays with us for life.
Have you spent time thinking about
what it really meant to be crucified?
Have you ever studied what the Roman crucifixion was like?
They slapped him and said, "Tell us the name
"of the person that slapped you."
Put a crown of thorns on his forehead
and push it down until it bites into his temples.
And they take this whip and they lash
into the person over and over again.
They waited for the blood to dry
into the robe that was on his back,
and then they tore it off.
Placed one foot over the other
and drove a spike through his bones.
Every time you sin,
he feels the pain of that sin on the cross
2,000 years ago.
There's not one person in here, not one,
who would be willing to go through this kind of torture.
Not one of us has the courage.
Not one of us would be able
to stand in for what he did.
Perseverance is nothing
but stubbornness refined.
So you really need to watch what you say
around stubborn people.
I don't think I was worried about Matt
or concerned about Matt growing up.
But I definitely saw signs of
darkness, you know, his hair started to get longer,
he started wearing ripped, tattered pants
and spiked collars.
If there was anything dark or odd
or creepy, he was into it.
I worried that he was filling his mind
with things that weren't healthy,
and I wondered how this would affect him negatively.
But I think every teenager goes through this.
But after a while, down the line, the ninja battles
just turned into, they were free for alls.
We were going around trying to hurt each other
basically to get something good on film.
And it did happen.
Matt, I believe, broke his nose.
He bit through his upper lip.
He also incorporated barbed wire
and some fluorescent lights were in the ninja battles,
but he was the only one brave enough
to take a hit of lights.
Definitely the major injuries all happened to Matt.
Matt was the one that was willing to take it the farthest.
Is there any good scars?
Any battle wounds from this one?
That's right about the time the humor
started to fade.
And the innocence.
My thoughts and my plans
were increasingly guided by violence
and hostility.
But above all, self harm.
That's when I learned
if you can make people laugh
or keep them entertained,
it's amazing the things you can get away with.
Burns, just all tore up.
No, it's okay.
I'm just hyperactive.
Oh, shit!
No, really.
I'm fine.
See, I'm a fan of stunt work.
That's my motive.
It's just the performance that I enjoy.
Funny thing is,
I don't remember being happy.
I didn't know what I was feeling.
But somehow I was convinced
that I wanted more.
If only there were a place
where this kind of behavior was normal.
We had to just sit him down and say, okay,
you are free to do whatever you want to do,
but you're also free to pay
the consequences of your actions.
And that took a lot of tension out of our family
because Matthew was really strong willed.
And we released him into a
phase of life where he was free to make his own decisions.
And he made decisions that were costly to him sometimes.
Matt is on his own program,
and I don't think anything I would've said
would've had an effect on him.
Matt is just motivated, and I think
even then he knew what he wanted to do.
I think he already had probably made some plans
on going to wrestling school.
I knew at the time though, because it wasn't regulated
to the same extent when I was involved,
I knew it was an atmosphere where I could explore
some of the hostility that was in me without
getting charges pressed against me.
When he decided to do this, I actually drew
a picture of him in a set of hands
and drew a little stick figure of my son inside them
and just said, "Lord, he's yours now.
"I'm trusting you to take care of him and protect him."
What you see here is nothing
compared to what you're gonna see.
Tell 'em, Mondo!
This is just the start.
This is the way we choose to live.
Nobody tells us we have to do this stuff.
We are ultra violent.
We are CZW, and there's no other federation
on the planet like us.
It looks like he's trying to go
for the Assault Driver.
The Assault Driver, the Assault Driver.
25 feet in the air.
Oh, bam, someone call 911!
Are these men mentally sane?
Mondo going upstairs, high risk maneuver.
The M. Bison, the M. Bison!
Ouch!
Bam!
CZW, CZW!
Nick Mondo has the highest threshold of pain.
Remember Un F'n Believable?
John House has him up.
Tomorrow everybody sees
just how sick Nick Mondo can be.
Reversal of the Irish Whip, Nick Mondo!
Holy fuck!
Shit, holy fuck!
The Iron Man Title.
If you wanna wear the Iron Man Title,
you have to wear scars on your body.
If you wanna carry the Iron Man Title,
you have to carry broken bones.
If you wanna have the Iron Man Title,
you have to have concussions.
I've done every single one of those things.
Are you kidding me?
You gotta be nuts, you gotta be kidding me.
Nick Mondo just went to hell.
John, somebody could get hurt.
Holy shit, holy shit!
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
holy shit!
Watching him come off the roof
and fall through the tables was one of the
scariest things I've ever seen.
It was probably one of the most difficult things
I've ever experienced with Matthew.
No one wants to watch their son
do risky things that will injure them
and possibly for the rest of their life.
Around that time, I really thought this is just
going too far, like he's going down a bad road
that he's gonna end up getting killed or maimed
or paralyzed, you know?
And he's so young in his career,
and he's so young in his life.
You know he's on the ground, people are chanting
holy shit, holy shit.
And suddenly he starts moving, and I'm like, okay,
he's moving, good, good, good.
Next thing you know, he gets to his feet
and he walks back to the ring and finishes the match.
Obviously I felt relief, but I felt like
how can he keep doing this to himself?
You can call me a lot of things,
but don't call me a hero.
And do not envy me.
I've never seen a battlefield.
I've never saved anybody.
My scars were planned.
I didn't earn them.
Age 23
and my youth gone.
I'm the prodigal son.
My inheritance, squandered.
My strength,
the best of me, the last of it,
bleeding out in the parking lot
of a bar in Delaware.
And yet, I was still hungry.
I opened my eyes, and I saw a fire
that could never be quenched.
The only way to escape
is to turn your back
and walk away.
To disappear.
Truthfully,
when I walked away from wrestling,
I eventually had a bit of an identity crisis.
You come to realize...
I came to realize that maybe I was more
taking on the persona that I had created in the ring
than my actual persona.
And if you remove something like that, that's such a
substantial part of your life, questions start to arise of
do I even like myself?
Am I even comfortable with myself?
I understood how important that was.
And I also understood how important it was
that I not return to wrestling.
Because I was like, I want to figure this out.
I am a shell, tossed in the waves of the ocean.
The only thing I want is stillness.
I can steady my hand.
But inside, I'm shaking.
I exhale.
Empty my lungs.
But I still taste the pollution.
The residue.
I become a vapor.
A ghost, drifting.
Until I find
even spirits can't hide.
Because eventually the demons will come.
And they never ever forget.
Perseverance is nothing but stubbornness refined.
So you really, really need to watch
what you say and what you do
around stubborn people.
Pounds,
Little Mondo!
Aw!
You wanna talk about an emotional scene,
an emotional moment for this young man,
just think about all he's worked towards,
all he's ever wanted and dreamed about,
he's here under those bright lights.
It's an opportunity that's 18 years
in the making for this kid.
Whoa, holy shit, nothing little about that.
And a spring board, nice move!
Shades of his idol, shades of his idol.
Kodak moment for Little Mondo.
This kid's gonna take that memory with him wherever he goes.
And of course it made me kind of smile at first,
and it was fun to see.
But a couple years into it, he started mimicking
the violent stuff that I had done.
And I started really seeing him take some
serious damage to his body.
And it made me uncomfortable
to the extent that eventually I told him, like Rory,
please just don't send me these videos.
I don't wanna see 'em.
Look at that table
full of sliced aluminum cans.
This is the new era of ultra violence.
The most disgusting match I've seen all year.
Look at these guys, oh my God.
Ripping at his face!
Bulldozer says I'm gonna break that table
if it kills him.
M. Bison between the, oh, no!
Oh, Little Mondo
says merry mother fucking Christmas!
This is why I attempted to join CZW
is for the ultra-violent tournament style.
I was here since the first Tournament of Death as a fan
watching, watching my hero Sick Nick Mondo
win this tournament himself.
Now it's my dream to do it myself.
So for once, someone's gonna
try to bury Rory Mondo that's not mean
during one of his matches.
And I forget that he lost.
He lost against Ron Mathis.
Wow, Rory Mondo, where is Rory finding the energy?
Now looking for this cut throat driver.
Right on his head, right on the top of his head.
Right into the coffin!
Well he's got five seconds.
This is where he got me with the double stomp.
Here, and he got me pretty good in the back, too.
Barbed wire, light tubes, tack strips.
Last but not least, this is where he got me
with the light tube right in my head.
He stuck one good right in there.
Please don't make me do this.
Japan is a really good place to hide.
Especially Tokyo.
It's a city of 12 million people, but ironically,
it's one of the loneliest places I've ever been.
People generally just keep to themselves.
They mind their own business.
But it's a really good place to go
if you basically just want to get lost in the noise.
Or if you're trying to forget something.
It's like it's 2002 all over again.
Are we really asking for 2002 back?
I certainly am.
I said it once, I'll say it again.
Whether I'm in the United States, Japan,
fucking Antarctica wants to bring out barbed wire,
let's do this shit.
Because I'm not little, and it's getting violent.
Little Mondo, fighting for his jugular.
Oh, my God!
Staggering, the man, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!
The unsuspecting Rory Mondo never even saw it coming.
The hopes and dreams of Little Mondo,
following in the footsteps of Sick Nick Mondo
in Tournament of Death has just been shattered
along with that glass.
Little Mondo a bloody mess right now.
His ribs, he wants to complain about his chest?
I'm fucking hurting Danny Havoc, but I didn't complain.
You almost died tonight.
Mondo, Mondo, Mondo,
Mondo, Mondo, Mondo!
Oh God, Mondo is in not a good spot right now.
Mondo climbing up top.
Oh, my God!
Stay awake.
A bloody mess.
Just a faucet of blood coming out
of that man's head right now.
I'll tell you what, Little Mondo
is doing his hero proud right now.
No, no.
He's right in the shrapnel, oh, my God!
And the trial of blood left from the body.
No, no, no.
Please don't make me do this.
Oh, my God.
This fucking shit.
What the fuck?
Don't do this to me, don't do this to me.
It's not the same this time.
It's not gonna be the same, it can't be the same.
I don't listen to you anymore, I don't listen to you.
I bring you back, but it's not gonna be the same.
You listen to me this time, do you hear me?
Understand?
I can't go back.
I can't go back to that place.
I can't go through this again, I can't.
It's not going to be like before, please, please, please.
You have to realize, I really didn't want to come back
when I made the return to CZW.
It was uncomfortable for me.
Being so far removed from wrestling,
you have to understand it was 10 years
since I walked away from the ring.
It's not easy to just get back in character,
to step in and do that.
But it was something I actually felt I should do.
Cage of fucking death, everybody!
So the tables are accounted for.
The panes of glass are accounted for.
Now the serious stuff is about to happen.
What do you think about this whole deal?
I can't watch this stuff, this makes me nervous.
Back here waiting for your music or whatever,
it's like you gotta get in the mindset of like
pretty much like you're walking into your funeral.
There's always a little bit of butterflies.
You don't want to get hurt.
I don't want any of these other people to get hurt.
What do you think?
Of the match?
Yeah, are you excited, nervous?
Nervous.
And in passing, I'm like, was that Sick Nick Mondo?
Because I had no idea.
But I mean the fact that he's here is just like,
A big deal, right?
Yeah, you know tomorrow that's all that's gonna be
talked about, oh, Mondo, oh, Mondo.
I was absolutely shocked.
That's a shoot, that is an absolute shoot.
That's not Greg Excellent, that's Greg Skipper.
I will tell you, that's a fucking surprise.
Out of the blue.
He heard about the cage and contacted me
about what was going on in the cage match.
He wants to be here just to make sure
I pretty much don't die in this match.
That's the reason why he's actually here.
Beautiful.
Nick, Matt, thank you for coming back.
My man Matt Tremont.
If he ain't pumped up yet, I'm about to punch him
in the motherfucking face.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time
for your main event
of the evening.
CZW, CZW!
Oh!
Oh, a brain buster on the platform!
Oh, my God.
I think he's eliminated.
And there is a man without a care in the world.
Oh!
Little fight left in Havoc but not for long.
Oh, my God!
Oh, oh, oh, my God!
Indoor chair-shot record set.
Everyone, fighting through hell right now.
Pull the string!
Oh, my God!
It looks like glass, thumbtacks, and legos.
Oh, no!
Christ Almighty!
No, no, no, no, no!
Oh, Jesus, he died, the man's dead.
What?
That's Sick Nick Mondo!
Holy shit!
Mondo, Mondo, Mondo!
Mondo, Mondo!
No way!
There is one hero left.
I have never heard this crowd so loud as I do right now.
Lucky 13, oh!
It's over.
Mondo, Mondo, Mondo!
Mondo, Mondo!
No!
10 years ago, I was out there,
and it was you.
I was watching you!
I came out here to live up to you, and fucking you left!
You left these people.
He left you!
Out here, and now I'm here, and he left you!
And I get no fucking respect!
No respect!
I know you don't feel respected by these people.
I know you don't feel respected by the wrestlers.
I came back here to tell you something.
You've done enough.
You've done enough to earn my respect.
I earned your respect?
That's all I ever wanted.
That's all I ever wanted was my idol to come back to CZW.
I just want to say,
from the bottom of my heart,
this is my last match ever.
And I just want to thank everybody here.
I just want to thank everybody.
This is my last match, and there's no other way
I could go out, than with him here.
And that's it, that's his last match ever.
That's all he wanted, that's all he did this for.
And he finally got what he wanted.
Yeah, what a scene here.
Mondo, Mondo!
I mean Rory Mondo felt as though
he had been forgotten about.
But it seems like the one person the whole time
that never forgot about him was his idol, Sick Nick Mondo.
Some people wrestle for titles.
Rory Mondo wanted the respect of the guy that he idolized.
He used to sit front row for the shows
back at the ECW Arena and watch
Sick Nick Mondo destroy himself.
He modeled his entire life.
Not his career, his entire life after that.
I'm stepping in the ring to try to be
one of the most famous independent wrestlers of all time.
Few can ever match what he did in the ring.
He had that it factor.
And I'm trying to replicate that
and not natural at all at it, so it's really difficult.
I don't feel like I lived up at all those first
couple years to that expectation to be like him.
So fast forward to the Cage of Death moment.
I think at that time everybody in the entire place
was on their feet, whether they hated me or not,
because Nick Mondo, one, was in the building,
and two, it was a very emotional moment for everybody.
Even my friends who were there freaked out
and they barely knew who he was.
They didn't have that connection that I did.
And they were like, oh, my God.
Talk about a special moment.
Just not for me retiring.
Everybody, I'm sharing the ring with the guy
who I wanted to be my entire life.
Are you aware of the legacy you left behind?
Do you realize kind of like the magnitude inside CZW
of what your career means to so many of the guys
that came after you?
You're still considered to this day
one of the icons of death-match,
and it's been 10 years since you even stepped in a ring.
I saw Sick Nick Mondo the first time ever
at IWA King of the Death-matches.
Mondo, Mondo!
Mondo!
I remember standing right by the table
and he got thrown off the balcony, took that big bump.
But I remember taking pictures as he was coming down
and just going, this is what I'm gonna do.
I thought the dude was gonna die, personally.
But when he didn't, I was like, this dude is so much
what I imagine myself in a couple years being, doing this.
But I tell you, after that night,
I just remember it was the beginning of a lot of pain.
The beginning of a whole lot of pain.
Physical pain.
Emotional pain.
Wrestling is a journey in pain.
Nothing to be ashamed of, kid.
You're welcome back at our house any time.
Hey J.D. Horror here.
Mondo was a huge influence on my decision
to get into death-match wrestling.
Just his innovation, his creativity.
Hello, I'm 14 years old.
Nick Mondo has positively influenced my life
by getting me involved with death-match wrestling.
That's one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
He was one reason the younger stars
needed to raise that bar.
And the bar's been set by Sick Nick so many times.
Life or death, he made sure he gave the fans
what they wanted to see.
I took that in my own personal level.
I'm willing to do whatever it takes.
My God, to the stomach.
Oh, my God, look at the stomach
of Bryant Woods, I hope there's a camera closeup of that.
Then Cage of Death, Nick Mondo returns.
An epic pause.
And there he is.
How awesome is that?
For him to come back 10-plus years later,
after he's been gone and stopped in this business,
and to share that moment on top of the Cage of Death
with him, to have that and hear the crowd
and share that moment with Nick Mondo is something
I'll always remember and cherish.
He paved the way for guys like myself and a lot of others
to continue this style and genre of wrestling
and to keep CZW alive.
He was one of the pioneers, and as I like to say often,
part of the ultra-violent foundation that built the company
and paved the way and to give guys like me
to be able to do all this craziness.
So Nick, thank you very much.
If it wasn't for you, there wouldn't be
a Lucky 13, so thanks.
As I was telling everybody before, Nick Mondo
will always be a special memory for me.
An inspiration to myself and many others.
Inspiration.
Everything about Sick Nick Mondo inspired me so much.
Mondo is my inspiration, he's my idol.
He impacted my whole wrestling career.
He inspired me in many ways, such as
wrestling moves, of course.
Assault Driver!
That's it, we're going to see it.
New champion.
No, oh!
Oh, my God.
Oh!
So that leaves me with this.
With a broken ankle in two places
and needing surgery.
I had an opportunity to wrestle the ultra-violent
icon Zandig.
Basically it was the Sick Nick Mondo,
Zandig bump of 2003, which is basically
a bump that inspired me to be as crazy as I am today.
Ruptured tendons.
Surgery.
I was inspired by Nick Mondo,
and I tried to emulate him and to do stunts
just as crazy as the ones he was doing
back in the United States and over in Japan,
but I broke my back.
I broke my spine and had to quit wrestling.
Just like that it was gone.
I just hope that the legend of Sick Nick Mondo never dies
and it keeps influencing people the way it's influenced me.
I mean, thank God I found him and CZW
and everything else that followed.
I mean, you were around for such a short time,
but you made such an impact on so many people's lives.
Wrestlers, wrestling fans, everyone, man.
Look at you.
What a leader.
With your followers
carrying on your legacy.
Sacrificing, bleeding,
all to become the image that you created.
A reckless, furious, suicidal maniac.
Breeding violence.
That's who you are.
That's all you are.
And you know this.
But no, you wanted this, you wanted it!
You chose this, and you knew the price.
You understood, even as a boy,
the wages of sin is death.
Not flesh wounds, not broken bones, death.
And you stopped short.
Now there's blood on your hands.
There's blood on your hands.
Not just your own.
It's the blood of your followers, of your disciples.
So stand up like a man and finish the job.
No.
I was confused.
I was misled.
But the message.
The message was never meant to be guilt.
It was a gesture of compassion.
A free gift that could never be repaid.
But it was never meant to be.
The path I chose,
the path that I created, led me to a lost,
isolated battlefield where nobody is victorious.
But it was my choice.
And it is my choice
to lay my weapons down.
Listen to me.
There is no separation.
You are a part of me,
and I know what that means.
But this time, I decide how it ends.
No, don't do it, don't do it.
It's not worth it.
You were always, always and will be
what extreme wrestling, hardcore wrestling,
and ultra-violent wrestling is meant to be.
I think it's fine if people want to get involved
in wrestling, even death-match wrestling.
But you need to be sensible and you need to know
when it's time to step away.
So I hope that's more part of my legacy is
if people are gonna follow me, I hope that they follow
the decision to leave at the right time, too.
I've had some people tell me that I've inspired them
to do what they're doing, and it's on one hand
flattering and on another hand kind of disconcerting,
because I understand what's gonna happen to them
if they mimic what I'm doing.
So I just hope that people walk the same road
that I did and just know when it's time to walk away
'cause it's gonna wreck your life if you don't.
So I hope that's the case.
♫ No longer anchored down
♫ The world's inside me now
♫ My love will see me through
♫ Till I return to you
♫ In time
♫ It gives then takes away
♫ It breathes then breaks away
♫ I'm just a drifting breeze
♫ Sailing never-ending seas
♫ No longer anchored down
♫ The world's inside me now
♫ My love will see me through
♫ Till I return to you
♫ In time