• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Shadow Of Death Keeps Hardcore Tradition Alive

Posted: Oct 29th 2008 By: CMBurnham

There have been many people who have claimed to be the top hardcore wrestler in Oklahoma. Kareem Sadat refers to himself as "The Oklahoma Hardcore Legend". Beau Dalton once won a match which proclaimed him the "King of Hardcore". But for many fans in the Tulsa area, the man who will forever be associated with the term "hardcore" is the Shadow of Death.

Shadow of Death began his hardcore tradition during the OCW era and traded the OCW Hardcore Title with the only other person who could challenge him for that title, Terry Montana. That feud turned into a partnership and the Mountain of Death was formed. The on again-off again partners would just as frequently battle each other as battle their opponents and while the partnership continued when OCW turned into TPW, things just went downhill. S. O. D. and Montana traded the TPW Hardcore Title in 2004, but then S. O. D. put a lockdown on the belt. No one could take it from him. And it seemed that no one wanted to either. In August, 2004, S.O. D. announced that he was vacating the title due to a "lack of competition". He didn't need a belt to confirm what he already believed: he was the toughest Hardcore wrestler in the area.

S. O. D. essentially retired from wrestling in 2004, but started to make the transition to managing. In his heart, though, he still yearned to make one more hardcore showing for the fans. This past Saturday, ComPro gave him that opportunity as they held a battle royal to determine the first annual Halloween Hardcore Champion. The ring was littered with weapons that the fans brought including cookie sheets, keyboards, trashcans, belts, an ironing board and 2 traffic cones, amongst other things. Several of the entrants had Hardcore title history in SRPW including TAP Oklahoma Heritage Champion Tim Rockwell, ComPro Champion Pork Chop and ComPro Tag Team Champion Shane Morbid (who held the SRPW Hardcore Title 5 times). As the entrants began to lace into each other, no clear winner was obvious. Some early eliminations were made, including Rockwell and ComPro Oklahoma X Division Champion Justin Lee (dressed for Halloween as Aquaman) and then music hit and S. O. D. arrived. He entered the ring with his barbed wire baseball bat and stared down the remaining competitors, which included his tag team charged, the Saints of Twilight. They were ordered to eliminate themselves and obeyed, leaving S. O. D. all on his own to deal with the remaining combatants. He used none of the weapons in the ring, preferring to rely on his baseball bat and his own strength. And it worked for him as the Battle Royal came down to S. O. D. and The Canadian Red Devil. The popular masked star did everything he could to hold his own, but ultimately he was sent out and S. O. D. stood supreme in the ring, once again acknowledged as the top Hardcore wrestler in the area.

Having satisfied his desire to compete again, S. O. D. can now move on to try and bring the ComPro Tag Team Titles back to the Saints of Twilight. While the Saints could accomplish this goal on their own (and did so last year), S. O. D. has no issue interfering in their matches. After all, that's the hardcore tradition.

Tags: Kareem Sadat, Beau Dalton, Shadow of Death, OCW, Terry Montana, Mountain of Death, TPW, ComPro, Tim Rockwell, Pork Chop, Shane Douglas, SRPW, Justin Lee, Saints of Twilight, Canadian Red Devil