Court Bauer has revealed just how close the WWE Universe was to seeing an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch.
During an episode of AdFreeShows.com‘s The Insiders, Major League Wrestling owner Court Bauer revealed that Vince McMahon had once approved a pitch for an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch in WWE.
Bauer, a writer in WWE before he founded MLW in 2002, said McMahon initially approved it but the match ended up evolving into what fans now know as the Punjabi Prison Match.
“I wanted to do an exploding deathmatch in WWE,” Court Bauer said. “And I thought they were trying different things at this time. This is a time when hey, let’s try and relaunch ECW. Let’s try different stuff. So I showed Vince an Onita exploding deathmatch, and he said, ‘Yeah. Let’s do it.’ And from there, they said, ‘Okay, get with Kevin Dunn and his team and let’s get to work on it.’ Now I wasn’t the lead writer. I was just a suggester, one of the writers in the room.
“So it’s a win for me. Vince liked that idea. Now it’s on someone else’s plate. So we’ll circle back, and that’s the lead writer’s job to kind of communicate with KD and his team on whatever that project is. So the head writer of Smackdown at the time tries to keep in contact with KD’s team. He’s not getting clear answers. It seems very vague, and he’s like, ‘Hey, we got pictures from our top mockups. What do you need from our end? Do you need anything here’s the video,’ and it’s pretty quiet.
“And then, about 12 – 14 days out, we finally see the first photos of this thing being built like, oh, that’s not an exploding deathmatch. It was supposed to be Undertaker in one of these things, I think. And it turns out; it’s what you would see as this thing out of Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom or something. It’s an action playset come to life, and I guess, in some ways, for WWE, it’s really impressive what the structure ended up being.
“From a match point of view, it was very brutal because there was no give on that bamboo. And then we had all these wrestlers going through the wellness process, and all these people failed some tests for elevated enzyme liver issues, and what was once a match with Taker versus I think Khali ended up with Big Show, who the poor guy didn’t have any prep time to play this out. He wasn’t given a match where you could do much in it.
“And this match did not feel good and that kind of setting. So it was one of those things where it was a spectacle, and maybe it’s like, chamber of horrors style thing. And I remember Dusty [Rhodes] watching this and shaking his head saying, ‘Oh baby, it’s gonna be a long night.’ And yeah, it was a rough night, I feel for all the parties involved, but that was originally supposed to be an exploding deathmatch.”
READ MORE: Court Bauer Calls Davey Richards A Locker Room Leader And A Real Hero, Grateful To Have Him In MLW
What do you make of Court Bauer’s comments? Do you wish WWE would have gone ahead with an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit The Insiders with a link back to this article for the transcription.
