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Violent J talks about how influential the original StrangleMania was.
In 1996, the Insane Clown Posse released a wrestling VHS called StrangleMania featuring a compilation of death matches from the Outrageously Violent Wrestling From Japan video collection. The matches had no commentary, so the group decided to dub over it with their own.
Following the success of the video, they embarked on a number of StrangleMania live shows and even launched Juggalo Championship Wrestling in 1999. This can all be traced back to the influence of that VHS. Violent J spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard and the influence of StrangleMania on the genre of death match wrestling.
Violent J On StrangleMania and Death Match Wrestling
“It’s so funny, man, because when I try to tell people about StrangleMania now, they don’t really understand that when that came out, nobody had seen that.” Violent J said. “Nobody had seen deathmatch wrestling then. It was so rare. When I saw that magazine ad, that little corner page ad said, exploding rings, barbed wire, thumbtacks, broken glass, I was thinking to myself, ‘Bull***. This can’t be real.’ I had never heard of anything like that.
“I ordered like four tapes of it. And honest to God, I thought that was going to come back and be animated. I thought it might have been something from Japan where it’s cartoons and that’s what kind of matches they were talking about. I didn’t know what to expect. That’s how rare and brand new deathmatch wrestling was back at this time. And when I saw that footage, I could not believe it was all real. It had no commentary over it. It was all just pro-shot with no commentary. So me and Shaggy went and did the commentary. What made that DVD or video work was not only was it funny what we were doing, but the footage itself was mind blowing for the time. Nobody had seen that,” Violent J added.
“That thing went multi-platinum for us. If it wasn’t bootlegged and it was officially put out, it would have probably been three times platinum by now. It just was so successful. But since then, so much has happened with Deathmatches and it’s now such a staple of wrestling. I don’t really know what it is, but I feel like it’s a battle that if we were to make that our focus, there’s no way we could compete with GCW in that. They’ve got that sewed up. “
Being a “gimmick” guy and not wanting his wrestlers to be legit hurt
Violent J continued, speaking about liking gimmicks in wrestling, as well as being a fan of storylines. He doesn’t like “legit pain” and wrestlers really hurting themselves, much preferring the art of selling compared to actual violence.
“I’m a gimmick guy. I’m a big fan of gimmicks and good-looking gear and good gimmicks and storylines.” Violent J continued. “I’m really big on storylines and stuff like that. I am not a fan of legit pain. I tell the guys in the back before the show, ‘I’m not a fan of legit pain, and I don’t want anybody out there showing off like that.’ I don’t want anybody out there pulling each other’s hair out, clumps of hair. It’s just not necessary. I don’t think it’s needed.
“Deathmatches are doing things now with needles and everything; I just don’t want to see that as a fan. I personally don’t want to see guys actually hurting. Maybe it’s because I’m a p***y. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t like that. I think that the artistry of it comes by not being in real pain.” Violent J revealed.
“I like to use deathmatches, but as much as we use like Nick Gage, he’s not doing any deathmatches on this tour except for the pay-per-view, I believe. I like to save it for something special. And I think that’s where we’re different a little way. So when we do it, I like to think it means something or whatever. Plus I can never compete with these other guys at that without somebody seriously getting hurt.”
“I wouldn’t want to ask guys to try to outdo anything like that. There will be deathmatch wrestling when it’s somebody’s specialty, like Nick Gage. When that’s what they love to do, or Mad Man Pondo, we’ll always do stuff like that, if that’s what they prefer to do. But I just don’t like asking guys to go out there and do something like that. I think we can still entertain the audience without having to do that every time.”
