Indie Wrestler Sets Himself On Fire And Dives At Other Wrestlers [Video]

Death matches in wrestling are certainly an acquired taste, but there are some around the world like Jimmy Havoc, Rickey Shane Page and others who do it quite well. However, some are quite dangerous, and we saw a cringeworthy example of that down in the Philippines recently. During a match, a performer named James Martinez set himself on fire and jumped from the top rope down onto the other performers in the match:

Wisely, the other performers who saw him pour gasoline all over himself didn’t catch Martinez when he jumped. This became a big story after Jim Cornette caught wind of it and mentioned it on his podcast. I don’t usually agree with Cornette and his views on wrestling, as I grew up in a different time, but here I certainly do as this is just terrible. It leads to untrained performers thinking they can get away with this, and that’s where serious injury can occur.

Wrestling isn’t big down in the Philippines, so this performer has gone out of his way to do something crazy to make a name for himself. But it’s also been made clear that the promotion had no idea he was going to do this, so no matter what kind of name he’s trying to make, you need to do it in a safe manner. As you can see in the video, the referee isn’t exactly shocked, and that’s because Martinez has done this kind of thing before, and it even got him banned from this same venue several years ago. In a statement on their Facebook page, the promotion (PWR) has formally suspended Martinez.

So what do you guys think? How far is too far in a death match? Do you enjoy wrestlers taking this kind of risk? Should the promotion even think about bringing him back? As always, let us know all your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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