The Biggest Wrestling Degenerate 

Heyyyy Blake0561 that dude is the man when it comes to deathmatch footage, highly recommend his channel

Never heard a bad word about Bobby Eaton… never heard a good word about Ian Rotten

It's important to note that Punk, Cabana and Hero didn't do death matches and insisted that the ring be properly cleaned for them before going on. Rotten can brag all he wants about bringing them in but he had nothing to do with their work.

Something to add; thanks to IWA Mid South's deathmatch antics, it became insanely hard to book in that area for pro wrestling at all, since so many people associated pro wrestling with Ian Rotten's trash product.

The crazy thing is there's tons of really shitty things he did that are less known. For instance, after wrestler Rollin' Hard died in 2008, Ian Rotten held a tribute show for him, promising all donations and ticket sales would go directly to Rollin's family. What did he ACTUALLY do with the money? Why, take it to pay his own rent, of course. And this wasn't the only time he exploited deaths, either.

This video is missing so much. Ian rarely paid employees. Most of the checks bounced. Younger wrestlers were "paid in exposure" Paid known pill addict JC Bailey in pills. Stole money from a charity show Pretty much single handily got indy shows banned from Kentucky After JC Bailey died, Ian showed up to the funeral, uninvited, then asked for gas money to drive back home Sexually assaulting Micke Knuckles (allegedly, but those two had an ongoing relationship while Ian was married and had several kids) Had hep c, still wrestled and didn't tell anyone He was a manager at a Taco Bell, but got fired after they found out he had hep c There's a lot more. It's been a long while since I kept up with this scum.

Speaking of JC Bailey, there is a video on grapplevision that has the 2 hour video a radio station did with Ian Rotten shortly after his death. JC's dad, Mickie knuckles, and other call in to tear him a new one. Even the host goes in on him. If you got two hours to kill, grab a bite to eat and a cold drink, kick back, and enjoy.

Ian was working at the Taco Bell in Joliet,Illinois until some of the boys found out and alerted the health department that he was making food with being positive for Hep C. They took him of the food line and put him at the drive thru window taking the money until he fucked that up.

The state of Kentucky outlawed bleeding because of him and the WWE wouldn't run shows there for years

Jim Cornette strongly approves of this video. #OutlawMudshow

I remember being a ring announcer in the Southern Indiana area some years ago. IWA-MS had been banned from a few venues and one venue banned all wrestling overall because of them. It took a lot of work on our booker's part and working with the venue to prove that not all wrestling shows are this way. That some of us were a more family friendly show. When we got back in with that venue, IWA-MS tried to weasel their way back in too. Eventually the venue just said no more wrestling at all.

You left out how he attended Bailey's funeral after being told not to show and then refusing to leave until he was given gas money

Should definitely add promoters to this, Rob Black fits in perfectly as we are on a Deathmatch roll right now. The DSOTR on him pretty much says it all 😭

The Mickie spot was infamous because she was supposed to be signed to TNA to be the muscle for the Beautiful People

I love that you put happy music in the IWA match montage

This came up on my recommended and after I seen Drake Younger as the thumbnail for a previous video and figured this was a crappy channel, does it piss you off that Drake Younger has unpopular political beliefs and is still wrestling???

The last I heard about him was on twitter and of course it’s about him not paying his guys.

I love that the guy who runs this channel has little to no knowledge of any wrestling outside of WWE. Not even WWF or WCW, it's like he started watching wrestling in 2016 and only here and there. It's an interesting perspective and provides a more mainstream/non-fan context for casual viewers or non-fans who are only watching this video for the whole car crash/shock factor/true crime podcast morbid curiosity factor

Last about IWA was he tried running at The Arena in Jeffersonville, Indiana a few months ago and the show never happened.

Isn’t Grizzly Smith still holding the top spot?

I remember Ian Rotten. The first match that I saw of him was the Thai pei death match he had against Axel Rotten in ECW

I hung out with Axl rotten alot in riesertown Maryland he came to the library every day and numerous times I got autograph from him before he died #RIPAXLRotten

I hope that an episode of Dark Side of the Ring season 4 is done on Ian Rotten, Jim Cornette would happily take part in that.

To tell the truth Top10 you could do a whole three-part series on Death Match promoters not just The Rottens; also, could do a six-part series on promoters in general. I.e. CZW, Chikara, WWF/E, and ECCW (Originally Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling under NWA but once they left them they changed Extreme to Elite and some stuff happened after that),.

Man, I was going to say you should mention about Ian Rotten, and now here we are.

"New Breed" was also a badass song from Fear Factory, no relation to ECW.

The music absolutely killed me lol

I have heard because of how Ian Rotten did not tell the owners/managers of certain venues in Kentucky what he was going to be doing, for a good portion of time, Pro Wrestling could not get booked in 10,000 plus seat Hockey Arenas, which is why Cornette despises Ian Rotten, not just for being a "Garbage Wrestler."

The 2 hour destruction of Ian Rotten is one of Legend

They had a guy doing a RAZOR BOARD Deathmatch and they paid him 45 bucks and a couple of hot dogs...

Chris hero in that pic with cm punk looks like jim before applying at Dunder Mifflin

I'm very surprised you had not heard of Ian Rotten but nice making a video!

Love how much you listen to your fan's. Great video my friend ☺️❤️🌎🙏

That Mike Levi beating was hard to watch. The fact that he wasn't killed is almost a miracle.

THE JUMP ON THE LADDER FUCKIN HURT ME HOOOLLYYYY

Lmao a man who listens to his audience, good on you, sir For someone who didn't know who he was, you got a lot of the broad strokes, particularly his relationship with JC.

Cool video as always Tom 💯

Can't believe yall didn't cover the ORANGE PISS BUCKET IN CHARLESTOWN, INDIANA!

Operating IWA Midsouth on the hometown furniture store "Going Out Of Business Sale" model

I used to attend IWA Mid-South from late 2013 to 2014. I enjoyed the matches there by and large, especially since he did a lot for a young girl who was battling cancer and was regularly in attendance, but there were certainly problems there. For instance, one night Ian brought Jeff and Karen Jarrett in and didn't pay them, which led to Karen putting Ian on blast at the end of the night over the microphone. In late March of 2014, I won a raffle and got to be handcuffed to a wrestler during one of the matches. During much of the match we simply sat side by side and watched the match, but at some point the wrestler I was handcuffed to got into a tussle with another wrestler, and he ended up bleeding on my arm. I don't think I ended up contracting any diseases from that, as I would surely know by now if I had, but it was still a very scary situation. I stopped attending their matches after the King and Queen of the Death Matches event after buying a DVD set of the event that Ian promised to mail out and never receiving it. I later boycotted wrestling in Indiana altogether after being bullied on social media by Zane Pasley. It's a real shame, too, because I had developed friendships with several of the wrestlers, many of whom I believe could go places if they got the right exposure.

Nice to see Blake0561's footage in here!

I was there for the Mike Levy Incident, Made the flight from the UK (Deathmatch fan in the day...... I was young) and my god, everything that happened after that match....

there's a shoot interview of thumbtack jack online talking about the time he stayed with him during a us tour I think. some fucked up stuff, basically him doing drugs in his room the whole day while his son went through jacks stuff and destroying dvds, that's also where the oven joke came from if anybody remembers it

Appreciate the violent warning. I stopped it and not sure where to pick back up. I’ll just catch u guys on the next video

2:48 Easily can be one of the deleted scenes in "Whiplash" movie 😆😆

Gotta do one of these for Rob Black next.

Actually Mike Levy DID press charges against Ian but Ian made a deal with Levy. The deal was Ian would offer Levy a IWA contract in exchange to drop all charges so Levy excepted the contract all charges got dropped.

that one at 4:15,,,that doesn't even look like a spot so much as literally attempted murder especially if they were actually shooting on this guy and weren't trying to protect him in any way,,,,gee wonder why nobody wants these guys around?🤔

Grizzly Smith (Jake Roberts dad) should have a video , he did horrible things .

I miss Axl Rotten

He owes loads of wrestlers AND fans money

I was waiting for this

lol, dope, I'm in this video. That being said, some of those clips are from IWA Deep South, which was it's own train wreck, and Diehard Dustin Lee

Seriously Ian Rotten needs a Dark Side of The Ring episode about him

2:32 - 3:02 I Laugh Out Loud on this one 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Best Wrestling soundtrack ever since "Heaven is the place on Earth"

You know it's bad when the Death Note OST is whipped out.

I popped for the sunny music over the hardcore footy hahah

One thing you forgot to mention about Ian and JC is that after JC died, Ian showed up to his funeral when he wasn't even invited in the first place, was apparently disrespectful as hell and got kicked out but down right refused to leave. If that wasn't enough, he even had the nerve to ask JCs parents for gas money so he could go. Being an asshole to people who are alive is one thing, but having the audacity to show up to the funeral of someone who he paid in pain pills, disgraced the dead, and made the grieving process for a 28 year olds parents even harder, thats an all new kind of low. JC Baileys official cause of death may have indeed been a brain aneurysm, but Ian just made things worse instead of better for doing what he did

He’s from the Paul heyman school of promoters. Do a story on Paul heyman history of bot paying wrestlers .

Two other notes about Ian Rotten: 1. CM Punk at the height of his WWE popularity (we're talking post-pipebomb promo) tweeted out that Ian Rotten still owed him money. 2. I heard of at least one instance were he took all of the money the show made and instead of paying his wrestlers, he lied and said they didn't make any money and blew it all on drugs for himself. I never got into IWA-MS. Even when I was watching deathmatch wrestling, I always saw them as a poor man's CZW (which, boy is that saying something) and I've heard nothing but horror stories of wrestlers working for Ian Rotten over the years. The man is the epitome of a scumbag.

I went and found the clip of that girl breaking her leg because he didn't include it in the video. Once the other wrestler moves and the camera shows what happened to her leg, there's some guy in the background that sounds exactly like Louis c.k. going "oh her leg is fucked"

Kind of shocked that you mentioned IWA and talk about death matchs and never heard of Ian

I respect the death note ost on the investigation part lol 💯

The happy childish music over the deathmatch spots sent me flying 😂😂😂😂😂.

What's with all the stunts with lightbulbs? Those things are dangerous.

An Ian Rotten episode of Dark Side of the Ring would be legendary. It would be for all the wrong reasons, but it would be legendary.

You should have shown the clip where that Tarzan looking wrestler jumped off the apron broke his leg and then he was wanting somebody from the crowd to take him to the hospital did not want to call the ambulance because it would cost money but wanted a fan to pay the ticket price and then leave the show Mickie Knuckles absolutely deserve breaking her leg after what they did to that do to King of the Deathmatch

hahaha I love how 'scumbag' is the word highlighted in the thumbnail over scammer and abuser... gotta love youtube sometimes

Sure he paid the guy in drugs, he just saved the man from having another errand to run. Cut out the middleman…

i watched your last video and i am shocked you didn't know who Ian Rotten was.

And look at all those tens of people they were doing it in front of.

On the positive side of this promotion,it gave some exposure atleast to the likes of ricochet and chuck taylor (i remember this two had a feud there),seth rollins,and then they feature some well known stars like cesaro,chris hero,punk,samoa joe,amazing red,aj styles etc.

Ian Rotten needs his own bio drama series. Who could play Ian Rotten???

I have a friend who has been an indie wrestler in the Inland NW for years and he had some issue with Ian Rotten just last year sometime. Idk what happened exactly, but my dude has started focusing purely on “Deathmatch” wrestling since and told me his goal is to get Rotten in a match and shoot so hard on him he won’t ever try to book himself again 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

I love BlakeO's stuff. Glad to see him being used as a credit.

If you ever watch an IWA-MS show their ring is one of the most unsafe things I've seen in wrestling. Best of luck to anyone trying to make a name foe themselves working these events.

IN was once a hot state in the midwest for almost all Pro Wrestling (Once IWA Mid-South got a foot hold into IN in pretty much killed indie wrestling nobody wanted to promote Pro Wrestling due to what Ian and IWA Mid-South was infamous for doing! worked security for a Indie show in Evansville, IN the promoter lost money booking the venue/park the event was held at (Maybe 20 people tops) really sad Evansville was once a massive Pro Wrestling town 😢😢

You forgot to say WHY they moved from Kentucky to Indiana.

Bryan Danielson makes this guy look squeaky clean

I was doing commentary during the Mike Levy incident. Was a disgusting display of bullying and mob mentality.

Right now IWA Mid South is inactive, but let's not also forget the other brands IWA had as well as IWA East Coast, IWA Japan, IWA Deep South, IWA Midwest, & IWA Texas. I would be very suprised if IWA Mid South came back.

What is the appeal of watching guys break fluorescent tubes over each other?

The wrong Rotten died. R.I.P. Axl

IWA Mid South is like that one mattress store that is always running a going out of business sale but never actually closes.

One correction, it was "Diehard" Dustin Lee that Ian shot on not "Diehard" Steven Lee, There was a "Diehard" Steve (last name Szoke) that passed away back in 2008, but I don't think he and Ian ever crossed paths, and a Steven Lee that did work for Ian for a short time, but all three are different people

Good Ol' Ian. There was also the time when a fan from Germany paid a lot of money (reportedly at least 1000$) for tons of IWA MS merch which Ian never sent. Ian of course kept the money

I only knew him as half of the Bad Breed from ECW.

I wonder what IWA would change when Ian finally goes away?

the most disturbing thing about ima mid south was how dirty the ring was.......I dont know how all of those wrestlers did not catch massive staph infections............

JC Bailey passed away smh 🤦🏾‍♂️ this was the turning point of why I stop watching hardcore wrestling. People have mental issues same with CZW

count of 3 gimmick is over with me brother

The New Breed Kevin Thorn, Marcus Cor Von, Matt Striker, Elijah Burke

You must be new to wrestling if you think Ian Rotten is wrestling's biggest degenerate. He might make the top 100 list.

So the very worst ISN'T Buck Zumhoffe? Okay then, if you say so I reckon. He's an older name (80s-90s WWF jobber), so I'm starting to wonder if you've even heard of him.

IWA mid south is why WWE banned so many deathmatch wrestlers for the best I used to think it was unfair but Ian Rotten and New Jack are the reasons why Deathmatch wrestlers are banned by WWE

Man, I'm sure there will be an episode of Dark Side of the Ring devoted to this guy.

I’ve known Ian most of my life. And for all his short comings he has done a lot of good with the bad. Ian gave me free tickets to shows. He would rent his ring and buildings out for small Indy promoters to use and even do some free training to show us how to wrestle safely. He would give wrestlers down on their luck a place to showcase their talent again like Eddie Guerrero,road dogg Jesse James and many others. He is far from a saint but he has done some good things as well.

I'm going to give my opinion on this… Ian Rotten was accused of many things that is true, hepatitis, drugs to Jc Bailey, he owed money to the fighters, and so on, but the man got good historical fighters, as a mystery. king, cm punk and many more! He wrestled to the death, which is probably stupid to some and I respect his opinion, but between 2000 and 2010 a lot of his shows, if you watch them, were crazy, not because there was money or not, but because of the fandom that was there. generated in the environment, which no longer exists, to good shows, necro, havoc, drake, toby klein, brain damage the toughest men, none of us can last a round above a ring against one of them

My friends and I attended so many IWA Mid-South shows. Those were good times, great memories. Ian was always so nice, everyone was real nice. We were known as The Tools

“Best friend” colt cabana… LOL