Since I’ve been teaching myself how to make GIFs, I decided it was the perfect time to break out my DVD of the greatest match that I have ever seen live…Chris Hero vs. CM Punk in their 50 minute Tables, Ladders and Chairs match.  This match happened on our last night at the House of Hardcore in Charlestown, Indiana in February of 2002.  Fans that had been coming to IWA Mid-South shows for the previous 2 years in Charlestown knew exactly how great CM Punk and Chris Hero were.  After this match, thanks to Smart Mark Video, the rest of the world found out pretty quickly.  The internet was abuzz about the match almost instantly.  SMV got the show released quickly and wrestling tape traders across the world were gobbling up copies as quickly as they could be made.  They had so many great moments in the match that they are impossible to list and impossible to GIF all of them.  Some of them were too long for GIFs.  Plus I didn’t want to GIF the entire match because you should really go seek it out and watch the match in its entirety.  You can get it from SMART MARK VIDEO on the cheap.  I was on commentary for the match and it while I didn’t like listening to my voice, it was a pleasure to relive the match.  Punk and Hero killed it.  You could tell that they were going to be huge.  WWE really missed the boat on making Chris Hero Kassius Ohno and then burying him in NXT.  Then again, Cena, Orton, Big Show and the rest of the WWE drizzling shits inside the ring would never had been able to follow anything that Hero and Punk did.  The crowd already chants boring during Big Show v. Randy Orton main events and boos Cena out of the building.  They would lose their minds if they got to see what could really be done in a wrestling ring.  Enough about the evils of WWE…as Nick Maniwa tells me every time I complain about WWE, I’m not their target audience.  I have a brain.  I have working eyes.  I’m not 7 years old and amused by John Cena’s “you can’t see me” schtick.  I don’t give a damn what your dad did for the company when you are a boring untalented drugged out stiff that puts me to sleep when you are on the screen.  Let’s get back to the greatest match I have ever seen live.

Punk was the champion and had used underhanded tactics to always get the best of Hero or they would go to a time limit draw.  Since it was the last night in the building, they were destroying walls and letting it all go.  After a feeling out process at the start, it was time for Chris Hero to take flight.  It was an amazing sight to see a man of his size and build fly around the ring and this was no exception:

After more back and forth action including an impressive reverse into a blockbuster by Punk, CM Punk set Hero up for one of the craziest moves I’ve ever seen.  A table set up on the floor, Punk and Hero perched on top rope, it was time to show Scott Steiner and Rey Mysterio Jr how a Frankensteiner/Hurracanrana is supposed to be:

The thing about a move that devastating is that it takes its toll on both guys.  Punk couldn’t set up the ladder and climb it to get the title so it led to the memorable moment of the death of Nadia Nyce.  Chris Hero had replaced me as his manager with Nadia (and who can blame him) so it spared me from being the one to get tombstoned from the ring apron to the floor through a table.  Thank you Hero and Nadia:

Killing Nadia distracted Punk just long enough for Hero to finally start to recover from the reverse rana to the floor.  Hero was able to prevent Punk from hitting a Pepsi Plunge from the top through a table which would have definitely ended the match and was able to counter it into a Super Liger Bomb off the top through a table on Punk:

Both guys were destroyed by these moves so they couldn’t capitalize to win the match.  After several minutes of fighting, it led to the most memorable moment of the match.  I think it was even profiled in the WWE’s CM Punk DVD…the fall off the balcony through two tables.  On commentary, I thought both guys were dead.  Instead, they still had fight left in them:

After both guys regained their senses, it was time for a game of chicken while LITERALLY hanging from the rafters.  Who needs a ladder to get the belt anyway?  This was a bad decision for Punk though as he is left singing soprano after the fall:

After more fighting and CM Punk piledriving the referee, Brent Blades, Chris Hero had finally climbed the ladder and had the title in his grasp.  With Brent still woozy from the piledriver, he didn’t see Hero have the title but he did see the end result of Punk holding the title:

If you are a true wrestling fan…someone that loves in ring product over the fireworks and lighting effects and promos on RAW, you owe it to yourself to go watch this match.  If you are a fan of what CM Punk has done in WWE and want to see what he is truly capable of when not handcuffed and held back, you owe it to yourself to go watch this match.  It’s almost 12 years old and you can still see both CM Punk and Chris Hero tweeting about it on the yearly anniversary and getting responses from thousands of people that have seen it over the years.  Wrestling anniversaries are special and so was this match.  One of the greatest.