LPW Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man's Hand was a professional e-wrestling pay-per-view presented by Lords of Pain Wrestling, starring e-wrestlers from the Insanity brand. The event took place on July 23, 2008 at the General Motors Place in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was the first LPW pay-per-view held in Canada. The event marked Insanity's final show before LPW's premiere pay-per-view of the year, Altered Reality IV.

The main event featured a Japanese Death match for the LPW World Heavyweight Championship, a stipulation that was determined by LPW fans in an online poll. cYnical realized his dream of holding LPW World gold when he was the only one to stand before the ten-count, effectively defeating Krimson Mask to end his 14-month reign as champion.

In other championship matches, the Dark Brotherhood (Eric Scorpio and Crazy Ash Killa) defeated the Wild Card Warriors (Hatchet Ryda and Magic) to win the LPW United States Tag Team Championship, but Hatchet would win gold again later in the night after he defeated Innilock to win the LPW Hardcore Championship. Elsewhere, White Falcon]] successfully retained the LPW Cleansed Championship when he defeated Stone and S.O.R. in a Triple Threat match.

The Dead Man's Hand pay-per-view got its name from the legendary two-pair poker hand (black-suited aces and eights) that was held by Wild Bill Hickok at the time of his murder on August 2, 1876 in the Wild West.

Background
The main program on the Insanity brand was the culmination of the two-year feud between cYnical and Krimson Mask. The feud started when the decision was made to re-draft the entire roster at Homecoming. As a last minute addition, an undefeated rookie by the name of Krimson Mask was booked in a match against cYnical, who was the most recognized superstar of Pyromania (now known as Inferno).

Before the event, Krimson Mask and Little Red Riding Hood found themselves in the dark realm of her Godfather Death. In the shadows were candles that represented the life lights of mankind, and it was Death's job to make sure that order remained. There was one candle that Death's ice cold hands could not extinguish, that being The Flame of the wizard named cYnical. In exchange for a life extension of her dying Grandmother, Little Red vowed that Krimson Mask would extinguish The Flame once and for all. Later in the forests, Little Red successfully seduced cYnical into a trap for Krimson Mask's axe. However, Little Red's heart jumped out and her attraction for cYnical took control of her. The two embraced each other in love, until Krimson Mask arrived and unsuccessfully landed his axe to cYnical's neck.

At Homecoming, Krimson Mask and cYnical faced off in a brutal fight, but cYnical was able escape with a pinfall after nailing Krimson Mask with his Cleansed Championship belt. cYnical would be the first man to defeat Krimson Mask, an accomplishment that would be remembered for well over a year.

After the Homecoming Draft, both cYnical and Krimson Mask found themselves on the Insanity brand. After Pen's retirement, the LPW World Heavyweight Championship was declared vacant. Insanity's new general manager Stanman declared that a 12-man tournament would be held to crown the new champion (with cYnical obviously absent from the bracket). At LPW Insanity LIVE from Los Angeles, Krimson Mask reached the top of the LPW beanstalk when he defeated Al to win the championship.

Possessing the richest prize on Insanity, Krimson Mask and Little Red vowed to use the title as a piece of bait to lure the mysterious man who vandalized their fairytale past. The two learned that their unwanted arrival into the world was due to a vampire wizard named Giancarlo Giovanni, who had combined the Sword of Damocles (a magical sword that the vampire Bloodrose owned) and The Flame (a power that the wizard cYnical possessed). After Krimson Mask tried to stop his plans in the Faerie Realm, Giancarlo used the combination of the Sword and Flame to cut into a different dimension to dump Krimson Mask and Little Red to the Earth Realm while he resumed his plans of domination. Before their main event match at Annihilation, Krimson Mask, Bloodrose, and cYnical foiled Giancarlo's plans, forcing him to retreat to Morpheus's Dream Realm.

While Krimson Mask continued his search for Giancarlo, Little Red's conflicted feelings for cYnical became well-documented. After cYnical admitted his love to Little Red, she helped cYnical steal Krimson Mask's mask, allowing the wizard to gain new power. In the first-ever DeathCube match at EndGame, Krimson Mask thwarted cYnical's strategy, defeating him, Eric Scorpio, N'itomniskittel, Bloodrose, and Stone to successfully retain the World Heavyweight Championship. After the match however, Giancarlo captured Little Red after she had been knocked off the steel structure. Giancarlo used his residence in the Dream Realm to haunt both Mask and cYnical, using Little Red as the catalyst.

With Dead Man's Hand around the corner, GM Stanman announced a mini-tournament would take place to determine the number one contender to Krimson Mask's title. In the first round, Krimson Mask helped N'itomniskittel to defeat Eric Scorpio. Calling themselves Citizen Caim, Krimson Mask and N'itomniskittel hoped their allegiance would be too strong, but cYnical was able to sneak a victory over N'itomniskittel to earn his long-sought one-on-one title shot against Krimson Mask.

Before Dead Man's Hand, cYnical was confronted by Giancarlo, who revealed that he was his mentor of The Flame and caused all the tragedies in his life. Afterwards, Krimson Mask and N'itomniskittel retrieved the Sword of Damocles and invaded the Dream Realm to fight Giancarlo and Morpheus. Fighting a number of nightmarish adversaries such as flaming Big Bad Wolves, Citizen Caim was able to rescue Little Red and returned to the Earth Realm. Now, the two would finish what they had started two years ago.

Event
The first match of the evening was a best two-out-of-three falls tag team bout for the LPW United States Tag Team Championship between defending champions Wild Card Warriors (Hatchet Ryda and Magic) against the Dark Brotherhood (Eric Scorpio and Crazy Ash Killa). The Warriors started things off by separating Scorpio from his corner and pinned him for the first fall after Magic hit the Magic Show. The Warriors followed-up with stereo superplexes, but when Magic went to spear CAK, he missed and hit Hatchet instead. CAK made the pinfall to even the score at 1-1. In the final fall, the Dark Brotherhood overpowered the champions, finally hitting Magic with Death's Kiss to become the new champions. After the match, General Manager Stanman announced the Brotherhood would put up their newly won U.S. Tag Team Championship in a unification match against Inferno's LPW World Tag Team Champions, the MWA.

The next match pit team captains for Insanity's Altered Reality IV squads, as the undefeated pill-popping rookie Andy Savana faced-off against seasoned veteran N'itomniskittel. Despite N'itomniskittel's experience, Savana was able to gain control of the match by injuring Skittles' legs. Applying the Chamber of Pain submission hold, it looked like Savama would gain the victory. But N'itomniskittel got out of it, hitting a T-Bone suplex to regain momentum. The finish came when Savana caught N'itomniskittel in mid-air, only to see Skittles get out of his grip and hit the Angelic Demise to win the match.