Wrestler dad advised son ‘I really like you’ in electrocution demise match as pair break silence

WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT: Footage of Jack Harrop, 27, electrocuting his father Isaac ‘Iceman’ Harrop with a car battery during a wrestling match in Sheffield went viral on social media and made headlines

A dad and son wrestling duo have broken their silence after an electrocution stunt during a grisly “death match” made headlines.

In a wild scene that has since lit up the internet, 27-year-old hardcore wrestler Jack Harrop was caught on camera zapping his own dad “Iceman” Isaac Harrop with electricity in front of an excited audience in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The gruesome footage shows Jack, drenched in blood, attaching jump leads from a car battery to metal chains doubling as ring ropes, while his dad, Iceman, seemingly endures electric shocks, complete with sparks flying from the chains.

The referee quickly called the match in favour of Harrop junior and hurriedly disconnected the battery by kicking off the jump leads, preventing any more harm to Iceman.

Their electrifying stunt was part of a weekend-long event jointly hosted by the ICW No Holds Barred and Leeds-based Rise England promotions.

But while fans in the Peddler Events Warehouse in Sheffield over the weekend were enthralled by the action, wrestling enthusiasts on social media were quick to slam the violent encounter.

While the live crowd was captivated by the spectacle, wrestling fans online were less impressed, blasting the extreme act as “dumb” and “stupid”, with one critic commenting: “This isn’t wrestling.”

Now, the Harrops have come forward to address the controversy, insisting the incident in the ring was carefully orchestrated for entertainment, with safety being a top priority.

Danny O’ Doherty, the promoter of Rise wrestling who organised the event, stated: “There’s so much trust involved in death matches. Not just between father and son, but everyone involved.”

He added: “You’ve got to trust the person 100%. And I think that level of trust means that as a promoter, yes there’s a massive amount of risk involved, but you know these people are completely doing it to the best of their ability. 100% priority on safety.”

Iceman Isaac Harrop, considered by many as the founding father of “death matches” in the UK, said the electrocution stunt was basic science.

He said when you put jump leads onto a car there’s always sparks, and that’s all that happened here.

“We knew it was going to be completely safe, we’ve done it numerous times. No danger whatsoever. So we know it’s safe, but the crowd don’t know it’s safe, obviously the papers don’t know it’s safe. That’s the magic,” he said.

“The stunt had been planned for months, rehearsed it. If there was any chance at all of either of us getting injured I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”

Isaac said that it’s his nephew Tom who comes up with all the crazy ideas. While some ideas are dismissed, when he came up with the car battery he thought that it was “an unbelievable idea”. “Especially with the metal chains,” he said.

He added: “I was like, I need to know if we can do this.” They researched the idea and realised it was doable.

“All I wanted was the sparks,” he said. “If you didn’t see anything, people would just think it’s part of the gimmick. But the fact that you could see the sparks on the ropes was an added bonus. I didn’t even know it was going to happen. I thought this is Hollywood, this is cinematic. It was just a stunt, a gimmick.”

Jack added: “I may look like I hate him, but I don’t, I love him, he’s me hero. I would never put him in harm’s way.”

A “death match” constitutes a variety of hardcore wrestling where competitors utilise an array of objects and weaponry.

This sub-genre soared to its height in the nineties, especially with ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) in North America, that embraced its brutal match styles and enthusiast audience craving for bloodshed.

Icons like Terry Funk and Mick Foley cemented their legacy with “death match” displays, particularly in Japan, where explosions were set around the ring and barbed wire substituted the conventional ropes.

Despite such matches becoming rarer in top-billed wrestling spectacles, AEW (All Elite Wrestling) has intermittently showcased them in recent times.