In the early 2000s, deathmatch bumps arguably reached their highest heights. Of course, modern wrestlers continue to fall from high places — in recent years, we've seen Ciclope hitting a picture-perfect moonsault off a building and Joey Janela's iconic roof bump with Zandig, among others.

Still, none of them compare to the sheer height and scope of one of the all-time riskiest bumps: Vic Grimes falling from a 40-foot scaffold in his 2002 XPW Freefall match with New Jack. Despite every factor aligning for the spot to go wrong, Grimes' bump somehow went catastrophically right.

Sheer Drop

We can largely attribute the popularity of early-2000s Height Bumps to the late-90s work of Mick Foley and New Jack.

It's tough to say just how much Foley's 1998 Hell in a Cell bump influenced a generation of thrill-seeking independent wrestlers hell-bent on scoping out every local venue for the highest vantage point to throw themselves from. CZW had near-immediate copycats, with Justice Pain falling through the ceiling at Pyramid of Hell and Lobo bumping off of the inaugural Cage of Death about a year later.

While Foley's HIAC bump persists for its sheer quality, New Jack should be recognized for the insane quantity of high falls he was willing to take. Whether it was a balcony, ladder, or some kind of makeshift structure, Jack never hesitated, gracefully cascading onto his opponents in ECW, XPW, CZW, TNA, WSX, and more — often with only a single table to break his fall.

Over in Japan, wrestlers like The Winger were jumping from the Korakuen Hall balcony — for a closer look, I recommend Bahu's history of balcony dives in Korakuen Hall, beginning with Matsunaga in '92.

The Modern Height Bump

I want to be somewhat inclusive here, but there are definitely some Height Bumps in recent memory that I won't be able to cover. To the wrestler reading this who recently fell from an alarming height and is upset that I didn't include your spot, I see you, and I hear you. If you're still in line, stay in line.

I also want to draw a distinction between "safe" and sketchy Height Bumps. Of course, you'll never catch my writer ass falling like these professionals, so I want to be clear that I'm not belittling any wrestler's work here, aside from Triple H taking a Chokeslam into a giant pillow at Wrestlemania 17.

Regarding "safe" Height Bumps, think large, welcoming landing zones — the type of thing Shane McMahon crashed into from the Summerslam set. Some high dives rely on a human net for a landing zone. With that in mind, Aerostar's repeated dives from the AAA lighting rigs probably deserve more attention, as the only thing waiting below him was his opponents, waiting forever to catch him from his fall.

The great safe-and-sketchy unifiers here are Jeffy Hardy's running Swanton Bomb to Abyss in TNA and Darby Allin's two insane ladder-to-floor dives for AEW. They didn't occur in deathmatches per se, but they definitely lacked the safety of any sort of crash pad. With added height and more questionable landing zones, however, the sketchiness increases. With that in mind, I wanted to highlight one last Height Bump from recent memory before moving back to Vic.

In 2019, Matthew Justice and Josh Bishop fell 20+ feet with a Death Valley Driver from the balcony of The Odeon at Absolute Intense Wrestling's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" event. This moment's sheer height and recklessness recalled the annual balcony bumps from early-2000s standout International Wrestling Syndicate, based out of Montreal.

*Video credit: Absolute Intense Wrestling*

Really, you need to see an alternate angle from the floor with sound to fully grasp the reality of this fall.

Video credit: @LuchaMax

This moment stands out to me as possibly the wildest modern Height Bump. Again, there are still wrestlers throwing themselves and others from wild heights, including in GCW's yearly War Games match (this year featured a particularly gnarly scaffold fall from Drew Parker), but there was just something different about the early 2000s. This concludes the Remembering Some Bumps portion of the story.

Logistics Management

I’ve always been deeply curious as to how these events and matches come together. I spoke with Mike Hartsfield, who worked as XPW's Vice President of Operations at the time of the Freefall match. He provided some of the original schematics he drew up for the match.

I asked if the venue knew what they were getting themselves into with something like this, and Mike said it was mostly a matter of finances.

"I think [the venue's] attitude was "well, if they'll pay this much, they can have a show' and never said anything about do's and don'ts, to the best of my knowledge. It was expensive but amazing running there. I had seen so many punk/metal shows there in the ‘80s… to add the wrestling history on top, I really miss it," Mike tells me.

"Anytime I needed to stop by there to measure something, pick up/drop off, etc. I would take as much time as possible walking around and looking everywhere."

Obtaining the scaffold was a task Mike took upon himself. "In the weeks leading up, we had meetings, but there was zero planning happening. I spoke up one day and took responsibility for contacting a scaffolding company."

He continued, "We made some slight adjustments once it was set up and removed some of the safety rails for the guys to fall off one side. I had told the scaffolding people that only camera operators would be on the scaffolding, no wrestlers."

Hartsfield also shares my disbelief that the match ever happened at all, though as an insider, it appears even more unlikely to have ever occurred.

"I had to keep the fire marshal, scaffolding guy, and the manager of the Olympic from talking to each other all day. I had supplied the venue with less-than-legitimate insurance documents and needed to keep the fire marshal from asking too many questions. Thankfully, he just kept trying to tell me about old WWF shows that he had overseen at the LA Sports Arena."

Everything Looks Perfect From Far Away

Wrestling at its most interesting combines fiction and reality, which New Jack adeptly blended throughout his career to great effect. To fully understand Vic's scaffold bump, we need to look back to a genuine injury in a match between the two in ECW, colloquially known as The Danbury Fall.

The two wrestlers stood atop a 15-20 foot scaffold with two tables below at ECW's Living Dangerously event in 2000. They held onto each other and exchanged light punches for what felt like an eternity. The delay, as Jack tells it, resulted from Grimes' hesitation to follow through with the spot, fearing it was too high.

Sensing that they were taking too long, Jack grabs Vic and tells him they're jumping on the count of three. New Jack falls first, with Grimes going head over heels from the scaffold and crushing Jack's head onto the concrete floor, causing permanent damage to his brain and vision. These injuries resulted in a months-long hospital stay.

In various interviews, New Jack has angrily insisted that Vic did not contact him in the short term to check on him, though upon their first face-to-face interaction months later, Vic apologized.

Just over a year later, XPW books the two in a Scaffold Match at Freefall, promoting the bout based on their bad blood from the Danbury Fall. Jack has claimed that he sought revenge for the ECW fall in this fight by attempting to throw Vic from the scaffold to his death, aiming for the turnbuckle or floor rather than the stack of tables.

Here it is again: the blending of reality and fiction. Jack's injury in ECW, seemingly the result of Vic's hesitance, was genuine. It's understandable for him to have felt some animosity toward Grimes for the way it played out.

He adds to the story by saying he bought a stun gun from a pawn shop the day of the Freefall match, ultimately carrying it to the top of the scaffold and shocking Vic mid-match. According to Jack, Grimes exclaimed that he couldn't feel his legs. Jack claims he then told Vic, "Well, you ain't gonna need 'em," and summarily launched Grimes from the platform to the ring below.

This, I believe, is the fiction of the match. Vic stands on his own two feet after the stun gun attack, lines himself up, and leaps.

There But For The Grace Of God Goes Vic

Seriously, how many times have you seen an honest-to-goodness actual bump that resembled one of those wild Fire Pro Wrestling animations that flooded wrestling message boards in the early 2000s? The table setup alone is truly absurd.

If Grimes had been a foot or even inches off from where he ultimately landed, independent wrestling may have been forever changed (derogatory). Fortunately, independent wrestling was forever changed (complimentary).

As luck would have it, he was only slightly injured with a dislocated ankle, as the crowd went ballistic and the wrestling world continued to turn. I don't believe that Jack "threw" him or tried to kill him here, although Vic may have wanted to absolve himself from the Danbury incident by taking the Freefall bump as penance. Who knows.

A Part of My Life That's Over

Desperate for his first-hand account of the events surrounding XPW Freefall, I attempted to track down Vic for comment. I was able to contact him, but he was not interested in talking about this match or any involvement in professional wrestling.

"Wrestling was a big part of my life, but it's a part of my life that's over. Now my life is about Jesus. Completely different now. I ride for a motorcycle ministry called Bikers for Christ, and I'm [...] preaching all over the world. At one point, baptizing in blood — now I'm baptizing people."

Such Great Heights