Big Beef vs. Rip Byson: A history of violence to continue at Saturday's Vacationland Cup

By Josh Nason

For three years, Big Beef and Rip Byson have battled in the rings of Limitless Wrestling, leaving part of their souls in Yarmouth, Maine, every time they did.

The two will hook horns again this Saturday at the Vacationland Cup, but with the biggest prize in the company on the line: Beef’s Limitless World title.

The show is set for the AmVets in Yarmouth at 7:30 PM Eastern. Less than 50 tickets remain with the show streaming on IWTV for those unable to attend.

The stage this year has some irony attached to it as they first squared off at the 2020 VLC in a non-tourney bout during the closed set era. Byson picked up a victory that night, spoiling Beef’s promotional debut.

The two went their separate ways until Pressure Point in July 2021 and in another hard hitting affair during the closed set era, the two went to a no contest. Beef took his pound of flesh, hitting an Iron Claw slam on Byson off a stage through a door propped up on two chairs.

Later that month, the two had a rematch at Undeniable and finally were able to exact violence against each other in front of fans. This time, they were attached by the wrist via a leather strap in Limitless’ first-ever strap match. Byson picked up the win.

It would be nearly two years before they shared the same ring again which was this past March at Reasonable Doubt. Unlike their first three meetings, the Limitless title was on the line as both men challenged then-champion Ace Romero in a three-way.

On that night, it would be Byson’s heart that would be broken as Beef picked up the victory to kick off his first run as champion.

That leads us to this Saturday.

Byson earned the opportunity by defeating Mac Daniels in a no. 1 contender’s match at Crunch Time while Beef successfully defended against Lucky Ali.

This will be Byson’s fourth opportunity at winning the biggest title in the promotion and he has added motivation and he heads to Japan next month for the first time ever — realizing a dream he has had for years. But another dream of his is to be Limitless World Champion and being able to defend the title in Japan for him would be icing on the cake.

However, Beef has something to say about that. After two title defenses, he isn’t ready to hand over the gold just yet — especially to a rival such as Byson. He wants to be a fighting champion and already has two defenses under his belt. There would be nothing sweeter for him than to make it three straight and head into September against the winner of the Vacationland Cup.

A high stakes bout for the Limitless World title? It doesn’t get much better than that.

Here’s the current card: