Chikara’s birthday was on 25 May 2002, which it celebrates every year with Aniversario – sometimes a show, sometimes a weekend tour, it varies.  It’s one of the fixtures in their calendar, but some way behind King of Trios, or for that matter the season finale; it’s more of a well established marker post in the year.  Frankly, the Challenge of the Immortals tournament format that dominated 2015 doesn’t lend itself to a major show at this point, since virtually every story is building to something much further down the line.  The result is a relatively normal looking card, but with a bigger than normal crowd.

When and where: It’s 24 May 2015 (the day after the previous show), and we’re in the Palmer Center in Easton, Pennsylvania.  This is essentially Chikara’s home venue, if you leave aside their actual training facility.  It’s a community centre gym, but a pretty substantial one.  We’ll be back here for King of Trios later in the year.  It’s a sell out.  There’s a prominent advert at the back of the hall for Electric Monkey energy drink, which is a real thing, and is product placement.  Remember that, it’ll be coming up in a bit.

1.  Elimination match: N_R_G (Race Jaxon & Hype Rockwell) v. The Battle Hive (Amasis & Worker Ant) v. The Nightmare Warriors (Frightmare & Silver Ant) v. Kevin Condron & ???.

This is an elimination match, and boy, there’s a lot going on here, story-wise.  Deep breath.

N_R_G’s gimmick is that Race is massively (annoyingly) enthusiastic, while poor Hype is permanently exhausted, because Race makes him do all the driving.  They challenged for the tag titles last month and lost decisively, which Race blames on Hype’s lack of energy.  The Battle Hive and Nightmare Warriors duos are both from Challenge teams, getting some more ring time together outside the tournament.  The two Ants are normally teammates in the Colony, but the Challenge draft has put them on different squads.  Silver Ant, in particular, was drafted by the Nightmare Warriors because they wanted to recruit him into their little religious cult; while he’s willing to wrestle for them, he’s also resisting their proselytising, and his win-loss record for the team hasn’t been great.   As for Condron, he’s the embittered rookie who’s trying to recruit a stable from the brainwashed footsoldiers left behind by 2014’s failed invaders, the Flood.  On last night’s show, he persuaded generic henchthug Volgar to unmask and join him.

Obviously, Condron’s mystery partner is Volgar.  Less obviously, Volgar is now “Juke Joint” Lucas Calhoun, a cheerful rockabilly type who generally carries himself like a loveable babyface – except that he remains completely subservient to Condron and consistently defers to Condron’s showboating and scene-stealing.  So one thing remains constant, which is that he’s easily led.  But the fans catch on to the dynamic immediately, and the act clicks instantly.

Silver Ant is willing to wrestle Worker Ant, but Frightmare demands more aggression.  Silver does pick up the pace, but stays within the rules.   Silver and Frightmare get on the same page by isolating Race, while Hype falls asleep in the corner; exasperated, Race is forced to tag out to Amasis instead.  Silver Ant is distracted by Condron’s sidekick the Troll, and walks into a Samoan drop from Calhoun.  But Condron insists on getting the glory and pins Silver Ant with a superfluous DDT in 11:13, to eliminate the Warriors.  The Battle Hive fall in much the same way a minute later.  If Condron and Calhoun can eliminate N_R_G, that’ll give them a clean sweep and a title shot.  Condron tries to use a can of Electric Monkey as a foreign object, but Race retrieves it, realises that it’s an energy drink, and presses it into the hands of Hype.  And yes, kids, it’s the Popeye gimmick (product placement version), as the instantly invigorated Hype joins Race is a burst of perfectly timed double-teams.  N_R_G pin Condron with their finishers in 13:57 to win the match.

That was fun – loads of little story arcs, an instant success for Calhoun’s new act, plenty of action, and a gentle advance of Silver Ant’s story to boot.  The product placement is absolutely shameless, but it gets N_R_G out of a joke gimmick that had run its course, as well as setting them back on the road to another tag team shot (which they’ll get later in the year).  Fortunately, they won’t be doing the Popeye thing routinely; this is mainly a way of drawing a line under the exhaustion gag and letting them become a more effective tag team.  That said, it does mean Race never really gets his come-uppance for being such a dick to poor Hype, which seems like a missed story beat.

2.  Challenge of the Immortals: Dasher’s Dugout (Dasher Hatfield, Mark Angelosetti, Icarus & Heidi Lovelace) v The United Nations (Juan Francisco de Coronado, Prakash Sabar, Mr Azerbaijan & The Proletariat Boar of Moldova).

The Dugout have 3 points (one off the lead), the Nations have 2.   They  would have been level pegging if Juan hadn’t suffered his upset loss to Princess Kimberlee last night.  Making her first appearance of 2015 is Heidi Lovelace, who’s been on a tour of Japan.  She’s the Young Lions Cup champion, which is a title for wrestlers under 25.   So we’ve got the current Young Lions Cup champion, the previous Grand Champion and the previous tag champs, against a bunch of midcard heels.  The Dugout are the heavy favourites here.

The match cycles through various pairings, with the Dugout always coming out ahead.  Eventually the Nations manage to gang up on first Icarus, then Angelosetti, then Hatfield, then Heidi, trying the same combo finisher on all of them, but not managing to keep anyone down.  Heidi fights off first Mr Azerbaijan, then Sabar (who misses his Bronco Buster as usual) and finally Juan Francisco de Coronado, but the Boar finally puts her down with a Gore for the clean pin in 16:32.  Straightforward, and pretty effective in letting Heidi look strong in defeat while setting up the Boar as a possible challenger for the Young Lions Cup (though he won’t actually get the match until September), and continuing the nagging theme that the Dugout are underachieving as a squad.

3.  Missile Assault Ant v. Oleg the Usurper

Oleg the Usurper is the fifth member of Sidney Bakabella’s Wrecking Crew faction.  But with only four slots on their Challenge team, and with Bakabella viewing him as a blundering liability, he was palmed off on the Arcane Horde and told to get in their way.  Oleg is clearly on the verge of turning on Bakabella and switching sides, but still hasn’t actually done it.  Meanwhile, he’s started picking up singles wins, and a win tonight will give him his third point, and a shot at the Grand Championship.  So, of course, now Bakabella wants to be friends again, and comes out with Oleg, brandishing his contract.  We know it’s his contract because it says PRO RASSLIN’ CONTRACT FOR OLEG on the front in capital letters.  Seems legit.  Oleg doesn’t seem too happy to have him there but largely ignores him.  Missile Assault Ant is a pretty easy target for that third point – he hasn’t won a match all year, and his main storyline right now is that Kevin Condron is trying to recruit him.

It’s a big guy battle (by Chikara standards), with Missile getting a surprising amount of offence.  Bakabella yells at Oleg that the fans don’t really love him.  They trade their big moves, Missile misses a diving headbutt and Oleg pins him with the Off With His Head in 8:01 to win a title shot.  Bakabella promptly jumps into the ring to celebrate.  Not with Oleg, just on his own.  A fairly basic match but well pitched for these guys and for Oleg’s story.  Oleg will get his title shot next month, against the winner of tonight’s main event.

4.  Challenge of the Immortals: The BDK (Jakob Hammermeier, Pinkie Sanchez & Nøkken) v. The Arcane Horde (UltraMantis Black, Kodama & Obariyon).

Both teams are on 2 points, but the BDK got there in three matches (which is okay) and the Horde got there in six (which is pretty much terrible).  This is a trios match, with both sides fielding their most cohesive groups – which is to say, the BDK is not using the brainwashed and semi-co-operative Soldier Ant, and the Horde isn’t using the unreliable Oleg.  Mind you, Kodama and Obariyon aren’t exactly in Mantis’s fan club either, and they’re losing patience with being stuck on a dysfunctional and struggling team.

The match is announced as a Magic Move Match – if anyone hits the Magic Move then everyone in the crowd gets a mini prize – but nobody ever announces what the Move is.  A caption says it’s a clothesline, which I assume they chose just because it never plays into the match.  Might have been best just to edit off the announcement, to be honest.  Anyway, both teams work together perfectly happily and they have a fairly typical back and forth tag match.  Despite the Horde’s relative cohesiveness tonight, the BDK are a brotherhood, and Obariyon falls to Jakob’s KO punch and Nøkken’s chokeslam in 12:34.   Perfectly okay, but it feels like it should have done more with the tensions between Mantis and his teammates.  The BDK are now on a respectable three points from four matches, and the Horde continue to go unrewarded.

5.  The Gentleman’s Club (Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy) v. Crown & Court (Princess Kimberlee & Jervis Cottonbelly).

This is a regular tag match, not part of the Challenge tournament.  Crown & Court may be languishing in joint last place in the tournament, but Kim and Jervis are the stronger half of the squad, and they already have two points from an upset win in an elimination match in March, so a win here will get them a tag title shot.

At any rate, it’s an Orange Cassidy comedy match, and his schtick is always good fun.  The basic idea is that he’s an incredibly lazy slacker who can’t even be bothered running when he goes off the ropes, but has sporadic bursts of actual perfectly-executed offence.  Eventually the Club manage to double team Kim during one of Cassidy’s rare bursts of enthusiasm, but she fights them off and gets the hot tag to Jervis.  Cassidy tries to mist Kim with his orange juice, but Jervis gets in the way and submits Cassidy with his Downton Lock (it’s an ankle lock) in 10:57.  Good comedy match, though I’ll nitpick the finish: if Jervis is going to take the bullet then he ought to stay down longer and Kim should get the win.  And hey, Crown & Court get a title shot.  Except the champions are the Devastation Corporation.  And they beat Kim in the opening match of the year… and again in their first tournament match… so, well, the odds ain’t great.  Still, you’ve got to have dreams, right?

6.  Challenge of the Immortals: The Snake Pit (Ophidian, Argus, Shynron & Eddie Kingston) v The Wrecking Crew (Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive, Flex Rumblecrunch & Jaka).

The Crew have 4 points from 5 matches, making them the joint tournament leaders along with the Nightmare Warriors; a win here will put them clearly in the lead.  The Snake Pit have 1 point, though that’s mainly because they missed the UK tour and so they’ve only wrestled 2 matches.  It still makes them joint last along with Crown & Court.  The Crew are a practised squad of violent bastards who include the current tag champions.  As for the Snake Pit, Ophidian is mentoring the rookie Argus and working nicely with Shynron, but the loner antihero Kingston is out on a limb.

So, then.  This match.  After some inconclusive exchanges, Kingston and Jaka square off for a slugfest, but the rest of the Crew quickly pile on Kingston.  Eventually Kingston escapes the ring (which is a tag under lucha rules) and the rest of the Snake Pit attempt a fight back, but Ophidian and Shynron are quickly brushed aside.  Argus is briefly left to face the Crew alone, but manages to hang in there until his team regroup.  Kingston and Jaka return to the ring for another slugfest, both fending off any attempts by the others to intervene.  The obvious idea is that this is building a Kingston/Jaka feud – something that was presumably originally meant to start on the UK tour, where they were due to have a singles match.  At any rate, they trade near falls, and Kingston pins Jaka with an uranage in 20:20.

Or rather, he hits an uranage and covers, and Jaka kicks out more or less on 3, and referee Jon Barber counts it as a pin, but then vacillates about whether to stick with the call for way, way too long, making it abundantly obvious that it wasn’t the planned finish.  Everyone looks quite annoyed.  Kingston and Jaka do a pull-apart brawl, and Kingston throws a tantrum at his teammates, which might have made sense with the planned finish.  Who can tell?  That was going pretty well up until the end – once again, Argus got to be the rookie who hangs in surprisingly well against the top heels – and ironically, if everyone had just played it as the intended finish, they’d probably have got away with it.  As it is, well…

Since Kingston and Jaka go on to wrestle in a singles match on the next show, I rather suspect Kingston wasn’t meant to get a clean pin on him here.  If the Wrecking Crew had won this match, they would have come out of Aniversario as the clear tournament leaders, while the Snake Pit would have remained in joint last.  But that doesn’t happen.

7.  CHIKARA Grand Championship: Hallowicked (c) v. Ashley Remington.

This is Hallowicked’s first defence since winning the title from Icarus last month.  There’s no particular issue between these two; this counts as a main event for Aniversario largely for the out-of-universe reason that Remington is also Dalton Castle from Ring of Honor, and thus a star attraction.  He got his three points by beating Juan Francisco de Coronado in December, Drew Gulak in February, and Missile Assault Ant at the start of the month.

Both guys are accompanied to the ring by their respective Challenge teammates – except for Silver Ant, who is conspicuously absent.  This is a little odd in Remington’s case since he hasn’t actually wrestled for the Battle Hive yet, as his limited dates have had to be taken up in earning points for this title shot.  But he’ll be getting into the tournament after this point, albeit more as a recurring guest than anyone with a particularly strong story in his own right.

Remington’s really good – he’s a strong technician who really knows how to work his character into a match, and the fact that he’s doing two such totally different characters in different promotions makes that all the more impressive.  His ultra-chivalrous, rule-abiding charmer act normally plays up the comedy, but here he settles into more serious mat wrestling while sticking to the rules of his character.  He’s not an idiot; when Hallowicked tries to take advantage of his chivalry, he sees it coming and blocks.  But his enthusiasm for prompt rope-breaking means he’s sometimes giving up the advantage too easily.  Hallowicked, for his part, is also wrestling a fairly clean match, presumably because it’s important to him to be seen as a legitimate champion.  Hallowicked works on the arm. There’s a neat spot where Hallowicked goes for something off the top rope and gets caught with a belly-to-belly suplex.   They trade finishers, and Remington hits his bridging German suplex, but can’t maintain the bridge because of the injured arm.  Hallowicked puts him away cleanly with two yakuza kicks in 14:51.  Very good match.

Worth getting?  It’s a decent show, though more of a strong regular card than an Aniversario – and a 20 minute match with a blown finish is not great.  Still, the match itself is pretty good up to that point.  The opener is a good story match, and the main event is excellent.  (And hey, you can buy individual matches at Chikara’s website if you want.)