Yes, I know I said I was going to start skipping the lesser shows, and I know I haven’t skipped one yet.  But Shock and Aww is an important show in Chikara’s 2015 season, for reasons which will shortly become clear.  It also has a ludicrously catchy theme tune.  (“Wrestling is so much fun!  Shock and aww!  Shock and aww!”)  Anyway, we can at least start skipping past some of the less important matches.

It’s 14 June 2015, the day after the previous show.  We’re in the Bethel Park Family Center in Indianapolis.  It’s basically a basketball court.  There’s a decent size crowd, though you wouldn’t know it from the hard cam, which somehow contrives to keep most of them out of shot.

1.  Challenge of the Immortals: The Arcane Horde v. Crown & Court.

So, recap: Challenge of the Immortals is a year-long ten-team double-round-robin tournament.  It’s teams of four, but team captains have to agree which members take part in each match.  Everyone on the winning team gets a “Golden Opportunity”, ie a Money in the Bank title shot.  We’re now one third of the way through.  The Nightmare Warriors and the Wrecking Crew share the lead on 5 points, though the Warriors have a match in hand.  The BDK, Dasher’s Dugout, the Battle Hive and the United Nations are all on 3.  The Snake Pit, the Gentlemen’s Club, Crown & Court and the Arcane Horde are all on 2.  So this is a match between two of the teams in joint last place.

The Horde’s basic problem is that team captain UltraMantis Black tried to be too clever in the draft, and wound up with the Batiri (Obariyon & Kodama), a tag team who don’t like or trust him, and Oleg the Usurper, a powerful dimwit who is still under contract to the Wrecking Crew’s manager.  Crown & Court’s problem is that while Princess Kimberlee and Jervis Cottonbelly are doing their best, Los Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr and El Hijo del Ice Cream) are the biggest losers on the roster.  It’s a trios match: Mantis and the Batiri against Jervis and the Ice Creams.

In a backstage segment, the Batiri complain that Mantis is wasting their time with this stupid team.  Mantis asks what he needs to do to keep them onside.  They whisper something, and he cheerfully responds “Fine!  It’s a deal!”  The Batiri seem pleasantly surprised.  In several months time, we’ll find out that they asked him to raise their teammate Kobald from the dead; he was killed by Deucalion in 2014.

The match is pretty average.  The Horde dominate against Los Ice Creams, who are full blown clown mode tonight.  Anyway, Mantis and Kodama botch a double team on Jervis, and Mantis’s leg seems to get trapped at an awkward angle against the ropes.  It doesn’t look that bad, but he bails and never returns to the ring.  The Batiri continue the match without him, and Kodama pins Ice Cream Jr cleanly in 10:09, to potentially turn the corner for the Horde, and continue the Ice Creams’ unparalleled losing streak.  Mantis is still not standing.  The Batiri carry him to the back.

Here endeth the career of UltraMantis Black (2002-2015).  He’ll keep showing up as a non-wrestler into 2016, but this is it so far as in-ring wrestling is concerned (at least as at time of writing).   Mantis is hugely entertaining, he’s been with Chikara literally since day 1, and he really deserved to get a proper farewell match.  It’s a terrible shame that it ended like this.

But it also causes huge problems for the rest of the 2015 season, because even though Mantis is wrestling in the opening match with a struggling team, he’s a nexus of storylines.  Obviously, he’s tied to the other three members of the Arcane Horde, plus Kobald, who does indeed return later in the year.  But through Oleg, he also has a feud with the four members of the Wrecking Crew, plus their manager Sidney Bakabella.  And his archenemy Hallowicked, the former acolyte who was magically turned against him, is now the Grand Champion.  So not only is Mantis feuding with Hallowicked’s Nightmare Warriors team, he’s also the obvious long-term challenger for the title.  There’s no way of knowing what would have happened if he’d stuck around, but the first half of 2015 sure looks like the set-up for him to overcome the array of obstacles, pull his team together, and come back to confront Hallowicked for the title.

None of that can happen now; the champion no longer has an arch-challenger waiting in the wings; and other characters will have to be diverted from their own planned stories to plug the gaps.  It doesn’t help, either, that the round robin tournament format dictates that a lot of matches still have to happen whether they make sense or not, making it much harder than usual to get to a revised endpoint.  It’s a challenge.  But there’s still six months to the season finale.

2.  Chikara Young Lions Cup: Heidi Lovelace (c) v. Argus.

The Young Lions Cup is Chikara’s secondary singles title, with an under-25 age limit.  It’s a weird hybrid thing: there’s a tournament every year or so, and in between, it’s defended like a regular title.  Young Lions Cup matches don’t count towards earning a Grand Championship shot, presumably because they’re in a separate division.  Heidi won the Cup at the end of 2014, but hasn’t defended it until now because she was in Japan for several months.  Spoilers: she’s going to hold on to it for the rest of the year without any great drama, and it’s mainly just a way of pushing her as a star.

Argus is a fellow tecnico, and the protege of veteran wrestler Ophidian.  They go back and forth, with Argus acting as de facto heel by going after Heidi’s injured shoulder.  She fights him off and pins him clean with the Heidicanrana in 5:56.  Fine for what it was, but it seems awfully short given that Argus has been pushed as someone who can hang in there with the Wrecking Crew.  Fair enough for Heidi to beat him, but you’d think it’d take her longer; if they just wanted to give her a decisive win in her first defence, I’m not sure Argus was the best choice.

3.  Challenge of the Immortals: The Nightmare Warriors v. The Wrecking Crew. 

These two teams are the tournament leaders.  Since Hallowicked is defending his title in the main event, the Nightmare Warriors are fielding Silver Ant, Frightmare and Blind Rage.  The Wrecking Crew, for some reason, are Max Smashmaster, Flex Rumblecrunch and Jaka.  You’d think it’d make more sense to use Blaster McMassive instead of Jaka, and field the reigning King of Trios champions.  I don’t really get the thinking there.

You’ll recall that Silver Ant is a tecnico who was drafted to the Nightmare Warriors because they wanted to recruit him, and he’s consistently been the weak link on their team despite his best efforts.  Backstage, Hallowicked tells Silver Ant to embrace his dark side.  Silver Ant insists that he wants nothing to do with the Warriors’ weird religious rituals, but concedes that he needs to bring more aggression to his matches.  Hallowicked seems happy enough with that, for now.

Since Silver Ant is the only tecnico in the match, it’s a slightly odd dynamic.  Frightmare spends a lot of the match yelling at Silver Ant to pick up the aggression, and for the most part, it seems to work, but Blaster does a run-in behind the ref’s back so that Jaka can pin Silver Ant in 11:37.  Frightmare is deeply unhappy, but does help Silver Ant to the back.  So the Wrecking Crew are now the clear tournament leaders, and Silver Ant is starting to respond to Hallowicked’s entreaties, but not enough to actually make the difference yet.

4.  Missile Assault Ant v. Lucas Calhoun.

Recap: The ego-driven Kevin Condron has already managed to free Lucas Calhoun from his brainwashing as a Flood henchman and turned him into a protege.  Now he’s trying the same with Missile Assault Ant, who is similarly brainwashed and abandoned, but rather less stable.  It’s not been going quite so smoothly.

Condron and his sidekick Troll accompany Calhoun to the ring, and do a promo asking Missile to join them.  Missile interrupts by yelling “Missile Assault Ant” (the only thing he ever says).   Condron tells him he’s not an ant, he’s patently a human being.  Missile yells “Missile Assault Ant” again.  Condron says he knows about Missile’s background and he cares.  He points out that he’s done wonders for Calhoun, which is actually true.  He tells Missile that they’ve all been treated as cannon fodder and should join forces.  Then he works in the word “Condor”, referring to the evil private security force from Season 12, who were presumably Missile’s original employers.  Missile promptly decks Condron and walks out.  No match – just an angle.  Chikara hardly ever do this.  They get away with it here, because (a) it’s a match between two midcarders which was always going to be story driven, and (b) they’re about to bring out two bigger stars for an unannounced match to take its place.

The video doesn’t draw any attention to this, but when Missile storms out, he leaves behind the backpack that he wears to the ring.  Though we don’t actually see it happen, Condron’s crew retrieve it, which leads to something next month.

5.  Challenge of the Immortals: The Gentleman’s Club v. The Snake Pit.

This is your make-good for the preceding angle – a singles match between Drew Gulak of the Gentleman’s Club and Eddie Kingston of the Snake Pit.  Both teams are currently in joint last with Crown & Court.  It’s pretty much a technical exhibition match, as Gulak works the arm in endless variations, but Kingston won’t quit, and gets the pin in 13:13 with a second Backfist To The Future followed by a backdrop driver (because he doesn’t trust a finisher delivered with his injured arm to get the job done on its own, you see).  Very good match.

6.  Challenge of the Immortals: Dasher’s Dugout v. The Battle Hive.

Another trios match.  Since Heidi already wrestled, the Dugout are Icarus and the Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Mark Angelosetti).  The Battle Hive team is Amasis, Worker Ant and Ashley Remington – again, an odd pairing given that their fourth member Fire Ant is on hand, and has more experience teaming with Worker.  It’s a Magic Move match – everyone in the crowd gets a token prize if the “randomly drawn” move is hit – and just like last night, it’s the Bionic Elbow.  They try drawing a different move and keep getting the Bionic Elbow.  Eventually everyone agrees that this is a sign from destiny and they had better do the Bionic Elbow.

It’s a face/face pairing between two mid-table teams which is happening mainly because the tournament requires it, so it’s the extended comedy/action match for the night.  There are some very slight story nods along the way – after his upset loss to Kevin Condron last night, Icarus is showing signs of playing to the crowd in a not-entirely-heroic way, and there’s a spot where Mark Angelosetti might have eye-poked an opponent deliberately, but we can’t be sure.  Both guys will start showing signs of backsliding towards their original heel personas in the coming months, and these are the first very gentle signs.  Anyone, everyone hits the Bionic Elbow at once, and Angelosetti pins Worker with a superplex in 18:11.   Perfectly fine.

7.  Challenge of the Immortals: The BDK v. The Snake Pit.

It’s Jakob Hammermeier and the brainwashed Soldier Ant for the BDK, against Ophidian and Shynron for the Snake Pit.  Thanks to Kingston’s win earlier tonight, both teams are on 3 – which the commentators promptly get wrong.  Last night, the BDK duo didn’t work well together, but Jakob seems to have Soldier under better control tonight.   Soldier’s “Winter Soldier” brainwashing leads him to shrug off the Snake Pit’s offence, so their strategy is to use his momentum to get him out of the ring, which under lucha rules counts as a tag to Jakob.  Ultimately it works, and the Snake Pit manage to keep Soldier out of the way long enough for Shynron to pin Jakob with an RKO in 11:36.  Nice match which managed to keep it competitive without compromising Soldier Ant’s indestructibility.

8.  Chikara Grand Championship: Hallowicked (c) v. Oleg the Usurper.

This is Hallowicked’s second defence since winning the title in April.  Oleg’s main storyline right now is about his awkward relationship with the rest of the Arcane Horde, and his off-and-on attempts to break free from Wrecking Crew manager Sidney Bakabella.  So you’d expect Bakabella to be involved here, and quite possibly Mantis too.  But for whatever reason, Bakabella’s on the show – surely an availability issue, because there’s no good story reason for him to be absent – and of course Mantis is probably in the hospital by this point.  So it’s a completely straight match between Oleg and Hallowicked.  Frightmare and Blind Rage are in the champion’s corner, though not Silver Ant.

Oleg is more of a character performer than a great technical wrestler, but this is one of his strongest matches in terms of the actual wrestling.  It’s a very WWE style match, built around finding inventive ways of getting to their signature moves.  Oleg gets some near falls on the champion, and kicks out of the Rydeen Bomb, but ultimately gets pinned clean after three Yakuza kicks in 11:51.  I remember this being underwhelming at the time because it doesn’t advance Oleg’s storyline, but without those expectations and judged purely on its own terms as a match, it’s quite good.

Encore: The United Nations v. Fire Ant & N_R_G.

Like last night, there’s an encore.  Unlike last night, it’s just a random encore.  Fire Ant pins Juan Francisco de Coronado with a brainbuster in 7:26.

Worth getting?  It’s a generally solid card, but it’s not a standout show – it’s notable more for the impact it has down the line.