{"id":2056,"date":"2013-10-03T21:53:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T20:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2013-10-03T21:53:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T20:53:27","slug":"wrestling-without-wrestling-or-what-the-heck-is-chikara-playing-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2056","title":{"rendered":"Wrestling Without Wrestling (or, What the Heck is Chikara Playing At?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul: <\/strong>We don’t normally look at indie wrestling here, but the current goings on in Chikara are worth a look – both because Chikara has always been the point where comics and wrestling meet, and because the company appears to be currently engaged in one of the strangest storylines ever attempted in wrestling. \u00a0Genius? \u00a0Insanity? \u00a0Commercial folly? \u00a0Implosion? \u00a0ARG? \u00a0Workaround? \u00a0Nobody seems entirely sure what they’re up to, or how anyone’s going to make money from it at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

Naturally, this makes it fascinating.<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>Paul’s right that Chikara’s current turn of events is fascinating, but we should note that it’s actually interesting enough that someone who’s a complete outsider to wrestling (i.e. me) is utterly gripped (or possibly armbarred) by what’s currently going on in the promotion. We’re going to have a look at the basics of Chikara here, and go into a bit of detail about not only what’s happening at the moment, but also what makes it sufficiently fun in general that even I’m hooked.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>Since this is not primarily a wrestling blog, let’s set the scene and explain what Chikara actually is (or was). \u00a0Chikara storylines are, shall we say, a bit complicated, so let’s boil this down to the essentials.<\/p>\n

Chikara is an indie promotion based in Pennsylvania which was started in 2002 as a spin-off from Mike Quackenbush’s wrestling school, The Wrestle Factory<\/a>. \u00a0It was initially formed to give the students somewhere to perform, and started off doing shows in the Wrestle Factory’s building in Allentown, before the local zoning board pointed out they didn’t have permission to do that. \u00a0(Remember that, it’ll come up again.) \u00a0After moving out into more conventional venues – for indie wrestling, which largely means community centres and the like – Chikara has managed to stick around for over a decade, establishing a following of fans through DVD sales (and these days, online downloads).<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>This is kind of essential to note. The majority of big-name wrestling promotions have at least some kind of TV presence, with the biggest naturally being the family of shows under Vince McMahon’s umbrella. Chikara is a much smaller endeavour than anything WWE-related, and because of that it doesn’t have the luxury of several hours of televised exposure every week. As a result, it’s embraced the internet wholeheartedly, partnering with Smart Mark Video<\/a> for download and DVD (and latterly Blu-Ray) distribution, and sister site SMVOD<\/a> for streaming video. The majority of its wrestlers and related characters maintain some sort of presence on social media, particularly on Twitter. It’s a promotion that is entirely comfortable living online, and engaging with its fans in that arena. This will also be important later.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>The promotion has always been heavily influenced by both lucha libre and comics, and it also considers its shows all-ages affairs. \u00a0It’s entirely happy to do storylines involving mystical mind-control artifacts or time travelling marching band leaders. \u00a0It’s not a comedy promotion but it certainly has a much higher tolerance for comedy than most promotions – it’s difficult to imagine anyone else featuring Dragon Dragon<\/a>, for example – but that’s not really typical of what they do. \u00a0Even so, it’s the sort of promotion that brought the world Lancelot, a team comprising time travelling knight Lance Steel and his tag team partner, time travelling knight Lance Steel. \u00a0Or the Devastation Corporation, a trio who rejoice in the names Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive and Flex Rumblecrunch.<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>When Paul says it’s heavily influenced by comics, he’s not kidding around. It’s completely at ease with treating elements like the aforementioned time travel as completely unremarkable, everyday elements. The lucha tradition of masked combat elides seamlessly with the equivalent comic book tradition, and the wholehearted nature with which everyone involved throws themselves into the conceits of the storylines and characters’ schticks somehow shifts the needle of where baseline “reality” is. The thought that a 1970s basketball player might fight a demonic goblin, or that an intergalactic luchadora would be found headscissoring a man dressed as an ice-cream cone, is completely\u00a0de rigeur\u00a0here. Chikara is a world that’s super-saturated with superheroics, as can be seen by the covers of its DVDs, many of which are styled after classic comics covers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>Chikara structures its shows in seasons, and things started getting a bit darker in season 9 (2010) with the invasion of Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes, an invading faction who dominate the company for a while. \u00a0That period ends with Chikara being bought by the mysterious Worldwide Media Development Corporation<\/a>, a subsidiary of the Titor Conglomerate<\/a>, who sent in auditor Wink Vavasseur to be the company’s new Director of Fun (its commissioner figure) and restore some order to proceedings. \u00a0Why would this company want to own an independent wrestling promotion? \u00a0As we’ll see, the strong hint is that there’s a bigger picture here.<\/p>\n

At any rate, Wink initially seems like a well-meaning but clueless chap, who doesn’t know the first thing about wrestling but at least seems to be running things sensibly. \u00a0Over time, Wink’s decisions become increasingly erratic \u00a0– swapping wrestlers into blatantly ridiculous teams because his “Chikarabermetrics” system assures him they’re the best combinations – and ultimately downright malicious. \u00a0Meanwhile, off to the side, ousted referee Derek Sabato is making noises about how Titor has something to hide. \u00a0Guards from Titor subsidiary Condor Security<\/a> have been lurking around Chikara shows looking ominous. \u00a0A blog called No Private Army<\/a> sprung up spouting rambling regurgitated conspiracy theories and making further insinuations about Titor and Condor. \u00a0One show ended with Mike Quackenbush celebrating with fans after winning the main event, and the NPA blogger appearing in the crowd to hand him an envelope. \u00a0Quackenbush vanished from the Chikara roster webpage the next day. \u00a0Chikara’s own fan message board started to be heavily moderated to remove any criticism of Titor. \u00a0And so on.<\/p>\n

Season 12, the most recent season, was loosely patterned on\u00a0Watchmen<\/em> (which No Private Army likes to quote)… and we all know how\u00a0Watchmen<\/em> ends. \u00a0So a lot of rumours were going round in advance of the June show Aniversario 2: Never Compromise<\/em>. \u00a0Especially since that’s a reference to Rorschach’s line “No. \u00a0Not even in the face of armageddon. \u00a0Never compromise.”<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>As time’s gone on, the Watchmen<\/em> references have continued to percolate through everything that’s happened since Never Compromise<\/em> (of which more in a moment). Some of the wrestlers have tweeted references to it, there have been quotes from it used on Instagram as part of the unfolding story of what happens next, and one particular wrestler has adopted a line from a Rorschach speech as a personal credo.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>So what actually happens at this show? \u00a0Most of it proceeds as scheduled. \u00a0Midway through, Sabato jumps into the ring and announces that he’s posting an incriminating photo on Twitter. \u00a0(He claims that the photo depicts the Titor board of directors – even though it’s manifestly photoshopped and “Martin” seems to be a woman. \u00a0The oddness of this photo appears to be a plot point rather than a wonky prop.) \u00a0This appears to drive Wink over the edge, and so just as the main event is about to end with Icarus winning the Chikara Grand Championship, a bunch of Condor Security guys march out and shut down the show. \u00a0Literally. \u00a0They eject the wrestlers, they dismantle the set, they throw out the audience. \u00a0And that’s how the show ends.<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>There aren’t a lot of companies that would do something as ballsy as this. No nod or wink (as it were) to the audience, nothing to suggest that there’s anything planned for the future – as far as Chikara was concerned, the whole company was just… gone.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>And they followed up in a way no larger company could. \u00a0The next day they announced the cancellation of all future shows, and then went radio silent – save for posting the occasional message on their message board to the effect that they were having a liquidation sale on merchandise (which they did), and inviting bids for equipment and for the tag belts. \u00a0(The tag belts were supposedly sold for $4,800. \u00a0The Grant Championship belt, we were told, couldn’t be found.)<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>Eddie Kingston, the Grand Champion of Chikara, has since tweeted a photo of the belt, before deleting the relevant tweet. Given how coordinated everything seems to have been, this was surely not an accident.<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>And in a sense, that’s where matters lie. \u00a0The company hasn’t properly updated its website since 3 June. \u00a0It has cancelled all future shows and claims to have ceased trading. \u00a0The end. \u00a0We’re finished. \u00a0Go home.<\/p>\n

Obviously the end of\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> was a storyline – but the delay in any sort of follow-up (combined with some other factors that I’ll come to) had everyone wondering whether there might be more to this. \u00a0In a sense, after all, Chikara\u00a0has<\/em> closed. \u00a0It isn’t doing anything.<\/p>\n

However…<\/p>\n

For one thing, the company didn’t quite cease operations. \u00a0A DVD of\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> did emerge, ostensibly because there was an existing contract for it. \u00a0And although they’re not connected in storyline, everyone knows that Chikara is (at the very least) closely linked to Wrestling is Fun, a promotion which is basically a less storyline-heavy version of Chikara, running with many of the same wrestlers in the same buildings. \u00a0Wrestling is Fun in turn has connections to a bunch of local promotions linked under the Wrestling Is banner – Wrestling is Cool, Wrestling is Heart, Wrestling is Intense, Wrestling is Awesome, Wrestling is Respect and Wrestling is Art – though many of these appear to have some genuine autonomy. \u00a0(Respect, for example, used to be Pro Wrestling Respect, while Heart started life as School of Roc.)<\/p>\n

Al: <\/strong>As has been pointed out by many others, the seven Wrestling is… promotions carry a not-very-hidden indication that they’re tied to Chikara itself within the continuity of the promotion. When taken in the order set out by Paul above, the initials of what Wrestling apparently is go together to read CHIARA (if you leave out Fun, which doesn’t fit… unless you take the point that much of Wrestling is Fun revolves around their grand trophy – a banana – and potassium, which gives you that element’s symbol, the missing K).<\/p>\n

Paul: <\/strong>For another thing, thirty days after Chikara closed, the Titor moderator on the message board abandoned his post, and a thread sprang up with wrestlers reminiscing about the company (never quite breaking character). \u00a0That culminated in Icarus showing up to declare that he refused to accept that Chikara was dead, and inviting everyone to attend the venue in Easton PA where the next show was due to be held. \u00a0He was careful to make clear that this was not going to be a show. \u00a0It was going to be a meet-up. \u00a0The diehard fans who actually went to this thing were duly rewarded with a speech about the importance of saving Chikara, received free “I Am Chikara” T-shirts, and were asked to sign a petition in support of Chikara. \u00a0Icarus has subsequently cropped up at a Dragon Gate show asking people to sign his petition, and appears to have been leaving DVDs lying around at vaguely Chikara-related shows. \u00a0The DVDs contain this video:<\/p>\n