{"id":3072,"date":"2015-06-27T15:42:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T14:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3072"},"modified":"2015-06-27T15:42:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T14:42:41","slug":"chikara-15-3-out-on-a-limb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3072","title":{"rendered":"Chikara 15.3: &#8220;Out on a Limb&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Preamble:<\/em>\u00a0Three shows into the year,\u00a0Chikara gets back\u00a0to its\u00a0regular\u00a0schedule\u00a0of\u00a0running multiple shows over one weekend per month. \u00a0Between shows, they&#8217;ve also\u00a0announced &#8220;Challenge Of The Immortals&#8221;, a tournament which will run for\u00a0the rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of COTI matches coming up in future shows &#8211;\u00a0<em>a lot\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; so let&#8217;s run down the rules:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are ten teams of four. \u00a0Director of Fun\u00a0Mike Quackenbush (the GM) appointed\u00a0the team captains, who then took turns to draft members from the roster, followed by\u00a0a brief window for trades.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s a double round robin &#8211; every team faces every other team twice.<\/li>\n<li>Each match\u00a0can be a\u00a0singles, tag, trios or atomicos (8-man tag) match. \u00a0The team captains are supposed to\u00a0decide between them. \u00a0The same two teams can&#8217;t meet in the same type of match on both occasions. \u00a0(Singles and tag matches don&#8217;t count towards\u00a0title contention.)<\/li>\n<li>A team gets one point for every match it wins. \u00a0The team with the most points at the end of the day is the winner.<\/li>\n<li>Everyone on the\u00a0winning team gets a vaguely-defined &#8220;Golden Opportunity&#8221;, which\u00a0is\u00a0effectively a money in the bank title shot, though you could use it for something else if you really wanted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more-->In practice, many of the established factions remain intact,\u00a0since most team captains\u00a0chose\u00a0their regular allies, and avoided\u00a0people who would obviously prefer\u00a0to be on a different\u00a0team. \u00a0The glaring exceptions are the Osirian Portal (because they both put themselves\u00a0forward as team captains), the Wrecking Crew (because there are five of them, and they won&#8217;t all fit on the same team), and the Colony (we&#8217;ll come to them). \u00a0Of course, that\u00a0doesn&#8217;t stop these groups from teaming\u00a0outside the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Since this is\u00a0ninety\u00a0 matches over ten\u00a0month, it&#8217;s a bit of a slow burn, and it&#8217;ll be filling out quite a few second-tier shows. \u00a0And, let&#8217;s be honest, the bit about different match types is rather\u00a0complicated. \u00a0But\u00a0it gets more variation into\u00a0the tournament,\u00a0and\u00a0besides, it serves\u00a0overriding practical requirements of working around injury, availability, and any other logistical difficulties that might happen to stand in the way of certain teams facing certain other teams.<\/p>\n<p><em>When and where?<\/em> \u00a0It&#8217;s Saturday 7 March 2015, the first of two shows this weekend. \u00a0A practical issue with this sort of schedule, by the way, is that\u00a0the live crowd for the Sunday show won&#8217;t have seen this one,\u00a0so the booking has to allow for that. \u00a0This is easier than it sounds, as long as you avoid angles that scream for an immediate follow-up. \u00a0 We&#8217;re in the &#8220;New Mid-Atlantic Sportatorium&#8221; in Gibsonville, North Carolina\u00a0&#8211; a small but decently outfitted studio which is the home base\u00a0of CWF Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, and which Chikara regularly uses when in town. \u00a0It looks pretty packed.<\/p>\n<p>This is another\u00a0show that has serious\u00a0problems with\u00a0sound quality on the commentary, but\u00a0fortunately it&#8217;s the last one. \u00a0And the sound is otherwise pretty good, so the atmosphere is intact.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0An outrageously bombastic Challenge Of The Immortals graphic makes the first of many appearances this year<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. \u00a0The Wrecking Crew (Flex Rumblecrunch &amp; Jaka, w\/ Sidney Bakabella) v. Crown &amp; Court (Princess Kimberlee &amp; Jervis Cottonbelly) v. The BDK (Jakob Hammermeier &amp; Pinkie Sanchez) v. The Colony (Fire Ant &amp; Worker Ant).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em>\u00a0Four-team elimination matches are a Chikara signature. \u00a0Each fall counts\u00a0as\u00a0one point towards\u00a0a tag title shot. \u00a0You\u00a0need three points to earn\u00a0a title match, so in theory you can\u00a0earn a title shot in one night if you eliminate everyone else. \u00a0This\u00a0is a good rule because it explains why anyone would bother tagging in during the first fall.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t\u00a0a COTI match, but let&#8217;s run\u00a0down\u00a0how everyone fits into\u00a0the tournament. \u00a0The Wrecking Crew remain together, save for\u00a0poor unwanted Oleg, who was unceremoniously traded away\u00a0in order to reunite the rest of the team. \u00a0Max and Blaster are defending the tag titles later tonight, so\u00a0naturally it&#8217;s the other two in this match. \u00a0Crown &amp; Court is a\u00a0newly formed stable\u00a0led\u00a0by Princess Kimberlee. \u00a0After\u00a0&#8220;National Pro Wrestling Day 2015&#8221;, \u00a0she enlisted her admirer Jervis Cottonbelly and perma-jobbers Los Ice Creams. \u00a0On paper, they look to have no chance in hell. \u00a0The BDK\u00a0also remain together,\u00a0with semi-detached ally Soldier Ant taking their fourth slot. \u00a0And the Colony\u00a0were split up, with Fire Ant and Worker Ant drafted to\u00a0Amasis&#8217;s Battle Hive.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em> Crown &amp; Court are over in a big way with these fans. \u00a0We get some back and forth wrestling and\u00a0a\u00a0bit of comedy to set the tone, before the story starts to kick in as\u00a0the two rudo teams take turns working on Worker Ant. \u00a0Bakabella keeps passing Flex\u00a0a fork to use as a weapon, but Flex fumbles returning it, and a little girl in the front row pockets it. \u00a0After a while,\u00a0Flex manages to isolate Fire Ant, and calls for the dreaded fork. \u00a0Bakabella\u00a0can&#8217;t find it, Flex panics, and Fire Ant\u00a0rolls him up for\u00a0the pin. \u00a0Oops. \u00a0In the much shorter second fall, the BDK double team Jervis, but heel miscommunication lets him roll up\u00a0Jakob\u00a0for the pin. \u00a0That leaves the two tecnico teams, and after\u00a0a brief exchange, Kimber pins Fire Ant by reversing his\u00a0Beach Break into her Alligator Clutch\u00a0for the\u00a0upset pin in 21:53.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Loads going on there. \u00a0The first half\u00a0could have been tightened up in places, but the\u00a0second half is\u00a0great. \u00a0Crown &amp; Court\u00a0get some much-needed credibility (with Kimber in particular getting to look strong) and leave with two points, meaning that their next tag match will be for a\u00a0title shot. \u00a0They&#8217;re otherwise engaged tomorrow night, and they weren&#8217;t booked on the April shows (which were a UK tour), but we&#8217;ll get back to this thread\u00a0in May.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. \u00a0Hallowicked v Argus.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em> Argus made his main roster debut in the 22-man tag on the last show. He&#8217;s a tecnico\u00a0with a vaguely lizard-themed gimmick, though there&#8217;s something a bit off about him &#8211; he has a weird staring mask, he never speaks, and though he does tweet, he seems oddly obsessed\u00a0with eyes and sometimes calls himself &#8220;the Watcher&#8221;. \u00a0For COTI, he was unexpectedly drafted to\u00a0the\u00a0Snake Pit by his trainer Ophidian.<\/p>\n<p>Hallowicked\u00a0is a team captain, and he&#8217;s drafted his regular partner Frightmare, his semi-regular ally Blind Rage, and\u2026 Silver Ant. \u00a0In a pre-match promo, Hallowicked &#8211; who never even spoke intelligibly before\u00a0getting zapped\u00a0by the Eye of Tyr in December &#8211; declares his team to be a &#8220;legion of terror&#8221; following the directions of Nazmaldun, &#8220;the Lord of Rot&#8221;. \u00a0All will be subject to Nazmaldun forever more. \u00a0Silver Ant\u00a0is utterly baffled and disconcerted by all this,\u00a0and can&#8217;t understand why he&#8217;s even been drafted to this team, but figures that at least they&#8217;re all good wrestlers, so he can try to make it work. \u00a0\u00a0Hallowicked seems convinced that\u00a0Silver Ant will come round in time&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Hallowicked was one of Argus&#8217;s trainers before his turn, so this is a teacher-vs-pupil match. \u00a0(Probably in real life as well as in story.)<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em> It&#8217;s a &#8220;Magic Move&#8221; match, something we&#8217;ll be seeing a lot this year &#8211; if either wrestler hits the magic move, everyone in\u00a0the audience gets a prize! \u00a0(Translation: boy, we ordered too many of these trading cards.) \u00a0The &#8220;randomly chosen&#8221; magic move is a knee drop. \u00a0Argus can\u00a0hang with his trainer\u00a0in a technical match, but he&#8217;s trying too hard to win over\u00a0the crowd by hitting the magic move. \u00a0He finally\u00a0hits it on the third attempt, stops\u00a0to celebrate, and immediately gets pinned with a\u00a0Yakuza kick in\u00a07:23.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em> A very good debut for Argus, who held his own\u00a0technically and was getting his character over with body language. \u00a0And the story plays to him being a rookie without underselling his basic competence. \u00a0Hallowicked\u00a0now has two points (he got his first by beating Worker Ant back in November), so he stands to win a title shot in his next match.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: Dasher&#8217;s Dugout v. Nightmare Warriors,\u00a0Match 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em>\u00a0I&#8217;ve covered the Nightmare Warriors already. \u00a0Frightmare and Silver Ant will represent them in this match, and the obvious question is whether they&#8217;ll get on.\u00a0 Dasher&#8217;s Dugout is Dasher Hatfield&#8217;s team &#8211; there was a brief angle on Twitter with everyone else trying to persuade him to change the name. \u00a0Quite reasonably, he has drafted his regular tag partner Mark Angelosetti, the\u00a0reigning Grand Champion Icarus, and the Young Lions Cup champion Heidi Lovelace. \u00a0Icarus and Angelosetti are representing the squad.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em>\u00a0As it turns out, Silver Ant and Frightmare can work together just fine. \u00a0Silver Ant is willing to compete for his eccentric teammates, and for the moment at least, that&#8217;s all Frightmare seems to be asking of him. \u00a0There are no mind games, and only one example of Frightmare doing something vaguely rudo-ish (which Silver doesn&#8217;t seem thrilled about).\u00a0\u00a0That leaves the way clear for a fast-paced exchange of great wrestling. \u00a0Icarus and Silver Ant reverse\u00a0pin attempts until Icarus gets the pin in 13:47. \u00a0Frightmare\u00a0pounds the mat in frustration, but doesn&#8217;t seem to take it out on Silver.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Dasher&#8217;s Dugout 1, everyone else 0. \u00a0Frightmare and Silver\u00a0Ant are established as a viable team, and\u00a0it&#8217;s made clear that this is not going to be one of those stories where\u00a0a rudo\u00a0stable torments a stranded tecnico. \u00a0They&#8217;re going the subtler way &#8211; they genuinely want to win him over. \u00a0Note that,\u00a0even though he was trying, Silver Ant loses the fall for his team &#8211; albeit to the\u00a0champion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. \u00a0Trevor Lee v. Chuck Taylor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em> And now, as a palate cleanser, Chuck Taylor will wrestle\u00a0a rising star of the indie circuit.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em>\u00a0It&#8217;s a straight, fast-paced, no-frills wrestling match between two guys who are very good at it. \u00a0Taylor wins with\u00a0his Awful Waffle finisher in 9:44. \u00a0They get a standing ovation afterwards.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em> Sometimes you just want a showcase of great wrestling\u00a0on the\u00a0bill. \u00a0And that&#8217;s a great ten minutes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: United Nations v. Arcane Horde, Match 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em>\u00a0Juan Francisco de Coronado has\u00a0drafted the entire Bloc Party\u00a0to form his United Nations. \u00a0They may be a bunch of losers but at least they&#8217;re not American. \u00a0Meanwhile, UltraMantis Black &#8211; who fancies himself as a brilliant schemer &#8211; tried to be clever and\u00a0draft members of the Wrecking Crew. \u00a0After\u00a0they made it clear to him that it would be a\u00a0<em>very<\/em> good idea to do a trade,\u00a0his\u00a0Arcane Horde wins up with both members of the Batiri (his ex-henchmen, who now hate him), and Oleg the Usurper (the\u00a0supernumerary\u00a0member that the\u00a0Crew regard as a liability, and were looking to offload on someone). \u00a0Oleg\u00a0has been teasing a tecnico turn for a while now. \u00a0The match is an 8-man tag.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em>\u00a0The\u00a0Horde\u00a0seem willing to try and make this thing work, but it soon becomes clear that the Batiri would rather tag each other, and nobody else wants to risk tagging Oleg. \u00a0When\u00a0he\u00a0tags himself in,\u00a0and\u00a0fights\u00a0happily enough,\u00a0they tag him back out as soon\u00a0as they can. \u00a0Eventually\u00a0Oleg\u00a0saves a pin for his team, and takes on the Nations on his own for a bit,\u00a0only for\u00a0Wrecking Crew manager Sidney Bakabella to run out\u00a0and yell at him\u00a0that he&#8217;s still under contract. \u00a0Bakabella is obviously implying that he should throw the match, but poor Oleg is too dimwitted\u00a0to figure that out, and just looks confused. \u00a0Oleg finds himself in the ring with de Coronado and goes for his finisher, but Bakabella yells at him some more. \u00a0 Oleg dithers, and de\u00a0Coronado pins him with a German suplex in 17:42. \u00a0Mantis\u00a0looks exasperated with Oleg, and the Batiri just look annoyed with the whole situation.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0United Nations\u00a0&amp;\u00a0Dasher&#8217;s Dugout 1, everyone else 0. \u00a0The story of de\u00a0Coronado starting to rehab the Bloc Party&#8217;s win-loss record gets a gentle start (and the match is even enough that it doesn&#8217;t\u00a0come across as a fluke), but the big story here is\u00a0Oleg still on the way to turning, while remaining a\u00a0liability to his new team as well. \u00a0And, more generally, the Arcane Horde is clearly not going to work out very well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. \u00a0Kevin Condron v. Dasher Hatfield.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>The back story:<\/i>\u00a0Condron is an embittered rookie (for reasons too long\u00a0to go into here), who&#8217;s trying to\u00a0show his disrespect for wrestling tradition. \u00a0Nobody drafted him for COTI, because who&#8217;d want the hassle? \u00a0He complained bitterly on Twitter about not being made a captain. \u00a0Dasher Hatfield, the old-timey\u00a0baseball player, is solid and traditional\u2026 and\u00a0he wants to teach Condron about respect. \u00a0In January, Condron\u00a0won his first\u00a0Chikara match with the old Eddie Guerrero trick of pretending to be hit\u00a0with a chair and tricking the ref into a DQ. \u00a0He&#8217;s deliberately going for cheap wins to\u00a0make a point.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em>\u00a0Again,\u00a0Condron\u00a0goes for cheap wins\u00a0and stalling. \u00a0He hits\u00a0Dasher with a wrench (behind the ref&#8217;s back) to take control. \u00a0Dasher finally makes a comeback and we get a bit of actual wrestling, in which\u00a0Condron can hold\u00a0his own. \u00a0The ref gets bumped and Condron tries to set up the same DQ spot that worked last time. \u00a0But\u00a0the ref doesn&#8217;t buy it, because last time it was Eddie Kingston, who is a thug, while this time\u00a0it&#8217;s Dasher Hatfield, who is a saint. \u00a0Condron leaps to his feet to protest the decision, and\u00a0Dasher promptly rolls him up for the pin in 10:19.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Pure story, but that&#8217;s fine on this card. \u00a0Condron knows his character,\u00a0and that was a pretty good display of\u00a0heel stalling, but I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;d have beaten him quite so quickly. \u00a0Still, Condron will learn from his mistakes,\u00a0and when we see him again in May, he&#8217;ll change tactics. \u00a0As for Dasher, he gets his first point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. \u00a0CHIKARA Campeonatos de Parejas: The Devastation Corporation (Max Smashmaster &amp; Blaster McMassive, w\/ Sidney Bakabella)\u00a0\u00a9 v. The Osirian Portal (Amasis &amp; Ophidian).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The back story:<\/em>\u00a0First defence\u00a0for the champions. \u00a0The Portal both put themselves forward as COTI team captains, so they&#8217;re on separate teams &#8211; but of course that doesn&#8217;t stop them\u00a0teaming the rest of the time. \u00a0Ophidian has a minor angle about being disillusioned with his gods, which hasn&#8217;t really been going anywhere.\u00a0\u00a0Like all tag title defences in Chikara, this is best of three falls.<\/p>\n<p><em>The match:<\/em> Bakabella does a great\u00a0pre-match promo demanding the return of his fork\u00a0(&#8220;a family heirloom&#8221;). It&#8217;s\u00a0a\u00a0flyers versus\u00a0power match, naturally. \u00a0The Portal run rings around\u00a0the champions for a while, and manage to pin McMassive with a double-team\u00a0for the first fall. \u00a0Bakabella protests furiously\u00a0about the double pin and the DevCorp\u00a0decide to walk out until the ref\u00a0points out that that would be a title change. \u00a0The\u00a0Portal continue double teaming, but\u00a0Amasis is taken out with a spine buster,\u00a0and DevCorp go to work on Ophidian, with Blaster pinning him to level the match. \u00a0The third fall\u00a0sees\u00a0the Portal fight back through their injuries\u00a0for the escalating big moves (nicely held back until late in the match). \u00a0The crowd is hugely into the near falls. \u00a0The Portal hit their Pyramidplex and Osirian Sacrament double teams on Blaster, but he kicks out at 2. \u00a0Ophidian is distraught, and the champions retain with the Death Blow in 25:32.<\/p>\n<p><em>The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0A very good main event match, strong defence\u00a0for the champions, and a last\u00a0high-profile use of the Portal for a while, since they&#8217;ll be caught up in COTI for most of this year. \u00a0If I&#8217;m going to nitpick, I do query having the Portal\u00a0treat the tag rules quite so casually if there&#8217;s going to be a big spot\u00a0about the fair and impartial referee &#8211; if anything, Bakabella had\u00a0a point about the first fall. \u00a0Not that this troubled the live crowd in the slightest.\u00a0\u00a0DevCorp await\u00a0other challengers,\u00a0while Ophidian&#8217;s disillusionment arc simmers gently.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bottom line:<\/strong>\u00a0It&#8217;s a great show pretty much top to bottom, but it does have the dodgy sound\u00a0issues that mar the early shows of the year. \u00a0Fortunately\u00a0it&#8217;s just the commentary that&#8217;s affected, and the atmosphere is intact, so it&#8217;s a recommendable show regardless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preamble:\u00a0Three shows into the year,\u00a0Chikara gets back\u00a0to its\u00a0regular\u00a0schedule\u00a0of\u00a0running multiple shows over one weekend per month. \u00a0Between shows, they&#8217;ve also\u00a0announced &#8220;Challenge Of The Immortals&#8221;, a tournament which will run for\u00a0the rest of the year. There are a lot of COTI matches coming up in future shows &#8211;\u00a0a lot\u00a0&#8211; so let&#8217;s run down the rules: There are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3072"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}