{"id":3129,"date":"2015-08-10T22:26:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T21:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3129"},"modified":"2015-08-10T22:26:55","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T21:26:55","slug":"chikara-15-5-for-british-eyes-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3129","title":{"rendered":"Chikara 15.5 – “For British Eyes Only”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preamble:<\/em> This is the first of four shows taped in the UK over the\u00a0spring bank holiday weekend. \u00a0Although Chikara has\u00a0occasionally ventured outside North America before, it’s the first time they’ve run a\u00a0UK tour.<\/p>\n

There\u00a0are some obvious practical difficulties in writing for a four-show\u00a0weekend. \u00a0You can’t really do stories that develop over the course of the four shows, because the audience on night four won’t actually have seen the\u00a0earlier shows. \u00a0(They might have read the results on line, but that’s it.)\u00a0 And all four shows need to have\u00a0cards announced in advance. \u00a0And of course you’re limited to pretty much the\u00a0same roster members for all four shows.<\/p>\n

This means, in practice, that it’s pretty hard for the first two shows to do anything that really calls for immediate follow-up – which makes them largely an exercise\u00a0in continuing longer-term storyline builds, and bashing gamely through\u00a0tournament matches for\u00a0“Challenge of the Immortals” (which dominates night 2). \u00a0The two title defences\u00a0scheduled for this tour naturally headline\u00a0nights 3 and 4.<\/p>\n

These shows are slightly shorter\u00a0than regular Chikara shows, at six matches apiece. \u00a0Live, they were promoted as double-headers with local promotions running earlier in the day, but those\u00a0support shows aren’t officially\u00a0Chikara, and besides, they aren’t on the website. \u00a0The fact that Chikara was relying on local co-promoters to handle the practicalities\u00a0probably also explains a list of venues which would not be most people’s first guess if you told them “four dates in the UK”.<\/p>\n

When and where?<\/em>\u00a0 It’s Friday 3 April 2015, a little under a month after the last show. \u00a0We’re in the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton – a proper venue, with\u00a0proper lighting, though for some reason there’s a techie in plain view at the top of\u00a0the entrance ramp. \u00a0It’s a\u00a0less random choice than it seems, since\u00a0Wolverhampton was a frequent venue\u00a0for wrestling back in the days of\u00a0World of Sport<\/em>.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Mr Azerbaijan v. UltraMantis Black<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em> On the last show, UltraMantis Black was screwed out of a title shot by Hallowicked’s interference. \u00a0Now\u00a0he starts the task of collecting points from scratch. \u00a0Mr Azerbaijan is a member of the Bloc Party,\u00a0and his wrestling style is delightfully\u00a0eccentric. \u00a0He tends to start suplexing someone and then just lose interest mid-move\u00a0and drop them. \u00a0He also likes running off the ropes to build up momentum before a lateral press.\u00a0\u00a0His ring introduction: “He is 1998’s Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a0He is 1999’s Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a0He is year 2000 Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a0He is year 2001 Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a0No sexist man contest was held in 2002 due to the coal\u00a0mining strike. \u00a0However, 2003 Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! 2004, Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a02005, Azerbaijan’s sexiest man! \u00a0Ladies and gentlemen, the sexiest man in Azerbaijan – Mr Azerbaijan!” \u00a0You get the idea. \u00a0He’s reasonably effective as a member of the Bloc Party, not so much as a singles wrestler.<\/p>\n

The match:<\/em>\u00a0A straightforward tone-setting opener. \u00a0Mantis works his opponent’s tailbone,\u00a0fights off interference from Bloc Party teammate Prakash Sabar, and jackknifes\u00a0Mr A for a clean pin in\u00a04:24. \u00a0Short, but fast paced and wonderfully timed throughout.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Mantis is back on his feet after getting screwed in the last show.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Mike Quackenbush<\/strong>\u00a0comes out to thank the fans for their support.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Juan Francisco de Coronado v. Oleg the Usurper.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em>\u00a0Officially both guys are rudos, but Oleg is obviously turning, so he’s\u00a0the tecnico by default. \u00a0Oleg, you’ll recall, is the spare member of the Wrecking Crew who was drafted onto the Arcane Horde team for the Challenge of the Immortals year-long tournament. \u00a0These two last met at 15.3, “Out on a Limb”,\u00a0in the COTI match between the United Nations and the Arcane Horde. \u00a0\u00a0Wrecking Crew manager Sidney Bakabella instructed Oleg\u00a0to throw the match, and while he didn’t actually do it, he\u00a0did stand around looking befuddled long enough for Juan to pin him. \u00a0But\u00a0Bakabella is not with us on the\u00a0UK tour, and besides,\u00a0this isn’t a tournament match – so Oleg has no conflict of interest here.<\/p>\n

The match:\u00a0<\/em>The childlike Oleg is surprised and delighted by the crowd’s support. \u00a0Juan tries to outwit the big lug and to win through technique, but Oleg outpowers him. \u00a0Oleg accidentally chops the ring post (which is becoming the standard turning point in his singles matches),\u00a0and Juan works the arm. \u00a0 Juan\u00a0\u00a0 escapes the Off With His Head and hits his German suplex finisher, but Oleg kicks out at 2. \u00a0Oleg blocks the Coronado Clutch, and superkicks\u00a0Juan for a clean pin in 7:27. \u00a0Nice competitive match, and it’s always good to remind people that guys like Oleg don’t\u00a0have<\/em> to win with their established\u00a0finishers.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Bit of an upset. \u00a0Juan is higher up the card as a singles wrestler, so a\u00a0clean win for Oleg matters. \u00a0And we’re reminded that when he’s not being confused by competing demands on his loyalties, he can be effective.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: Battle Hive v Wrecking Crew, Match 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em>\u00a0The Crew are the tournament favourites and won their first match last month. \u00a0The Battle Hive are not, and did not. \u00a0Today, it’ll be a 6-man with Amasis, Fire Ant<\/strong> and\u00a0Worker Ant<\/strong> representing the Hive, and Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive<\/b> and\u00a0Jaka<\/strong> representing the Crew).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0match:<\/em>\u00a0The\u00a0Battle Hive control for the first few minutes, with a bit of comedy thrown in, until Worker Ant gets into trouble. \u00a0The Crew work on him until the rest of the Hive\u00a0come to his rescue. \u00a0Near falls are exchanged, and Max pins Worker Ant with the Death Blow\u00a0in 15:33 to win the match for the Wrecking Crew. \u00a0It’s the classic\u00a0tag format,\u00a0and well executed.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em> Wrecking Crew 2,\u00a0Arcane Horde,\u00a0Dasher\u2019s Dugout,\u00a0Snake Pit & United Nations 1, everyone else nil. \u00a0So the Battle Hive are yet to get off the blocks, despite two respectable in-ring performances.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: Arcane Horde v Gentleman’s Club, Match 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em>\u00a0The\u00a0Horde\u00a0have one\u00a0point from two matches;\u00a0they haven’t gelled as a team, but this is a\u00a0\u00a0tag match, with the regular duo of the Batiri (Obariyon<\/strong> &<\/strong>\u00a0Kodama)<\/strong> representing the Horde. \u00a0The Gentleman’s Club are the tenth and final tournament team. \u00a0They’re a goofy rudo stable associated with\u00a0Chuck Taylor<\/strong> who have shown up as occasional guests before. \u00a0The other members are\u00a0Drew Gulak<\/strong> (the sensible one),\u00a0Orange Cassidy<\/strong> (the barely conscious one), and\u00a0the Swamp Monster<\/strong>\u00a0(the swamp monster one). \u00a0You know how the Man-Thing and the Swamp Thing are completely different characters who are nothing like one another? \u00a0Well, so is the Swamp Monster. \u00a0He\u00a0and\u00a0Taylor are\u00a0wrestling this match.<\/p>\n

The match: <\/em>Taylor, being an egotist and\u00a0a fool, is determined to be the star of his team. \u00a0The\u00a0Monster can actually wrestle, but Taylor keeps tagging him\u00a0out in order to go it alone. \u00a0At any rate,\u00a0it’s getting the Swamp Monster over as a put-upon dogsbody, which is the idea. \u00a0The Batiri, of course, are the straight men here. \u00a0Rudo miscommunication leads to the Monster getting pinned with the Batiri’s Seventh Circle combo finisher, after 10:09.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Arcane Horde & Wrecking Crew 2, Dasher’s Dugout, Snake Pit & United Nations 1, everyone else 0. \u00a0The Crew have a\u00a0match in hand, though. \u00a0Taylor’s attitude to the Swamp Monster\u00a0doesn’t altogether make sense, given that,\u00a0as team captain, he’s supposed to have agreed\u00a0to the\u00a0match in the first place. \u00a0Then again,\u00a0he’s not an entirely rational character. \u00a0To be honest, though, the idea\u00a0that the team captains are negotiating the matches is\u00a0something that\u00a0will get lip service and not a great deal more;\u00a0you suspect that considerations of availability are\u00a0going to take precedence. \u00a0Normally that’s not a major issue but we’ll see that\u00a0from time to time a match rears its head that pretty much invites the question “why the hell did\u00a0so-and-so agree to that?”<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0Silver Ant v\u00a0Soldier Ant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em>\u00a0Further complicating an already difficult booking task,\u00a0Eddie Kingston<\/strong> was due to wrestle singles matches on all four nights, but pulled out late in the day\u00a0for reasons that the commentary dances around. \u00a0 Since he was going to be wrestling four singles matches, two of which would have potentially given him points towards a shot at his beloved Grand Championship,\u00a0I strongly suspect that\u00a0there was going to be a story here. \u00a0Instead,\u00a0Silver Ant was added to the tour at the last minute and plugged into all four of Kingston’s\u00a0already-announced matches, rather than re-jig the rest of the announced cards. \u00a0That\u00a0resulted in\u00a0four perfectly good\u00a0matches,\u00a0but\u00a0didn’t really fit into story plans. \u00a0This one, in particular, is a match which ideally wouldn’t have happened at all, at least at this point in time.<\/p>\n

Soldier Ant is the brainwashed ex-Colony member who’s now vaguely under the control of the BDK (in the sense that\u00a0they can point him in the right direction and hope for the best). \u00a0So a match against\u00a0Silver Ant ought to be a big deal in plot terms, except that Soldier is\u00a0already<\/em> due to wrestle Worker Ant, a more junior Colony member, on night 3. \u00a0So really, this is\u00a0a match that ideally wouldn’t have happened for a while. \u00a0The rest of the BDK aren’t on this tour, so Soldier is on his own.<\/p>\n

The match:<\/em>\u00a0One for the fans of pure technical wrestling, which isn’t necessarily what you’d expect from the wider story, but really plays to the strengths of these two guys. \u00a0Soldier treats\u00a0Silver as a complete stranger. \u00a0Eventually Silver tries to get Soldier to acknowledge him as a former team-mate, but\u00a0that only makes Soldier\u00a0more aggressive. \u00a0Finally, Soldier locks in\u00a0a sleeper and the ref stops the match at 16:23.\u00a0\u00a0A very good match.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Essentially treading water in story terms, but that’s probably inevitable in the circumstances.\u00a0\u00a0 Smart to make\u00a0it a technical showcase,\u00a0and\u00a0let it shine in another area.<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Challenge of the\u00a0Immortals: Dasher’s Dugout v Nightmare Warriors, Match 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The back story:<\/em>\u00a0These two teams\u00a0had their first match last month, and\u00a0the\u00a0Dugout\u00a0won. \u00a0This time it’s\u00a0Dasher Hatfield, Mark Angelosetti & Icarus<\/strong> for tecnicos\u00a0versus\u00a0Hallowicked, Frightmare<\/strong> and\u00a0Blind Rage<\/strong> for the rudos. \u00a0Hallowicked is challenging Icarus for the Grand Championship on night 4, so obviously this is a preview of that.<\/p>\n

This is the first time we’ve seen Blind Rage this year. \u00a0He’s a semi-retired wrestler who’s been\u00a0with the company since day 1, show 1. \u00a0Notionally he’s sort of an undead warrior, though that’s mainly reflected in his face paint rather than his wrestling style. \u00a0He was a member of UltraMantis’s previous stable, the Spectral Envoy, which imploded when Hallowicked and Frightmare got zapped with the Eye of Tyr and turned on Mantis. \u00a0Blind Rage\u00a0wasn’t<\/em> zapped himself, but he has a long history as an ally of Hallowicked, and being a zombie, he could well be on board with\u00a0Hallowicked’s\u00a0sudden\u00a0conversion of the cause of Nazmaldun, God of Rot. \u00a0On the other hand, Hallowicked did draft Silver Ant,\u00a0who\u00a0was utterly baffled by the decision – could Blind Rage be in the same category?<\/p>\n

The match:\u00a0<\/em>Blind Rage is\u00a0completely on board\u00a0with\u00a0the Nightmare Warriors. \u00a0The match is back-and-forth with no obvious weak links on either team, building to an\u00a0exchange of big moves, and\u00a0Hallowicked pins Icarus clean with the Rydeen Bomb in 16:51. \u00a0All escalating action, and very good at that.<\/p>\n

The upshot:<\/em>\u00a0Well, Hallowicked pinned the champion three days before their title match,\u00a0which is traditional booking to make the challenger look strong. \u00a0If this was the WWE, his win here would probably signal that he was losing the title match (their approach to reverse psychology is formulaic in the extreme). \u00a0But this isn’t the WWE.<\/p>\n

Oh yes, and the Nightmare Warriors are on the tournament scoreboard. \u00a0Arcane Horde & Wrecking Crew 2, Dasher’s Dugout, Nightmare Warriors, Snake Pit & United Nations 1, everyone else 0.<\/p>\n

The bottom line:<\/strong>\u00a0No major story developments, but there are\u00a0reasons why you can’t really\u00a0expect that on the opening show of the tour. \u00a0But good wrestling throughout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preamble: This is the first of four shows taped in the UK over the\u00a0spring bank holiday weekend. \u00a0Although Chikara has\u00a0occasionally ventured outside North America before, it’s the first time they’ve run a\u00a0UK tour. There\u00a0are some obvious practical difficulties in writing for a four-show\u00a0weekend. \u00a0You can’t really do stories that develop over the course of the […]<\/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-3129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129","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=3129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3140,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129\/revisions\/3140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}