{"id":3323,"date":"2016-01-19T22:43:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T22:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3323"},"modified":"2016-01-19T22:43:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T22:43:43","slug":"chikara-15-11-aniversario-a-new-attitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3323","title":{"rendered":"Chikara 15.11: “Aniversario: A New Attitude”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chikara’s birthday was on 25 May 2002,\u00a0which it celebrates every year with\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> –\u00a0sometimes a show, sometimes a weekend tour, it varies. \u00a0It’s one of the fixtures in their calendar, but some way\u00a0behind\u00a0King of Trios<\/em>, or for that matter the season finale;\u00a0it’s more of a well established marker post in the year. \u00a0Frankly, the Challenge of the Immortals tournament\u00a0format\u00a0that dominated\u00a02015 doesn’t lend itself to a major show at this point, since\u00a0virtually every story is building to something much further down the line.\u00a0 The result is a relatively normal looking card, but with a bigger than normal crowd.<\/p>\n

When and where:<\/em> It’s 24 May 2015 (the day after the previous show), and we’re in the Palmer Center in Easton, Pennsylvania. \u00a0This is essentially\u00a0Chikara’s home venue, if you\u00a0leave aside their actual training facility. \u00a0It’s\u00a0a community centre gym, but a pretty substantial one. \u00a0We’ll be back here for King of Trios\u00a0<\/em>later in the year. \u00a0It’s a sell out. \u00a0There’s a prominent advert at the back of the hall for Electric Monkey energy drink, which is a real thing, and is\u00a0product placement. \u00a0Remember that, it’ll be coming up in a bit.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Elimination\u00a0match: N_R_G (Race Jaxon & Hype Rockwell) v. The Battle Hive (Amasis & Worker Ant) v. The Nightmare Warriors (Frightmare & Silver Ant) v. Kevin Condron & ???.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an elimination match, and boy, there’s a lot going\u00a0on here, story-wise. \u00a0Deep breath.<\/p>\n

N_R_G’s gimmick is that Race is massively (annoyingly) enthusiastic,\u00a0while poor\u00a0Hype is permanently exhausted, because Race makes him do all the driving. \u00a0They challenged for the tag titles last month and lost decisively, which Race blames on Hype’s lack of energy. \u00a0The Battle Hive and Nightmare Warriors duos are both from Challenge\u00a0teams,\u00a0getting some more ring time together outside the tournament. \u00a0The two Ants are normally teammates in the Colony, but the Challenge draft has put them on different squads. \u00a0Silver Ant, in particular, was drafted by the Nightmare Warriors because they wanted to recruit him into their little religious cult;\u00a0while he’s willing to wrestle for them, he’s also resisting their\u00a0proselytising, and his win-loss record for the team hasn’t been great. \u00a0 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\u00a0invaders, the Flood. \u00a0On last night’s show, he persuaded generic henchthug Volgar to unmask and join him.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Condron’s mystery partner is Volgar. \u00a0Less 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. \u00a0So one thing remains constant, which is that he’s easily led. \u00a0But the fans catch on to the dynamic immediately, and\u00a0the act\u00a0clicks instantly.<\/p>\n

Silver\u00a0Ant is willing to wrestle Worker Ant, but Frightmare demands more aggression. \u00a0Silver does pick up the pace, but stays\u00a0within the rules. \u00a0 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.\u00a0 Silver Ant is distracted by Condron’s sidekick the Troll, and walks into a Samoan drop from Calhoun. \u00a0But Condron insists on getting the glory and pins Silver Ant with a\u00a0superfluous DDT in 11:13, to eliminate the Warriors. \u00a0The Battle Hive fall in much the same way a minute later. \u00a0If Condron and Calhoun can eliminate N_R_G, that’ll give them\u00a0a clean sweep and a title shot. \u00a0Condron tries to use a can of Electric Monkey as a foreign object, but Race retrieves it, realises that\u00a0it’s an energy drink<\/em>, and presses it into the hands of Hype. \u00a0And yes, kids, it’s the Popeye gimmick (product placement version), as the\u00a0instantly invigorated Hype joins Race is a burst of perfectly timed double-teams. \u00a0N_R_G pin Condron with their finishers\u00a0in 13:57 to win the match.<\/p>\n

That was fun – loads of\u00a0little story arcs, an instant success for Calhoun’s new act, plenty of\u00a0action, and a gentle advance of Silver Ant’s story to boot. \u00a0The product placement is absolutely shameless, but\u00a0it gets N_R_G out of\u00a0a 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). \u00a0Fortunately, 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. \u00a0That 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.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Challenge 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).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dugout\u00a0have 3 points (one off the lead), the Nations have 2. \u00a0 They\u00a0\u00a0would have been level pegging if Juan hadn’t suffered his upset loss to Princess Kimberlee last night. \u00a0Making her first appearance of 2015 is Heidi Lovelace, who’s been on a tour of Japan. \u00a0She’s\u00a0the Young Lions Cup champion, which is a\u00a0title for wrestlers under 25. \u00a0 So we’ve got the current Young Lions Cup champion, the previous Grand Champion and the previous\u00a0tag champs, against a bunch of midcard heels. \u00a0The Dugout are the heavy favourites here.<\/p>\n

The match\u00a0cycles through various pairings, with\u00a0the Dugout always coming out ahead. \u00a0Eventually 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. \u00a0Heidi fights off first Mr Azerbaijan, then Sabar (who misses his Bronco\u00a0Buster as usual) and finally Juan Francisco de Coronado, but\u00a0the Boar finally puts\u00a0her down with a Gore for the clean pin in 16:32. \u00a0Straightforward,\u00a0and pretty effective in letting Heidi look strong in defeat while\u00a0setting\u00a0up the Boar as a possible challenger for\u00a0the 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.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Missile Assault Ant v. Oleg the Usurper<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oleg the Usurper is the fifth member of Sidney Bakabella’s Wrecking Crew faction. \u00a0But\u00a0with only four slots on\u00a0their Challenge team, and with Bakabella viewing him\u00a0as a blundering liability, he was palmed off on the Arcane Horde and told to get in their way. \u00a0Oleg is clearly on the verge of turning on Bakabella and switching sides, but still\u00a0hasn’t actually done it. \u00a0Meanwhile,\u00a0he’s started picking up singles wins, and a win tonight will give him his third point, and a\u00a0shot at the Grand Championship. \u00a0So, of course, now\u00a0Bakabella\u00a0wants to be friends again, and comes out with Oleg, brandishing his\u00a0contract. \u00a0We know it’s his contract because it says\u00a0PRO RASSLIN’ CONTRACT FOR OLEG on the front in capital letters. \u00a0Seems legit. \u00a0Oleg doesn’t seem too happy to have him there but largely ignores him. \u00a0Missile Assault Ant\u00a0is a pretty easy target for\u00a0that third point – he hasn’t won a match all year, and his main storyline right now is that Kevin Condron\u00a0is trying to recruit him.<\/p>\n

It’s a\u00a0big guy battle (by Chikara standards), with\u00a0Missile getting a surprising amount of offence. \u00a0Bakabella yells at Oleg that the fans don’t really love him. \u00a0They trade their big moves, Missile misses a diving headbutt\u00a0and Oleg pins him with\u00a0the\u00a0Off With His Head in 8:01 to win a title shot. \u00a0Bakabella promptly jumps into the ring to celebrate. \u00a0Not with Oleg, just on his own. \u00a0A fairly basic\u00a0match but well pitched for these guys and for Oleg’s story. \u00a0Oleg will get his title shot\u00a0next month, against the winner of tonight’s main event.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The BDK (Jakob Hammermeier, Pinkie Sanchez & N\u00f8kken) v. The Arcane Horde (UltraMantis Black, Kodama & Obariyon).<\/strong><\/p>\n

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). \u00a0This\u00a0is a trios match, with both sides fielding their\u00a0most cohesive\u00a0groups –\u00a0which is to say, the BDK is\u00a0not using the brainwashed and semi-co-operative Soldier Ant, and the Horde isn’t using the unreliable Oleg. \u00a0Mind you, Kodama and Obariyon aren’t exactly in Mantis’s fan club either,\u00a0and they’re losing patience with being stuck on a\u00a0dysfunctional and struggling\u00a0team.<\/p>\n

The match is\u00a0announced<\/em> as a\u00a0Magic Move Match –\u00a0if anyone hits the Magic Move then everyone in the crowd gets a mini prize – but nobody ever announces what the Move is. \u00a0A caption says it’s a clothesline, which I assume they chose just because it never plays into the match. \u00a0Might have been best just to edit off the announcement, to be honest. \u00a0Anyway, both teams\u00a0work together perfectly happily and they have a fairly typical\u00a0back and forth tag match. \u00a0Despite the Horde’s relative cohesiveness tonight, the BDK are a brotherhood, and Obariyon falls to Jakob’s KO punch and N\u00f8kken’s chokeslam in 12:34. \u00a0\u00a0Perfectly okay, but\u00a0it feels like it should have done more with the tensions between Mantis and his teammates. \u00a0The BDK are now on a respectable three points from four matches, and the Horde\u00a0continue to go unrewarded.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0The Gentleman’s Club (Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy) v. Crown\u00a0& Court (Princess Kimberlee & Jervis Cottonbelly).<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a regular tag match, not part of the\u00a0Challenge tournament. \u00a0Crown & Court may be languishing in joint last place in the tournament, but\u00a0Kim 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,\u00a0so a win here will get them a tag title shot.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s an Orange Cassidy comedy match, and his schtick is always good fun. \u00a0The basic idea\u00a0is that he’s an incredibly\u00a0lazy slacker\u00a0who can’t even be bothered running when he goes off the ropes, but has sporadic bursts of actual perfectly-executed offence. \u00a0Eventually\u00a0the Club manage to\u00a0double team Kim during one of Cassidy’s rare bursts of enthusiasm, but she\u00a0fights them off and\u00a0gets the hot tag to Jervis. \u00a0Cassidy tries to mist Kim with his orange\u00a0juice, but Jervis gets in the way\u00a0and\u00a0submits Cassidy with his\u00a0Downton Lock (it’s an ankle lock) in 10:57. \u00a0Good 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. \u00a0And hey, Crown & Court get a title shot. \u00a0Except the champions are the Devastation\u00a0Corporation. \u00a0And they beat Kim in the opening match of the year… and again in their first tournament match… so, well, the odds ain’t great. \u00a0Still, you’ve got to have dreams, right?<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The Snake Pit (Ophidian, Argus, Shynron & Eddie Kingston) v The Wrecking Crew (Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive, Flex Rumblecrunch & Jaka).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Crew\u00a0have\u00a04 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. \u00a0The Snake Pit have\u00a01 point, though that’s mainly because they missed the UK tour and so they’ve only wrestled\u00a02 matches. \u00a0It still makes them joint last along with Crown & Court. \u00a0The Crew are a practised squad of violent bastards who include the current tag champions. \u00a0As for the Snake Pit,\u00a0Ophidian\u00a0is mentoring the rookie Argus and working nicely with Shynron, but\u00a0the loner antihero Kingston is out on a limb.<\/p>\n

So, then. \u00a0This match. \u00a0After some inconclusive exchanges, Kingston\u00a0and Jaka square off for\u00a0a slugfest, but the\u00a0rest of the Crew\u00a0quickly\u00a0pile on Kingston. \u00a0Eventually Kingston escapes the ring (which is a tag under lucha rules) and the rest of the Snake Pit\u00a0attempt a fight back, but Ophidian and\u00a0Shynron are quickly brushed aside. \u00a0Argus is\u00a0briefly left to face the Crew alone, but\u00a0manages to hang in there until his team regroup. \u00a0Kingston and Jaka return to the ring for another slugfest, both fending off any attempts\u00a0by the others to intervene. \u00a0The obvious idea is that this is building a Kingston\/Jaka feud\u00a0– something that\u00a0was presumably originally meant to start on the UK tour, where they\u00a0were due to have a singles match. \u00a0At any rate, they trade near falls, and Kingston pins Jaka with an uranage in 20:20.<\/p>\n

Or rather, he hits an uranage and covers,\u00a0and Jaka kicks out more or less on 3, and referee Jon Barber\u00a0counts 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. \u00a0Everyone looks\u00a0quite annoyed.\u00a0 Kingston and Jaka do a pull-apart brawl,\u00a0and\u00a0Kingston throws a tantrum at his teammates, which might have made sense with the planned finish. \u00a0Who can tell? \u00a0That 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 –\u00a0and\u00a0ironically,\u00a0if\u00a0everyone had just played it as the intended finish, they’d probably have got away with it. \u00a0As it is, well…<\/p>\n

Since Kingston and Jaka go on to wrestle in a singles match on the next show,\u00a0I rather suspect\u00a0Kingston wasn’t meant to get a clean pin on him here. \u00a0If the Wrecking Crew had won this match, they would have come out of\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> as the clear tournament leaders, while the Snake Pit would have remained in joint last. \u00a0But that\u00a0doesn’t happen.<\/p>\n

7. \u00a0CHIKARA Grand Championship: Hallowicked (c) v. Ashley Remington.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is Hallowicked’s first defence since winning the title from Icarus last month. \u00a0There’s no particular issue between these two; this counts as a main event for\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> largely for the out-of-universe reason that Remington is also Dalton Castle\u00a0from\u00a0Ring of Honor, and thus a star attraction. \u00a0He got his\u00a0three points by beating\u00a0Juan Francisco de Coronado in December, Drew Gulak in February, and Missile Assault Ant at the start of the month.<\/p>\n

Both guys are accompanied to the ring by their respective Challenge teammates – except for Silver Ant, who is\u00a0conspicuously absent. \u00a0This is a little odd in Remington’s case since he hasn’t actually\u00a0wrestled<\/em> for the Battle Hive yet, as his limited dates have had to be\u00a0taken up in earning points for this title shot. \u00a0But he’ll be\u00a0getting into the tournament after this point, albeit more as a recurring guest than anyone with a particularly strong story in his own right.<\/p>\n

Remington’s really good – he’s a strong technician who\u00a0really knows how to work\u00a0his character into a match, and the fact that he’s doing two such totally different characters in different promotions\u00a0makes\u00a0that all the more impressive. \u00a0His ultra-chivalrous, rule-abiding charmer act normally plays up the comedy, but\u00a0here he\u00a0settles into more serious mat wrestling while sticking to the rules of his character. \u00a0He’s not an\u00a0idiot; when Hallowicked tries to take advantage of\u00a0his chivalry, he sees it coming and blocks.\u00a0 But his enthusiasm for prompt rope-breaking means he’s sometimes giving up the advantage too easily. \u00a0Hallowicked, for his part, is also wrestling a fairly\u00a0clean match, presumably because it’s important to him to be seen as a\u00a0legitimate champion. \u00a0Hallowicked works on the arm. There’s a neat spot where\u00a0Hallowicked goes\u00a0for something off the top rope and\u00a0gets caught with\u00a0a belly-to-belly suplex. \u00a0\u00a0They trade finishers, and Remington hits his bridging German suplex, but can’t maintain the bridge because of the injured arm. \u00a0Hallowicked puts him away cleanly with two\u00a0yakuza kicks in 14:51. \u00a0Very good match.<\/p>\n

Worth getting?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It’s a decent show, though more of a strong regular card than an\u00a0Aniversario<\/em> – and\u00a0a 20 minute match with a blown finish is not great. \u00a0Still, the match itself is pretty good up to that point. \u00a0The opener is a good story match, and\u00a0the main event is excellent. \u00a0(And hey, you can buy individual matches\u00a0at Chikara’s website<\/a> if you want.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chikara’s birthday was on 25 May 2002,\u00a0which it celebrates every year with\u00a0Aniversario –\u00a0sometimes a show, sometimes a weekend tour, it varies. \u00a0It’s one of the fixtures in their calendar, but some way\u00a0behind\u00a0King of Trios, or for that matter the season finale;\u00a0it’s more of a well established marker post in the year. \u00a0Frankly, the Challenge of […]<\/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-3323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323","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=3323"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3342,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions\/3342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}