{"id":3402,"date":"2016-06-06T21:47:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T20:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2016-06-06T21:47:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T20:47:49","slug":"chikara-july-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3402","title":{"rendered":"Chikara – July 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

So then, this last week Al and I were at the Chikara show in Glasgow<\/a>, which was the last date of their\u00a0UK tour and isn’t\u00a0yet available to buy (though you can pre-order it, if you want). \u00a0It’s a great show, and they’re right – wrestling, or at least\u00a0good<\/em> wrestling, is indeed best experienced live,\u00a0because of\u00a0the atmosphere,\u00a0because the little things in the way\u00a0of crowd\u00a0interaction\u00a0are\u00a0so much more effective in person, and because things that can be fairly routine on video get a renewed impact live.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these 2015 re-watch posts, and it strikes me a better way of doing this is to cover a whole weekend at the same time, since in some ways that’s kind of the booking unit for the big picture in Chikara. \u00a0So here are the two July shows…<\/p>\n

15.14: “Storming the Castle”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0Saturday 25 July 2015, and it’s\u00a0been a little over a month since the last show. \u00a0We’re at somewhere called\u00a0Nomad’s Adventure Quest in South Windsor, Connecticut, which is apparently some sort of combination laser tag centre, video arcade and sports complex. \u00a0It’s a moderately sized hall, nicely lit, pretty\u00a0full. \u00a0The main event of this one is somewhat important in the big picture; the rest,\u00a0to be honest, is\u00a0mostly burning through\u00a0matches for the Challenge of the Immortals tournament, which, being a double round robin between ten teams,\u00a0means there are a lot of matches to be got through.<\/p>\n

The tournament scores\u00a0as we go into this: the Wrecking Crew have 6 points, the Nightmare Warriors have\u00a05, the Snake Pit and Dasher’s Dugout have\u00a04, the BDK, United Nations, Battle\u00a0Hive and Arcane Horde are all on 3, and the Gentleman’s Club and Crown & Court share\u00a0last place on 2.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: Crown & Court v. The Battle Hive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s a tag match. \u00a0Crown & Court’s best tag team is Princess Kimberlee and Jervis Cottonbelly… but they’re\u00a0challenging for the tag belts in the main event, so we’re getting Los\u00a0Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr and El Hijo del Ice Cream),\u00a0a pair of clowns who haven’t won a match in years. \u00a0The Battle Hive team are Amasis and Worker Ant, and even though they’re not doing brilliantly in this tournament either, they still ought to have an easy night against the Ice Creams. \u00a0Despite their squad’s dire standing,\u00a0the Ice Creams are still joking around. \u00a0At first this is typically\u00a0ineffective, but\u00a0then they pull\u00a0themselves together\u00a0and\u00a0get the upper hand on\u00a0Amasis for several minutes. \u00a0They debut a new double team move – which consists solely of them picking up their opponent, swinging him, and chucking him in the general direction of the turnbuckle, but it turns out that it\u00a0actually works. \u00a0They’re so thrilled by this that they… just keep trying it until\u00a0the Hive figure out how to block it. \u00a0At which point Worker Ant tears them apart and pins Ice Cream Jr with his\u00a0Get The Sugar finisher in 12:49. \u00a0So near but yet so far. \u00a0The Ice Creams are terribly disappointed.\u00a0 Nice little story there.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Lucas Calhoun v. Argus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is\u00a0a Magic Move match – if either wrestler hits the “randomly selected” Magic Move then everyone in the crowd gets a prize. \u00a0Tonight’s Move is the fisherman suplex. \u00a0You’ll recall that Calhoun is the pet project of Kevin Condron, who dubiously\u00a0believes that Chikara treated him as cannon fodder during the Flood invasion storyline of\u00a02014, and is trying to recruit abandoned Flood henchmen into a stable ostensibly themed around cannon fodder made good, but actually themed around the massive ego of Kevin Condron. \u00a0Calhoun used to be the Flood henchman Volgar, but Condron’s pestering have broken him out of that persona and turned him into a much happier (though still subservient) rockabilly wrestler.\u00a0 Condron and his sidekick Troll make their own entrance. \u00a0\u00a0The basic story is that Condron keeps interfering and\u00a0trying to steal the spotlight. \u00a0Calhoun wants to hit\u00a0the Magic Move\u00a0and make the crowd happy, but Condron tells him not to. \u00a0So Calhoun hits the Honky Tonk Man’s Shake Rattle & Roll instead, and Condron doesn’t like that either, supposedly because\u00a0Calhoun’s\u00a0not being his own man. \u00a0Argus does hit\u00a0the Magic Move, but the Troll distracts the ref, and Calhoun gets the pin with a\u00a0Rikishi Driver in 5:56. \u00a0Condron promptly leaps into the ring to celebrate\u00a0as if he’d won the match.\u00a0\u00a0Basically there to establish the Condron\/Calhoun schtick, which it does\u00a0very well.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The\u00a0Snake\u00a0Pit v The Arcane Horde.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is face-face. \u00a0The Batiri (Obariyon & Kodama) represent the Horde, which is sensible, since they’re the regular tag team on that squad. \u00a0The Snake Pit are team captain Ophidian with\u00a0Eddie Kingston. \u00a0In a pre-match promo, Ophidian\u00a0makes clear that\u00a0Kingston is not\u00a0being much\u00a0of a team player, won’t discuss strategy, and hasn’t shown up for the promo\u00a0we’re\u00a0now watching. \u00a0Still, he has faith that Kingston will fight when the bell rights. \u00a0And he’s right\u00a0up to a point – Kingston does want to win, but he’s also\u00a0singularly unwilling to take orders, which means the Snake Pit’s teamwork is much less effective than the regular team. \u00a0Kingston and Ophidian are good enough to put up a fight regardless, but the Batiri double team\u00a0Ophidian for the pin\u00a0in 14:32. \u00a0Kingston helps Ophidian up, but then walks off. \u00a0Good match, but\u00a0it’s furthering a Snake Pit angle that never really comes to fruition\u00a0because Kingston\u00a0winds up getting diverted to fill the plot gap left by UltraMantis Black’s\u00a0injury last month. \u00a0(Incidentally, at this point in time Mantis is still officially just on the injured\u00a0list. \u00a0He doesn’t announce his retirement until after King of Trios in September.)<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The Gentleman’s Club v. Dasher’s Dugout.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s the complete teams – Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy, Drew Gulak and the Swamp Monster versus Dasher Hatfield, Mark Angelosetti, Heidi Lovelace and Icarus. \u00a0Backstage, Mark\u00a0gives an “inspiring” pep talk to his team reminding them how\u00a0he and Dasher lost the tag titles, and Icarus lost the Grand Championship. \u00a0But hey, they’re still doing okay in this tournament. \u00a0And Icarus saved the company! \u00a0Heidi is still the Young Lions Cup champion\u00a0(though “you should be defending it more”)! \u00a0Dasher is challenging for the Grand Championship\u00a0tomorrow night! \u00a0Let’s do this! \u00a0The others seem willing to play along. \u00a0All this\u00a0is\u00a0foreshadowing\u00a0Mark’s desperation to get his career back on track by winning the tournament, which will be an emerging theme as the year goes on and leads into a storyline that continues to the present. \u00a0It’s a fast-paced comedy match (as you’d expect with the whole Club in play). \u00a0 Finally, Orange asks Heidi to kiss him, so she kicks him in the head and pins him with the Heidicanrana in 15:48. \u00a0The Dugout stay in contention and Mark’s dreams live.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The Wrecking Crew v The BDK.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both teams are rudos, but\u00a0the round robin format demands that they fight. \u00a0It’s a singles match with Jaka for the Wrecking Crew versus\u00a0N\u00f8kken for the BDK. \u00a0In a pre-match promo,\u00a0BDK leader Jakob Hammermeier sings Jaka’s praises and says\u00a0– well, shouts – that he has an eye for talent. \u00a0N\u00f8kken is understandably a bit put out that Jakob’s promo seems mainly about how great the other guy is. \u00a0N\u00f8kken winds up leaving the company before that sort of tension comes to a head, but Jakob will indeed go on to recruit Jaka into the BDK in December. \u00a0Anyway, since N\u00f8kken is a giant, Jaka is the visual underdog, so he wrestles as the de facto good guy. \u00a0Jakob tries to interfere to help his man, but\u00a0it backfires, as Jakob accidentally decks N\u00f8kken and Jaka pins him after\u00a0a spin kick in 11:40. \u00a0Better than you’d expect,\u00a0and one of\u00a0N\u00f8kken’s best singles matches, but\u00a0heel-heel is always tough.<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The United Nations v. The Nightmare Warriors.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, these are both rudo\u00a0teams. \u00a0But it’s UN captain\u00a0Juan Francisco de Coronado against\u00a0Silver Ant, the token tecnico\u00a0who Hallowicked\u00a0drafted into the Nightmare Warriors in an attempt to recruit him. \u00a0Silver Ant has wound up as the\u00a0weak link in the team, more through bad luck than anything else, and the story\u00a0is the Warriors trying to convince him to\u00a0be more aggressive and join the rest of his team in\u00a0the worship of Nazmaldun, god of rot. \u00a0It’s a long,\u00a0back and forth technical match with some great exchanges – your purist showcase for the night – and once again, Silver Ant’s insistence on wrestling clean doesn’t pay off, as Juan sneaks in a low blow\u00a0(not very visibly) and pins him with a German suplex in 18:12. \u00a0Very good match which plays\u00a0(gently) into Silver Ant’s season-long arc.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0COTI scores at the end of the night: the Wrecking Crew are on\u00a07, the Nightmare Warriors and Dasher’s Dugout are on 5, the\u00a0Snake Pit, the\u00a0United Nations, the Battle Hive and the Arcane Horde are all on 4,\u00a0the BDK are on\u00a03, and the Gentleman’s Club and Crown & Court\u00a0are in joint last on 2. \u00a0So the Wrecking Crew stretch their lead to two points and the Dugout move up into joint second.<\/p>\n

7. \u00a0Chikara Campeonatos de Parejas: The Devastation Corporation (c) v. Crown & Court\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest instalment in\u00a0this\u00a0slow-burning feud. \u00a0The rudo\u00a0champions are Max Smashmaster and Blaster McMassive, with their manager Sidney Bakabella; the tecnico challengers are Princess Kimberlee and Jervis Cottonbelly, as already mentioned. \u00a0DevCorp pinned Kim in Chikara’s\u00a0first match of the year, and they’ve already beaten Crown & Court in their first COTI pairing. \u00a0But Kim is starting to drag her team in the right direction, and she and Jervis are\u00a0the stronger half of the team. \u00a0Even so, they\u00a0don’t have much of a chance.<\/p>\n

As always with Chikara tag title defences, this is\u00a0best of three falls. \u00a0Despite claiming to be completely relaxed about these challengers, DevCorp attack during the ring announcements and wipe\u00a0out\u00a0Jervis with a Black Hole Slam and a powerbomb to win the first fall within a minute. \u00a0Kim spends the second fall on her own against the big guys, occasionally escaping them but finding nobody to tag, to her increasing horror and frustration. \u00a0 It’s kind of fascinating looking back a year and seeing her doing this stuff, because it’s so different from the way her character wrestles by the end of the year and going into 2016 – crucially, she’s much more of a Disney princess here, and she’s much more alarmed at the prospect of going it alone. \u00a0At any rate,\u00a0she finally gives up waiting\u00a0for help and makes her own comeback, which goes better than expected. \u00a0 Blaster tries for\u00a0a superplex – the same move he pinned her with in January – but this time she slips out, powerbombs him, and pins him with\u00a0the Alligator Clutch to level the match, to her own astonishment. \u00a0Through the miracle of wrestling recovery times,\u00a0Jervis finally makes it back to\u00a0the ring and\u00a0gets the Downton Lock on Max. \u00a0(It’s an ankle lock.) \u00a0Max taps, but Bakabella distracts the ref. \u00a0Jervis gets a near fall on Max and the crowd is starting to buy that the good guys could win. \u00a0But the Dev Corp get their act together, throw out Kim, and pin Jervis with their Death Blow double team finisher in 12:28. \u00a0Excellent storytelling there, both within the match and in the bigger picture of Kim getting personally stronger (note that the DevCorp never manage to pin her tonight). \u00a0And\u00a0it’s all building to a pay off at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Encore match:<\/strong> A rather odd little thing which starts as a singles match between Fire Ant<\/strong> and Missile Assault Ant<\/strong>, only for\u00a0the Proletariat Boar of Moldova, Oleg the Usurper, Frightmare<\/strong> and\u00a0Shynron<\/strong> to come out as it goes on. \u00a0General chaos ensues \u00a0until Oleg and Shynron hit their\u00a0finishers on Missile and pin him in 6:52. \u00a0According to the official results this is a trios match with Fire Ant, Oleg and Shynron as the winners, but\u00a0you’d never know from watching it. \u00a0Fast paced but a bit too confusing\u00a0to really work. \u00a0They try something similar with the encore at “Exit Strategy” in October which works much better.<\/p>\n

Worth watching?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It’s a solid\u00a0show but in storyline terms it’s largely an exercise in burning through tournament\u00a0matches and a bit of long-term build. \u00a0The main event is great, though. \u00a0These shows are, of course, on the Chikaratopia subscription streaming service by now.<\/p>\n

15.15: “The Immaculate Election”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s Sunday 26 July 2015 and we’re\u00a0at Fete Music in Providence, Rhode Island. \u00a0This is an odd venue for Chikara. \u00a0It’s a nightclub of some sort, and most of the crowd are standing right up against the ring. \u00a0Fortunately there’s enough room to move that they clear out of the way when people want to use the ringside area, but it’s\u00a0an unusual atmosphere.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Frightmare v. Amasis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amasis has two points, so\u00a0a win here will give him the third point needed for a shot at\u00a0Hallowicked’s\u00a0Grand Championship. \u00a0The champ’s\u00a0mini-me sidekick Frightmare is acting as spoiler. \u00a0It’s a fast-paced opener; Frightmare hits his Kneecolepsy finisher on the second attempt, but Amasis kicks out and gets the pin with\u00a0a\u00a0450 splash in 5:45. \u00a0So\u00a0Amasis is\u00a0the next challenger (which is kind of a strong hint to the result of the main event, but so it goes).<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The BDK v. Dasher’s Dugout.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s a tag match. \u00a0The BDK are represented by\u00a0team captain Jakob Hammermeier and the still-brainwashed Soldier Ant. \u00a0The Dugout\u00a0team is Icarus and Heidi Lovelace,\u00a0with a very intense Mark Angelosetti in their corner. \u00a0(Dasher isn’t here because he’s in the main event.) \u00a0Soldier Ant isn’t always under Jakob’s control, but today he is, and the BDK have the upper hand throughout. \u00a0Heidi heroically kicks out of some of his big moves, and she does get some near falls on him – even though he seems to be impervious to pain thanks to his brainwashing, you can still wrestle the guy to the ground – but\u00a0but finally\u00a0Soldier takes her out with a terrifying looking fallaway slam, then\u00a0pins Icarus with the Trench Slam in 12:27 for the BDK win. \u00a0Pretty\u00a0good, though\u00a0the match story didn’t really need that much time.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Four corner elimination match: The United\u00a0Nations v. The BDK v. The Wrecking Crew v. The Batiri.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The winning\u00a0team\u00a0gets a point\u00a0towards a tag title shot for every team they eliminate; none of these guys\u00a0have any points going in. \u00a0(The current leaders in the tag field are N_R_G, with two points, but they’re not working this month.)\u00a0 The UN team is Juan Francisco de Coronado and the Proletariat Boar of Moldova. \u00a0The BDK duo\u00a0are the loyal henchmen\u00a0Pinkie Sanchez and N\u00f8kken. \u00a0The Wrecking Crew are an interesting pairing – Jaka and\u00a0Oleg\u00a0the Usurper. \u00a0These two teamed regularly in 2014, but\u00a0Oleg isn’t part of the Wrecking Crew tournament squad, having been palmed off on the Arcane Horde in the belief that he was a\u00a0liability. \u00a0Bakabella is still trying to assert managerial control over the big lug in order to exploit his singles success and sabotage the Horde. \u00a0The dimwitted Oleg\u00a0seems to have only a hazy understanding of\u00a0all this. \u00a0The Batiri\u00a0(Obariyon and\u00a0Kodama) are also members of the Horde,\u00a0but at this point they\u00a0don’t much care for Oleg, who they regard as a massive nuisance.<\/p>\n

Oleg and N\u00f8kken start, but Jaka promptly tags in, apparently because he wants to continue\u00a0his fight with N\u00f8kken from the previous night. \u00a0They fight and take each other out. \u00a0The\u00a0UN and the Batiri go at it next, and\u00a0Kodama rolls up\u00a0de Coronado out of nowhere for a surprise\u00a0elimination in 6:43. \u00a0The BDK immediately (and quite legally)\u00a0race in to\u00a0take advantage of the UN’s work\u00a0by isolating Kodama themselves. \u00a0Without Jakob around to yell at them, the two lackies work well together. \u00a0Jaka\u00a0\u00a0tags in and distracts the ref as Bakabella nails Obariyon with a shoe. \u00a0Oleg doesn’t like that, and Bakabella takes him aside to patiently\u00a0explain the contract\u00a0situation again. \u00a0While that’s happening, Jaka throws Kodama out of the ring and he lands on Oleg; Bakabella tries to convince him it was a deliberate attack. \u00a0Oleg is befuddled. \u00a0During this confusion,\u00a0N\u00f8kken pins Jaka (at 12:42), but\u00a0Bakabella doesn’t care because it’s all contributing to the wider manipulation of Oleg (and he already manages the tag champions too, so it’s not like he cares about the points). \u00a0Sanchez finishes Kodama with a moonsault in 14:22,\u00a0so the BDK leave the match with two points, both earned cleanly, at least on their part. \u00a0It’s been an unusually good night for Jakob’s misfit army, and N\u00f8kken and Sanchez now need only one more point to earn a shot at the\u00a0tag titles. \u00a0We’ll get back to that\u00a0in September. \u00a0A good match\u00a0with a lot going on that played into the wider\u00a0picture. \u00a0Virtually no direct involvement between Oleg and the Batiri, which I think seemed a bit of an anticlimax at the time, but\u00a0it’s not an issue in hindsight.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: Crown & Court v. The Snake Pit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is face\/face. \u00a0It’s an eight-man tag with the full teams: Princess Kimberlee, Jervis Cottonbelly, El Hijo del Ice Cream and Ice Cream Jr for Crown &\u00a0Court, and Ophidian, Eddie Kingston, Argus and Shynron for the Snake Pit. \u00a0In a pre-match promo, Kimberlee\u00a0accepts that her team isn’t doing very well,\u00a0that the Ice Creams\u00a0never win, and that Jervis is too nice for his\u00a0own good. \u00a0But (in a trying-to-convince-herself tone) she insists that she believes in them and we’ll see. \u00a0Obviously, the Snake Pit are serving here mainly as the foils for Crown & Court’s storyline, though there’s the side issue that\u00a0Kingston is not playing well with the rest of his team.<\/p>\n

They do some comedy working\u00a0through\u00a0the various pairings, and\u00a0the Ice Creams’ shenanigans exasperate pretty much everyone else in the match. \u00a0Things get more serious when\u00a0Kim tags\u00a0in to slug it out against Ophidian. \u00a0With her directing traffic, Crown & Court manage to\u00a0keep the upper hand\u00a0for a while, until\u00a0the Snake Pit manage to isolate Jervis. \u00a0Once again, Kim gets to be the strongest person on her team, standing up to Kingston’s offence. \u00a0\u00a0The match starts to break down and\u00a0Ophidian and Shynron hit some incredible double teams on Kim (Shynron taking advantage of the fact that it’s a slightly smaller ring tonight to hit a\u00a0diagonal coast-to-coast dropkick). \u00a0C&C debut a new triple team where the Ice Creams throw Kim onto Shynron’s shoulders for a rana. \u00a0But he kicks out at 2. \u00a0There are some big dives, and\u00a0Shynron climbs a pillar in order to jump off it. \u00a0\u00a0El Hijo Del Ice Cream decides that this would be an excellent time to\u00a0pinch\u00a0Eddie Kingston’s arse,\u00a0which predictably gets him nailed\u00a0with the Backfist To The Future. \u00a0Shynron\u00a0pins him with an assisted 450 in a mighty 20:44 to win the match for the Snake Pit. \u00a0Great stuff. \u00a0Very long, but there were enough phases to the match (and enough different characters involved) to make it work.<\/p>\n

Jervis complains that\u00a0while Kim is doing a great job as team leader, the Ice Creams are letting the side down. \u00a0Kim tells him to wait and he’ll see. \u00a0This\u00a0is leading\u00a0to a\u00a0segment on the next show where she attempts to inspire them.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0Blaster McMassive v. Silver Ant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00a0rematch from “Sword of Destiny” last month, when Silver Ant won after Blaster passed out in a submission hold. \u00a0It’s a\u00a0Magic Move match, and the\u00a0move is\u00a0a triangle choke. \u00a0They have a good competitive match, vaguely\u00a0of the\u00a0power versus skill type\u00a0– not that you really get pure power guys in Chikara, where even Blaster has dives in his repertoire. \u00a0The commentators try to sell the idea that Silver’s association with the Nightmare Warriors is making him more aggressive, though\u00a0how much that’s apparent from the actual match is rather debatable. \u00a0Silver gets the triangle choke, but Blaster makes the ropes, then hits a\u00a0black hole slam and Liger bomb for the clean win in 10:48. \u00a0\u00a0The ending’s a bit abrupt. \u00a0I’m not a big fan of parity booking either, but it works okay here, since it\u00a0fits the wider\u00a0story of Blaster developing as a singles wrestler (he makes a point of reversing moves that worked against him last time) and Silver Ant struggling to gain momentum as a member of the Nightmare Warriors.<\/p>\n

Kevin Condron, Lucas Calhoun<\/strong> and\u00a0the\u00a0Troll<\/strong> come to the ring, with the backpack that they stole from\u00a0Missile Assault Ant<\/strong>\u00a0at “Shock and Aww” last month. \u00a0Kevin\u00a0explains that Missile Assault Ant used to be a member of Condor Security, the henchmen for the evil owners\u00a0from a few years back. \u00a0He produces\u00a0a diary from Missile’s\u00a0backpack and starts to read it. \u00a0Missile runs in to retrieve it, but Lucas and the Troll hold him down. \u00a0Kevin then claims that while\u00a0he was a Condor\u00a0mercenary, Missile blew up a school bus full of Zimbabwean children. \u00a0Yes, really. \u00a0He demands that Missile acknowledge his guilt in order to free himself from his guilt. \u00a0The crowd rather generously chant “We forgive you”. \u00a0Kevin tells Missile that it wasn’t his fault because he was following orders. \u00a0I\u00a0think<\/em> the idea is that he was brainwashed, like Volgar was, though it really doesn’t come across as a clearly as that. \u00a0At\u00a0Kevin and Lucas’s prompting, and after much stalling,\u00a0Missile unmasks.<\/p>\n

I’ve never been sold on\u00a0this segment, even though the performances are good. \u00a0The school bus\u00a0thing\u00a0does fit the story idea, which appears to be that the Colony: Xtreme Force – who were always at best eccentric –\u00a0were\u00a0all psychologically\u00a0damaged former soldiers who Condor dumped on Chikara to get a last bit of use out of them and to torment the Chikara regulars by mocking them. \u00a0But it feels tonally off for the show, and probably more specific and over the top\u00a0than it really needed to be. \u00a0At any rate, this segment leaves Condron with the team he wanted for the King of Trios tournament in September. \u00a0Condron is obviously hoping\u00a0that Missile Assault Ant will shake off his Condor persona entirely and\u00a0emerge as a\u00a0functional, cheerful, subservient henchman, just like Lucas did. \u00a0As we’ll see, it doesn’t work out quite like that…<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Challenge of the Immortals: The Gentleman’s Club v. The Battle Hive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A trios match – Chuck Taylor, Drew Gulak and The Swamp Monster for the Gentleman’s Club against Ashley Remington, Fire Ant and Worker Ant for the Battle Hive. \u00a0Technically the Club are the heels here, but they’re so beloved that it doesn’t really matter. \u00a0Anyway, Taylor pins Fire Ant clean with the Awful Waffle in 14:01, and that gets the Club\u00a0out of joint last. \u00a0Fun\u00a0match with a lot of comedy in it, as you’d expect with these guys. \u00a0The tournament scores at\u00a0the end of the weekend have the Wrecking Crew with a clear lead on 7, the Nightmare Warriors, the Snake Pit and Dasher’s Dugout all on 5, the United Nations, BDK, Battle Hive and Arcane Horde on 4, the Gentleman’s Club on 3, and Crown & Court on 2.<\/p>\n

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

This is Hallowicked’s third defence. \u00a0In a pre-match promo, he says that all warriors are ultimately the same and that he believes the saintly Dasher will compromise his principles to win the title. \u00a0Hallowicked has Frightmare in his corner. \u00a0Oddly, none of the Dugout are there – with hindsight, it would have made sense for Mark Angelosetti to be there. \u00a0Hallowicked works the midsection for a while, hitting his Go 2 Sleepy Hollow (a Go 2 Sleep to the midsection, basically) twice. \u00a0Dasher\u00a0gets 2 from an exploder suplex and tries for his\u00a0Jackhammer finisher, but the damage\u00a0stops him getting Hallowicked up. \u00a0Eventually he\u00a0blocks a\u00a0third Go 2 Sleepy Hollow, and hits the Jackhammer, but he’s\u00a0slow to cover, and it gets 2. \u00a0The crowd is surprisingly divided, which is really not the desired response, but at least they’re into the match. \u00a0Hallowicked gets the title belt, but then thinks better of using it. \u00a0The ref is\u00a0bumped while removing the title belt from the ring. \u00a0Dasher\u00a0teases\u00a0using the belt as a weapon, but then\u00a0throws it aside. \u00a0That’s the\u00a0pay off for the promo, I guess. \u00a0Dasher hits the Grand Slam (a top rope powerslam) for 2. \u00a0He tries for the Chikara Special submission, but Hallowicked blocks and applies it himself. \u00a0Dasher submits in 14:22. \u00a0For long-time\u00a0viewers,\u00a0the Chikara Special used to be an all-purpose finishing hold for Chikara\u00a0babyfaces to use against invaders, and it’s All Kinds\u00a0Of Wrong to have\u00a0Hallowicked using it as heel champion. \u00a0Good main event, basically feeding another strong opponent to Hallowicked – but it’ll also feed into the Dugout’s storyline by dashing Mark’s hopes of\u00a0getting some titles back into the stable.<\/p>\n

No encore\u00a0on this one, for some reason – the ring announcer’s farewell remarks\u00a0suggest they were running it as a double bill with another promotion, which might be why.<\/p>\n

Worth watching?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It’s a strong show. \u00a0The\u00a0Condron\/Missile segment doesn’t\u00a0really work for me, but it’s\u00a0good wrestling and storytelling up and down the card.<\/p>\n

Just\u00a0one proper show to go before King of Trios in September…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So then, this last week Al and I were at the Chikara show in Glasgow, which was the last date of their\u00a0UK tour and isn’t\u00a0yet available to buy (though you can pre-order it, if you want). \u00a0It’s a great show, and they’re right – wrestling, or at least\u00a0good wrestling, is indeed best experienced live,\u00a0because of\u00a0the […]<\/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-3402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402","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=3402"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3446,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions\/3446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}