Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Chikara came back to the ECW Arena last night for the second in their two-night celebration of their fifth year anniversary. Saturday night’s results from their show in Hellertown, PA can be found on the Figure Four Weekly site. Notable events included: Mike Quackenbush defeating Chris Hero by submission in their long-in-the-making main event match; Mitch Ryder (an old school heel out of Tennessee who also wrestles for IWA-MS and CZW) joining Hero, Larry Sweeney, and reluctant partner Claudio Castagnoli in their Kings of Wrestling faction; and Max Boyer (a young Canadian who resembles Lance Storm in his mannerisms) joining Icarus, Gran Akuma, and Chuck Taylor in their Kings of Wrestling faction.

Sunday’s show had a pretty big crowd, not as big as the show held here in February - Night Three of King of Trios - but bigger than last month’s show. Frank Talent of the PA State Athletic Commission announced that Chikara has somehow been voted the best wrestling promotion in Pennsylvania (not sure how it’s voted on, but I can’t blame them for their choice), and Daizee Haze was in attendance selling merchandise (and I bought a Delirious shirt from her).

1.Brodie Lee defeated Retail Dragon. I remember John writing about seeing Brodie Lee at the Chikara show he attended in March, calling him a low-rent Bruiser Brody. Despite some funky boot decorations (tassles instead of fur), he’s basically trying to be a flashy character as opposed to a monster, calling himself “The Right Stuff.” He still needs to work on stuff like that. This very much followed the Big Man vs. Little Man formula, with Dragon getting the upperhand with his quickness (and even hit two consecutive dives to the outside onto Lee), but Lee came out on top following a running Liger Bomb. Impressive finish to a “just okay” match.

2.UltraMantis Black & Hydra (w/ Crossbones) defeated The Olsen Twins (Colin & Jimmy). Very fun comedy match. Hydra’s superiority complex was in full force, as he attempted to perform feats of strength beyond his capabilities. Other notable spots were a test of strength becoming a chicken fight with Mantis putting Hydra on his shoulders to get the advantage, and the Olsens trying to do the twins switcheroo despite not being twins. Hydra once again had his drawn-on muscles, as well as some drawn-on tattoos, but the Olsens had a spray bottle that they used in an attempt to wash off the musculature and weaken him. I really enjoyed this stuff. The two representatives of the Order of the Neo Solar Temple (who came out to Brock Lesnar’s music as opposed to eerie chantings, and even had team jackets) scored the win when Mantis rolled up one of the Olsens when the other Olsen had his back turned, not knowing his partner just lost.

3.Shayne Hawke defeated Create-A-Wrestler. Hawke is a small Canadian wrestler who I’ve seen in Chikara once before. He’s the heel and has floppy red hair, getting catcalls of “Bonaduce.” This match was actually better than I ever would have guessed, with Hawke getting in some nice offense, but the finish was really screwed up. Hawke cradled CAW, they were right in the ropes, but referee Matt Dillon still counted the fall. Okay match, bad finish.

4.Pantera & Lince Dorado & Player Uno defeated Mitch Ryder & Los Ice Creams. Fun Lucha-centric match. Pantera is a veteran luchadore, and was very agile for his size. Player Uno is another Canadian grappler; he’s the “8-Bit Luchador,” masked and with a video game motif, with pants with a large NES controller on planted on the side. Dorado is back again after making it to the finals of last month’s Rey De Voladores tournament, and is apparently now spending time with Chikara for an extended stay to hone his skills. Los Ice Creams - Ice Cream Jr. and El Hijo del Ice Cream - are two fake Mexicans (my assumption) with high-pitched voices who look like clowns and have masks that look like scoops of ice cream (complete with cones). They and Ryder came out to ice cream truck music. Los Ice Creams are heels, but more along the rascally side, as opposed to more straightforward Ryder. Lots of nice action, as well as some funny moments, including El Hijo del Ice Cream overreacting to certain hits and Uno freezing in place when one of the heels pressed the Pause button on his pants. At the end, Dorado nailed a sprinboard hurricanrana on El Hijo del Ice Cream - planting him right on his head - and hit a springboard rotating splash, but Ryder broke up the pin with a clear kick to the crotch, an immediate DQ. Los Ice Creams were upset with Ryder afterwards as the win was awarded to the faces.

5.Dragon Yuki defeated Kagrra. These two guys are fro the Kageki Pro group in Japan. Yuki is a heavyset guy in red, Kagrra the smaller guy in yellow. These two had a straightforward but flat match, not really getting the crowd involved at all. They both seemed okay, but I wasn’t really given a reason to care by either of them. Yuki, whose giant gut seemed too much for Kagrra to handle, gets the win with a top rope splash.

Intermission occurred, tiny buildings were placed inside the ring, and then…

6.Dusto Bunny & Giii the Space Pirate defeated Dr. Cube & Call-Me-Kevin in a South Philly Sci-Fi Street Fighto. This match was care of Kaiju Big Battel, a promotion full of these big goofy-looking monster characters, an homage to Japanese monster movies. To start things off, out comes Louden Noxious, an energetic guy with a silly hairdo who’s the host of Kaiju and nephew of Kaiju’s commissioner. He talked of how happy he was to have Kaiju in Chikara, saying their commissioner is a close friend of Chikara commissioner Bob Saget. Then he introduced the referee, who tossed out little toys to the fans, and the wrestlers one by one. Top heel Dr. Cube (if you’ve seen Kaiju, you know who he is), was announced as having a beef with Saget, and the story here was that he was paired up with perennial loser Call-Me-Kevin as a form of punishment. He took the mic and ran down the fans and the city, saying, “To say I hate Philly is to say I like to breathe.” Very entertaining promo that earned instant boos.

The proceeding match, accompanied by ongoing music, was okay stuff that I was expecting to be a lot crazier. The buildings were smashed, but other than that, you had three guys in big clunky costumes doing wrestling moves to the best of their ability, and they were just fine. The end saw Call-Me-Kevin getting fed up with Dr. Cube and laying him out with a moonsault, making him easy pickings for a top rope splash by Dusto Bunny. There was a small but very vocal section of fans who hated it, chanting, “We Want People,” asking for Daizee Haze and even the ringside cameraman to get involved, and chanting “Don’t Come Back!” at the end. I thought it was fairly fun stuff that went too long, not bad, but not at the level of comedic wrestling gold where Tree met Robot (Mokujin Ken vs. Mecha Mummy at King of Trios).

7.Max Boyer defeated Pelle Primeau. Max Boyer currently holds the Young Lions Cup, a trophy title in Chikara held by wrestlers under the age of 25 that’s put on the line every year in a tournament and defended until the next year’s tournament. With the next YLC tournament coming up next month, the Cup was not on the line, as this was probably Boyer’s last night with it (he won it from Arik Cannon in October). He had a decent match against Primeau, ROH student done good, where he worked over the leg a lot. Boyer hit what look like a pumphandle Angle Slam, then scored the tap out win with a half crab. A little bland, but the action was okay. Boyer could definitely show more fire, and I think he could benefit from teaming up with the guys he joined the previous night.

8.Mike Quackenbush & Shane Storm & Equinox defeated The Colony (Soldier, Fire, and Worker Ant). Face vs. Face matchup that had some nice moments within it’s awfully rough goings. Equinox was subbing for Jigsaw, who was unable to make it to the building. Quackenbush was clearly the best guy in this match, stuck with some fairly green partners. The Colony seems to be doing okay. Some nice moves, but the substitution of Equinox for Jigsaw looked like it really hurt it overall, making this the biggest disappointment of the night in my opinion. Quack got the win for his team with a top rope tiger bomb on Soldier Ant.

9.Incoherence(Delirious & Hallowicked) defeated BLK OUT (Eddie Kingston & Ruckus). This was a continuation of the Kingston-Hallowicked feud going on, so of course it featured some heated moments between the two. Delirious & Hallowicked make for a good team with their similar gimmicks and tandem moves, and I dig the matching masks. Enjoyable match throughout that at the end saw Delirious trying to make Ruckus tap to the Cobra Stretch and Kingston preventing it by stopping Ruckus’ hand from hitting the canvas. Hallowicked pulled Kingston out of the ring, Delirious really sinched in the submission, and Ruckus tapped out. An upset Kingston responded to the loss by nailing a nasty backdrop driver on Delirious. Thumbs up on this one.

10.Icarus & Gran Akuma & Chuck Taylor (w/ Max Boyer) defeated Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli & “Sweet & Sour” Larry Sweeney (w/ Mitch Ryder). Both teams were announced as being the Kings of Wrestling. Both Claudio and Taylor have since had their hair cut short, but Taylor’s cut looks a helluva lot better. Good back and forth action, with Hero’s team being the defacto faces while Icarus and Akuma got mercilessly booed. Claudio, while still trying to get the win for his team, didn’t cooperate on certain doubleteam moves and annoyed Hero. One moment saw Claudio holding up one of his opponents for a delayed vertical suplex and getting in Hero’s face for a spat at the same time. Taylor continued his overexaggerated heel shtick, which can either be hilarious or annoying depending on how you look at it, but there was a moment where Claudio gave him a fast and lengthy Giant Swing, causing Taylor to shriek like a little girl. Things got pretty heated at the end, with the finish coming when Sweeney got nailed with a modified Omega Driver (pumphandle piledriver) by Taylor and pinned with a 450 splash by Akuma.

Afterwards, Hero was about to get into it with his opponents for using the Kings of Wrestling name. Before things went south, Ryder grabbed the mic, saying that this is just what “these people” (the fans) want to see. He then cut a long promo (pretty good, though pretty heavy on cliche) about how the two factions should team up, and that the fans would be too scared to see what would result from it. My favorite line was him saying how they could destroy “all that was good” in the locker room and in the crowd. After a little pleading from Ryder and a short tease, Hero and Icarus hugged to unite the factions. So Hero, Icarus, Akuma, Taylor, Sweeney, Ryder, Boyer, and even Claudio (who seemed to be down with the idea as well) are now an 8-man faction under the Kings of Wrestling name.

Overall: Action-wise, this was one of the more disappointing shows I’ve been to. I enjoyed the last two matches, had fun watching the six-man tag with Pantera and Los Ice Creams, and laughed my ass off watching the Mantis & Hydra vs. Olson Twins match. Other than that, none of the other six matches (including Quackenbush’s sadly) are really worth going out of your way to see. If you really want to see some Kaiju, then you could just find some Kaiju DVDs, done in front of a crowd used to them. Storyline-wise, the big Kings of Wrestling union should provide some fun for the future, as these eight heels look to cause some havoc, and the Kingston-Hallowicked rivalry seems to be going well too. The next Chikara show scheduled for Philadelphia will be August 5th. Information on future Chikara shows can be found at their web site.