Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Brian Streleckis attends his tenth Chikara show in Philadephia, featuring lots of fantastical tag team action and the fourth annual Torneo Cibernetico. Here’s his review

To kick things off, it’s only right to describe what in the blue blazes the Torneo Cibernetico is. It’s a 16-man tag team match, 8-on-8, under lucha rules (leaving the ring constitutes a tag out) and some more specific rules, directly from Chikara’s web site:

Each team will announce a “batting order.” Once the order is established, it will dictate the order in which the participants can tag. The first person in the order can only tag the second. The second person can only tag the third, and so on.
Eliminations can occur via pinfall, submission, disqualification or knockout. Cibernetico rules also allow for an elimination to occur if the next person in the batting order fails to tag or refuses a tag.
Only one person can win the Cibernetico. If all the members of one team are eliminated, the members of the surviving team must wrestle each other until just one remains.

It’s important to remember those rules later when the match comes along. The last Cibernetico show (”Cibernetico Forever,” so this year’s title of “Cibernetico & Robin” makes sense) also took place in the New Alhambra of South Philadelphia, between teams captained by then-bitter rivals Eddie Kingston and Larry Sweeney (with Sweeney’s partner of Icarus being the winner). This year’s Cibernetico captains were southern heel “Simply Marvelous” Mitch Ryder and young luchadore Lince Dorado, who have had an issue with each other since June. Before the Cibernetico, which can be a very long match, we had a surprisingly large number of undercard matches. The show started about half an hour late due to the ringside doctor’s late arrival.

1. Brodie Lee defeated Mike Stevens. Brodie looks and acts a lot different now, being billed from Nebraska and looking like a ticked off gas station attendant donned in jeans and a wifebeater t-shirt (a more appropriate gimmick for his name, I say). Mike Stevens is a non-descript Canadian. Both guys are pretty big compared to other indy guys, looking like they’re prime candidates for OVW (or Derby City) down the line. The match was kept really short, with some chops being thrown by both and Stevens hitting a spear for his only memorable piece of offense. Brodie Lee put him away with a big boot in the corner and a running powerbomb.

2. Daizee Haze defeated Candice LeRae. Yep, this is the same Candice LeRae who was previously Human Tornado’s valet in PWG. I’ve seen her name pop up before in east coast show reports, as she’s apparently been having preshow matches with Daizee and the like before ROH shows. There was a small but vocal group of fans behind me (who otherwise were really obnoxious throughout) reminding Candice that Tornado put her in a crossface at the Battle of Los Angeles, and she sold her displeasure. Candice didn’t look too good here (but not outright horiffic) botching a headscissors pretty bad, but then stuck to strikes mostly. Not sure if it was just an off-night or if she’s still pretty green. Speaking of “green,” Daizee (who got a great reception coming out) more than held up her half of the match. She’s still the heel here in Chikara though, as she got the win by turning a sunset powerbomb out of the corner into a pin, holding the ropes for leverage. Again, this was a very short match.

3. Incoherence (Delirious & Hallowicked) defeated The Order of the Neo Solar Temple (Ultramantis Black & Hydra). A recipe for success in my eyes. Delirious’ beard has reached Neidhart levels, and Hydra has his own gym rat muscle shirt. Early moments saw Incoherence work over Hydra’s hand a lot (including slamming it into the top turnbuckle) and then working over one of Mantis’ bare feet with chops and biting. This all resulted in Mantis and Hydra jumping in pain, causing Incoherence - and ref Bryce Remsburg - to jump in unison in an only-in-Chikara moment of greatness. It soon broke down to a more traditional match, with the dastardly heels getting the upper hand for a little bit with some tandem submissions. Ultimately, a flurry of moves from both teams came about ending with Hallowicked hitting his big mafia kick on Mantis for the pinfall. Fun stuff. This marked Delirious & Hallowicked’s third consecutive win in a tag match, making them the next to challenge Icarus & Gran Akuma for the Campeonatos de Parejas.

4. Mike Quackenbush defeated Tim Donst. Good veteran/rookie matchup. Nearly all of it consisted of Quack putting Donst in a variety of painful submissions, but Donst kept surviving. That same group of fans from before really hated Donst (one guy even cursed, which is a no-no for the family-friendly Chikara), but everyone else seemed to be cheering for both guys. Donst got some close nearfalls, but it was a given that Quack would pull out the victory, which he eventually did with the Chikara Special. Impressive display by Quack, and Donst carried his half nicely.

5. Cheech & Cloudy defeated The Olsen Twins (Colin & Jimmy). This match was announced on the Chikara web site just a few days prior, and it ended up stealing the show. The Olsens (now calling themselves “The Feel Good Team of the Decade”) have mostly been a part of more light-hearted comedy matches in Chikara, but they were all business here and really brought it. One of the standout spots was Jimmy Olsen doing a suicide dive and turning it into a tornado DDT on Cheech on the outside, taking him out for a considerable amount of time. Colin hit some impressive arm drags as well; hats off to him watching his tapes. Cheech & Coudy were no slouches either, as this match was full of back-and-forth action. Cheech & Cloudy scored the victory following a top rope shining wizard into a powerbomb over the knee. Crazy, fast-paced, and surprisingly great.

6. Super Xtremo defeated Kris Chambers. Both guys are out of Canada, though Xtremo, a masked competitor, was billed from New Mexico. Also, Super Xtremo is not to be confused with Captain Insano, Big Show’s character in The Waterboy. Xtremo showed some nice athleticism, and Chambers played the cocky heel role just fine, largely grounding Xtremo and choking him on the ropes, but this match had a really tough act too follow in the previous tag match. Nothing bad here, but nothing very memorable either. Things were kept simple. It reminded me of a Smackdown match between Gregory Helms and Jimmy Wang Yang. Xtremo scored the victory with a heck of a hurricanrana, getting a nice reception afterwards.

7. The Osirian Portal (Amasis & Ophidian) defeated ShaneSaw (Jigsaw & Shane Storm). Fun match with a new kooky team to keep an eye on. The Osirian Portal have an Egyptian motif going on. Amasis is billed as “The Funky Pharaoh” masked and dancing to the ring in a King Tut headpiece. Ophidian wears a mask that looks like a cobra with its mouth open and acts like a snake throughout, slivering on the ground. And yes, this team’s entrance theme is “Walk Like an Egyptian.” Never thought I’d see a tag match be so crazy without Hallowicked and/or Delirious being involved in it. Amasis basically does a lot of Human Tornado offense, combining wrestling with break dancing. With Ophidian, it got to the point where all of the fans were hissing whenever he got into the ring. I shouted out to Jigsaw, “Cut off his head with a shovel.” to no avail, but he did look good here. Kicker #2: Ophidian scored the win for his team by catching Shane Storm in - yes - the Cobra Clutch, along with a body scissors, forcing him to pass out. This would have been the third consecutive tag team win for ShaneSaw, but since they lost, they go back down to zero and have to start over. Jigsaw was really upset with Storm because of this, so there might be some tension brewing.

8. The Colony (Soldier Ant & Fire Ant & Worker Ant) defeated BLK OUT (Eddie Kingston & Joker & Sabian). This match is based off of the Colony getting some victories over the BLK OUT members earlier in the year and getting beat up because of it. The ants all ran down to start the match off to a fast start, but BLK OUT overcame them fairly quickly and delivered the beatdown. Lots of high-impact offense from Joker and Sabian, plus lots of hard strikes by Joker and Kingston. The match went on for a while before the Colony fought back with some triple team moves of their own, including Soldier Ant & Worker Ant launching Fire Ant over the top onto their three opponents at ringside, plus a three-man basement dropkick into the corner. Sabian may have injured his leg at one point. The Colony got the semi-surprising victory when Fire Ant hit an Air Rade Crash on Joker with assistance from Soldier & Worker. This was supposedly the match to settle the score, but I read Kingston’s face as if this issue may not be done with. Another good tag match, and the Colony have definitely been improving.

- Intermission finally came along, and then came the big main event: the Torneo Cibernetico. Mitch Ryder’s team consisted of fellow Kings of Wrestling Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Larry Sweeney, Chuck Taylor, Icarus, and Gran Akuma, joined by Shayne Hawke, who’s been recruited by the Kings in recent months (what with the absense of the eight King of Wrestling, Max Boyer) and has racked up some victories recently. Lince Dorado’s team consisted of Los Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr. y El Hijo del Ice Cream), Equinox, Las Chivas III & IV (two guys in freaky goat masks who look like they’re dressed to play soccer/futbol), and veteran luchadores Magno and Incognito (who were briefly seen as members of Team Mexico in TNA’s World X Cup last year). As for the match:

9. Claudio Castagnoli won the Torneo Cibernetico in just under 51 minutes. I mention the time due to express what kind of match this is. Last year’s Cibernetico went about an hour, while the year before was something like 113 minutes. This one had a very good pace to it, starting with each team going through its batting order one time around before things got really hot and heavy. Various things that happened in this match, luandry list style (hey, it was a long mother, so can you blame me?):

- The heels had more men than the faces throughout most of the match. First heel eliminated was Larry Sweeney, who’s gut has grown since the last time I saw him wrestle in May. He’s still Sweet & Sour, though.

- Equinox was the first guy eliminated on Dorado’s team. He did his standing Shooting Star Press (which either looks decent are very bad on any given show) on Hero, but Hero turned it into a cravate (must be seen) and slammed him hard with a cravate suplex to get rid of him.

- Lots of great antics by Los Ice Creams and Chuck Taylor on the outside. Plenty of crazy comments that may or may not be picked up on camera.

- Dorado and Ryder indeed faced off against each other. Dorado got in some offense, but was on the defensive a lot. Ryder went after Dorado’s mask a lot, causing the other faces to come in the ring, resulting in a multi-man near-riot a la The Outsiders and - soon after - a bunch of dives to outside to clear the ring.

- Dorado was clearly pegged to be the top babyface in this match, even though some of the heels (Hero, Claudio, Taylor, Sweeney) got louder pops.

- Magno and Incognito both looked bulkier (muscle, not fat) than I remember from their very brief TNA appearances. They looked fine, but one of them kind of faultered towards the end. Magno did give Akuma a one-man Spanish Fly off the top to eliminate him, and it looked great.

- Shayne Hawke did well for himself by eliminating two guys just before getting eliminated himself.

- Claudio looked mighty good as usual, and throughout the match, he and Hero kept having small disputes a la Triple H and Batista in early ‘05. This has been going down slightly under the radar since Hero beat Claudio in April, forcing him to serve to Hero.

We come towards the end, where it’s Dorado & Magno & Incognito vs. Taylor, Hero, Claudio, & Ryder. Taylor gave Dorado a taste of Sole Food and attempted to give him his finisher - formerly called the Omega Driver, but now called the Awful Waffle - but Dorado countered it into a rollup to eliminate him. Magno got eliminated by a Hero’s Welcome. Incognito was launched into the air by Claudio and fell down into Claudio’s first European uppercut of the match, eliminating him. Then, as Hero and Claudio’s issue boiled over (I think Claudio was the unlikely recipient of a move not intended for him), Ryder eliminated Dorado with a piledriver, so an entire team was out of this match. Ryder and Hero hugged as Bryce Remsburg tried to remind them that this match wasn’t done. Claudio came into the ring, giving Hero a bicycle kick as he turned around, and then eliminated Hero with his kryptonite, the Chikara Special submission. Ryder then attempted a schoolboy, but Claudio kicked out and gave Ryder the Riccola Bomb. Claudio reigns supreme as the crowd goes wild. We’ll have to wait and see if this means Claudio has left the Kings of Wrestling behind him.

Overall: Another good show from Chikara. This was about even with the August 5th show (”Maximum Overdraft”) for me, but I liked it more than the shows on April 22nd (”Rey de Voladores”) and May 27th (”Anniversario!”). The Torneo Cibernetico had a lot of fun stuff going for it, and I like how it was all laid out with the faces getting a chance to impress, but everyone knowing that the heels were the stars. The four other tag matches on this show, especially Cheech & Cloudy vs. The Olsen Twins, were all lots of fun. The singles matches, aside from Quackenbush-Donst - were very average. Definitely worth checking out for fans of tag team wrestling, especially such wrestling with a Lucha flavor. This show should be available soon through Smart Mark Video, which does a good job of getting DVDs out quick, in addition to filming them. The next Chikara show in Philadelphia will be on November 18th, and it will be the last Chikara show of the year (their season finale, as they put it), before they take the months of December and January off.