Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Chikara returned to Philadelphia (and Brian returned to Chikara) for their annual massive Torneo Cibernetico tournament, and still finished in time for the Phillies game, so kudos to them! Check out all of the glorious details that took place.

To reiterate from the last time I wrote about this match two years ago, the Torneo Cibernetico is an 8-on-8 elimination tag team match where the partners have to follow a specific batting order when tagging out. Also, this match has to come down to one winner, so if one team gets completely eliminated, the remaining partners on the other team have to duke it out until the finish. This has actually happened at the last Cibernetico show I attended, and (SPOILERS!) it happened again here tonight. To top things off, this year’s Cibernetico had a Parejas Increibles (Incredible Partners) theme, with NEW Campeones de Parejas Fire Ant & Soldier Ant (they won them last month) as captains of opposing teams made up of other babyface partners opposing one another. Fire Ant was joined by Jigsaw, Green Ant, Player Dos, Cloudy, Frightmare, Helios, and Nick Jackson (of the Young Bucks!), while Soldier Ant’s squad consisted of Mike Quackenbush, Carpenter Ant, Player Uno, Cheech, Hallowicked, Lince Dorado, and Matt Jackson (the other Young Buck!).

Another crowd in the 300-range and very enthusiastic (keep on growin’), but the show started about 10 minutes late.

1. The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Sugar Dunkerton) defeated Los Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr. y El Hijo del Ice Cream) when Hatfield hit Ice Cream Jr. with the Grand Slam and Dunkerton pinned him following a top rope elbow drop. As you may have guessed or heard, Dunkerton is a Globetrotters-inspired, Afro’d basketball player out of the 70s. He fits pretty well with Hatfield’s Old Timey King of Swing (who I expect may indeed stick around longer due to this pairing and the fact that Hatfield masks are being sold), and they had a lot of fun teamwork. Dunkerton has some good offense from off the court, and the Ice Creams played into it well. Another fun opener. (7:26)

2. Vin Gerard defeated Ryuichi Kawakami with the STF. Kawakami is a young wrestler from Big Japan and has a stocky frame. Gerard was replacing Eddie Kingston, Kawakami’s original opponent, because Kingston is out with a severely broken nose. The two of them were about the same height. Not much to the match, as Gerard worked over Kawakami’s leg and stomped on him, while Kawakami came back with some kicks and a belly-to-belly suplex. Just okay stuff with a pretty surprising end. (6:21)

3. Daizee Haze & Bullfight Sora defeated Sara Del Rey & La Malcriada when Del Rey was disqualified for excessive violence. Haze and Del Rey started a new storyline through ChikaraPro.com’s blog in which both ladies are looking for better competition, so we get this match featuring two Japanese women: Sora with her cow gimmick (complete with a horned mask she put to use and cow-print gear) and Malcriada (who previously appeared in Chikara for King of Trios 2007: Night 3) with her cat motif. Also, Big Japan’s female ref Nikkan Lee officiated the match. I had fun watching this. Most of it was one of the Japanese women with one of the Americans, with Haze and Del Rey not tangling until the very end, when they kept reversing each other’s full nelson attempt as Sora kept wavering on the top rope. In the end, Del Rey hit Sora with a piledriver, but pulled her up at a two count. Then she hit stood Sora up and hit her with a kick to the head, pulled her shoulders up again, hit the Royal Butterfly, and pulled her shoulders up again for the last time as Lee called for the bell. Haze had a brief staredown with Del Rey and seemed to tell her, “You deserve something more.” Haze and Del Rey left while fans showed their appreciation toward the Japanese visitors. Pretty good match. (7:05)

4. Claudio Castagnoli defeated Sal Rinauro when Rinauro tapped to the giant swing. Genuine hilarity ensued here. Rinauro, who made his Chikara debut the previous night in Easton (challenging Mike Quackenbush for his NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title and losing to a headlock takeover pin), was more of his cocky self from FIP and elsewhere as opposed to his hapless jobber role from ROH on HDNet. I believe Claudio wrestled this entire match while wearing a red streamer around his neck. Sal failed to match up to Claudio’s hand-height for an attempted test of strength, so he tossed a dollar, ref Bryce Remsburg bent down to pick it up, and Sal hopped on his shoulders to gain the height advantage. Claudio wrestled Rinauro in this chicken fight position while Bryce kept officiating despite a wrestler being on his shoulders. This has to be seen to get the full impression of it. Some humor in the corner, Rinauro’s failed attempt at a giant swing, and a couple rotations of Claudio’s own version later, and Rinauro was done. A good comedy match. (6:47)

5. Icarus & Crossbones & Colin Delaney defeated Chuck Taylor & UltraMantis Black & STIGMA when Mantis was counted out and/or when Icarus rolled up STIGMA. An unannounced match that also followed the Parejas Increibles rules (at first I thought we were getting a 12-man tag of some sort). All of the regular partners on opposing sides were gentle with one another at first but then got increasingly competitive. All of the wrestlers did a six-way submission spot with all illegal holds, eliciting a “rudos!” chant from a portion of the crowd. A few minutes later, out came Vokoder, a mysterious and possibly robotic wrestler who popped up in the crowd in May and debuted in August in the Young Lions Cup tournament. He came out the previous night to mess around with Mantis’ staff, providing a distraction to Mantis to use it to win a match against Green Ant & Carpenter Ant. Vokoder looked to be doing something similar, but Leonard F. Chikarason came right out afterward and sent him to the back before he could do anything. Very soon afterward, the lights went out, and the mysterious man in white from August (dubbed “BDK” by some fans), who appears to be looking for the Eye of Tyr that Mantis stole, popped up on the screen. The lights came back on, Mantis was backed up against the guardrail outside, and up walked “BDK” and another man in white with a horned mask behind him, causing Mantis to run for the hills in fright. Icarus scored his pinfall on STIGMA, which was counted by the ref, but Louden Noxious announced Icarus’ team winning by count-out. Odd finish to a match with strange-yet-awesome happenings. (6:42)

6. The Osirian Portal (Amasis & Ophidian) defeated The Roughnecks (Brodie Lee & Grizzly Redwood) when they hit the Osirian Sacrament on Grizzly. The Portal were sporting new, more colorful gear, came out to a new cover of “Walk Like An Egyptian,” and were playing the babyface roles here. Brodie appeared more pissed than usual throughout the match, perhaps because he and Grizzly lost in their shot at the tag titles the previous night in two straight falls. He’d even pull Grizzly off one of their opponents when he attempted a pinfall. Outside one moment of dancing, the Portal played it straight and fought back with head scissors and lucha moves. Brodie accidentally hit Grizzly with his big boot, then was sent to the outside and hit with a tope suicida by Ophidian that shifted the guardrail. This all set up the finish, giving the Portal their third point (after gaining two the previous night in a four-team elimination match) and another shot at the titles they just recently lost. Good competitive match. (14:11)

- After the match, Brodie was about to leave, came back in to help Grizzly to his feet, then gave him the big boot again, this time on purpose. Looks like the Roughnecks are dead, or at least Grizzly’s involvement since there’s no clue what Eddie Kingston will do (aside from potentially going face).

- Intermission, during which Gabe Sapolsky hawked tickets to next month’s Dragon Gate USA show (already have mine), Mantis & Crossbones appeared in white masks and Cosby attire, Grizzly finally came to and made his way slowly to the back, and, when the music was just right, Amasis and Sugar Dunkerton had a dance-off.

7. Carpenter Ant won the 6th Annual Torneo Cibernetico. In the beginning, all of the wrestlers went through the batting order once until Soldier Ant and Helios (the last in their respective teams’ batting orders) began exchanging pinfall attempts. Green Ant was the first man eliminated, due to a reversal of La Magistral by Matt Jackson, and this didn’t happen until the around the 15-minute mark. Lots of crisp exchanges and some big dives a little under half-way through. Even though it was all babyfaces, fans had their favorites and a number of the nearfalls had drama to them. The Young Bucks and Cheech & Cloudy didn’t face each other, but the other teammates did, including the Super Smash Bros. very briefly when Dos eliminated Uno with a frog splash. Carpenter Ant looked pretty good throughout the match, giving many fans the impression that he’s more experienced than what we’re led to believe. He eliminated Frightmare with the Burning Hammer (get it?). Fire Ant was all by himself at around 46 minutes. He managed to eliminate Lince Dorado with a pin reversal for the Chikara Special, but then soon fell to Quackendriver IV (almost a gut-wrench cradle powerbomb variation). With one team entirely eliminated, it was down to Quackenbush, Hallowicked, Soldier Ant, and Carpenter Ant. Solider eliminated both Wicked and Quack quickly with a TKO and a pinning combination respectively, leaving behind the competitive Carpenter, who wrestled and lost to Soldier in the Young Lions Cup tournament. Carpenter nearly got a pass-out victory with a hammerlock guillotine, but Soldier fought out of it. He went for the Chikara Special again, but Carpenter countered out of it by kicking Soldier’s head. Then he locked in a half-crab with a head capture with the leg (what is described on Chikarafans as an inverted Chikara Special) and scored the big submission victory. You can’t read the ants’ faces since they’re completely hidden, but Carpenter seemed elated while Soldier seemed a bit dumbfounded but impressed with his rookie partner. A very fun spectacle. (51:20)

Overall: Another good time, and the Torneo Cibernetico is always good for some exciting stuff, even though this one didn’t have the tension of a feud as past Ciberneticos have had. It could still lead to some tension down the line that has already come to fruition between the likes of the Super Smash Bros. and The Future Is Now. The undercards of the Cibernetico shows suffer a little because you get more matches than usual on the first half that don’t get a lot of time, allowing the Cibernetico match to get more time. Fortunately, the undercard matches here were given appropriate amounts of time here for what they were meant to accomplish. Lots of some fun stuff involving Dasher Hatfield and his new partner, Claudio and Rinauro, and even the women, as well as the Eye of Tyr story getting furthered along. The show actually ended up being shorter than usual, but I wasn’t complaining after seeing a nearly hour-long spotfest. The next shows for Chikara will be their final shows of the year – November 21st in Easton (“Throwing Life’s Instructions Away”) and 22nd in in Philadelphia (“Three-Fisted Tales”) – plus there will be more more Chikara involvement with Dragon Gate USA’s “Open The Freedom Gate” show on November 28th, including Quackenbush contending for the Open The Freedom Gate Championship.