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LOOKING AT CHIKARA WRESTLING AND THE FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR KING OF TRIOS TOURNAMENT

"We are trying to put the fun back into pro wrestling."  ~ CHIKARA's Mike Quackenbush a few weeks ago during a PWInsider.com Elite exclusive interview.

"This is the most fun I've had at wrestling in forever."  ~ Mike Johnson, jaded wrestling writer during intermission of CHIKARA.

CHIKARA is fun. 

That's the most quick, concise review I could give for the promotion after attending the first night of their annual King of Trios tournament last Friday at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia.  The promotion is something of an eccentric aberration when it comes to independent wrestling. 

They have a ton of names that hardcore fans enjoy, but they don't focus their product at the diehard fans.  They utilize a mixture of niche wrestling styles including European and Lucha but promote themselves as family friendly to the extent they warn fans using expletives they will be ejected from live shows.  They have a hardworking crew of young talents who work as much on connecting with the audience as they do on perfecting highspots.

CHIKARA is the little promotion that upon first glance, it couldn't be as good as you hear it is second-hand.  It's not.  It's better. CHIKARA may be the last vestige of the old school, fun wrestling promotion that provides seriously great wrestling without taking itself too seriously at the same time.

Depending on your tastes, there may be promotions where the wrestlers are more "big league."  There may be better wrestling.  There may be a more balanced product elsewhere, but when you break down all the sums of CHIKARA's parts, you can't help but smile and enjoy yourself at one of their shows. 

It's what wrestling should be on the independent level - it's young guys working to hone their craft, it's veterans working against those younger names and selling for them as if everyone is on the same level, its innate silliness that would never work in a larger company, its an intimate evening that you have to be "there" to get, but once you get it, you love it.  It's the type of show that you would take someone who had never seen indy wrestling before to in an attempt to explain why you like it and probably, hopefully, win them over and convert them into a fan as well.

As you can probably guessed, I loved the hell out of the show I saw.

CHIKARA's King of Trios tournament was first promoted by the company in 2007 and is considered one of the promotion's most important events.  Probably the closest thing to this generation's Crocket Cup, it's split over several days with wrestlers from different areas and promotions coming in to "represent" their areas in the tournament.  The promotion does a great job bringing in a unique collection of names that usually wouldn't work here and some names that usually wouldn't be on the top of "smart fan" must sees, but they are trying to march to the beat of their own drum.

The promotion's booking is interesting.  It's nothing for them to book a lot of comedy in the same match that sees a procession of dives.  The wrestlers were as focused on getting basic heel/babyface reactions from the audience, doing small things to elicit responses as they were putting together a series of great spots.  For every great exchange, there were fun shenanigans.   The ring announcer, a regular with Kaiju Big Battel, had some funny lines and a great delivery.  The theme songs for the contestants were songs you'd never hear in any other promotion - from Rick Astley to Tears for Fears. 

From the outside looking in, one might think the proceedings would come off extremely campy or lame, but it worked to great success.  The balance brought levity to the proceedings and there were moments where some of the talents were acting like they were enjoying themselves as much as the fans were - and that's how true legitimate moments in this business are made.  There was far too much going on to truly, accurately catch it all - if you were at the show, you were too caught up in enjoying yourself to properly maintain mental notes.  I should know.  I wasn't able to. Thus, here's some random thoughts on the matches I saw - not really a play by play, but impressions on the proceedings. At the end, you'll find links for more detailed reports and information on CHIKARA. Enjoy.

*"The F1RST Family"Arik Cannon & Ryan Cruz & Darin Corbin defeated "Team EPIC/WAR" Austin Aries & Ryan Drago & Tony Kozina in 11:43.  For some reason I am completely unaware, Aries came running around the ring like the sappiest babyface ever slapping hands and later on did a complete Jay Strongbow/Tanaka comeback.  Kozina now sports a shaved head and has bulked up A LOT.  I thought he was former TNA star David Young when he came out.  Drago did a deal where he was overanxious and kept tagging himself into the match by slapping his partners.  At one point, Kozina had a miscue and slammed over the top rope so hard he had the nastiest rope burn you can imagine.

*"The Osirian Portal" Amasis & Ophidian & Escorpion Egipcio beat "Team Pro Wrestling Guerrilla" El Generico & The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson in 16:29.  This match was AWESOME.  The Jacksons remind me of Christian York and Joey Matthews when they were cutting their teeth and were one of the hardest working teams in the business in the early part of the decade.  The Portal are a trio of masked CHIKARA regulars with an Egyptian Pharoah theme.  I can't praise this match enough.  There 100,000 great spots and moves here.  I've seen a lot of good matches this year promoted by every major promotion between live shows, TV, PPV and DVD and none of them were as fun as this match was for me. 

*"Team Uppercut" Claudio Castagnoli & David Taylor & Bryan Danielson defeated "The Roughnecks"Brodie Lee & Eddie Kingston & Grizzly Redwood in 20:38.  Team Uppercut was used because, well, they use Uppercuts.  Kingston did some old school heel mouthing and stalling early.  At one point, he was choking Danielson and when the referee admonished him, he jokingly mocked "I have until five", which is a Danielson ROH line.  The place cracked up.  The storyline here was Redwood, "The Littlest Lumberjack" was obviously outmatched by his opponents and his partners were incredulous that he was getting wrecked.  It was good fun.  I saw a lot more potential in Lee as a performer here than ever before.

*"Da Soul Touchaz"Marshe Rockett & Trauma & Willie Richardson beat "Team CZW" Pinkie Sanchez & Greg Excellent & Beef Wellington in 14:56.  My first reaction was, "What the hell happened to CZW?"  The Touchaz came complete with a manager and valet and everyone was dressed to the nines in black and red matching outfits.  They were billed from Chicago and certainly had soul, hooting and dancing like a college sports team.    Beef Wellington was out of control with his comedy spots.  At one point, he rapped most of "Ice Ice Baby" before Richardson finished the verse and nailed him.  Wellington commented, "I deserved that."  Hilarious.  This was incredibly ridiculous fun.  If this took place on South Park, I'd have called shenanigans. 

*"F.I.S.T."Gran Akuma & Icarus & Chuck Taylor defeated "The Death Match Kings" Necro Butcher & Toby Klein & Brain Damage in 12:01.  As you could imagine, quite a bit of brawling here, but given the attention to a kid's audience, no blood, no weapons and nothing over the top brutal or violent. Damage has put on a lot of girth and thickness since I last saw him a few years back in CZW.  Taylor reminds me of a young Steve Corino in terms of facial reactions and timing.   At one point, Akuma and Necro sit in the chairs and exchange punches a la the Wrestler and a million other Necro matches.  

*"The Future is Now"Jimmy Olsen & Lince Dorado & Helios beat "Team DDT" Kota Ibushi & Kudo & Michael Nakazawa in 19:39.  Team DDT are from the Japanese promotion of the same name.  There were a lot of comedy spots with Nakazawa doing his ”oiled muscular guy” gimmick and being unable to be grasped by his opponent.  At one point, he poured the oil in his mouth with the idea of spewing it like mist, but was nailed and went down "choking" until someone stomped on his gut, causing him to "cough it up" into the air.    Ibushi wowed everyone with his insanely unique flying style.  If I was going to build a promotion, I'd be using him similar to how Paul Heyman used Sabu as an attraction early in ECW's run.  He's incredibly talented.  Kudo looked like a young Keiji Mutoh, right down to the haircut.

*"The Masters of a Thousand Holds"Mike Quackenbush & Jorge Rivera (aka Skayde) & Johnny Saint defeated "Incoherence" Delirious & Hallowicked & Frightmare in 16:43.  In reality, this should have been the main event, just based on the quality of the bout and the historical importance of Saint's debut.  Everyone in Inchoherence were masked and speaking Delirious' gibberish, which I thought was a great touch.  The Masters were made up of members who had all used the nickname at one point or another.  This was Saint's first ever bout in the United States, at the young old age of 68.  Even at his age, he was absolutely fn' awesome with tons of great old school European wrestling exchanges, reversals and moves.  He received one of the biggest reactions of anyone all night and with good reason - he's unbelievable.  If you don't believe me, search for him on YouTube.  He had a huge smile on his face for most of the bout when he was watching the others compete.  You got the feeling he was loving every second.  There were tons of cool and whacky submission variations here.  This was all technical finesse the likes we don't see anymore on a national scale.  Another great match.

*"The Unstable" Vin Gerard & Stigma & Colin Delaney defeated "The Cold Front" Al Snow & D-Lo Brown & Glacier in 26:22.  Iceberg had an entrance complete with "snow" falling.  Delaney is now sporting the most obnoxious mustache ever, since he's a heel.  Snow and Glacier's partner was supposed to be Georgia area wrestler Iceberg, who they announced at the start of the show had a flight canceled.  Since The Snow Front was without a partner, CHIKARA picked a new partner out of a hat.  They did a great job setting this up.  The first name out of the hat was Shinobi, a forgotten Snow WWE character.  Snow said, "No."  Then it was Avatar.  Snow got even madder.  Lief Cassidy.  Snow shoved down the ring announcer.  The next name was The Amazing Red.  The referee was running back and forth to the locker room looking for the replacement, then returning to announce each person wasn't there.  Hilarious.  The next name was D' Lo Brown.  The ref did his sprint but after he announced Brown wasn't here, music hit and out he came to a big pop.  The entire build to this made it a hell of a lot more important than just trotting Brown out there.  Once they got into the ring, it wasn't as great.  After all the wrestling on the undercard, they really couldn't follow the rest of the show.  It also probably went far too long, but wasn't a terrible bout - it just seemed out of place with everything else.  In the end, Brown hit his top rope frog splash on Delaney, who then shockingly came back to surprise him with a pin with a backslide.  A heel wins with a backslide?!   The Cold Front beat the hell out of Delaney to get their heat back afterwards.

Overall, the show was so good I regretted not being able to fit the rest of the weekend into my schedule, but thankfully, there's the magic of DVD to help me catch up.  The second night featured what has been described to me as an orgasmic six man tag with Team Uppercut vs. The Masters of 1,000 Holds.  Danielson vs. Saint?  Oh Man.  Where has this been my entire life?

Notes:  The crowd was in the 500-600 range...Fans springing for first row sat in nice chairs you'd find in a parlor, as opposed to traditional steel folding chairs....There was almost a flea market like atmosphere with all the regulars signing autographs and selling t-shirts...Former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky was visiting at the show, the first wrestling event he's been to since departing the company.  Sapolsky has been extremely complimentary of CHIKARA in recent blogs....For a detailed rundown of the entire tournament results, visit www.CHIKARAFANS.COM.

For more on CHIKARA, visit www.CHIKARAPro.com.

CHIKARA King of Trios will be released on DVD by www.smartmarkvideo.com.

Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.

 

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