Pre-Show Notes
-Gibsonville, North Carolina. The New Mid-Atlantic Sportatorium. October 25, 2014.
-I went to North Carolina for the first time two summers ago. Great place, good people.
-You’re welcome.
-It’s the first show after King of Trios 2014! Notable happenings included:
1) The reformation of the BDK under Jakob Hammermeier.
2) Jigsaw departing Gekido and the Flood.
3) The unmasking of Deucalion, revealing a scary killer with no irises.
4) A Devastation Corporation victory, allowing the Flood to leverage that into THINGS!
5) Eddie Kingston paragon interrupted Jimmy Jacobs, quitting the Flood, which he had joined only a month before.
-On an unrelated note, I love Mass Effect.
-Tonight’s Bond movie is a Sean Connery selection. Anything I know about it comes from a Mad Magazine parody entitled “Thunderblah.” I found my dad’s old collection in the attic as a young man.
-Solid crowd tonight. Decent venue too, other than the Confederate flag inlaid on some other flag across the hard camera.
-King of Trios fallout time!

The Spectral Envoy (Frightmare, Hallowicked & UltraMantis Black) defeated the Bloc Party (Mr. Azerbaijan, Prakash Sabar & the Proletariat Boar of Moldova) via Pinfall
Both of these teams are looking for redemption tonight after being eliminated in the first round of King of Trios; Bloc Party by Team UK and the Spectral Envoy by the Flood.

Also, OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS! MR. AZERBAIJAN IS CHUCK TAYLOR! No wonder he won all those Azerbaijan Sexiest Man Contests… Seriously, what a credit to Chucky T that he is able to wrestle in such a completely different style that I never noticed before tonight.

Frightmare was picked on and isolated early, as is his custom. He finally reached his partners, only for both of them to eat Gores from the Proletariat Boar. UltraMantis got beat up until Frightmare toped everyone and sent Mr. Azerbaijan into a Rydeen Bomb for the win.

Solid match. There was little doubt as to the winners, but it was worth the ride.

3.0 (Scott Parker & Shane Matthews) defeated the Aftermath (Chet Sterling & Trevor Lee) via Submission
The Aftermath are a couple of local guys. I can assure you that Trevor Lee will not be local for long. He is ripping it up in PWG right now. 3.0 sits at two points and will earn a title shot with a victory tonight.

The Aftermath attacked 3.0 to start things off. Aftermath seemed to be the clear heels despite the local connection and Trevor Lee’s ascent. He’s only 21! We might have a local referee as well, although he’s donning Chikara’s baby blue.

Aftermath worked over Big Magic before the match broke into a nice back and forth affair. Jagged bodyslammed Sterling (Move of the night!) into a Matthews Boston Crab for the win.

Lee was probably the most impressive guy out there, particularly when he caught a flying crossbody and turned it into a tilt o’whirl backbreaker. Too bad we didn’t get to see this move.

3.0 earned the next shot at the Throwbacks. Can they become the only three-time Chikara Campeonatos de Parejas?

Ashley Remington defeated Juan Francisco de Coronado via Pinfall
This match stemmed from King of Trios Night 2, where Juan Francisco attacked Remington during Ashley’s match with Yamamoto, aka Yoshi Tatsu.

Before the match, Juan Francisco said he has the world’s greatest German suplex and would use it to beat Remington tonight and wore a hilarious look of disdain as the match began.

Nice technical work to start. Both of these guys are great at that stuff, but you don’t necessarily expect it from Remington. The smooth sailin’ continues until a rogue spider interrupted the proceedings. Juan Francisco took advantage of Remington’s manners to take control.

It was a solid match the rest of the way until Remington turned a rollup into a bridging wheelbarrow suplex for the win. Juan Francisco was not appreciative of the three count or Remington’s fruit basket, although he eventually came around to at least the latter.

Great match, although I was surprised to see Remington win the first encounter. I assumed their tiff was going to get dragged out over two or three months. No complaints here, though.

The Osirian Portal (Amasis & Ophidian) defeated the Wrecking Crew (Flex Rumblecrunch & Oleg the Usurper) via Pinfall
This is a rematch of sorts from King of Trios Night 3. The Osirian Portal cleaned house in the tag team gauntlet until the Wrecking Crew vanquished them with some extracurriculars at the end. No Jaka tonight, however.

Ophidian, meanwhile, discovered one of my pet peeves and used “irregardless” in their pre-match promo.

Pretty good match. There’s only so much you can do with the two weakest members of Sidney Bakabella’s client list, but the Osirian Portal got every ounce out of them. Things got a little dicey at the end, however. Everyone wanted fast-paced near falls. Unfortunately, Rumblecrunch doesn’t do anything quickly or smoothly.

Thankfully, the match ended well. Rumblecrunch demanded that Oleg set up for the Death Blow. Unfortunately for him, Oleg had no idea how it worked, allowing the Osirian Portal to steal the match with an Osirian Sacrament to Oleg.

The Devastation Corporation (Blaster McMassive & Max Smashmaster) defeated the Colony (Fire Ant & Worker Ant) via Pinfall
I hope this match was made by Sidney Bakabella after King of Trios. Winning King of Trios is great, but the winners should probably be able to leverage it into some title shots, or at least points opportunities.

This was a good match. The power of Worker Ant provided a nice challenge that the Devastation Corporation rarely has to deal with. Fire Ant has been one of Chikara’s best for years now and Devastation Corporation Prime can have an exciting, fast-paced match with anyone nowadays.

Whenever things got slow or awkward, it was Worker Ant. The best example was probably Worker Ant’s terrible super hurricanrana. Worker Ant just fell on his back while Smashmaster flipped himself off the turnbuckle.

Devastation Corporation awesomely threw Fire Ant around, finally culminating in a Death Blow. Impressive victory and your MATCH OF THE EVENING, albeit one of the season’s weaker ones.

Silver Ant defeated Shynron via Pinfall
I just want you to know that Shynron is in my doghouse for no-selling Sanada’s poison mist at King of Trios Night 3? Everyone automatically earns my goodwill for being in Chikara, but Skynron has lost the benefit of the doubt. Unless he turns into Ricochet, he’s unlikely to get it back either. Also, I hate his music. I was terrible/funny before. Now, it’s just terrible.

That said, this could be an interesting match. Shynron’s flips against Silver Ant’s technical brilliance. This will be a good measuring stick for Shynron and honestly, there’s no way I can’t smile at a corkscrew senton off the turnbuckle pole on the outside.

Silver Ant wrestled circles around Shynron in the beginning. Shynron got overconfident with his flips and Silver Ant capitalized, working on Shynron’s arm. Cocky young guy vs. wily vet who’s not really a vet.

Shynron came back, vaulting and hand-springing around as though Silver Ant hadn’t been tearing off his arm for the last several minutes. Shynron grabbed and beam of some sort on the ceiling that ran across the ring (with his crippled arm, of course) and dropped into a Silver Ant Ace Crusher. Match over.

Goddammit, Shynron is so fracking awful. How easy should this be? Unnecessarily flippy dude gets worked on by technician. Flippy dude is forced out of his game. Flippy dude comes back. Flippy dude forget he’s hurt, tries an unnecessary flip, hurts self, and loses.

Instead, this story was unnecessarily flippy dude gets worked on by technician. Flippy dude in no way changes how he wrestles. Flippy dude comes back. Nothing from the first 4/5 of the match matters.

You tell me which of those stories makes for better wrestling and whether you think Silver Ant or Shynron was to blame.

Eddie Kingston, Icarus & The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Mark Angelosetti) defeated The Flood (17, Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (Jakob Hammermeier & Nøkken) & Jimmy Jacobs) (w/ Lithuanian Snow Troll) via Pinfall
This is a rematch of sorts from the post-show brawl at King of Trios Night 3. This is both a chance for Jacobs to get some revenge on Eddie Kingston, but also a chance for Jakob Hammermeier and the BDK to show their quality. Also, there’s always a chance for the Flood to weaken Icarus before his title defense against Jacobs tomorrow night. Lots going on here!

Jimmy Jacobs cut an excellent promos running down Kid Cyclone and Eddie Kingston, although this one ran a little long. On an unrelated note, could Icarus’ theme be any blander? If you could turn mayo on white bread into music, this is what it would sound like.

Eddie Kingston didn’t seem interested in wrestling the Flood or working with his teammates either. He just wanted to selfishly brawl with Jacobs, just as Jacobs had said. Chikara seemed to recognize it as well. Both Touchdown and Dasher purposefully avoided tagging Kingston in. Eddie finally comes in via lucha rules and distracted himself by taunting his teammates for not tagging him in early. Nøkken trucked him and took control of the match.

The faces went into peril and Kingston was bypassed for the hot tags and a sweet signature sequence somehow turned into an awkward strike sequence. Kingston ate a Spear on the apron. Icarus drilled Jacobs with a pair of big moves but couldn’t keep him down.

Icarus went to put him away, but Kingston wanted Jacobs for himself and accidentally sent Icarus into the future with a backfist. Jacobs disposed of Kingston and took aim at Icarus. Kingston Halo Two’s Jacobs’ Spear, allowing Icarus to roll him up for the win.

This was a nice next step for Eddie Kingston’s saga. He wrestles with passion, not logic. Everything in this match made perfect sense because of that. The dissension between Kingston and his team made sense too. As Scott Parker pointed out on commentary, there’s no reason for Chikara to trust Eddie Kingston. He’s already switched alignments twice. Why would you trust him? Then, as the cherry on top, a nice bit of self-sacrifice started to repair some of that damaged relationship.

My only complaint is that Icarus pinned Jacobs cleanly the night before their match. If you are going to have a dusty or murky finish, you might as well let the rudo win to set up the future match. No matter who wins tomorrow, this didn’t build my anticipation one bit.

Overall
Good show overall, although weirdly low-intensity. Everyone wrestled with purpose and the crowd was great, but it felt like something of a King of Trios hangover. With the Grand Championship match the next night, it was mostly narrative clean-up from the previous month.

Tomorrow is “Moonraker!”

Should I Buy It
For the Wrestling? Sure. Solid enough show. Nothing amazing, but no duds either.
For the Storytelling? Yeah. It was mostly falling action from King of Trios, but hey, loose ends gotta get tied.
For the History? Nope. Nothing particularly worthwhile.