Tag Archives: Soldier Ant

Chikara “A New Start” Review

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2015-01-25-ANewStart
Pre-Show Notes
-2300 Arena. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. January 25, 2015.
-Welcome back, Chikara! And welcome, everyone, to Season 15!
-I’m back! I started doing these reviews last year because no one else was and nature abhors a vacuum. There still appears to be a vacuum, so here I am I guess….
-“A New Start” seems like an appropriate title after the “resurrection” of Chikara and the success of their subsequent campaign for survival. It’s an imperfect analogy, but think of the resurrection as the American Revolution and Season 14 as the War of 1812. I think that makes King of Trios the Burning of Washington D.C. and Kingston’s defection as the Battle of Lake Champlain? I’ll show myself out…
-Speaking of Season 14, feel free to check out my reviews from 2014.
-This year’s title theme is Arrested Development, which is a show I’m meaning to get around to SO HARD. Unfortunately, there’s probably several dramas on my queue before my top comedies.
-The sound mixing was not particularly good on the MP4. The announcers were WAY louder than the crowd and the action in the ring. It’s tough to invest emotionally if you don’t feel surrounded by the crowd. At least Chikara’s announcers are fantastic…
-The Camerawork was kind of sketchy as well, although that seemed to be the result of having no good place for the hard-cam, which was set up really far away from the ring.

vlcsnap-2015-02-11-16h32m45s65The Wrecking Crew (The Devastation Corporation (Blaster McMassive, Flex Rumblecrunch & Max Smashmaster), Jaka & Oleg the Usurper) (w/Sidney Bakabella) defeated the Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Mark Angelosetti), Jervis Cottonbelly, Princess KimberLee & Shynron via Pinfall
The Wrecking Crew kicking off the new season? Yes, please! And Max Smashmaster has hair now! It’s almost as weird as seeing Kane with hair. To meet Sidney’s open challenge, the Throwbacks recruited the often-squished Jervis Cottonbelly, Rey de Voladores Shynron, and Princess KimberLee. This smells like “Team of Unbooked Tecnicos,” but I’m in. The Devastation Corporation stopped having bad matches early last year, the Throwbacks were my 2014 Chikara MVPs, and the other three can be fantastic when used properly.

Jonathan Barber checked the inflation of Mr. Touchdown’s football to start, which was probably a decent joke on January 25th. On February 10th, not so much. Thankfully, Dasher busted out an old-timey air pump to save the day. Joke status: Rescued. Continue reading →

Chikara “Tomorrow Never Dies” Review

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TND_340Pre-Show Notes
-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2300 Arena. December 6, 2014.
-2300 Arena is the renamed ECW Arena. I have no nostalgia, however. That was a bit before my wrestling-fan time.
-It’s the season finale!
-Barring the revelation that it was all a dream, the Flood will still be around for Season 15. Some sort of a game-changer is bound to happen tonight, however!
-Tonight’s Bond film is probably the blandest of Pierce Brosnan’s films. It wasn’t as enjoyable as Goldeneye or The World Is Not Enough, but not as terrible as Die Another Day, mostly because very little is as terrible as Die Another Day.
-Stick around for a Slazenger1-less set of Superlatives in a week or so. Consider it a final evaluation of Season 14 combined with the Slammys.
-After that, however, only time will tell if I continue these reviews into Season 15. Kevin Ford over at the amazing Chikara Special seems to be picking back up with things. This project was always more of a “nature abhors a vacuum” sort of thing anyways. These have been a blast, but I can love Chikara without them.
-Without further ado…

2Heidi Lovelace defeated Missile Assault Ant (w/ Arctic Rescue Ant & Orbit Adventure Ant) via Pinfall for the Young Lions Cup
This pre-show podcast match (watch it hereLINK) is to crown the 11th Young Lions Cup Champion. It was a long way to the finals for both of these wrestlers. Lovelace beat Arctic Rescue Ant, Princess KimberLee, Proletariat Boar of Moldova and more to get here while Missile Assault Ant survived the likes of Race Jaxon, Prakash Sabar, and Shynron. The last Young Lions Cup Champion was Mr. Touchdown. Touchdown, however, didn’t get to do much with it other than have a couple of good defenses against ACH and Saturyne.

Speaking of Saturyne, I wonder how she and her abs are doing these days…

Missile Assault Ant isn’t a fan of sportsantship, but Heidi doesn’t back down. Missile took her head off with a boot and took control, aided by his two stablemates. Heidi showed her fighting spirit by shaking off the Triple Northern Lights and kicking out of a dropkick at 1.

Heidi eventually came back and took out Xtreme Force with a dive before shoving Missile Assault Ant into a teammate, setting him up for a spike hurricanrana for the win. I don’t buy Missile Assault Ant losing after Heidi’s first offense of the evening, but I’m not disappointed by the result. Heidi has worked her butt off and that finisher does look vicious. Solid start, kicking off an important show with an important match for an important thing.

3Ashley Remington defeated Juan Francisco de Coronado via Pinfall
Juan Francisco came out with two lovely Ecuadorian ladies sporting the pinnacle of Ecuadorian fashion. As the match began, Bryce told us the match could only be won by pinfall following a German Suplex.

The usual smooth sailin’ chicanery started the match before Juan Francisco took control after Spearing Remington through the ropes onto the floor. The back and forth match stayed relatively high-octane the whole time.

Remington hit a spinning facebuster and went into a cover. Barber refused to count. After some counters, Juan Francisco hit the match’s first German Suplex, but Ashley kicked out at 2. Juan Francisco followed that up with a German Suplex on the apron. Remington came back, however, lifting de Coronado from the apron into the ring in one smooth (believe that or not) motion for the German Suplex win.

This was a fantastic match. If anyone needed a reminder that both of these guys are incredible wrestlers, this was it. They told a beautiful story of two evenly talented guys who really don’t like each other. I also loved all the counters throughout the match. It’s almost as though both men are professionals who might have already wrestled each other twice…

After the match, Continue reading →

Chikara “King of Trios, Night 2” Review

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Chikara-TriosPre-Show
-Palmer Center. Easton, Pennsylvania. September 20, 2014.
-Rey de Voladores (King of Flyers) returns! The four-way between Kota Ibushi, Jigsaw, El Generico, and Malachi Jackson from 2009 is on my shortlist of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen.
-There’s not much to be said here that wasn’t said before, so let’s break down the remaining teams.
WON’T WINS:
GEKIDO: Internal dissention between Jigsaw and the others
Team UK and Spirit Squad: Do I need to explain?
The Colony: Injury to Worker Ant, already won tournament
MIGHT WINS:
3Peck0
Might win because…Happy, they all deserve it, would be victory for Chikara, sort of unpredictable
Might not because…Maybe too happy, hard to take them over the Flood team
The Flood
Might win because…Deucalion, Jacobs, and Kingston are the big bads of the Flood, lots of potential distractions, story needs the drama a major victory would bring
Might not because…Volgar wins King of Trios
Golden Trio
Might win because…They are the top three guys in Chikara
Might not because…They already have all the gold. what’s the point of more?
Devastation Corporation
Might win because…Big and scary, seem like they are going to be around a while
Might not because…Haven’t been around long enough to “deserve” it, more intriguing Flood option on the table

vlcsnap-2014-10-21-15h44m53s170Shynron defeats Chuck Taylor, Rich Swann, and Tigre Uno via Pinfall in a Rey de Voladores Four Way Elimination Match
I am so excited to see Rey de Voladores back. I’m also excited to see Rich Swann. When he was here in 2011, he was just a flippy dude. Now, he’s one of the better wrestlers in North America. It was also an inspired, if easy, decision to put Taylor and Swann together. They were stablemates in Dragon Gate USA for a while. Swann is greeted by the Chikarmy with his familiar “All night long…” chant.

Taylor cut a hilariously racist promo before the match. I can’t hate this guy. I just can’t. Tigre Uno is here from TNA. All I ask is that Shynron doesn’t win simply because he’s the Chikara guy. If you want to honor the real King of Flyers, either Swann or AR Fox is your winner.

To summarize, there were lots and lots of awesome flips and it was awesome. Taylor was knocked out first by a Swann frog splash. The crowd booed. Swann tapped to a sweet Tigre submission. The crowd booed. Shynron eliminated Tigre with second rope 630 Senton!

You know what? Screw it. Give Shynron the title as long as he uncorks something similarly crazy in the Final. His normal matches don’t always work because he’s all flips. But if you have a mini-tournament based on flippitude? Yeah, that’s his entire life’s purpose. I’m fine with it being validated.

vlcsnap-2014-10-21-15h46m42s2373Peck0 (3.0 (Scott Parker & Shane Matthews) & Archibald Peck) defeated GEKIDO (17 & The Pieces of Hate (Jigsaw & The Shard)) via Submission
Gekido comes out and Jigsaw seemed depressed due to his brother disowning him the day before. That makes sense, right? My guess is that 17 isn’t very good at pep-talks either.

Speaking of Jigsaw, his nonverbal communication is always off the charts. He’s been one of Chikara’s best storytellers since trouble began to brew between him and Mike Quackenbush. While a mask might restrict facial expressions, they do force a wrestler to become bigger with their body language, which in turn better conveys emotion and tells a better story. Remember El Generico? Nobody better, except probably Shawn Michaels.

Jigsaw wanted to start, but 17 and Shard forced him out. Jigsaw was sad. Shenanigans to start. Even Shard busts out some humor. Both these teams are expert storytellers in their own way.

The crowd chanted at Jigsaw, who looked more and more despondent as the match went on. Even as Jigsaw landed some signature moves on 3Peck0, Continue reading →