This was a Block B match in the 12 Large Summit to determine CHIKARA’s first Grand Champion.
It’s another one of those rare match ups that made the 12 Large Summit so special. It’s two of CHIKARA’s most popular, longest tenured, and all around best babyfaces, who rarely ever get to meet one on one. We saw in March that they had a lot of chemistry though, and this more than delivers on the promise of their interactions then.
The major story is that Jigsaw’s missed the tournament so far because of a bicep injury, and might be coming back prematurely to avoid being eliminated entirely. Fire Ant is as respectful of the arm as possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not injured. As satisfying and engaging as quality limbwork can be, there’s something about a match like this that hits me in an even better place. As impressive as it is to pick a story and stick with it, it’s even more impressive to start out with a story and tell it this effectively while taking such a minimalist approach to that story. The arm matters in spite of Fire Ant being a good guy about it. Jigsaw is a one armed man for so much of the match after it’s innocuously reinjured early on, and it gives Fire Ant the openings he needs to counteract whatever Jigsaw has over him because of experience alone.
Jigsaw knows enough to keep Fire Ant from hitting any of his big signatures through experience and wit alone, but his arm provides the escape lever that Fire Ant needs to do the same. It’s at the end that Fire Ant finally does go after the arm, and they couldn’t have laid it out any better. By avoiding it for the first five-sixths or so of the match, Fire Ant is established as a good man. In going for it in the end, when the match has given him little other choice, he’s established not so much as an opportunist, but as someone willing to take what’s there. You feel for Jigsaw, but not at the expense of Fire Ant’s position as CHIKARA’s most likable babyface.
Jigsaw survives a cross armbreaker and short-arm scissors, so Fire Ant does something real cool and puts on a sort of short-arm scissors Kimura Lock instead, and Jigsaw has to surrender.
Nothing that’s going to blow anybody away, but a really smart and satisfying undercard affair from two guys who specialize in that sort of thing.
***
HANDWERK 