Wrestling Is had a bunch of different subpromotions (Art, Fun, Awesome, Intense, Respect, a C word? Cool? anyways they all spelled CHIKARA together) as part of some weird CHIKARA bullshit. I don’t know. Honestly, by this point they’ve lost me and I don’t especially care to be found. It’s all actually good as hell, because Wrestling Is [x] gives people time to just goddamned wrestle.
I could not think of two better CHIKARA guys that I’d rather see just goddamned wrestle. Quack’s a shithead, whatever, but this is him totally in his element and it is so easy to watch.
It’s a fifteen minute or less opening match on a B show, but that doesn’t particularly matter with this pairing, because they’re just gonna grapple for virtually the entire match anyways. It’s a pairing that isn’t hurt at all by the circumstances meaning they’re not going to go “big” with it, and in all probability, may have been helped out by being allowed to just riff it out down on the ground. It’s another of these wonderful 2012-2013 proto GRAPPLEFUCK style encounters, the best thing to happen to independent wrestling all decade stylistically. Everything they do is cool, crisp, and smooth, and while it perhaps lacks the violence of Timothy Thatcher at his best or the wizardry of Zack Sabre Jr. at his best, there’s always a clear competition going on at the heart of the thing.
Teacher and student is the heart of it, but that’s not all that it is by the end. The match begins that way before branching off into a struggle for pace as much as it’s each man trying to top the other. Quackenbush needs things to be faster to win, and he has more flash and showmanship to the things he tries to do. In contrast, Gulak stretches Quackenbush out with more aggression and what seems like a stronger sense of purpose. Quackenbush is versatile in the way someone in his position always is and often has to be, but Gulak is young and dogmatic, and wants to make Quackenbush tap out. He rarely goes for anything but a submission, and even gets a little dirty at the end by going after Quack’s bad wrist. Quackenbush is versatile though, and turns the match into the faster sort that Gulak is less suited towards. The rigidity of Gulak’s attack costs him, and Quack is able to outmaneuver and get him into the Alligator Clutch for the win.
A wonderful wonderful thing. A technical clinic wrapped up inside of something broader and much more universal.
***1/2
HANDWERK 