Even if he spent most of his tenure over the last eleven years here under another identity, it’s Drew Gulak paying farewell to CHIKARA, and it’s a momentous occasion.
Given that most of Quack’s 2010s post-full time schedule work are these lighthearted grappling and science based affairs against the likes of a Johnny Saint or Billy Roc or Zack Sabre Jr. it seemed obvious that Gulak would it into that sort of a match. Gulak’s as much of a grapple-fuck style guy as any of them, he works the style he does, and he’s one of the more famous and accomplished CHIKARA Wrestle Factory graduates at that. If he was going to go out against Quack, you’d think it would be another version of those matches one Gulak never really got to have on this level.
To the utmost credit of both men, that’s not what happened at all.
Certainly, the match has a lot to offer in that regard. A great deal of this is conducted on the ground, and it is what you’d expect for two of the better technicians of the century to date. It’s smooth, it’s gritty (Quack never got enough credit for the way he would inject some struggle into things, largely because he also made many of the worst facial expressions in the world), and there’s a great sense of escalation to what they do off of their feet.
Beautifully though, this is a far meaner and nastier match than I would have expected.
Tempers flare early on when both men get a little more intense by going for the knees, shots get thrown and in particular to Quackenbush’s notoriously hurt back, and the match never really becomes purely scientific again.
It is a thousand percent to this match’s benefit.
Gulak and Quackenbush are both at their best when they abandon a lot of the pretense and get shitty and petty with opponents, so naturally, it is a perfect fit when they decide to do that to each other. Every shot is loud as hell, and they’re all thrown with an extra sense of pettiness to it. A long relationship breaking down in to this in a moment of pressure, Gulak being as he’s always been under his own name, and Quackenbush’s manners once again disintegrating under the slightest hint of trouble.
When the match gets meaner, it gets MEANER. Elbows and clubs to the back and little wrenches on the knees. There’s a switch that flips around halfway through here, and while that switch flicks gradually in the other direction, it flicks all the same. Respect vanishes, there’s so much more force and intensity in every single thing that happens from that moment on. Even cradles and roll up trap counters have an increased urgency and desperation to them, which is the most impressive thing of all. “Everything” doesn’t just mean the real hard shots, the stuff that it’s easy to make feel spirited and mean, it means all of the smaller and more miniscule stuff too.
In the end, Quackenbush wastes too much time, never quite having the killer instinct Gulak does, and the Quackendriver I is dropped out of and into the Gulock for the win. Not the absolute best they could have done maybe, but an absolutely perfect finish. Gulak wins because he has what Quackenbush never one hundred percent developed, finally beating his trainer because he’ll grab the biggest thing he’s got when the moment comes, rather than showing off or simply being casually rude like Quackenbush.
A lovely departure, and more of a surprising one than a fitting one, bringing EVOLVE to CHIKARA for the night. Yet another more hidden gem out of Gulak’s 2016, and out of Quackenbush’s career at large.
HANDWERK 