Eddie Kingston vs. Mike Quackenbush, CHIKARA High Noon (11/13/2011)

(ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: nothing I say here should be read as praise for Mike Quackenbush the person. This is going to be an overwhelmingly positive review, so let’s get it out of the way very early on. Fuck him. It doesn’t erase a remarkable body of work, and while I’m not ever going to tell someone to go out of their way to watch someone’s work if it makes them uncomfortable, this is perhaps the Quackenbush matches that holds up the best out of all of them because of the result. Again though, not praise for anything but the professional work. If that’s a problem, x out of this one, it’s fine. I’m not upset, it’s a valid thing to do. You might be a little bummed about the 2011 YEAR IN LISTS too because he had a hell of a year, but also that’s just gonna be like a thing this decade when the British scene gains more and more prominence in the middle of the decade. I don’t know what to do about that. Sorry.)

This was the finals of the 12 Large Summit and the inaugural match for the CHIKARA Grand Championship.

Before watching this, one should watch The Eddie Kingston Promo. THE Eddie Kingston promo. It’s the realest, rawest, and most emotional piece ever put out by a guy renowned for cutting real, raw, and emotional promos. It’s one of three to five promos that I would call the best of the decade. In the right frame of mind, you could tell me it’s the best promo of all time. No argument. It’s that good.

The idea of a “money promo” is sort of lost on people of my generation. It’s a cool concept, the whole “talk them into the arenas” thing, but I never really felt promos like that. I’ve been brought to arenas by angles that made me want to see something. I bought a ticket to my first ROH show because I wanted to see CM Punk murder Jimmy Rave in a steel cage, etc. Promos have never really done that for me. I had fallen out of CHIKARA over the last year or two, between moving two states over, a brief drug addiction, not having a great computer or internet connection or money for DVDs like I did as a teenager, throwing myself into college, tutoring, work, all of the things that get in the way of tertiary parts of a hobby. But, I saw this and I needed to see Eddie Kingston do this thing.

I bought the show because of this promo.

It’s an important match, to say the least. It’s the biggest match in CHIKARA history, as its longest delayed major singles match, the first match for the debuting singles title, the finals of the most important tournament CHIKARA ever ran, *and* the main event of the company’s first ever iPPV. It’s so overwhelmingly important that “payoff of a years long redemption story for the company’s all time greatest hero” isn’t a guaranteed number one reason. That is still a hell of a reason though. Having it come against Quackenbush is maybe the greatest little touch in all of this. Eddie Kingston could have done this by finally overcoming Claudio Castagnoli (and was maybe supposed to?) or another student, but it’s the ultimate validation to instead have it come not only against his trainer, but against this guy, this monolith of what CHIKARA is, this monument to How Things Are Supposed To Be Done. Bryan is gone, Hero is gone(ish), all these people are gone, and Mike Quackenbush is all that’s left of the now-old unemotional technical genius archetype that used to be the trademark of all the old kings. It’s always been the contrast to the wild emotionality of Eddie Kingston. Every outburst, turn, bender, and step over the line Eddie’s done in and/or around CHIKARA has stood out in contrast to the calm consistency of guys like Quackenbush, Castagnoli, and Hero atop the promotion in the past. If this is Eddie Kingston’s official and formal ascent to that position, it’s also Quackenbush formally becoming the last of a dying breed himself. This match is the closest thing we ever had to a real and proper changing of the guard match from style to style and era to era, even if that change already happened (I would put the marker down here at the 2011 BOLA, for the main event, Generico finally beating Claudio, and the Kings putting the Young Bucks over).

It especially stands out as such because of how literally they take that, and how literally they take the styles clash. Each man has a definitive style they want to wrestle and while they are both completely capable of meeting in the middle, the most interesting approach is to make the subtext the actual text. The best part of the match for me might be the first minute, where Quack casually tries to go into his usual wristlocks and Eddie immediately asserts himself with an elbow out the first time and a chop out the second. The trademark level head allows Quackenbush to keep at it, but when Eddie’s leg gives out running off the ropes, Quackenbush wastes no time getting serious. It’s a major strength that they not only take no more than a minute or two to really get into the meat of the thing, but also that it’s a moment with real weight behind it if someone’s been following along.

A month ago, Mike Quackenbush fought Sara Del Rey in the de facto semi finals. Sara had no history of leg injuries, and Quackenbush similarly made a decision early on to target the knee, stuck with it, and won as a result. Eddie Kingston has a history of knee problems. They’ve cost him against Castagnoli. They’ve cost him against Danielson. They’ve cost him a lot of times in a lot of matches, it’s not just about these losses to wrestlers like Mike Quackenbush, but it’s also a lot about this familiar situation coming around again, now with a little more recent history to hang over it. Of course, Eddie Kingston’s selling is terrific. I’ll say it until people accept it as a truism, Eddie Kingston is the best knee seller of his generation. I only fail to call him the best knee seller of all time because Toshiaki Kawada was a little better, and he was the best wrestler of an entire decade. Eddie is so good at this. All the little touches, all the big touches. I wrote about Moxley vs. Regal that aired a week before this that Moxley’s arm selling felt real because at every point that a pro wrestler might do something minor because it’s how you do a thing, Moxley would do it in a way that a man with one arm would do it. Eddie Kingston is the same way with the leg, and he succeeds for all the same reasons, because he feels realer than everything else around him.

Just as much credit belongs with Quackenbush for how great this match is. I know that’s…you know, whatever. Feel how you feel, it’s all valid. Being a piece of shit doesn’t erase the work done, all of that, it’s not a conversation I feel the need to put into print here, so I think we can leave it there and in the disclaimer. But he’s so great here. The little facial tics reacting to not only not being the firm favorite, but a crowd and the increasing mass at ringside, mostly students of his, all being 100% against him for any number of reasons. The mechanical work itself. He also gets meaner and meaner, not just about the hurt knee, but in general. He goes to the eyes at a point! It’s perfect for Eddie’s big moment, validating every point he ever made about CHIKARA’s superheroes/Super Friends.

It’s a fascinating performance that not only takes him further than he’s ever gone as a character, elevating the situation beyond what it already was, but turns him into a representation of something else. An old order to be torn down, this symbol of everything Eddie still has to get past and overcome. I think this match ages incredibly no matter what, but with everything that’s gone on in 2020, it’s the aspect of this match that ages the best. It would be one thing for me to hold this up given what’s gone on, but with the match turning Quackenbush into a monolith to be torn down, it’s entirely possible that for some people, this might be an even better match now because of it. I don’t know. It didn’t factor into the latest viewing of this classic, but I’m not you. Give it a shot.

The match, essentially, is Mike Quackenbush trying to plug a damn. He can’t let Eddie get moving and do Eddie Kingston stuff. Quackenbush can win in his match, and absolutely cannot win in Eddie Kingston’s match. Once the dam breaks, he’s fucked, and he knows it. When it breaks open finally, the match is over within a minute. It’s incredibly cool to see how totally correct that little estimation is. It’s a little touch that, in the background of Eddie Kingston’s crowning moment, puts Quackenbush over as this old little genius who had the complete right read on a situation. Eddie does too though, even if he has to make a concession to the old ways just this once. Eddie knocks Quackenbush off the top rope near the end with a Backfist to the Future to the legs. It’s a magnificent bump by Quackenbush, and while he’s not quite Eddie, he does a nice little job selling the damage to the leg. It’s the opening Eddie needs to begin to unload, and he does. It’s a concession to every complaint about Eddie never stopping to think, but a concession ultimately doesn’t mean shit if Eddie wins anyways.

A barrage of suplexes leads to two Backfists to the Future in a row, and Eddie Kingston wins the 12 Large Summit, the Grand Championship, and so much more than that which cannot be summed up within a trophy or a belt.

It’s the emotional high point of the entire company. It is the long long long overdue catharsis for one of independent wrestling’s all time great characters and heroes. It’s a match that you could realistically call the best singles match in company history. I wouldn’t, this is a Fire Ant vs. Vin Gerard loyalist blog (and Kingston/Castagnoli III in 2009 beyond that too), but it’s the sort of thing someone could say to me and I wouldn’t argue with it or be mad at all. It’s a completely logical thing to say and to believe in. Beyond what it means, it’s also just an incredibly tight match. It’s among the most efficient epics in the history of U.S. independent wrestling. It’s pared down and austere as hell (like most of the tournament, which is SO cool to have reflected in the finals), but it’s all great — every goddamned second — so it doesn’t matter. There is a point to to everything that they do, everything in the match matters, and there is stunningly little fit on it. Every piece of this matters and has value. It matters, it’s perfectly constructed, and beyond that, it feels good as hell.

This match is both great and Important, and you should absolutely make the time for it if you haven’t yet somehow.

****

 

 

Mike Quackenbush vs. Sara Del Rey, CHIKARA Small But Mighty (10/7/2011)

This was a Block A match in the 12 Large Summit, and effectively a block final.

The final 12 Large match I’m going to cover on here is a perfect match to show why this tournament was so cool. Beyond just being a first time match, it’s an incredibly fun styles clash that no other promotion probably would have ever thought to book. It’s two fully three dimensional characters being thrown at each other with something on the line, where the match once again feels less like two wrestlers plugged into a match and instead of like a match specifically that only these two could have had in this exact way. I would love to one day be able to sum up that sort of idea without it feeling clunky. Today is still not the day that that happens.

Very specifically though, this is a match that works because it feels exactly correct. Mike Quackenbush is a better technician than anyone left on the independent scene, but Del Rey is a Bryan student and experienced enough to make it really hard on him. She also knows Quackenbush well enough now after over a year and a half of BDK vs. CHIKARA tags that it’s very hard for Quack to wrestle the kind of match he usually does. Specifically to that point, Sara does not take Mike’s fancy shit initially and beats the crap out of him, forcing Quackenbush to get uncommonly rude (on screen) to take over. Quackenbush specifically kicks out Del Rey’s right knee and spends the match working on it. Del Rey fights him every step of the way, as stubborn as always, and it only makes Quack meaner and more aggressive in response. It’s perfect work from Quackenbush. He ties her up, kicks or blocks the knee out when it becomes too tough, and always gets just a little bit nastier. It’s a little weird to think of him as any kind of hero now, but he’s specifically very good here as walking that very thing tightrope. He’s never a bad guy in this match, but he does things in just the specifically correct sort of ways to ensure that you are getting behind Del Rey, while never losing what his character is. Perfect flagbearer/face of the company/measuring stick kind of work.

For her part, Sara Del Rey is wonderful. They’re both in a similar kind of spot as these more hard nosed veteran wrestlers and for as good as Quack is with all of the little touches to tell you that he’s still good, but that this is about Sara as a sympathetic figure, Del Rey is maybe even better about actually just being that sympathetic figure. For whatever reason, I have trouble sometimes cheering for a purely wholesome put-upon babyface, but because this match begins with Sara beating the hell out of Quack and because she’s always able to turn it around through superior striking, I’m able to much more easily buy into her as a sympathetic character when her knee is being attacked. Someone just getting owned does way less for me than someone being hindered like this, against someone they’ve shown they could handle otherwise. Being close enough to grab something only for someone to move it just out of reach is way more frustrating than something being wholly out of reach.

On a mechanical level, Del Rey is not perfect in this, but she is just great enough to keep the match afloat while Quackenbush tears up the leg. A little sell here and there, a big attention grabbing One Legged Bridge for all of you out there who like that sort of thing. The damage is always just enough to stop her from making the most of everything she can do to Quackenbush, and she can do pretty much anything to Quackenbush. For his part, everything he does goes back to the leg, without fail. Once Del Rey has missed her best shot because of the pain the Royal Butterfly Suplex put her bad leg in, Quack attacks with a little more ferocity than before. Del Rey survives the Lightning Lock, so Quackenbush adapts it into a Stretch Muffler too. After shaking up and down on the distorted and punished limb, Quackenbush finally makes Del Rey tap out.

Mike Quackenbush wins Block A and makes it to the finals of the 12 Large Summit. He does so through know-how and a more calculated application of science than he’s shown in some time. Most importantly, he does so while the Block B winner, Eddie Kingston, watches from commentary, resting up his own chronic knee injury. Quackenbush did this to someone with a perfectly healthy leg who made zero mistakes in the match. Imagine what happens against someone more prone to losing their cool and who already has a bad knee. A bad knee that’s existed for years, and that’s been the easiest way to break down Eddie Kingston in match after match after match since it started to bother him. It’s perfect. Not as fantastical or intricately plotted out as CHIKARA’s other greatest stories, but as well executed and interesting as any of them.

Watch this if you think you can.

It’s nothing all that complicated, a straight line from point A to point B. One competitor is stronger and younger, until something happens. Actions then have consequences. Incredibly tight and meaningful mechanical work. Cool stuff based around that, before finishing at the right time and with the best and biggest piece of offense in the match. It’s a formula, executed in such a way that makes it feel completely unformulaic. This was always going to be about science up against force, but they approach it from a totally different angle than I would have expected, and it’s even more interesting in reality than on paper as a result.

***1/2

 

Eddie Kingston vs. Fire Ant, CHIKARA Martyr Yourself to Caution (9/18/2011)

This was a Block B match in the 12 Large Summit to determine the first CHIKARA Grand Champion.

If not for, at very worst, the second greatest CHIKARA singles match of all time happening only two months later, this would be the best singles match to happen in CHIKARA in 2011.

Long time CHIKARA fans will know that while it’s a first time one on one encounter, it’s not a NEW pairing, but it’s also been something like four years since those Colony vs. BLK-OUT tags that put The Colony on the map. It’s been a long enough time with enough significant changes that it may as well have never happened before. It certainly feels like it’s never happened before. It definitely feels like a big deal. CHIKARA’s all time most endearing babyface wrestler takes on CHIKARA’s all time greatest character.

Beyond simply that it’s a first time match up between two exceptional wrestlers and two of the all time company MVPs, it’s an incredibly interesting match too. The crowd loves both men, and they could easily produce an exciting and cool fifty-fifty sort of a match without doing anything but wrestling. Instead, it being New York, Eddie Kingston takes offense to some people not totally loving him. He does some crowd work, gets very specifically mean with a few people, and gets more and more aggressive as the match goes on and Fire Ant doesn’t let him get away with things. The best stuff is about transformation, and Eddie Kingston initially taking this very lightly, before getting more and more pissed off is so much more interesting than another face-face match. Because while Eddie Kingston is a tremendous babyface, he’s just as good if not better when he get mean as hell.

It’s been a long enough time since he got properly mean as hell in CHIKARA, against someone this beloved, that it’s special again. It matters so much more now because it’s a rarity, relatively speaking, and the entire match feels bigger and more important for it.

Fire Ant is, once again, an all time great sympathetic character. He’s specifically expressive in the ways that all great full mask wrestlers are, but always aggressive fighting back too. Like in his effort against Jigsaw in July, there’s a very specific route that he could take, which he doesn’t for a while, only reinforcing what a good person he is. It stood out then, but against a guy like Eddie Kingston, who so willingly and gleefully gives in when he gets even just a little bit mad, it especially stands out. Eddie limps around early on on his historically crummy leg, but Fire Ant stays away from it. Even initially coming back, it’s not something he does. He fights back and beats the hell out of Eddie too, but he avoids the leg initially. Fire Ant isn’t the type to try and hurt anyone, but he’s also not ever going to take anybody’s shit and eventually the leg not only becomes a way to return fire and be mean to King in return, but also a pretty easy way to try and win the match. The result is that, like the Jigsaw match, it means a lot more when he’s pushed to a point where he does go after it. The difference is both that now he’s doing it against one of the great leg sellers in the history of wrestling and that it feels a little cathartic too after the way Eddie’s treated him. Jigsaw was sympathetic. It was hurt and there and Fire Ant did what he had to. The same is true here, but Eddie brings it on himself a whole lot more with the way he treats Fire Ant in the first half.

Comparatively, it’s another classic Eddie Kingston match where he only brings the problems upon himself by pushing it to that point, for the most part. It’s hard to say Fire Ant is wrong for going after the leg when he gets a chance to, because Eddie was such an overbearing prick to him in the first half. At the same time, it’s hard not to feel for Eddie. He pushed Fire Ant to the point to do something about it, but it’s still this constant nagging injury yet again being exploited. It’s a beautiful thing when a match this great can develop not in a way that suits the action, but in a way that suits these specific characters. It’s not a great match that happens to involve Eddie Kingston and Fire Ant, it is a great match that very specifically feels like only these two could have had this exact match.

Sadly, it’s not a perfect match, and like usual, it’s a booking concern.

Following a series of terrific Fire Ant crowd dives, Vin Gerard attacks Eddie Kingston’s knee while he’s down, before being ejected by security. It feels out of place within the match itself, as Fire Ant’s already fought back on his own and hurt Kingston with the dives, but also has no real value, because Eddie Kingston is able to fight through it eventually to win the match. It had no value in the match and only served to diminish (even just slightly) what they’d already accomplished, and as a feud, it’s not worth pursuing. This sole piece of booking is what holds the match back from being an all-time great CHIKARA match.

It’s such a shame too, because the third of the match following that is incredible. Fire Ant walks the tightrope perfectly by not immediately going for the leg but uses it as an anchor once and then as a last prayer when the Beach Break doesn’t work. The leg is damaged enough to slow King and to put some doubt into the match when he begins bombing out poor Fire Ant. Final minutes are some of the best in wrestling anywhere in the world at the time. Fire Ant delivers a master class on how to handle a one count kickout spot, feeling less performative than it does desperate and mad as hell, and the three or four big nearfalls are triumphant and hopeful, and never ever overwhelming. Eddie never lets up once he’s come back in the end though. Fire Ant survives the Backfist, a Backdrop Driver, but when he kicks out of the Sliding D, King follows up with the Northern Sliding D to knock him out for the win.

It feels very weird that he won, honestly. Following the way he wrestled this match and with the booking in the middle of it, and the way the knee was handled, it felt like a match that he probably should have lost. The match feels like it’s leading to a Fire Ant victory that never actually comes, and it’s a very un-CHIKARA like problem. CHIKARA, despite the bevy of behind the scenes issues, worked so well because it tended to punish characters for mistakes they made. The booking of the interference muddied those waters, before the match then lets Eddie escape learning any sort of lesson when he just wins anyways. It’s all a little off. Eddie Kingston rules so much because he’s very much one of us, so when he has something of a Superman performance like this, where he comes close to paying for his mistakes only for that lesson not to be learned after all, it stands out so much more. If I have a complaint, it’s this weird tonal issue there that the bad booking only exacerbates.

Still, this is quite an exceptional match before that. One of the great Eddie Kingston performances ever, marrying his gift for realistic and sympathetic knee selling with his gift for just being a difficult person in the first half. You get the face-face match this was always going to be, but in a much more interesting way, where both men are completely correct in the actions that they take, and you can side with whichever one you’d like to. They could have bombed each other out for fifteen minutes, and instead did something far truer to the characters involved and that carried so much more weight because of that, even with the very very weird booking choices in the final third.

The fact that they had something so easy and still made the choices they did is what makes this match so interesting, so great, and what makes a guy like Eddie Kingston one of the best wrestlers of all time. This is the best match of 2011 that nobody ever talks about, and it’s completely understandable. The booking is weird and it’s very easily hidden underneath the gigantic shadow cast by the other best Eddie Kingston match of 2011. Have a little faith though and seek this out.

***3/4

Sara Del Rey vs. Ophidian, CHIKARA Martyr Yourself to Caution (9/18/2011)

This was a Block A match in the 12 Large Summit to determine CHIKARA’s inaugural Grand Champion.

It’s another one of these little 12 Large Summit matches that keeps things  incredibly simple and excels for it. Like the Quackenbush/Ophidian match earlier in the tournament, Ophidian is so much better than usual because it’s a match that gives him both a role and something to do. This is less him trying to get one over on his trainer, and much more about him being a slithery little creep against someone who’s now become beloved overnight after abandoning the BDK post-Claudio, a role that’s far more natural.

Del Rey beats his ass until he lucks out for a moment and grabs onto the arm. Being that it’s the only thing in five to ten minutes that’s worked for him at all, Ophidian stays on it. He manages to make it feel like a lucky break, but then has to hold onto it through hard work, which is cool as hell. He gains something, but just enough so that it doesn’t ever feel like a put on. Del Rey is again perfect in what’s likely her career year, walking perfectly across the line between eating up someone beneath her and giving him enough to make this an actual accomplishment. The arm selling is immaculate, and walks along the same line too. She’s not dying or anything, but it is a real hindrance and she has a hard time with lifts and has a hard time working her holds with one arm.

Thankfully, Ophidian is not as smart as she is and winds up getting himself in a position where Sara doesn’t have to do quite as much. Her body has failed, but she still knows the science well enough to turn a standing Ophidian Death Grip around into the Royal Butterfly Suplex. Ophidian got himself in the air so she didn’t have to use the bad arm to get him up, only over, and it’s enough for the win.

The sort of match that’s made this such a great tournament. Super tight, all incredibly logical, and it absolutely flew by. A great match where one might not expect a great match, through one tremendous performance and the careful application of exactly the right amount of focus.

***1/4

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Mike Quackenbush, CHIKARA Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Sequel N1 (7/30/2011)

This was a Block A match in the 12 Large Summit to determine the first CHIKARA Grand Champion.

More importantly, it’s the final chapter in one of the great rivalries in independent wrestling history.

The sole oft-repeated Claudio Castagnoli match up that was ever any better than this is El Generico, which is to say that in order to top the chemistry between Castagnoli and Quackenbush, it took one of the single greatest pairings in the history of the medium. Like with those two, it’s a natural fit because just by standing in front of each other, you can find out everything about these two as characters. Claudio is tall, muscular, and very loud in his arrogance. Quackenbush is normal sized, slight, and while he doesn’t lack for confidence, it’s a much quieter and more assured thing.

Stylistically, it’s the same idea, they’re a perfect contrast for all the same reasons. A less educated person might say that you’ll see a lot of the Castagnoli/Generico trademarks between these two, but the more accurate statement is that the Castagnoli/Quackenbush series invented the way Claudio approaches smaller wrestlers. The difference with these two isn’t just a natural chemistry, but it’s that like when he’s against Hero, Claudio always seems like he has something to prove to Quackenbush down on the ground as well in a way that only a student/teacher pairing could ever really achieve in a believable way. It also isn’t entirely a spectacle based on Quackenbush overcoming the size of Castagnoli in these sensational ways like when Claudio wrestles a Generico or Matt Sydal or PAC, there’s also a science to it that you don’t often get in other matches like this. Quackenbush does what he has to do against this behemoth, but that’s not who he is, and it’s much more about this attempt to trap Castagnoli.

All that being said, I would not recommend this being your first Castagnoli/Quackenbush match. Ideally, this is the last one that a newer fan would watch, assuming they ignore the disappointing Ring of Honor match these two had in 2007, where Gabe tried to capitalize on the pairing while never allowing them to actually show why the pairing was so hot to begin with. Those matches from 2005 through 2008 or so are these sensational displays, and this is something much more grounded and restrained. Is it still great? Yes. Of course. Is this the best they can do? No, of course not. It’s something of nostalgia based thing, with the course that Claudio winds up taking having more value if you know how out of control and quickly paced those starmaking matches were, and ideally, if you experienced them and hold them as this integral part of your independent wrestling fandom. Of course, they are professionals who don’t rely on that necessarily, and it works either way. Quackenbush outmaneuvers Castagnoli initially, so the monster throws him into things and works over the body to grind him down, until finally, he cannot. It’s a very simple thing, and even in a far far different match than the ones they became famous for together, it’s a match you can have dropped in front of you with no context and still get something out of. To watch wrestling matches without any sort of context is insane, but these two make it easy.

It is still a very restrained match from a pairing not known for that though, and I can see it being a disappointment. It feels weird to me to call a great match a disappointment, but it is what it is. Claudio is playing it safe with a month left on the indies, and it’s a completely understandable decision. Quackenbush is an older man now, and less interested in wild things than he used to be. On a purely physical level, with Claudio having put on a significant amount of mass since their last one on one meeting, things are a little more awkward than they used to be too. And while he tries his best and hardly embarrasses himself, a match that spends so much time with rib work isn’t really something Quackenbush excels at like he might with an arm or the back. Still, there are things that work. There are a million little things that work. Even when they hold back and make not-perfect choices in what this match consists of, the match innately works because these two connect so well with each other.

The match ends with a series of old bits, after spending the match avoiding them. Claudio’s improved so much, but his undoing is what it always is and will be, resting on his physical gifts and being flustered when confronted with someone having greater scientific mastery than him. Quackenbush breaks out the old backflip off Claudio’s shoulders to block the pop up, before adapting his La Mistica perfectly into the CHIKARA Special. It was enough to conclude CHIKARA’s first great feud four years ago, and it’s enough to beat Claudio as well.

Barring an unfortunate decision or some kind of miracle, this is the last match these two will ever have. It’s carried out with that sort of knowledge, these odes to the past where it counts, but with an emphasis on who these two are now. You can’t change what they meant to each other, to CHIKARA fans, and to CHIKARA as a whole, but to backslide into that solely for the sake of easy nostalgia would be a cop out. Instead, it’s a match about that experience getting them where they are now. It’s about Claudio having to get bigger and stronger to compete with who Quackenbush was, it’s about Quackenbush having to dig back into that well of old fancy tricks at the end, and ultimately, it’s an easygoing sort of thing, a match that feels lived in already. I don’t love it like I love something like the 2006 Ted Petty Invitational match or the August 2005 match, but it’s still such an easy thing to sit back and enjoy.

This isn’t the best they can do, but in something of a recurring theme in summer 2011, it’s a fun epilogue for people who’ve finished the book already.

***

 

 

 

 

Jigsaw vs. Fire Ant, CHIKARA Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Sequel N1 (7/30/2011)

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.

***

Mike Quackenbush vs. Ophidian, CHIKARA A Demon in His Pocket (6/25/2011)

This was a Block A match in the 12 Large Summit.

Quackenbush once again leads a student by the hand and has a really fun match. Stunning. Ophidian is in the tournament to replace a hurt Amasis, who may never wrestle again. As such, Quackenbush prepares for Ophidian to be a singles wrestler and goes out of his way to try and make him as legitimate as possible in one match, while still going over because round robin tournaments are so intricately plotted out. A display of technique leads to bigger bombs, but with the wonderful little touch of Quackenbush continuing to sell his arm here and there for the rest of the match because of Ophidian’s work on it. This would have been a great match without it, but it’s a small little touch like that which makes it into something a little bit better than even that.

In his quest to help out, Quackenbush gifts Ophidian nearfalls off of both the QD3 and QD4, before winning with an avalanche-style Black Tornado Slam. It’s a little much and obviously doesn’t take, as Ophidian isn’t quite good enough to be at that level yet, but it’s a really admirable effort.

As good of a Quackenbush showcase as anything else, because it’s not like Ophidian is having matches this good by himself all the time, if he ever even approached having a match as good as this again.

***1/4

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Hallowicked, CHIKARA The Case of the Bulletproof Waldo (6/24/2011)

This was a Block A match in the 12 Large Summit.

Similar to the Hallowicked/Quackenbush match in the tournament in May, this is one of those incredibly well protected singles match ups between top CHIKARA guys. They had one match before in the fall of 2009 that’s one of the great forgotten match ups of the year, and while this isn’t quite as good, it’s Claudio Castagnoli vs. Hallowicked, and there are millions of worse professional wrestling matches.

This is a little bit different, as this is a match on the middle of the show where that first match was a B show main event. The result is that this feels something like the television rematch of a great pay per view match. It’s shorter, they do less, and it doesn’t matter nearly as much. That all being said, it’s Castagnoli and Hallowicked getting to do things together for ten to fifteen minutes and while it won’t light your world on fire, it’s definitely better than a lot of the other shit you’ve probably been watching. A lot of wonderful little touches on the mat in the first half before they go into trading some things. It’s the sort of by-the-numbers layout that might result in a boring match if it was left to worse wrestlers. As it is, Castagnoli is maybe the best wrestler in the world and Hallowicked has steady enough hands to keep up with anyone in the world.

Hallowicked is ready for the guy Claudio was last time, but not quite so prepared for the version of Claudio that’s this good but also willing to cheat and take the easier way out. He dodges Hallowicked’s big kick in the corner and drops him tube first onto the ropes, before cradling him for the win.

Not a match that’s going to give you everything you want, but non-major CHIKARA singles matches almost never do that. These two are good enough to still have a great match in spite of that.

***

 

Mike Quackenbush vs. Hallowicked, CHIKARA Aniversario & His Amazing Friends (5/21/2011)

This was part of the 12 Large Summit, to determine the first ever CHIKARA Grand Champion. It also happened to be the first match in the tournament.

A classic sort of student vs. teacher fight. Quackenbush is mild mannered and confident, but like in the delightful performance defending the tag titles against The Colony in March, the veneer slips when his student begins one upping him after maybe taking it a little too casually. Quack breaks out some new tricks, modifies some older ones, and gets meaner when he has to.

Quack’s a true blue babyface, but his best work tends to come in these face/face match ups, where he’s able to straddle the line better than almost every peer he’s ever had, arguably even the greatest wrestler of all time. Quack has some particularly nasty stuff to pull out of the bag of tricks when he decides to kill some time working over Hallowicked’s arm. Hallowicked has a lot of trouble with it and tries to just use his right arm, to limited success. He can’t do a lot of the things he normally does, so he adapts and uses some of Quack’s stuff and starts to predict what he’ll do. Quack never gets cocky, it’s not in his nature, but when you work with someone for nine years and they trained you, you learn things, and when they fight over cradles, Hallowicked innovates a combination of a prawn hold and a European Clutch, and pulls off one of his biggest singles wins ever.

Hallowicked is as good as he always is in this match, and he sticks with the arm damage through most of the match in a most admirable fashion, but sometimes Quackenbush is just ON and intent on reminding you that he’s an all time great. Nothing to be done about it.

***1/4