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This was the finals of the Young Lions Cup VI tournament.
Generally speaking, I think I do a good job of avoiding obvious bias.
Not always a perfect job, because it is sometimes unavoidable in a medium like pro wrestling where some things, be they matches or wrestlers, are just going to speak to one person more than others, but in large part, I have done my best. Either, I try to acknowledge a certain bias with a personal story beforehand or do my best to look past it and approach a match critically, if not both at the same time. Pobody is nerfect, I won’t say that I have always gotten it totally right, but like anyone who is good at this, I think it’s both important to acknowledge this and to always try to do better.
There are a few matches, in the pursuit of that, that I have always been a little bit afraid of covering — or even just watching again — with this in mind, and this specific Fire Ant vs. Vin Gerard match is ight near the top of that list, if not number one with a bullet.
I cannot be impartial about this match.
From the spring of 2007 through, maybe the fall of 2009, but in terms of the real intense stuff, spring 2007 through fall 2008, I was an absolute CHIKARA freak.
It began innocently enough, checking out the 2007 King of Trios because of the names involved, then watching the April 2007 show as it offered the Hero vs. Claudio match that ROH was waiting far too long to run at the same time, but it very quickly turned into something else, and I began digging back in the archives. After Benoit — and at a point in my life that was genuinely not cool, suffering both my first real mean teenage breakup on the same say that one of my favorite wrestlers killed himself and his family — CHIKARA filled a perfect gap for me, wrestling that could still be good, but that because of how light and easy and comedic it often was, never made me feel weird at the time in the way that so much concussion and danger heavy wrestling, like a Bryan vs. Nigel match for example, did in the aftermath of all that.
The zenith of that is probably this angle.
After being unmasked as Equinox and revealed to have been a training school drop out who faked being a luchador to get booked — imagine that, a skinny stupid little lying white guy underneath a CHIKARA mask — Gerard went on a reign of terror through a mastery of bullshit. He cost The Colony the King of Trios, fucked with poor Jimmy Olsen, brought in Bull Pain to beat up his enemies, and earlier in the tournament had Worker Ant injured, only for Fire Ant to take his place and get this far.
Naturally, in the big spot, Fire Ant positively beats his ass and takes the cup, as that magical CHIKARA drama once again provides a wonderful payoff and a truly wonderful moment of triumph.
It’s perfect stuff, in theory.
There is also the actual wrestling match itself, somewhat less fortunately.
Objectively, there are things you can pick at. The striking is not the best. Vin Gerard is not an especially great wrestler, and as his failed PWG weekend a few months later would show, really only succeeds because of the ire he can draw from the ultra committed regular CHIKARA crowds. Many things are not ultra clean. And in a problem I had with this match even as a hardcore freak when it happened, I never liked Gerard no-selling Fire Ant’s Burning Hammer. Not just because it is the fucking Burning Hammer, but mostly because Gerard is a cheap shot opportunist coward heel, who should not ever even have an inkling of fighting spirit in his body. If I didn’t like the rest of the match as much as I do, truly, it would ruin the rest of it for being such a profound misunderstanding of the character, of the story, and most of all, of the moment.
Fortunately, I do like the rest of it a lot.
The match is your classic CHIKARA blowoff, paying off a bunch of little things, and at the same time, providing a huge payoff. From Gerard’s trick of throwing the mask he used to wear at an opponent at the start failing to Fire Ant fighting through every other piece of bullshit, the match nails it. Fire Ant is also the perfect choice, because as his later work without the mask will show, he’s a generationally great babyface wrestler who can get sympathy out of anything and who has these truly exceptional comebacks too. Combine it with a real hot crowd in Hellertown, PA, and you get some real special wrestling, with moments like the genuine outpouring of support during the near count out, or his comeback, or especially the reaction at the end.
Gerard’s bullshit no-sell aside, Fire Ant scoops his stupid ass right up and wins the Young Lions Cup with the Beach Break to provide a real and genuine moment.
It is not perfect, and if I have to be entirely objective, it is not some all-timer either.
Not just because of the problems detailed above, or the clear lack of experience, but also a little bit because years removed from it even existing anymore (although I also believe CHIKARA *actually* died in 2013), the idea of it feels weirder and weirder, given everything we know now. All the same, it is an incredibly hard thing to do to watch something you loved this much at a formative age and to ever totally divorce yourself from it, or the feeling — even though only a shadow of it might still exist today — that it gave you the first time or two that you ever saw it.
Years removed, it’s easy to like this for what it is. Wildly imperfect, but with one very good wrestler at the helm, and existing as, more than anything else, a true victory for the long term booking of this small little regional promotion.
Essentially, it is one of the best CWF Mid Atlantic matches of the 2000s.
Which is to say that, in spite of all of these problems, I simply have too hard of a time disconnecting from it. Call it nostalgia or call me a big dumb mark who easily buys into things that so freely open up their heart to the viewing public, but even while now recognizing the many mechanical, foundational, etc. flaws within the match, there is some part of me that is wholly incapable of doing anything but still liking it a whole lot.
The all time greatest example of CHIKARA magic.
HANDWERK 