This was the yearly Torneo Cibernetico match. For the uninitiated, there are two teams of eight wrestlers, with a specific batting order of who can tag in first, second, etc. Eliminations happen until only one man is left.
This isn’t quite as heated as the 2010 BDK vs. CHIKARA classic, but it’s much more heated and intense from the start than your usual Cibernetico. Most of that is the Steen and Kingston issue but the ROH team has some incredibly goons on it too. The Bravados and Young Bucks are perfect cowards in different ways, The Briscoes are goddamned animals at points here, and Jimmy Jacobs is somewhere in between those poles. The CHIKARA team is weaker, and the match suffers for building around Tim Donst, a total nothing, but the booking and work on the other side is largely good enough to make this stand out anyways.
The chaos first claims Frightmare, dealing with a lingering knee injury that Team ROH exploits for five to ten minutes in the second cycle, leading Big Kev submitting him with the Sharpshooter. The match then gets incredibly frantic in the next cycle, in all the best ways. My favorite thing about a Cibernetico, which you see in the best ones (2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, this) is that you can keep a fast pace up for a long time without blowing anything immediately. You have sixteen people to start with, no reason to not be able to do this and keep it fun and feeling consequential. This has more behind it, but it’s the same philosophy done to perfection. Everyone’s great here, but a few guys really stand out in this phase of the match, especially Eddie Kingston.
UltraMantis Black also goes on an absolute tear. There’s a phenomenal sequence with Jimmy Jacobs, but he also just about runs through the Bravado Brothers too. Mantis is cool as hell, but every once and a while, you get an UltraMantis Black performance where he wants to remind you that, yeah, he’s genuinely really great at this.
Mantis eliminates Harlem Bravado first with the Cosmic Doom and then Lancelot with a Wrist-Clutch Regal Plex of sorts. On a more micro scale, the booking here is incredible too. UMB immediately feels for real again and like an actual force, so when Jay Briscoe comes in and steamrolls him to put it back at six-on-six, it helps Jay Briscoe and also serves as this crushing elimination. The Briscoes also easily handle Akuma and take advantage of rules to get rid of him, before our hero Jagged/Scott Parker manages a roll up on Mark Briscoe (called repeatedly “Brother Mark” by the dullard Gavin Loudspeaker on commentary for some reason) to put it to five on five.
These matches can very rarely be wall to wall insanity either though, unless they’re spotfest masterpieces like 2009’s or are only thirty-something minutes like 2010’s. Once it’s down to five on five, the match calms down significantly, and it’s wonderful. Kevin Steen is a big asshole who keeps running from Eddie Kingston. The Young Bucks, Jay Briscoe, and Jimmy Jacobs all play to their strengths, with the three cowards making Jay now do much of the work in this period. And it goes fine! Jay totally handles everything, and gets another elimination off with the Jay Driller on Hallowicked. Sadly, Donst then sneaks in and grabs his weird From Dusk Til Donst (ugh) hold on Jay to eliminate him, before getting out of there. The match exists in a very weird space where it constantly serves to highlight Tim Donst, but also seems to accept that he isn’t anywhere near as good as the other people he’s in the ring with at this point in the match.
The final run is pretty exceptional too. What it might be lacking in some areas is made up for the overall feeling they’ve built up, the heroics of Team CHIKARA, and the SCUM-my nature of Team ROH. Eddie Kingston has to finally get in and go on a run himself to get it done, and the result is a Backfist to the Future on Jimmy Jacobs and Team CHIKARA having its first lead of the match. The Young Bucks suddenly turn it on to stop his run, and instead of fighting them, Tim Donst dives onto Eddie, turns on him, and begins pummeling him instead. It’s better than Donst wrestling, but something about it just still feels off. You’re not going to get me to want to see this match outside of the year 2007. You’re not. The 3.0 vs. Young Bucks stuff here is better than any of their tag title matches due to the short length and how much of the set up work has already been done. Both Bucks get eliminated by 3.0 members, leaving Steen in there at the end with Shane Matthews. BIG MAGIC forces Steen to use his real finisher on him to eliminate him, and Steen effectively wins, outside of this other CHIKARA story.
King is able to roll up Steen because he won’t stop talking shit, and Team ROH is gone.
But one man always has to win the Cibernetico, and if it’s multiples left on the same team…again, one man has to win.
Kingston kicks out before Donst uses his manager’s loaded European man purse on Kingston for the win.
The first 95% of this is really really great. It came off much better now than I had remembered it. Everyone involved does a terrific job, the pace is blistering, and every single person in this rises to the occasion. Save for the guy who won. The problem I still have with this is the ending, where a big payoff is sacrificed to build up to a match that’s a thousand times less interesting and which highlights the least interesting, entertaining, and all around worst guy in the match.
It’s the sort of bargain that CHIKARA has always made, serving characters and stories first and foremost. It wasn’t such a hard bargain to make with good characters and great wrestlers. Very easy to track the decline of CHIKARA to the moments when these moments began serving stories, characters, and wrestlers who weren’t capable of holding up their end.
Luckily, the 5% of this that wasn’t so good or interesting didn’t wash out everything that came before it. One of the all time great CHIKARA Cibernetico matches, likely the third or fourth best one.
As always, if you want to know everything you need to know about CHIKARA in a given year, watch the Cibernetico. Some big problems, the magic touch is slipping if not gone entirely, but there’s still such an enormous level of talent with most of the top guys that in big situations, it doesn’t matter quite so much.
HANDWERK 