It’s a b show main event tag match, but it’s also four of the best wrestlers in the company and also Tim Donst and Frightmare. A good guiding principle with this stuff is that if one side has Mike Quackenbush on it and the other has Claudio Castagnoli on it, you watch it.
The story here is the slow implosion of the BDK following a loss of power. Tim Donst and Sara Del Rey both have things to prove to Castagnoli, vying for a larger role. Donst also keeps calling out Hallowicked, and that doesn’t become a big issue until the next year, but it’s not nothing. The first third or so is classic CHIKARA tag work, harkening back to the last time before this storyline where Quack and Claudio were on opposite sides so frequently. A lot of forced miscommunication, tecnico evasions leading to the rudos hitting each other, all of that. BDK control work is as good as it can be. Donst is a weak link, but Claudio and Del Rey are both terrific, bullying around Quackenbush and Frightmare. Donst is rougher in the finishing run too, as it starts to become apparent by now that he might just never live up to that rookie year.
Ultimately, the match isn’t all it could be because of that. Great little microcosm here to help explain CHIKARA’s fall from being one of the best wrestling companies in the world from 2007-11. Four to five great wrestlers perfectly set the stage, and Donst isn’t good enough to hold up his end and make the most of it. Always a step slow or a step behind, even in his better moments. Comes off sometimes in this push as CHIKARA’s version of a developmental failson, who sticks around out of some adherence to the sunken cost fallacy. Still, in this specific match, everyone else does a good enough job that he can’t hinder it too much. Classic CHIKARA finish where Claudio and Del Rey get pinned back in the corner while Donst is up top. Hallowicked runs up the backs of Quack and Frightmare to get up top for a avalanche-style Fisherman’s Buster for the win.
Nice sort of send them home happy b show main event six man. There are thousands of worse matches.
HANDWERK 