This was a quarterfinal match in the 2015 King of Trios tournament.
Hallowicked and Frightmare EVIL (the moral state, not the wrestler) now, and they’ve dragged poor Silver Ant slowly down with them after they’ve been forced to team together for some reason. It’s CHIKARA bullshit. I don’t actually know. I lost track around 2012ish and zombie CHIKARA rarely offers anywhere near the quality of wrestling that inspired me to watch in spite of all of the goofy comic book nonsense that I don’t love, so I’m not even going to pretend to know.
That’s not the point though.
Once again, the Lucha Underground team shines far more in CHIKARA than in any other U.S. independent environment. Things get a little dance fighty with Frightmare, but Hallowicked and Silver Ant are both phenomenal bases for all of the wilder impulses that the outside stars come up with. Beyond that, Silver Ant especially shines when the match asks them to try and contain the heroes, as every single thing he does looks tremendous and always fits into the perfect place in the match. Hallowicked isn’t quite that, and sadly is a guy who seems to go as CHIKARA goes (great from 2005-2013ish, more average after that). That isn’t to say he’s bad here, but there’s a real kind of baseline feeling to everything he does, especially compared to everything he’s proven able of in the past. All very basic, which is less offensive here than in a title match, both because the match calls for it and because Silver Ant is so great at leading the match for their side.
For the second time in as many days, the point is made that the crazier flying feels much more uproarious when there’s a sense of victory to it happening in the first place. The stuff Drago, Aero Star, and Fenix can do will always be phenomenal but when they have to fight to get it off against bigger guys who want very much for the match not to devolve into a fireworks show, the match devolving into a fireworks show in and of itself feels like a victory, instead of having something that begins like that and never wavers in tone or pace for the next ten or twenty minutes or whatever. Styles make fights, and the success of a match like this compared to the matches had by the LU contingent elsewhere on the independents is proof of that.
The CHIKARA guys are once again at a near total loss when they begin to get bombed out from the sky above. Silver Ant gets hit by an Aero Star outside-in middle rope vault over the top into a splash, followed by Fenix’s gorgeous rope walk springboard 450 Splash, and that’s that.
Another super fun outing from the Temple exiles in CHIKARA, clearly at home in a place just as evil.
HANDWERK 