This was a Torneo Cibernetico.
It’s one of the most interesting match types there is, and has resulted in some of the best matches in the history of U.S. independent wrestling when CHIKARA has run it. Most notable in 2005 with the 100 minute one, the 2009 pure spotfest one, and the 2010 and 2012 editions based off of Eddie Kingston led teams based around territorial pride with Team CHIKARA defending the mat against first the BDK and later a Steen-led ROH team.
This sure isn’t any of those matches.
And yet the gimmick inherently helps all of these kids out a whole lot. Or at least, it helps them out to some extent, until this wears out its welcome. Still young and full of dumb and/or silly ideas and p sloppy sometimes, also totally forgetting about the lucha tag rules, but whatever, ciberneticos are fun. The big talents (Hatfield, VGPW, Makowski, Huck, Still Life, BLANK, McCoy) find a way to shine. A lot of focus on the lesser among them hurts this a lot. As does nobody seeming to totally understand the rules except for the people in it. Had someone not seen a match like this before, they’d have no idea that Leigh and Boomer had to fight at the end when they were the only ones left, because that was just suddenly brought up when it happened. Winds up going on so much longer than it needs to, before continuing the tradition for many of the CHIKARA Cibernetico matches of having one of the worst wrestlers in the match win it for some reason. These don’t need to always be around an hour, the all time great 2010 one was like thirty five minutes.
Would strongly recommend that everyone who had never seen a match like this before go back and watch the aforementioned hits, because this can be a captivating and incredibly fun sort of match. I swear.
When you crib someone else’s material, it’s important sometimes to understand how and why things work instead of just doing a thing to do a thing.
HANDWERK 