King of Trios 2012

[Dylan Waco]

Finally got around to watching Night One of KOT so I figured I'd post my thoughts on it here since for some reason any attempt I make to post in the Chikara thread at DVDVR is denied.

 

The Colony vs. Team SENDAI Girls

 

I enjoyed this for it was and it suited the setting well as an opener. I'm not a big fan of male/female matches as a rule because they strike me as A. really deliberate attempts to be at the vanguard of a social movement B. creepy exercises where women hating men can live vicariously through the men striking the women. Having said that this was worked well enough where it didn't feel like it slipped completely into either, even if A. is the general vibe I get off of Chikara's booking these sort of things. Fast paced, quick match, with some nice spots, but nowhere near long enough to approach overkill. I was a bit annoyed Satomura didn't get more in, but what she got in looked good. There is one funny sequence where Satomura takes a nasty (sounding anyway) kick to the face, but when she returns the favor to Green Ant he protects himself in the most "I really don't want to get hard" way. I don't blame the guy, but it was one of the more unintentionally amusing things I can remember seeing. This actually had me thinking I was really going to like this show.....

 

The Batiri v. 3.0/Gran Akuma

 

I don't "get" The Batiri. In fact I don't even know what I'm supposed to be "getting." I literally don't know what the gimmick is. That's the thing about Chikara. They are brilliant at catering to their niche and have been able to develop and expand it to the point where I think they are the best promotion in the world relative to the capital they have. But I have no fucking clue how I would ever be able to figure out what the fuck is going on. Anyway I liked the first half or so of this and then it just really fell apart. For comedy spots on the first half of the show, one of the Batiri dudes trying to choke someone with a piece of toilet paper that broke in half was actually pretty funny and not in a way that undermined my interest in the match. I like 3.0 a good bit and they came across as really larger than life here, with their bigger spots looking good. As time went on it became obvious to me that Akuma is fucking horrible, or at least was horrible in this match. There were multiple times where he seemed lost or was just wandering around out of place and as a result lots of stuff seemed off. Then the finish was bullshit. Half of this was fun at least.

 

F.I.S.T. v. Team Osaka Pro

 

God this was like the match from hell. I understand that there is a market for this, but Taylor and Gargano doing "aw shucks ain't that funny" bits with Japanese guys in clown suits is not my idea of good wrestling. I actually really tried to like this, but stuff like the drop down/leapfrog/dropkick spot calling bit is just not something that works for me in this context. Why the fuck did this have to go so long? Is this a wrestling tourney people are trying to win, or an improv comedy show? I found myself asking that a lot during this show which is probably why I will never be a Chikara fan.

 

The Swarm v. Quack/Toyota/Jigsaw

 

This was perfectly enjoyable as a showcase/glorified squash. I'm no Toyota fan, but as someone who shows up and gets her shit in she has value. Jigsaw and Quack are almost always fun to watch and Quack got to do some tricked out shit so I was happy. The finishing combo looked really good also. Hard to take Quack seriously as the "hard ass" slowly turning heel or whatever the hell was going on at the finish, but that's not a real complaint.

 

The Throwbacks v. Team JWP

 

I didn't hate this quite as much as the F.I.S.T/Osaka match, largely because Touchdown looked good and worked hard and the wrestling that was done around the comedy was better, but this was another Hipster Comedy Jam performance for the most part. This one was funnier at times (I liked Classic walking out during the baseball bit), but I can't imagine ever wanting to see this again. The main thing I took from this was that Mr. Touchdown is pretty good or at least seems it on the surface level. Classic submitting to the torture rack was either really funny or really stupid depending on your perspective. Perhaps both is the answer.

 

The Spectral Envoy v. Tito Santana/The Mysterious Hansome Stranger/Mihara

 

Inoffensive but boring match. Tito's flying forearm looked good. In fact he looked better than I would have guessed period. My daughter continues to like Hallowicked. Not much else of note.

 

Mike Bennett/Young Bucks v. Meng/Barbarian/Warlord

 

I remember reading lots of people shit on this after the fact, talking about how terrible the old guys were and how boring the match was. I assume the real issue with this match is that it was actually a wrestling match first and not a competition for yuck yucks, because I thought this was actually pretty good all things considered. Bucks and Bennett were really good as the douchey young guys, attacking with numbers and cheapshots. I didn't think any of the Faces of Pain spots looked bad. In fact I thought some of them looked really good. Meng looked much sharper than I would have guessed, strikes looked nice, sold really well for the limbwork, the Tongan spot was awesome. Barb is probably the most full time of those guys at this point and he may have looked the "worst" and he looked fine. I thought Warlord's powerslam was actually pretty sick looking, though it may have been helped by the fact that it followed Green Ant's cowering response to the Satomura kick and Dasher playing slow pitch air softball. Bennett bumped big time in this. I thought the finish came out of the blue, but it would have probably worked okay if the crowd had been more into this. I guess the match needed something like a mid-bout Electric Slide contest to get their approval.

 

Too Cold Scorpio/Tommy Dreamer/Jerry Lynn v. 123 Kid/Aldo Montoya/Tatanka

 

I would have absolutely loved this if not for the remote control shit. I get that it's over, I get that it's part of the "internal psych" of Chikara, I can even see the humor in it and appreciate the fact that these guys executed it well enough (well the commentator sucked cock at it, but whatever). But seeing that shit happen in an otherwise solid, well worked match, with both teams working seriously is just trash to me. I really liked most of the rest of this. The Kid/Lynn exchange was really sharp and a nice throwback. Speaking of which Aldo's "cheating" ala Jusin Credible was comedic psych that really worked for me. Scorp looked fucking awesome. Actually the primary thing I learned here is that Scorp and Tatanka could probably have a tremendous singles match and I really want to see it. This was a good match with one terrible sequence....which kinda keeps it from being a good match.

 

Over all the presentation is really good and the crowd is really excited and that helps their shows a lot every time. I actually didn't hate it and I'll watch Night 2 and 3, but really this just confirms to me that Chikara isn't a promotion for me, even as I acknowledge it is a promotion for a certain type of fan.

[rovert]

As a standalone show I thought Night One was a chore relying far too much on comedy and nostalgia. However that dissipates to more manage levels on Night Two and Three. Really liked Meng's passion as even though he was fairly blown up and old he but kept coming and coming at his opponents. Tatanka acquitted himself well on Night One but time stands still in his match with Sugar Dunkerton.

[Dylan Waco]

King of Trios Night Two Quasi-Review

 

Team JWP v. F.I.S.T.

 

Holy hell this was a complete pile of shit. I hate Taylor and Gargano as a rule, but man alive Icarus looked like the worst wrestler in the world here. Just a total turd. I mean he is wearing the ironic "Best In The World" t-shirt as part of his slowly shedding clothes gimmick (which I don't get - sure his tattoo sucks, but this is wrestling, land of shitty tattoos) and a part of me could imagine Chikara running some awful gimmick where a guy is "supposed to suck" like all those Shawn Michaels uberfans claimed was the point of his character back in late 08/early 09. But I don't really buy it. At one point he throws one of the worst looking elbows I've ever seen, he takes a Lance Storm level "bumping seconds before contact" flatback bump, everything he does looks weak, he can't even base well for the JWP ladies. He's just awful. Really no one in this was good, outside of maybe the JWP woman working the powerlady gimmick (her name escapes me and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment). The Asai spot was comically bad from set up to finish, and pretty much killed an already dead match to me. When Chuck Taylor is almost certainly the second best guy in a match with six people you know I'm not going to be a fan.

 

Mr. Touchdown v. 1-2-3 Kid

 

I like the Mr. TD gimmick more than virtually any other gimmick in Chikara, but this was pointless and sucked. Not sure if Kid's post match "sorry this sucked speech" was a way of covering for an obviously shit match or what, but that didn't help matters. Only goes about four minutes, nothing happens and neither guy looked good.

 

The Batari v. The Spectral Envoy

 

I imagine this was the sort of match where if I gave a fuck about the promotion or the teams back history I might have enjoyed this on some level. As it was this wasn't very good. Hallowicked looked pretty good at points, but at other points the match was just a string of really weak and sloppily executed offensive, albeit pieced together in a fairly well structured way. Finishing spot looked fairly sick, but that may have been artificially enhanced by the amount of otherwise weak stuff in the match. The Batari looked far better on night one.

 

Ebessan/Takoyakida v. Green Ant/Fire Ant

 

God awful comedy match. I am actually a fan of comedy in wrestling, but not when it is done this way. The Osaka guys are all schtick. I also hate the idea of guys doing an "LOL" match with the occasional "serious business" spots like crazy dives, postings and foreign object spots. One of the worst matches I've seen all year, but I could say that about several matches from the first two nights so far.

 

The Sendai Girls v. Manami Toyota/Jigsaw/Mike Quackenbush

 

This was sloppy as hell in parts and some of the set ups for the big spots were contrived even by indy standards (the Toyota dive especially saw the Sendai team just cluster together for no reason on the floor and wait for her to leap). On the other hand this was the first match on this show that had lots of good stuff too. On some level this reminded me of a Raw or SD six-man where you have someone like Kofi in their throwing awful looking shit, but the other guys hold things together well enough. This also had the decent psych element of Quack going for the palm strike and eventually delivering an accidental strike to Jigsaw that saw Quack end up isolated and eating a ton of stuff to lose the fall. Toyota's whole bit being "lady who does a dropkick a lot" is kind of depressing and this needed more Jigsaw, but I really enjoyed the opening Satomura/Quack exchange for what it was and the weak execution was not universal enough for me to call it a poor match. Not great, maybe not even good, but perfectly watchable.

 

Sugar Dunkerton v. Tatanka

 

Yeah this went on too long and yeah Tatanka got gassed early but it was clear that the worst two parts of this match were Chuck Taylor's god awful commentary and Dunkerton's selling. I assume Dunkerton's gimmick is supposed to be some hip parody of racial stereotype gimmicks, but then you've got Taylor making shitty jokes about how black he is on commentary and it just feels like I'm watching a promotion booked by David Duke. Dunkerton had a couple of really nice punches on offense, but other than that I thought every good thing in this match was due to Tatanka. He didn't look great but his chops were stiff, his offense was well executed and was pretty good playing off the crowd. If this had gone ten minutes instead of fifteen it might have been a good match. Particularly if I had watched it on mute.

 

Mike Bennett/Young Bucks v. Too Cold Scorpio/Jerry Lynn/Tommy Dreamer

 

This was a very enjoyable, fun and quality match, up until the god awful remote control spot right before the finish. I will never stop hating that stupid shit, which once again is FAR worse in a match that is being sold as a big deal, where there was a long heat segment and where guys are working like they completely hate each other. Setting aside that pretty massive black mark, this is the sort of match that you would hope for out of a trios tourney like this. The heel team worked well as over confident, brash, young assholes and the old men showed up with their A game. Scorp seriously looks like he would be a top ten in the world guy if he was a full timer as his big spots are still really smooth and even more impressive than the stuff the Bucks busted out. He also worked really well from underneath as the FIP. Lots of fun counters in this throughout actually. Dreamer worked really hard and looked good, to the point where I thought it was clear the worst guy in the match was Lynn. Big wipe out sequence was fun and there were some good near falls. The fucking remote control spot keeps me from calling this a really good match, but it was still well worth watching.

 

Eddie Kingston v. Tadasuke

 

There were part of this that were a bit "your turn, my turn"ish for my taste, but over all this was a really good match and easily the best match of the first two nights. It's kind of funny that Kingston who is the ultimate serious business wrestler is the champ of Chikara. Tadasuke is a guy I'm barely familiar with at all, but he looked perfectly respectable in this. Some really great punches in particular, including one that led to a great near fall. I liked all the early spots with each guy working basic holds feeling out each other and Kingston's dive being the tide turning moment that ended up leading him going on the defensive worked well. The story of the match with Kingston's neck getting worked over and his arm going numb as a result was really well done. Eddie is great selling a body part and I enjoyed the touch that he couldn't even execute a true cover or some of his bigger offense because of the numbness. Also really thought the bit with him dropping the strap and trying to loosen his wrist tape to regain feeling was a great touch. Fun finishing stretch, with some big bombs and Eddie winning with a sweet combination that absolutely should have been (and was) the death blow for Tadasuke. One of the better "super indy" matches I've seen from 2012.

[Ditch]

I've seen a 'remote control spot' in CHIKARA with Player Uno but what is it in these matches?

[Dylan Waco]

Dreamer pulls out a remote in both matches. In the first match that do the awful slow mo shit among other things. On Night Two he hits the pause button on the Young Bucks. It's idiotic.

[Childs]

I liked that Kingston main event, but these posts remind me that I hate Chikara more than maybe any wrestling ever. The one Chikara show I attended -- believe it was night two of KOT in 2008 -- featured a legitimately great main event with Danielson on one side and Johnny Saint on the other. But I just loathed the hyper-self-aware, jokey shit and the way the fan base lapped it up. When Phil, Tom and I drove up to Philly, we thought we might attend both Saturday and Sunday's shows. By the end of Saturday, despite buzzing from the aforementioned main event, we had zero desire to return. Paraphrasing Tom: I don't want to be winked at constantly when I'm watching pro wrestling.

[rzombie1988]

I attended one Chikara show and its unlikely I'll ever go again. I watched a ton of their shows and thought "I'm in on the joke" but when I went to the show I thought, "The joke is on me". Basically, I don't mind watching comedic wrestling for free but I don't want to pay for that crap.

[Jingus]

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

[Mad Dog]

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

It's just not to everyone's tastes.

 

I have more a problem for the hate Chuck Taylor is getting in this thread though. How can you hate a guy that makes children in the audience cry and is just otherwise an awesome douchebag heel.

 

Though I admit, the weirder and wackier they get with shit during the matches the more I love it. The match where UMB and Taylor started brawling through a playground and Taylor came down the slide and got chopped was hilarious. But then I love the weird shit that DDT does like the campground brawls and ladders/dogs winning championships.

[shoe]

Dreamer pulls out a remote in both matches. In the first match that do the awful slow mo shit among other things. On Night Two he hits the pause button on the Young Bucks. It's idiotic.

 

If I saw that and had my own remote control I'd fast forward through that crap.

[Dylan Waco]

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

 

I can't watch a show full of that stuff. I will grant that it has it's place and an audience and I am a guy who has been on record as praising Chikara - despite how much I dislike it - as the only indy that is really thriving and expanding in the depressed market.

 

I REALLY hate the alternating between "serious business" and hipster comedy jam stuff the most. I also hate the fact that the comedic spots are meant just as pure "lol isn't this so funny!" stuff instead of ways to build heat or make heels like asses which is how comedy spots are typically used in the wrestling I enjoy.

[Dylan Waco]

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

It's just not to everyone's tastes.

 

I have more a problem for the hate Chuck Taylor is getting in this thread though. How can you hate a guy that makes children in the audience cry and is just otherwise an awesome douchebag heel.

 

Though I admit, the weirder and wackier they get with shit during the matches the more I love it. The match where UMB and Taylor started brawling through a playground and Taylor came down the slide and got chopped was hilarious. But then I love the weird shit that DDT does like the campground brawls and ladders/dogs winning championships.

 

 

Trying to think of five guys I hate more than Chuck Taylor. Not sure it's possible

[Mad Dog]

I REALLY hate the alternating between "serious business" and hipster comedy jam stuff the most. I also hate the fact that the comedic spots are meant just as pure "lol isn't this so funny!" stuff instead of ways to build heat or make heels like asses which is how comedy spots are typically used in the wrestling I enjoy.

That isn't always true. Chuck Taylor is a good example of where the comedy is used to build heat. He's a douchebag and the comedy spots are him getting his. He acts like an ass and then the face makes him look like an ass in return. The same with the Evans characters. The comedy in his matches are used to put heat on him. The same with the Bucks to a smaller degree. And the Ants use the comedy to fuck with the heels and get heat on them, get the fans behind them. The comedy can be silly at times but there are tons of Chikara matches where it's used to push characters forward and get heat on people. And there are plenty of times where the comedy goes away completely. Look at the Green Ant vs. Tursas blowoff from last year. That was an absolute brawl with a satisfying end to their feud.

[Mad Dog]

I've never understood the hatred for the sort of fourth-wall-breaking meta-humor on Chikara shows. Every medium has self-reflexive comedians who actively nudge and wink and remind you that you're watching a show. Personally, this stuff makes me laugh my ass off.

It's just not to everyone's tastes.

 

I have more a problem for the hate Chuck Taylor is getting in this thread though. How can you hate a guy that makes children in the audience cry and is just otherwise an awesome douchebag heel.

 

Though I admit, the weirder and wackier they get with shit during the matches the more I love it. The match where UMB and Taylor started brawling through a playground and Taylor came down the slide and got chopped was hilarious. But then I love the weird shit that DDT does like the campground brawls and ladders/dogs winning championships.

 

 

Trying to think of five guys I hate more than Chuck Taylor. Not sure it's possible

 

Pull up the Ring of Honor roster page, close your eyes and point at 5 random guys. Bet you would find at least 4 guys you hate more.

[Mad Dog]

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not holding up Chuck Taylor as an awesome wrestler. I think he has a great character but is slightly above average in the ring.

[Chess Knight]

No joke, around ten minutes ago I posted a thought on another forum saying Chuck Taylor is probably my least favourite human to ever exist. I just really, really fucking loathe him.

[Dylan Waco]

To me with Taylor it is patently obvious that everything he does is about getting laughs and not heat.

 

I do agree that The Bucks use comedy fairly well at times and I'm not even a Bucks fan.

[rzombie1988]

I don't have a problem with Chuck minus that stupid grenade spot.

[Jingus]

Since I used to be in-real-life friends with Chuck, that pretty much disqualifies me from having an unbiased opinion. But I myself do find most of his shtick to be hilarious.

[Dylan Waco]

Mike Bennett/Young Bucks v. The Sendai Girls

 

This was uncomfortable at points and had one really awful, but well intended spot. Still this was an extremely fun match over all. In part this worked because Bennett and The Bucks both look like the type that would have no problem beating a woman in real life. So when Bennett slaps the shit out of Satomura it's really uncomfortable but it also "works" on some level. And the heels to their credit are absolute bump freaks in this. Each one of the Jackson's takes a couple of lunatic bumps and Bennett is all over the place too. Satomura looked sharp as fuck and came across as a real star during one sequence where she had to go it alone v. the men. At slightly more than ten minutes this was pretty much the perfect length for a match of this sort and I have to really give it to Team ROH who busted their ass to make some suspect non-Satomura offense look brutal. Very fun sprint.

 

F.I.S.T. v. The Spectral Envoy

 

I'm not sure I would call this a good match, but this was way better than I expected. Again this benefited from not going super long as there was enough time for everybody to hit their spots, but not enough time for one of the turds involved to completely run it off the rails. I usually find F.I.S.T. completely intolerable but the strategy of attacking Frightmare and going after his leg made sense and was well worked. Of course it had no real tease involved in the run to the finish and in fact Frightmare blew everything off so he could hit his big spots, but at least he sold the knee post match. I'm not really a fan of any of these guys, but the story of Ultramantis surviving and pulling one out for his team was something that even registered with me.

 

Ophidian v. Saturyne

 

Holy shit this match literally had a babyface announcer arguing that the woman asked for her beating and should take it. This match also saw Ophidian throw about ten chops to the chest of Saturyne presumably for no reason other than to show that Chikara is breaking taboos about a man being able to slap a woman's tit repeatedly in public. In all honestly I thought this was a near miraculous performance by Ophidian as despite the fact that Saturyne is backyard as fuck, this was actually a decent match if you can get over the extreme man on woman violence. Ophidian bumps really well for her stuff, ties himself into pretzels to get over her offense and hits some really sick looking offense. Then the match ends when he chokes her out, which is either a bold vanguardist move by PC trailblazers, or the creepiest finish imaginable in a post-Benoit murders wrestling world. Take your pick.

 

Tim Donst/Jakob Hammermeir v. Green Ant/Fire Ant

 

This started out okay and quickly devolved into a complete disaster. To be fair if you are looking for a match with some impressive spots, this has a few and the Ants suck a little less than I remembered. Still the second half of this was just a bunch of reasonless nonsense, with bizarre tempo changes, poor transitions and silly looking spots. Donst is such a weird wrestler. Half the time he his offense looks really tight and half the time it makes Lance Storm look like Stan Hansen. Hammermeir's "Secret Service guy taking a bullet for the President" spot was clever, but this was pretty poor. It's the first match in a tag gauntlet so it led directly to...

 

Green Ant/Fire Ant v. Devastation Corporation

 

Quick squash with the big guys busting out a few impressive offensive moves.

 

Devastation Corporation v. Paul Simon/Art Garfunkle

 

Another quick squash. This time the taller of the Devastation guys almost killed himself and a jobber.

 

Devastation Corporation v. Jolly Roger/Lance Steel

 

This was actually pretty fun. Short "match" with the Corporation showing a little bit of vulnerability and Roger/Steel basically doing Santino-esque spots around that. Corporation win and advance.

 

Devastation Corporation v. Johnny Miyagi/Ralph Maccio Jr.

 

Another quick squash, this one ending with the DC nearly murdering one of the jobbers. Seriously brutal finish.

 

Devastation Corporation v. Demolition

 

Here we have my personal hell fusing with goodhelmet's personal hell as Dasher Hatfield sings Demolition to the ring for a Chikara match. Man this is really stupid booking. I get that bringing out Demolition is good for a cheap pop, but they have spent the whole first half of this gauntlet getting over the fact that the DC can't even be knocked off their feet and then you've got the man sunk by shellfish Bill Eadie and father of a wrestler named Dakota dominating them. At one point the tall guy takes a fucking insane leaping bump over the top for Eadie. Then Demolition wins with a really lame looking standing Hart Attack clothesline presumably because Eadie can't run the ropes. Yuck.

 

Demolition v. The Powers of Pain

 

Now I'm even more pissed by the result of the previous "match" as this could have been booked as a stand alone encounter and would have worked just as well for the WWF fetishist pop. It's actually treated as it's own stand alone as the ref pats down the teams before they lock up which is just bizarre in this sort of setting. This was okay for what it was, but it's not something for the Demolition canon.

 

The Powers of Pain v. 1-2-3 Kid/Marty Jannetty

 

Really short match that they tried to work a short heat segment into. It didn't really work. Jannetty's initial flurry looked good - after the hot tag he looked like shit. The finish probably sounded like a good idea on paper, but wasn't in practice.

 

1-2-3 Kid/Marty Jannetty v. Los Ice Creams

 

Marty took a pretty nice crazy bump early and the Ice Creams had some okay tag offense, but this kinda sucked. At least they won with the Rocker Suplex thingy.

 

As a whole the gauntlet wasn't that long, but felt really long and the booking of the DC annoyed the fuck out of me. Maybe I would have liked it better live.

 

Darkness Crabtree/Colt Cabana/Johnel Sanders/Swamp Monster v. Ebessan/Takoyakida/3.0

 

Maybe the most ridiculous comedy match I've ever seen and it goes on for fucking ever. I would have hated this no matter what, but at 20 minutes this might be my new Worst Match of The Year. I'm sure Chikara fans would lecture me for hating fun.

 

Commando Bolshoi/Tsubusa Kuragaki v. Manami Toyota/Kaori Yoneyama

 

There were a lot of things I didn't like about this and Toyota looked really sad at points, but this was a match I'm sure would have sucked me in live and I found myself really biting on the action down the stretch. I really thought they were gonna go with with Toyota/Yoneyama working over the leg of Kuragaki and I was a bit annoyed when that was blown off, but then Toyota's figure-four was poor so you can sort of buy it as totally ineffective. In any event I think Kuragaki deserves a lot of credit because she really held this together. I'm not going to say the other ladies brought nothing, but Kuragaki's big spots were the most impressive, cleanest and most impactful. And even more importantly she took the offense of Toyota and Yoneyama so well and reacted to it so strongly that the finishing stretch - which really saved the match in my eyes - really felt super important. The whole "what can take down the monster" vibe was pretty nifty and it felt less like spot running, than building to the big finish. I wouldn't call this a great match, but I do think it was a good match. Probably as good match as you can have in a tag where only one person really looked like a solid worker.

 

Tadasuke v. Jigsaw

 

I liked this a lot aside from Jig's strange pop up sell job of the piledriver right before the finish. Really both guys looked good in this. Good story as Jig tires to hit a dive early and gets fucking killed with a punch on the attempt. He sells this by hanging upside down in the ropes and the shot looked about as nasty as you can get without someone being seriously hurt. Jig is able to make a comeback and gets in some big time offense of his own, but makes the mistake of trying to turn this back into a striking war and ends up getting knocked the fuck out. Good match.

 

Mike Bennett/The Young Bucks v. The Spectral Envoy

 

You could find major flaws with this if you wanted to. This match had some of the most egregiously telegraphed spots I've ever seen, there was a spike tombstone on a ramp that didn't lead to a finish and the cluster right before the stretch run arguably detracted from what was going on in the ring. But as a whole I find it hard not to argue this was a good match and about as good a match as these two teams could possibly have had. Bennett and The Bucks were really the stars of the tourney as they played their roles well (oh god not that dreaded mantra!) from bell to bell in every match. Here they were really great controlling the match with extended heat segments on Frightmare and Ultramantis Black. The Frightmare section in particular was good as they attacked his leg, cut off the ring on him and worked in some good hope spots. With Ultramantis it was more about the heels unloading their biggest spots and him surviving, but the story is supposedly that Black hadn't been able to win on the biggest stage, so him surviving the biggest stuff thrown at him on Chikara's biggest show of the year doesn't bother me all that much in the grand scheme of things. Stretch run was a wild cluster, but at entertaining one even if I only nominally knew what the hell was going on. I really enjoyed the fact that they bought in Delirious for the sole purpose of taking one lunatic bump off the ramp. The big superplex wipe out spot was hurt by the fact that the guys on the floor were blindly milling around waiting for it to come off, but Ultramantis giving up himself for the better of the team fit the theme of the match and the spot with Maria getting superkicked on accident as she was trying to cover for Bennett tapping out was well done. I also really liked the fact that Hallowicked was the guy who made the big run at the end as he was the only one of the Envoy who hadn't been majorly worked over and beaten on in the match. This was a very satisfying end to a series of shows that I didn't exactly enjoy.

[Matt D]

I'm seeing Dylan transform before my eyes.

 

[NintendoLogic]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Buddy Landel vs. Freddy?

[FLIK]

So when Bennett slaps the shit out of Satomura it's really uncomfortable but it also "works" on some level.

Meiko's spent the better part of the last 14 years feuding with Aja Kong, it'd be more awkward if he didn't lay it in

[Dylan Waco]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Buddy Landel vs. Freddy?

I like it okay, though I've only seen it once. I also like Santino more than a lot of people though he's not one of my favorites.

 

The difference is that I don't think the heels and faces are "in on it together" in those instances. The faces are confounding, annoying, pissing off the heels with their bullshit. In Chikara all to often it is open choreography between two willing dance partners.