CHIKARA

[Nighthawk]

Is there any kind of consensus on what the best Chikara matches are? I've seen a few shows and Kingston vs Quackenbush and Claudio vs Sara Del Rey are the only matches I really enjoyed. Does anything come close to the Kingston/Quack match? Anything else good that involves the above workers (or Brodie Lee, El Generico etc.) that has a sense of drama without the 'comedy' rubbish? I only ask because I'm putting together a match list and don't fancy going through all the shows. Thank yous in advance.

Quack\Jigsaw vs the BDK for their tag titles from Reality is Relative is really good. A little choppy, but seriously dramatic. Also, 1-2-3 Kid vs El Generico from KOT 2011 Night 3.

 

And Johnny Saint vs Johnny Kidd from Chikarasaurus Rex was also good.

[Blehschmidt]

So today at National Pro Wrestling Day it was announced that Chikara will return on May 25th, 2014. (There first show was on May 25th, which is why the date was chosen)

[ajtroma]

Did anyone else find Quack's interview with Alvarez just vomitus? Quakenbush spends 40 minutes spewing each and every pompous, pretentious, theatrical buzzword while Skippy Alvarez sits there dumbfounded, absolutely incapable of wrapping his feeble brain around the useless, fifty-cent bullshit terms Mike is barfing out.

 

Bring Chikara back. Fine. Im okay with that. But, also don't sit there and say you've never insulted the audience's intelligence or sling all the penny-ante arthouse jive you overheard from the smelly loser (who doesn't know either what all this shit means) at the Godard festival.

[gingears]

I did not like how he basically reduced it to "if you stop liking Chikara over this, it was never for you in the first place".

[efrim]

That interview get a transcript anywhere?

[Death From Above]

I did not like how he basically reduced it to "if you stop liking Chikara over this, it was never for you in the first place".

In fairness, this is pretty much true since this sort of nonsense is exactly the sort of thing that fit in with Chikara to begin with.

[Steenalized]

Did anyone else find Quack's interview with Alvarez just vomitus? Quakenbush spends 40 minutes spewing each and every pompous, pretentious, theatrical buzzword while Skippy Alvarez sits there dumbfounded, absolutely incapable of wrapping his feeble brain around the useless, fifty-cent bullshit terms Mike is barfing out.

 

Bring Chikara back. Fine. Im okay with that. But, also don't sit there and say you've never insulted the audience's intelligence or sling all the penny-ante arthouse jive you overheard from the smelly loser (who doesn't know either what all this shit means) at the Godard festival.

This is one of the few interviews on that site that I have absolutely zero interest in listening to. Glad I'm avoiding it, given what I've heard.

[goodhelmet]

Did anyone else find Quack's interview with Alvarez just vomitus? Quakenbush spends 40 minutes spewing each and every pompous, pretentious, theatrical buzzword while Skippy Alvarez sits there dumbfounded, absolutely incapable of wrapping his feeble brain around the useless, fifty-cent bullshit terms Mike is barfing out.

 

Bring Chikara back. Fine. Im okay with that. But, also don't sit there and say you've never insulted the audience's intelligence or sling all the penny-ante arthouse jive you overheard from the smelly loser (who doesn't know either what all this shit means) at the Godard festival.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Help me out.

[Blehschmidt]

Is there anywhere this can be listened too without subscribing? or a transcript as was asked earlier?

[CaptCabana]

I think was as diehard a Chikara fan as ANYONE over the past three years, to the point where I owned most every event of theirs since 2006, traveled to two events far out of my way, and visited the message boards almost every day.

 

The whole shebang since the promotion closed in June has actually turned me off so much that I have since (or am in the process of) sold every single one of those shows.

 

It's been convoluted, bizarre, and unnecessary. More importantly, you're not going to obtain ANY new viewers because of this, and many viewers you did once have have since been lost (perhaps for good).

 

Mike didn't have to come out with the TRUTH (or whatever we think to maybe know MIGHT be the truth of the situation), but he could've saved WORLDS of goodwill by simply admitting that the promotion "needed to take a break and may return one day soon." Not some manifesto-ish angle that you need a 10-page document to follow.

[Steenalized]

10-page document? Try 76, and that was back in July

http://chikaralives.files.wordpress.com/20...really-dead.pdf

[efrim]

I gave up following the nonsense after a couple months (an EXTREMELY generous gesture of goodwill) and I do think it was stupid and harmful to the brand/company. I have yet to hear this interview, but I'm sure Quack sounds like a doofus in it.

 

That said - If they're just gonna do wrestling shows again I will partake in those wrestling shows.

[Timbo Slice]

CHIKARA sucks anyways. PWG has fucking Mount Rushmore going strong, the best indy heel stable in years. Kevin Steen's promos are top-notch right now. Watch that instead.

[sek69]

Did anyone else find Quack's interview with Alvarez just vomitus? Quakenbush spends 40 minutes spewing each and every pompous, pretentious, theatrical buzzword while Skippy Alvarez sits there dumbfounded, absolutely incapable of wrapping his feeble brain around the useless, fifty-cent bullshit terms Mike is barfing out.

 

Bring Chikara back. Fine. Im okay with that. But, also don't sit there and say you've never insulted the audience's intelligence or sling all the penny-ante arthouse jive you overheard from the smelly loser (who doesn't know either what all this shit means) at the Godard festival.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Help me out.

 

 

Quack's interview was pretty much just 40 minutes of him saying if you don't get the great angle he's doing then you aren't smart enough to be a fan of Chikara. As I said in the thread on the BOARD~! he sounded like a local community theater director who thinks he's the next Fellini.

[Matt D]

There are some things that Quack said that I really agree with, especially the idea that Wrestling should have more to do with a novel (he said fiction. I say novel) than MMA, and that the fictional elements need to be stressed in order to create the greatest narrative possible. That's basically the main thing it has over sports. You control the act breaks, the climax, the ending. You can bring in any number of tropes and use foreshadowing and only have twists where you want them. With real sports, the narrative is sort of retrofitted. It always has to be reactive to what really happens, and yeah, while most times it will feel more organic because it's real, it's not always more compelling just because it's more organic.

 

My gut says that Quack takes this to another extreme and plays up.. crap, I hate doing this. Look, in the interview he brings up Watchmen, right? The big fallacy with Watchman, the bit trap that everyone's fallen into for decades is that people focus too much on the plot of Watchmen. The deconstruction and paranoia and gloom, and that's what they copy and are inspired by, when the real meaningfulness of Watchmen and the real innovation are in the narrative tools used. It's the same as Citizen Kane. Sure the plot's great, but it's HOW the movie was made that matters.

 

Quack focuses too much on the plot elements, the what, and not the how. If he had used a more traditional storyline but tried to utilize new methods of storytelling, I think it would be more focused, narratively compelling, and ultimately more innovative. A lot of the more abstract elements just distract from what I think he's actually claiming to try to do.

[stomperspc]

Did anyone else find Quack's interview with Alvarez just vomitus? Quakenbush spends 40 minutes spewing each and every pompous, pretentious, theatrical buzzword while Skippy Alvarez sits there dumbfounded, absolutely incapable of wrapping his feeble brain around the useless, fifty-cent bullshit terms Mike is barfing out.

 

Bring Chikara back. Fine. Im okay with that. But, also don't sit there and say you've never insulted the audience's intelligence or sling all the penny-ante arthouse jive you overheard from the smelly loser (who doesn't know either what all this shit means) at the Godard festival.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Help me out.

 

Quack's interview was pretty much just 40 minutes of him saying if you don't get the great angle he's doing then you aren't smart enough to be a fan of Chikara. As I said in the thread on the BOARD~! he sounded like a local community theater director who thinks he's the next Fellini.

I didn't get that impression from the interview.

 

Quack certainly comes off as pretentious. At the same time, I thought a lot of the underlying points he made were interesting even if I did not buy all them. I see a lot of people getting worked up over him continually referring to wrestler as performance art. I am not sure how pro wrestling is not a performance art by the standard definition. Quack saying that pro wrestling is one of the best (that might not have been the exact term he used) forms of performance art could certainly be viewed as a pretentious statement, but I am not sure how categorizing wrestling in general as performance art is inaccurate.

 

I don't regularly follow Chikara because the presentation style is not my ideal style and the wrestling is hit or miss, although I can see why some people really like it. From a creative/booking standpoint, I think Chikara gets what pro wrestling is traditionally about more so than a lot of other places. Indie wrestling is a niche of a niche to begin with. The fact that at the end of the day they were able to get a huge reaction to the return angle at National Pro Wrestling Day in front of a decent sized indie crowd is a creative accomplishment. I thought the core of the angle itself also didn't stray very far all from the basics of wrestling angles, even with all the cutesy and ironic coating on top.

 

The long layoff almost certainly did nothing to help them financially (likely the opposite) and I would be surprised if it is any sort of impetus for a big financial turnaround. I guess the pretentiousness part that bothers others just doesn't bother me that much. I have a younger brother who was a musical theater major in college so I have been around a lot of pretentious artistic people in my life. Despite that pretension, a lot of them still are admittedly talented and creative people. I tend to feel the same about Quack/Chikara.

[WrestlingPower]

How did the Mike Johnson interview go? I heard that one was better. Does he ever, in either, explain the reason behind the shut-down? I heard he debunked the divorce rumor. Did he reference any financial issues or they strictly just ran the angle to circle-jerk themselves & take a break?

[gingears]

His stance on F4D was that it was all a work. The storyline was supposed to be patterned after a wrestling match with Chikara itself as the babyface and the corporation closing them down was the heat which, I guess, makes the comeback show the comeback.

 

That in particular came off as very disingenuous when coupled with him saying how crucial it was to keep people guessing so nobody could come forward and squash the rumors. If, by his own admission, the storyline's not finished, why now is it okay to come out and say this now? In keeping with his own wacky metaphor, it'd be like the babyface rolling out from under an elbowdrop, jumping up and yelling "I was fine the whole time!" before taking over on offense.

 

I suppose that would work with Chikara's definition of psychology though, but not after a full year's worth of "selling".

[Matt D]

That in particular came off as very disingenuous when coupled with him saying how crucial it was to keep people guessing so nobody could come forward and squash the rumors. If, by his own admission, the storyline's not finished, why now is it okay to come out and say this now? In keeping with his own wacky metaphor, it'd be like the babyface rolling out from under an elbowdrop, jumping up and yelling "I was fine the whole time!" before taking over on offense.

So a RVD match?

[rovert]

How did the Mike Johnson interview go? I heard that one was better. Does he ever, in either, explain the reason behind the shut-down? I heard he debunked the divorce rumor. Did he reference any financial issues or they strictly just ran the angle to circle-jerk themselves & take a break?

Like Mike Johnson and his post-ROH departure interview was leagues better than the Observer's however I thought his interview with Quack was very deeply unsatisfactory as it didn't really talk about the last year from a kayfabe or business POV. More just a discussion about the concept of it.

 

As far as Quack had gone with the rumours is more or less the following: vaguely acknowledging them, stating they are false, stating his wife has always been supportive of his creative endeavours, pushing that there was a complete continuation of business as in he was working on Wrestling Is shows operationally and then pushing that it is business as usual with CHIKARA.

[gingears]

That in particular came off as very disingenuous when coupled with him saying how crucial it was to keep people guessing so nobody could come forward and squash the rumors. If, by his own admission, the storyline's not finished, why now is it okay to come out and say this now? In keeping with his own wacky metaphor, it'd be like the babyface rolling out from under an elbowdrop, jumping up and yelling "I was fine the whole time!" before taking over on offense.

So a RVD match?

 

I like RVD fine, but if he starts wrestling a match in June, he'd better be done by September at the latest.

[rzombie1988]

I was disappointed that the basic question of "why did Chikara close?" wasn't really answered or at least didn't have a believeable answer. I didn't get much out of the interview aside from the fact that Chikara is happy to lose money in order to run their wrestling wet dreams that only about 100 people understand.

 

I've always said that wrestling can be more than it is now. I kind of imagine a wrestling world that is a blend of Kinnikuman, GLOW, Tuesday Night Titans and following lives of wrestlers in characters outside of the ring(like what does happen if someone like Kane goes Christmas shopping or how would friends of Ron Simmons deal with his limited vocabulary of "DAMN"). Maybe like a weekly series of The Wrestler in GOT style with different outlandish wrestling characters.

[WrestlingPower]

I just listened to his podcast with Cabana. I guess it was as forthcoming as Quack is going to get as he is very much against shattering the mystique of wrestling to the audience. But ultimately it sounds like it was all just an angle. I guess I have to agree with him though that if Chikara is a truly independent spirit where the performance art (his favorite term) and experience is much more important than turning a profit, then they can do what they want. It sounds like this was all an experiment to vet out who was truly "getting it" from a fan perspective & see how far they could take this. He was looking to reward those willing to follow along. He's very much into the mindset of he's happy catering to the 100 people who get it & allow him to see things to fruition that his mind concocts than worrying about profit or satisfying anyone else. He's all about "thinking outside the box" and not being held to the parameters and alleged constraints of wrestling's past. He does discuss the risks of those that criticize turning off those that honestly were trying to follow along.

 

My major criticism of the whole thing is that this guy could make MUCH better use of his time helping his fellow man than spending all this time and energy in his fantasy world. He talks about the years worth of history of creating websites & stuff for these fake companies involved in his stories, hiring people to go to people's houses to allegedly threaten them on behalf of this fictional company, and even renting a storage locker with documents in it with the hopes that one fan followed the online clues & found said document. You know, documents showing that a fake company was perpetrating fraud within a wrestling storyline. So yeah, he's got a lot of time on his hands.

[rovert]

My major criticism of the whole thing is that this guy could make MUCH better use of his time helping his fellow man than spending all this time and energy in his fantasy world. He talks about the years worth of history of creating websites & stuff for these fake companies involved in his stories, hiring people to go to people's houses to allegedly threaten them on behalf of this fictional company, and even renting a storage locker with documents in it with the hopes that one fan followed the online clues & found said document. You know, documents showing that a fake company was perpetrating fraud within a wrestling storyline. So yeah, he's got a lot of time on his hands.

A rather ridiculous criticism when National Pro Wrestling Day raised nearly $8,000 for charity.

[WrestlingPower]

Sorry I totally forgot about that, I was more referring to this "alternate reality" he's created being such a priority in his life. I had seen references online that "malaria" was a cover for "Delorean rental fee". Sorry to be ignorant but I guess Malaria is still a real thing?