While other crazies are out shopping and fighting each other for the last Zhu Zhu (or whatever the frig the hot toy of the year is), I set out to establish a-day-after-Thanksgiving tradition of my own: watching enough wrestling to make even the smarkiest smarks bleed from the eyeballs. That plan was partially thwarted as I was called into work (BOOO!), but I did get in some good viewing. ECW and TNA was viewed in the morning (the former was alright but not the best, the latter was good if only because the matches didn't suck), and then afterwards, it was onto the main event, a doubleheader of Chikara DVDs, Aniversario Yang (held May 24th) and the Sampler, which had matches from various points in the year on it.If you don't know about Chikara's DVDs, a primer. The production values aren't slick. You aren't going to see blazing graphics, HD resolution or anything in the way of effects. This is like ECW-level (and not WWE-ECW either). However, one doesn't buy a Chikara DVD for the outstanding production.
Secondly, they don't have a steady announce team for any card. They have a rotating announce team consisting of a handful of guys take turns announcing each match. For both DVDs, we have ring announcer extraordinnaire Louden Noxious, senior referee and meter of justice Bryce Remsberg, Director of Fun Leonard F. Chikarason, senior Wrestle Factory trainer and Master of 1000 holds Mike Quackenbush, evil insectoid overlord UltraMantis Black and the Last of a Dying Breed, Eddie Kingston.
Aniversario YangAY was a solid wrestling event, no weak matches and two really solid matches anchoring the top of the card. The opener was a shortish fun match featuring Los Ice Creams taking on the Roughnecks of Brodie Lee and Grizzly Redwood. This was basically the second generation dairy luchadors tooling the straight-man Roughnecks team, who sold their antics pretty well. The best was Los Ice Creams climbing the corners repeatedly for pops, much to the annoyance of Brodie and Grizzly. Kingston was on commentary for this match, talking up his stablemates. He kept referring to Grizzly as "Brodie's boy" when he was doing bad and then talking him up when he was doing well. Classic. The finish was nice too, Grizzly pinning both Ice Creams at the same time with the help of Brodie's foot on his back.
Ophidian and Arik Cannon in a singles match next. It started off slow, but then went into countermania, the best being Ophidian countering a brainbuster almost surprisingly smoothly into the Ophidian Death Grip (cobra clutch for the uninitiated). I didn't like the finish because I don't normally like Dusty finishes, but at least they kept the Amasis interference to a simplistic minimum.
Third match on the card was a trios match between the Order of the Neo Solar Temple, featuring Mantis, Crossbones and a freshly-hypnotized Delirious at the time taking on the Saturday Night Slam Masters, aka the Super Smash Bros. and Create-a-Wrestler. I like CAW in his regular form, but if given the choice, I really, really hope they break tradition and let him stay Dasher Hatfield forever and ever. Anyway, kind of a sloppy match, but still entertaining. Most notable was Player Dos' struggles performing power moves on the MASSIVE Crossbones. He failed with the body slam early, but hit a friggin' impressive looking Death Valley driver later on. Still, the ONST took the win.
Fourth match featured the Unstable teaming of Colin Delaney, who is easily the most entertaining heel who doesn't wear a snake mask in the company, and Vin Gerard taking on D'Lo Brown and Glacier. If you remember back to my review of KoT night 1, the Unstable got a win in the main event over Brown, Glacier and Al Snow. Furthermore, Vin Gerard had two unanswered wins against Glacier at that point. I have to say, D'Lo's facial expressions during the match were awesome. The guy is emotive and knows how to play to a crowd. The match finished up with D'Lo locking Delaney in the Chikara Special, which was a nice nod to the company and everything.
Next up was a pseudo-squash, 2.0, a team consisting of IWS mainstays Jagged and Shane Matthews, taking it to the Sea Donsters, featuring Hydra and Tim Donst. If you've been following Chikara recently, you know they split up at YLC VII and now Hydra is bye-bye after losing a Loser Leaves Town match at the season's penultimate show in Easton (the Season Finale saw Vökoder reveal himself as Tim Donst... Donst is Vökoder? Vökoder is Donst???), and this match is where it started after Hydra took the pin in short and too-easy a fashion. The best parts of the match were the pre-match "promo" from 2.0 where they didn't say anything and marquee text at the bottom of the screen said they were keeping their mouths shut til they got their first point, Matthews going apeshit putting everyone, including his partner, into a Boston crab, and of course, Bryce acknowledging Ziasaurus' birthday. She's a good friend of the blog and an occasional reader, so it's awesome hearing that kind of connection to celebrity.
The last match on disc 1 was an atomico, or an 8-man tag team match for the uninitated, pitting Helios, Jigsaw, Lince Dorado and Quack against Hallowicked, Frightmare, Cheech and Cloudy. In a bit of awesome, Cheech and Cloudy both came out dressed as Fright and Wicked, so there were two sets of Incoherence. This match was a bit disappointing though. It exemplified a lot of what I don't like about Americanized indie-lucha in the over contrivation of moves, flips and such. I like a good high-flying wrestler and match (as you'll read later), but a lot of the offense in the match looked unbelievable, like harder to swallow than RVD's WWE offense. Helios is the main offender in that department, but all the entire Future Is Now stable (Lince and Equinox) are guilty of it at times. Still, entertaining fare, with Incoherence Squared picking up the duke.
Disc 2 had the goods though. The first match on that one was a return match between Claudio Castagnoli and Eddie Kingston. I didn't have high hopes for this match since I thought their affair at YLC VII was bland and slow (funny since that match happened after the one I viewed on DVD). It started out that way, but it picked up. Both men showed the storytelling and emotion that will help them succeed at the next level in the spotlight. I especially liked that Kingston won with a Majistrol cradle, brawler outwrestling the wrestler. It was the kind of performance that can get someone to change their mind about a guy like Kingston.
If that match was filled with emotion, story and drama, the main event took that and amped it up a hundred-fold. It was a hair-vs.-masks match between Team FIST (Icarus and Chuck Taylor... Gran Akuma being in it would have been silly since he's already bald!) against The Colony's team of Fire and Soldier Ants. While it didn't have the innate personal vibe to it that Castagnoli/Kingston had, you could tell that it was the end of an intense feud just for the hair/mask stip. You don't have to love lucha libre to know that losing your mask or having to get shaved bald is a big, big deal in wrestling, and these guys wrestled like it. It was jaw-dropping spot after jaw-dropping spot. AT one point, Soldier Ant was carted off to the back after taking an Omega Driver through a table from Taylor, leaving Fire Ant to fend for himself, which he did admirably. When Soldier returned, you could hear the Arena explode. The Colony pulled it out, and even watching six months later, I felt a little emotional and took pride in seeing FIST get shaved bald.
All in all, I'd say that it was a good show. It probably would have felt better being there live, because the Arena is still a great place to watch a show, but hey, it's still great that you can get the feeling for a show on DVD without having great production values.
Sampler 2009Next up on the list was the Sampler, which I got for a scant $2. The first two matches on the DVD were also on AY, so I skipped them. In retrospect, I probably should have gotten another show, but in the long run, who cares?
The first match I did watch was from King of Trios night 3, a semi-final match between the whole of Team FIST and The Future Is Now. Like in the atomico match from AY, I got somewhat annoyed at Helios' mass array of contrived moves, but the other two guys kept it to a minimum. I was a bit disappointed that Gran Akuma didn't kick someone's head off. If it wouldn't spit in the face of continuity or the face/heel spectrum in Chikara, Akuma, Fire Ant and Davey Richards would be one really, really fucking sick King of Trios team for 2010 as a squad that just kicked you into submission. Anyway, FIST won, but you knew that, since they ended up beating Team Uppercut in the finals.
The next match was from KoT night 2, and it could very well be my match of the year. It'll at least be in the top 5. It was a four-way elimination match pitting El Generico, Kota Ibushi, Nick Jackson of the Young Bucks and Jigsaw against each other in the Rey de Voladores tournament, a mini-tournament pitting high-flying wrestlers against each other. This was a spotfest, but it was a mighty spotfest, as each wrestler was game to try and outdo the other one. They gave us a taste of this one in Podcast-a-Go-Go 180, but the entire match proved to be the main course that that clip appetized us for. Any four of these guys could make it in the WWE or TNA with their high-flying skills.
The last match on the compilation was from Revelation X, all the way back from January 25th. It was a Campeonetos de Parejas match (Chikara's Tag Team Championship, for the uninitiated) featuring the Osirian Portal (c) taking on the Colony. Another fantastic match with a lot of great spots, drama and even some comedy mixed in (look for Amasis to sell the shin at a very inappropriate time). The Portal ends up retaining in a relatively clean fashion, but it's very suspenseful and entertaining.
I'm not sure if the Sampler is still available, but you can pick up Aniversario Yang, or any Chikara shows they still have in stock at Smart Mark Video's website. The DVDs are reasonably priced, and it's fun for the whole family. Yeah, I may sound like a shill, but Chikara is a fed I believe in so much. They provide a great alternative for people looking to watch wrestling with a lighter heart or who want a real family friendly promotion, not one that only pays catering to the kids lip-service. It has plenty of colorful characters, great ring action, and hey, it gives you a chance to be on the cutting edge without having to wear skinny jeans or listen to MGMT.
And now, hopefully this will be the start of a new Black Friday tradition. As a wrestling fan, I can't think of a better way to spend the day after gorging my belly with food than gorging my mind with wrestling!
