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| Marchie Archie helped steal the show Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
Highlights:
- Ophidian used an exposed turnbuckle and a bridging cobra clutch to take down Green Ant.
- Saturyne won her proper, in-season debut match with a springboard hurricanrana against El Hijo del Ice Cream.
- An assailant dressed as Green Ant interfered in the Colony's match against the Throwbacks, giving the latter a disqualification victory.
- Brodie Lee brutalized Jigsaw, finishing him off with a huge sitdown powerbomb in the 12 Large Summit makeup match.
- Colt Cabana overcame biting, camouflage and a "Scotty Goldman!" chant to defeat Kobold with the Billy Goat's Curse.
- In the typical chaos of Chikara atomicos action, Tim Donst snuck a shoelace in the ring and used it to choke out Gregory Iron.
- Sara del Rey forcibly took care of Veronica in her attempt at cheating, nailing her with a koppo kick. Veronica was taken from the arena unconscious.
- del Rey's opponent in the match, Archibald Peck, tapped out to the submission portion of the Royal Butterfly.
- Icarus subbed in for an injured Johnny Gargano during Team FIST's Campeonatos de Parejas defense against the Spectral Envoy.
- FIST won the first fall via powder in the eyes of Hallowicked and a roll-up.
- The Envoy claimed the second fall with a running yakuza kick on Icarus by Wicked.
- FIST retained after Delirious appeared and nailed UltraMantis Black with the Praying Mantis Bomb behind the ref's back, allowing Icarus to make the cheap cover.
General Observations:
- According to Bryce Remsburg, the attendance was the highest in Reading's history, even dating back to the days of the Reading Super Dome.
- Ophidian's collection of fallen Osirian Portal masks is nothing short of badass. Seriously, it's like a Native American warrior's collection of fallen opponents' scalps.
- Green Ant, Bryce and Gavin Loudspeaker fueling speculation of a Mike Quackenbush heel turn with their emphasis on Greenie being the first to get a tap-out victory over the Chikara Original, the former in his pre-match promo and the latter two on commentary.
- Chikara deserves a lot of praise for a lot of things, but I think the thing that they deserve the most praise for is importing the British World of Sport style. I love seeing the mat exchanges at the beginning of matches, especially between guys who know what they're doing like Ophidian and Green Ant.
- I love Ophidian's snake style, which is basically him working pressure points. It's so simple yet no one else does it. Brilliant stuff.
- I love that Green Ant actually has a reason why he never sells giving a headbutt. Again, simple things.
- Guys, that bridging cobra clutch that Ophidian does is fucking insane.
- El Hijo del Ice Cream flinging Saturyne by her hair hard on the canvas was insane the first time. The second time? I think I had to hand it to the rookie for taking such a heinous looking move two times in a match. You don't get to the top by being a badass from jump.
- While she still has a lot of seasoning to take in, I like how flexible, athletic and "super happy fun ball" Saturyne is. The best example was on an Alabama slam counter where she basically did gymnastics to escape.
- Anyone else think the man known as Mr. Touchdown is roid raging, or is that not PG enough for Chikara?
- That being said, I loved him roid raging when the fans chanted "NERD! NERD!" at him.
- Given how hard they were playing up the lack of synchronicity between Angelosetti and Dasher Hatfield, I wonder if the endgame for this is for Dasher to choose between the rude dude or his returning former best bud, Sugar Dunkerton.
- I know now that wasn't Green Ant who interfered, but I wonder if other people in attendance ever thought that the interloper interfering in the match was an impostor.
- Brodie Lee wore his Blood Warriors t-shirt to the ring.
- Random fan: Welcome back Brodie!" Brodie: "SHUT UP!"
- Commentary line of the night from Gavin Loudspeaker: "He hit him so hard, it trended on Twitter."
- No, but seriously, Brodie spent like 75% of the match kicking Jigsaw's ass, and it was glorious because Jigsaw's the kinda guy who will make you look good as all get out when you're beating the shit out of him.
- No, seriously, Jigsaw did his best Kevin Steen impression by taking a chokeslam (that was a counter of his own plancha to the outside) and a back suplex on the apron in succession.
- The fans were really on point in this match with their catcalls: "STOP IT HE'S ALREADY DEAD!" "[Jigsaw], Pretend you're road kill, he'll just drive by!"
- One of the things that Jigsaw does really well is his suplex counter, where he gets the knee up right away as he's being lifted up into the vertical position. Little things.
- Accompanying Colt Cabana to the ring: Steve "The Turtle" Weiner, not in full turtle regalia though.
- Loudspeaker billed Cabana as "The Original Funkasaurus."
- Again, the crowd was on point, as the aforementioned "SCOTTY GOLDMAN!" chant was followed by several catcalls of "Too soon!" Never change, Chikara fans. Never ever change.
- At one point, Kobold was so scared of Cabana that he scurried into the crowd where he got "lost" behind a dude in camo. Cabana pointed out that the dude in camo looked like Fake Seth Rogen.
- Jakob Hammermeier came out in pigtails. I shit you not.
- Crowd chanting for the tecnicos prompted Tim Donst to go to the top rope to try and start a chant of his own, which led to Bryce getting a chant in response. At the behest of Shane Matthews, he went up onto three of the four turnbuckles, excluding the one where the rudos were situated.
- Eddie Kingston acting befuddled at the idea of teaming with 3.0 and simultaneously acting as Gregory Iron's big brother during the match was pretty awesome.
- "Well, [Donst's] hair could use some conditioner, I can tell you that." -- Mike Quackenbush, wrestling commentator and fashion maven.
- Archibald Peck's sulking is the greatest thing ever.
- One night after Sara del Rey sent Allysin Kay into the turnbuckles with an O'Connor Roll, she sent Peck into them with a school girl roll-up. If adding new levels of violence to simple pin attempts is her new thing, I approve.
- I also loved how she couldn't keep a straight face at the height of Archie's antics. Sometimes, even the best stone faces are vulnerable to comedic genius.
- Peck's overacting after the match over the fallen Veronica should win him an Academy Award. IT SHOULD, DAMMIT.
- Icarus' new moustache completes his d-bag combo along with the ever-present terrible back tattoo of doom.
- "Please retire!" chants at Icarus. Luv u, Reading.
- UltraMantis Black tried to remove Icarus' moustache via force at one point during the match, which is another reason why Chikara is the best thing ever.
Seriously, for a match between two people who had no prior quarrel with each other, this turned out to be one fantastic exercise in storytelling. As I noted last night in my six pack, I want to see a rematch. Hell, give me a whole series. Let these two wrestle as many times as they seem to be two who'll give an awesome bout every time. Then again, both are mentioned every time someone asks who the best in the world is, so there's that.
Overall Thoughts: This was a strong, strong show. It kicked off a few major storylines, including what has now become the Gekido angle, set the stage for the Mixed Martial Archie character in the future as well as laid groundwork for the character that "Mr. Touchdown" Mark Angelosetti would become. That's not even to mention the continuation of Mantis' feud/proceedings with Delirious and more depth for Ophidian in the bookend matches. I also wouldn't put it past the mentions of Quack tapping out to Green Ant near the very beginning of the show to be foreshadowing either.
I thought it was a beyond great show actual wrestling as well. It had four really solid matches (opener, Jig/Brodie, atomicos and the aforementioned SDR/Peck match), and the other four matches were pretty good as well. This was a show that scratched a lot of itches and proved that even "minor" Chikara shows are must-see and worth seeking out.
Results:
- Ophidian submitted Green Ant with a bridging cobra clutch.
- Saturyne pinned El Hijo del Ice Cream with a springboard hurricanrana.
- Dasher Hatfield and Mark Angelosetti defeated Fire Ant and Soldier Ant by disqualification.
- Brodie Lee pinned Jigsaw with a sitout powerbomb.
- Colt Cabana submitted Kobold with the Billy Goat's Curse.
- Tim Donst, Jakob Hammermeier, Obariyon and Kodama defeated Eddie Kingston, Gregory Iron, Shane Matthews and Scott Parker when Donst submitted Iron with a shoelace-assisted rear naked choke.
- Sara del Rey submitted Archibald Peck with the Royal Butterfly.
- Chuck Taylor and Icarus (subbing for Johnny Gargano) successfully defended the Campeonatos de Parejas over Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black, two falls to one.
