Highlights:
- The Gekido took out Fire Ant during the pre-show.
- UltraMantis Black procured his staff at some point between Easton and today.
- Mantis rode the wave to victory over Ophidian.
- Sugar Dunkerton made his Chikara return in the Commentation Station.
- Mixed Martial Archie disappeared mid-match, giving way to Archibald Peck.
- Mark Angelosetti used a football helmet while the ref's back was turned to KO Peck. Peck now must leave Chikara.
- Veronica left with Angelosetti while Dasher Hatfield looked upon their PDA with disgust.
- Despite shenanigans from the other members of FIST, Gran Akuma defeated Icarus to regain his spot on the roster.
- Delirious interfered on behalf of the Batiri, giving Sara del Rey and Saturyne the disqualification victory. Delirious left with the Batiri after kissing all three on the forehead.
- Tim Donst appeared to have won his lucha de apuesta via choke out, but Bryce Remsburg found the shoelace/rope he used for the extra leverage.
- After the match was restarted, Hallowicked got the quick win with Donst's own finisher, the Dusk 'til Donst.
- Mike Quackenbush replaced Fire Ant in the Chikara lineup.
- Green Ant jumped off the balcony into a crowd of Gekido and some of his teammates.
- Soldier Ant got the victory with the Chikara Special on 17. After the match, Quack appeared to have broken 17's wrist.
- The Young Bucks became the new Chikara Campeones de Parejas, defeating Johnny Gargano and Chuck Taylor, two falls to one.
General Observations:
- Ophidian debuted new ring gear tonight, almost like a ram's headed mask.
- I'm guessing Mantis procured his staff in New York, unless it happened off-screen.
- Ophidian caught MAD air taking a butterfly suplex from Mantis at one point. Hell, I even think he caught more air on that one than he did on the butterfly superplex later on.
- Speaking of suplexes, Mantis broke out a Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex, no doubt a gift given to him by the great Manami Toyota.
- I must've missed the announcement on the loser-of-the-fall-leaves-town stipulation.
- Dasher with the ass-slap early on in the match.
- "Hey Colt, act like a McCoy!" Thank you, History Channel.
- The biggest unison reaction came when Archibald Peck reemerged from the back.
- The balcony set-up at the Troc made it impossible to see any of the out of the ring action that happened right below, and unfortunately, 90% of all the ring-out stuff happened there, starting with the tag match.
- Veronica played ambivalence at first, not really placing the baton near either Peck or Angelosetti, which was a nice misdirect.
- Oh yeah, the Throwbacks have three points now.
- The ladder in the Icarus/Akuma match got its own celebratory chant when it fell on Icarus in blowback after Icarus threw it into Akuma. It continued to get chants all night, and in fact got the biggest unison face chants of anything, live or dead, of the night.
- I hope someone had some good painkillers for both guys, because each guy used the ladder as a weapon to the max. There were power bombs and Blu-Rays and even a bomb through a table from the ladder by Akuma.
- Saturyne has a really, really slick spinning heel kick in the corner. It just has such a long reach.
- I'd say that between her debut and now, Saturyne improved by leaps and bounds. She was probably the most fearless bumper tonight not named Akuma, Icarus or with the last name of Jackson.
- "Chicken cheesesteak" chant started up during the lucha de apuesta and surfaced again during the tag match. Really?
- Wicked shaved a skullet into Donst after the match to the point where he looked like a young Ben Franklin.
- The 10 man match didn't close the show, which was really odd, especially considering the booking.
- There seriously was a brouhaha or an all-out brawl breaking out every two minutes in the ten-man tag.
- Quack at one point gave Derek Sabato, there seconding the Gekido, a shotei off the apron.
- If Green Ant didn't leap off the balcony, the spot where Soldier Ant dove off a double stack ant hill would have been the most impressive suicidal leap of the night.
- The slow road to rudoism continued for Quack tonight as he "broke" 17's wrist after the match. IT was subtle and lost in the celebration, but there's something there.
- Falls one and two had the same exact finish, O'Connor roll with tights-pulling, only for different teams in each fall.
- This was just a good ol' fashioned heel off. It's like neither team wanted the fans' support, yet this match had the most pronounced dual chanting going on.
- I seriously thought both teams were going to kill each other in the third fall. So many big double team moves.
- The best non-suicide dive of the night was nearly homicidal, with Matt Jackson giving Taylor a tornado DDT from the apron to the floor. Seriously.
- Nick Jackson got a little bit of hardway color at one point. A crimson moustache, if you will.
Match of the Night: Gran Akuma and Icarus had almost two years of mostly dormant into about six months of a revenge tale. It culminated here, and holy poop, did both guys deliver big time. Even if it still might feel weird for people who remember Akuma as the most dickish of the original FIST trio as a hero here, he played his part well. WE all knew that Icarus would throw the crowd into a froth just by breathing (and he did), but Akuma proved here that he was able of scooping up the good will and making it into a story.
The mark of a great match is that it tells a great story even if it's a foregone conclusion who is going to win. I thought that Icarus winning would've taken an act of God, but there I was, sitting with my butthole clenched every time he got close to the contract. When Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano came out, I thought that every preconceived notion about how the match would turn out was wrong. But when Akuma pancaked Icarus through that table and grabbed the contract, the catharsis was still as full and rich as it would've been had this been a result up in the air.
Further reinforcing the match was the use of the ladder. There were two ladders in play, one smaller and one larger, and both were used several times to brutal effects. Icarus putting Akuma through the smaller one with the Blu-Ray was just brutal. Hell, even when Icarus was using the ladder as a bad landing for Akuma on a ring-in senton, it still looked impressive. Perhaps it was Icarus selling the fact that it hurt him too that drove the point home. Either way, everything came together, even Gregory Iron's involvement, and coalesced into one of the finest ladder matches of all-time.
Overall Thoughts: The room was hot, some of the sightlines were questionable, and some vocal people in the crowd acted as if it was their first indie wrestling show. Okay, now that I got the criticism out of the way, let me heap the praise upon the show that we're used to. It was a phenomenal show with seven solid matches and a great atmosphere, temperature aside. It was weird because there was way more finality than I had expected. For example, I thought the Gekido would have put up a little more of a resistance than they did, but there were definite tropes within the match that would draw them back into the battlefield.
That being said, stories were set up to continue. What is Delirious' endgame? This can't be the last we've seen of Marchie Archie, can it? Is Akuma really done with Icarus? And then there's the whole thing about the Young Bucks as the Campeones de Parejas. I believe they're the first real outsider team to hold the titles, which opens up a world of possibility in terms of challenges and matches.
But enough of the future implications, what happened in what was then the here and now delivered. Chikara really does have a great cast of characters, and all of them put their best performances on for the iPPV audience again. Kudos for yet another in a series of great shows.
Results:
- UltraMantis Black pinned Ophidian after the Praying Mantis Bomb.
- The Throwbacks defeated Colt Cabana and Archibald Peck when Mark Angelosetti pinned Peck after an illicit but unseen football helmet shot.
- Gran Akuma grabbed the contract from the ladder after putting Icarus through a table with a powerbomb.
- Sara del Rey and Saturyne defeated Kobold, Obariyon and Kodama by disqualification after outside interference from Delirious.
- Hallowicked tapped Tim Donst with the Dust 'til Donst to win the lucha de apuesta. Donst's head was shaved post match.
- Eddie Kingston, Mike Quackenbush, Jigsaw, Soldier and Green Ants defeated the Gekido when Soldier Ant tapped out 17 with the Chikara Special.
- The Young Bucks won the Campeonatos de Parejas from Team FIST, two falls to one.
