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| He wrestles for peace! Photo Credit: TH |
Highlights:
- The Throwbacks defeated Los Ice Creams after hitting El Hijo del Ice Cream with a combo wheelbarrow hold/Ace crusher.
- The Brown Morning of Belarus defeated the Latvian Proud Oak with a flash school boy pin as the latter preened to the crowd.
- The Proud Oak goaded the Brown Morning into restarting the match, but the Brown Morning still came out victorious via the ankle lock.
- Jolly Roger came back from landing awkwardly on the back of his neck on a plancha to pin Kobold with an arm drag into an Oklahoma Roll in a tag match where they respectively teamed with Lance Steel and Kodama.
- Juan Francisco de Coronado capitalized on a missed 630 senton splash to pin Shynron with a German suplex.
- After the match, Coronado fired his manservant, Herbert.
- The Estonian Thunder Frog defeated the Proletarian Boar of Moldova when the Boar got himself intentionally disqualified by choking the Frog with the broken handle to his own hammer.
- Mr. Azerbaijan defeated the Lithuanian Snow Troll by distracting the referee, hitting the Troll with a low blow, and finishing him with a pumphandle slam.
- Thanks to interference from Max Smashmaster, the Wrecking Crew was able to defeat the Spectral Envoy via a sitout chokeslam by Blaster McMassive on Frightmare.
- IN a relatively short affair, Amasis retained the Wrestling Is Fun Banana Championship against Smashmaster with a discus forearm.
General Observations:
- Daw, Dasher Hatfield tagged into the opening match for the first time by tussling Mark Angelosetti's hair.
- For a pair of comedy jobbers, Los Ice Creams broke out some pretty neat double team offense all during their heat segments. The Throwbacks held serve too. The Chikaraverse, to me, is the most stout piece of evidence that comedy and "serious" wrestling don't necessarily mix like oil and water.
- At one point, El Hijo del Ice Cream was on the apron looking to get into the fray, but Angelosetti hit him in his cone beard, which made him fly off the apron.
- A tale of two entrances: The Brown Morning of Belarus spent his entire entrance trying to scare everyone by getting up in their grills and shouting at them, eliciting a "You're not scary!" chant. The Latvian Proud Oak came out in a red, "Thriller"-era Michael Jackson red leather jacket dancing raucously to Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinking About You.", which was easily the funnest entrance I've ever experienced live.
- In classic WWE non-noble babyface style, the Proud Oak, instead of taking his defeat like the tree he is, went to insulting the Brown Morning. First, he made light of the fact that Latvia has five stoplights while Belarus only has four, which didn't seem to faze the Morning that much. I found the second insult to be unintelligible, but what really set the Brown Morning off was the insinuation that his mother shaved her armpits.
- At one point in the match, the Brown Morning took to gnawing on the Proud Oak's bare feet (roots?), which actually looked quite dirty. I hope he had mouthwash backstage.
- The traditional TPing of The Batiri before their matches left Kobold draped in toilet paper. I mean, all he needed was to be a bit more tightly wound up, and he could have passed for a legit reboot of the La Momia gimmick.
- Knight Eye for the Pirate Guy came out with Princess Kimber Lee making her grand return to the Wrestling Is Fun! stage, especially since she seemed not to tone down the spoiled brat prissiness to jibe more with the team's fan favorite status. I like wrestling juxtaposition.
- Kobold stripped Lance Steel of his chest plate and wore it (thinking it would grant him magical chest of steel), while Steel took Kobold's discarded plate and put it on. Kobold then chopped Steel in the chest, grabbed his hand, and shouted "IT'S HIS CHEST!"
- Scary moment near the beginning of the match - Jolly Roger went for a tope con hilo, but instead of on the Batiri, he landed on the hardwood floor sharply on his neck. He spent a good five minutes writhing on the floor while Lee attended to him. However, he did recover and finished the match.
- After teasing a chokeslam unassisted, Kobold got on Kodama's shoulders to perform the move on Steel.
- After the match, Lee got on the mic and addressed the crowd as "peasants" before revealing Steel was her new man. Things ought to be interesting from here on out.
- Juan Francisco de Coronado came out, cut a promo on Halloween, and then proceeded to threaten his loyal manservant Herbert with firing if he didn't beat Shynron.
- So yeah, let's talk about Shynron. He did a 450 splash from the first freakin' rope. My only complaint is that the move came so early in the match, but holy carp, these guys just keep upping and upping the ante on athleticism with each passing day, don't they?
- Coronado is so good at working the crowd during a match, but I'm always left nonplussed by his promos. If he could get up to speed on the latter as much as he is on the former, he'd be nuclear, man.
- Shynron was about to do a backflippy type move into the ring, but Coronado snatched him out of the air and nailed him with a wheelbarrow German suplex in what was the slickest counter of the night.
- After the match, Coronado got up to speak, and the entire front row on the side of the ring opposite to where I was sitting walked out on him. They missed him firing Herbert despite his victory. DIRTY POOL, OLD MAN, DIRTY POOL.
- The Proletarian Boar of Moldova came out with the remains of the Estonian Thunder Frog's hammer. I was amazed at how he could carry both pieces with ease since no one else could pick it up when it was intact but the Frog. I guess having the parts connected adds strength? Eastern European physics confuse me. The Frog attacked the Boar right out of the gate, but before the bell could ring for the match to begin, the Boar clocked the Frog with the payload of the hammer. Ouch.
- Oleg the Usurper came to the ring eating an onion like it was an apple. Most of the fans sitting around me remarked how he made the arena smell like raw onion. He then pointed out children in the crowd and shouted "YOU THERE! I WILL SQUISH YOU LITTLE CHILDREN!" Hashtag HEEL.
- Even down to their theme song, the Wrecking Crew/Devastation Corporation just gives me warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings for my formative days as a wrestling fan.
- All three of the Spectral Envoy ended up on the apron to do a group flip to the outside, but Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black actually criss-crossed targets, which made for a neat visual.
- After the decision in the six man, Oleg went out and rang his own bell. Oh man.
- Very few things in wrestling make me feel as warm and tingly inside as out-and-out chaotic brawling, especially when the participants are in a brouhaha right in front of my seat. Post-match, the Wrecking Crew (along with Max Smashmaster) brawled out with the Envoy until Amasis came out to make the save, the entire sequence being my favorite part of the show.
- Kinda surprised the main event went as short as it did, but in all honesty, if the Banana wasn't on the line, my guess would have been the Envoy/Crew match would have gone on last.
- As a coda, I gave Dan Yost's refereeing the following rating: *** and 56/83
Match of the Night: Blaster McMassive, Jaka, and Oleg the Usurper vs. Frightmare, Hallowicked, and UltraMantis Black - This trios match was a page right out of the '80s WWF in skeletal structure. Imagine Smash, Barbarian, and Kamala on a heel team, only all three of them were instead supremely athletic and dipped in the flair of the modern independent ethos. The Wrecking Crew's melding of old school veneers with modern sensibilities made them the perfect villains in any promotion. As an example, Oleg, callous brut at his best, broke out a running, rolling senton atomico which is not something I would have expected from one of Vince McMahon's monsters of the month from the late '80s and early '90s.
On the other side of the ring stood the Spectral Envoy, containing two of the most able babyfaces on the combined Wrestling Is... roster in Hallowicked and Frightmare. While Mantis has made a career out of being a loud-and-proud rudo, his bona fides as an underdog were forged in the fires of the Easton Funplex at King of Trios '12. The Spectral Envoy spent so much of the match on their heels, but they were so good at generating pathos so that when they did make their comebacks, both individual and the group-flourish at the end, they had the crowd at every single checkpoint.
Hallowicked deserves special plaudits for his individual comeback. He took a beating after Frightmare took his own, getting it from each of the Wrecking Crew. But when he came up for air, his fire was impeccable. Bonus points should go to the entire team for their bouquet of topes con giro as the match descended further into insanity, as Mantis and Wicked criss-crossed targets while Frightmare and McMassive timed their movements so perfectly that they collided with perfection that rarely is attained with a dive to the outside.
Overall Thoughts: Between Green and Yellow was a show that came across more heavily-handed with black hat success than others within the Chikaraverse. Despite the flourish of bad guys winning - four outright (five if you count both the Brown Morning's victories over the Proud Oak) and another losing intentionally by disqualification - the show had a supremely fun atmosphere, laid out in such a way where the titular fun could be found even if the bad guys would end up triumphing en masse.
The Polar Baron's Union would run roughshod over the Baltic Siege, but the Proud Oak's entrance will leave more of a mark on my memory than any of the match decisions. Los Ice Creams and the Throwbacks put on a clinic of comedic grappling, but if I have to be real, I would have been surprised if a match featuring the luchadores de las leches wasn't entertaining. Princess Kimber Lee's antics were a sweet cap on the always-pleasing exploits of Knight Eye for the Pirate Guy and even more satisfactory doings of anyone wrestling The Batiri.
Wrestling Is Fun! with this show put another notch under the column that the best in wrestling happens regardless of match finishes. This show felt the closest to an off-prestige Chikara show that featured mostly roster members and not guests. The intimate atmosphere of the Police Athletic League gym helped enhance that feeling. All in all, Wrestling Is Fun! lived up to the name on their marquee, no matter who ended up with hands raised victoriously.
