King of Trios 2009: Night 2

On Demand
DVD

Match 1
Rey de Voladores Qualifier
Austin Aries vs. Player Dos vs. Matt Jackson vs. Fire Ant

Aries is suddenly a heel, explained through commentary as having some bad hotel service and sleep the night before. Player Dos is the rechristened Stupefied, now fully immersed in his partner’s gimmick and wearing a new set of tights that include a Triforce, the Deadpool logo and other nerd insignias. The opening is extremely quick with a fast Dos/Matt exchange leading to Dos throwing Matt out with headscissors, throwing Aries out immediately after and then being taken apart by Fire Ant. Fire Ant throws Dos out with a Fireman’s Carry, then Aries returns and slows it down quite a bit. Aries lays Fire down on his stomach and slides him out of there. He sends Dos to the outside with a dropkick, leading to Aries vs. Matt on the inside with Dos and Fire Ant fighting on the outside.

After a brief exchange, Aries applauds Matt and reaches out for a handshake. Matt accepts, but is then slapped in the face. He sends him to the outside and as Aries bounces off the ropes for a dive, Dos trips him. Aries gets up and punches him down and bounces the opposite ropes to try a dive on Dos. This time, Matt trips him. He blocks a punch from Aries and drags his throat across the top rope, opening Aries for a top-rope crossbody courtesy of Fire Ant. Matt comes in and clears the ring, bounces the ropes and this time it’s Aries who comes in and interrupts him with a clothesline. Aries spends a few minutes working Matt over and ends up screwing himself over by dedicating way too much time to playing to the crowd.

Matt fights back with a Shiranui, backdrops Fire Ant and then Spears Dos. Again, he goes for a dive follow-up, but Aries smashes him with an axe-handle to prevent it. Matt clotheslines him out of there, bounces the ropes, dropkicks all three through the ropes, bounces back up and then gets them all with an Asai Moonsault. Back in the ring, he gets Dos with a twisting Ace Crusher from off the top.

He prepares a superplex on Dos, but Aries appears and throws him off and to the mat. Aries climbs up to do a superplex on the prone Dos, but Fire appears on the apron to jumpkick Aries in the head. Fire hops to the top rope, jumps off and kicks Matt right in the skull. He follows with the Beach Breaker and pins Matt, eliminating him from the match. Dos is still in the corner and keeps getting hit repeatedly by accident as Fire and Aries focus on each other. Fire goes for a wheelbarrow-based maneuver and Aries refuses to play ball.

As he laughs at this, Fire gets up and gives him a Stunner. Fire gets to the second rope and jumps off for a senton, completely missing. The ailing Dos is still on the top rope during all of this, so he does a Frog Splash onto Fire Ant immediately after the impact, giving him the pin. Now we’re down to two. Aries topes the hell out of Dos, garnering dueling chants from the crowd. After a second-rope bulldog, he does a variation of a Camel Clutch with a bridge. Dos makes it to the ropes to save himself. Once again, Dos is set up for a superplex, but this time he shoves Aries off and tries a Frog Splash. It misses. A Fireman Carry Slam sets Dos up for Aries’ 450 Splash. As Aries readies himself on the top rope, Dos pops up and delivers a brain kick to stun him. He gets up there with him, does one of his trademarks, the B13, which is like a top-rope Snapmare that lands on the opponent’s head. Dos picks up the win and advances to the finals on Night 3. Great start to the show.

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King of Trios 2009: Night 1

On Demand
DVD

Prior to the show, the crowd is told that Iceberg missed his flight and won’t be at the show. No big loss.

Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
Team EPIC WAR (Austin Aries, Ryan Drago and Tony Kozina) vs. F1rst Family (Arik Cannon, Darin Corbin and Ryan Cruz)

Little bit of backstory for this one. Supposedly, Aries was told to play a face dynamic in this match. Aries wasn’t really happy with this, since he just turned heel in EPIC WAR and he’s been heel pretty much everywhere else. Still, it was insisted that he play face here. Aries decided to oversell it in a way that’s hilarious enough to offset it being unprofessional. This is apparent from the pre-match promo where he interrupts Drago to express how this is all about the fans and their desire to see high-flying action.

When everyone’s in the ring, Aries makes sure to shake everyone’s hand and then claps a little too hard. Drago slaps him on the back to force a tag before things can begin, pissing off the crowd. Drago faces Cannon and can’t get his bearings until pulling Cannon’s hair. Kozina is tagged in to help take advantage, but Cannon sneaks off to tag Corbin. Corbin and Kozina brawl to the outside, effectively tagging, so we get Aries vs. Cruz. They’re the quickest guys on either team, so this is some nice fast-paced action with Aries getting the upper hand. Corbin blind-tags in and the North Star Express double-team on Aries. Cannon comes in to pound on him for a bit and Aries begins to get his second wind… TATANKA-STYLE! He starts doing a war dance while no-selling their hits, chops each one in the head and then lets loose with this!

Kozina hops off the top rope and does a really sloppy headscissors that sends Cannon and himself over the top rope. Aries prepares for a dive, only to get tagged by Drago yet again. Cruz ends up being the one in peril as the EPIC WAR guys take turns beating on him. Drago keeps tagging Aries way too hard for the sake of being a dick. Kozina sets up Cruz on the second rope and tries to jump onto his back, but Cruz sidesteps and causes him to fall out of the ring. Drago tries to stop him from tagging, but receives a kick in the face and the next thing you know, Arik Cannon is cleaning Drago’s clock. Amusingly enough, when Cannon bounces off the second rope for an elbow drop, Aries enthusiastically pats him on the back. Drago is able to send Cannon out of the ring with an enziguri, but the North Star Express step in and sandwich his head with their move the Shell Shock. Drago rolls to the outside and Cruz holds the ropes open to make it easier for Corbin to dive out there for the follow-up.

Cruz tries to do the same, but is intercepted by Aries. Kozina gets Cruz with a top-rope bulldog, but there’s a kickout. Kozina and Aries set up some kind of superplex/top-rope Stunner move, but they’re knocked off. Cannon plants Drago with a Backdrop Driver, but he kicks out. Corbin flapjacks Cruz onto him with the Cruz Control and it’s enough for the full pin. After the match, Aries befriends the team and continues acting as an over-the-top face.

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Prelude to King of Trios 2009

After 2008 proved how big they could get, CHIKARA figured maybe they should scale it back just a little for 2009. Things became far more refined and bigger indy names were brought in for star power, such as Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries and the return of El Generico. This would be the first year to give us the format that the company would stick with for the following few years.

Previously on CHIKARA…

2008 was a time of friendships exploding. UltraMantis Black brainwashed Tim Donst into becoming a member of the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple, but Donst was only pretending for the sake of gathering intel. Not only did he end up befriending Hydra and convince him to split from UltraMantis, but he found out that Shane Storm was selling Mike Quackenbush’s secrets to the rudos for help in stopping his losing streak. Quack viciously attacked his former friend and Storm became a pariah in the locker room.

Vin Gerard continued to reign victorious against the masked tecnicos of CHIKARA and gained an ally in Shane Storm – renamed STIGMA. Although Fire Ant defeated Gerard at the finals for the Young Lions Cup tournament, Gerard defeated him in the rematch. Gerard and STIGMA also gained a new ally in Colin Delaney, who came back from his less-than-successful WWE run. Together they called themselves the UnStable.

As for last year’s winners, the remainder of 2008 was a mixed bag. El Pantera had a handful of matches before returning to Mexico. Incognito won the big Rey de Voladores tournament. Lince had a series of matches against Eddie Kingston, losing repeatedly but always insisting on another match. Due to personal circumstances, Eddie left the company for much of the year and Lince was inserted into the UnStable storyline. Many fans became unenthused with his push and turned on him quite a bit. It got so bad that during their matches, Eddie would have to shout at the crowd that Lince almost died that one time in order to force sympathy.

When Colin was in WWE for a few months, his brother Jimmy believed him to be on the CHIKARA roster thanks to Gerard whispering in his ear and would unmask different wrestlers to see if they were Colin. Colin betrayed him upon return and Jimmy began his road to revenge by teaming up with Lince. He then decided to become the new Equinox, reprising Gerard’s old identity to successfully get under his skin. By the end of the year, he defeated Gerard for the Young Lions Cup.

The same year also gave us Claudio Castagnoli’s major feud with Brodie Lee as the Swiss wrestler decided to knock that bully down a peg. Their initial matches led to disqualifications and a No DQ match led to the Fabulous Three interfering, so the big blowoff was done via the company’s first and only ever steel cage match. Claudio won decisively.

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King of Trios 2008: Night 3

DVD

Thing I should note here is that this is a long one and probably the longest of all the King of Trios shows, nearing the 4 hour mark. It’s 11 matches with one of them being a tag gauntlet. That’s more exhausting when you add in a 20 minute intermission and however long I had to wait before the show started. I’d be watching myself in the crowd and wonder why I wasn’t as into it as I should be, but then I remember how taxing the weekend was.

Luckily, the shows from here on out are mercifully shorter and easier to handle in one go.

The third night’s DVD is introduced by Steve “The Turtle” Weiner, a weird but enthusiastic member of the CHIKARA staff and occasional wrestler. He has some brackets drawn up and goes over who will face who, though appears to completely forget to mention Team Japan at all. But with eight teams left, that means seven trios matches, so we begin with…

Match 1
King of Trios Quarterfinals
FIST (Icarus, Gran Akuma and Chuck Taylor) vs. the Colony (Fire Ant, Soldier Ant and Worker Ant)

An interview shows all three members of FIST going over their match. Akuma notes that FIST and the Colony are the only trios to be in both King of Trios 2007 and 2008 (ignoring the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple, but whatever). Chuck proceeds to go cliché by saying that he’s going to squash the ants. As the Colony make their entrance, Soldier is decked out with military gear, including a helmet. It’s decided that Chuck will start for his team so when Icarus steps out onto the apron and out of the ring, the fans cheer. He has second thoughts and steps back into the ring, causing boos. Then he steps back out to cheers. Back in to boos. Cheers, boos, cheers, boos, etc. Chuck leaves the ring for a second to grab Worker Ant’s fanny pack, throws it to the mat and elbow drops it.

Chuck puts Worker into a headlock and gets WAAAY too excited about the move until being shoved off. Worker crossbodies him and Chuck rolls out. Fire vs. Icarus is extremely one-sided with Fire showing off his lucha skills. Then it’s Akuma vs. Soldier, where after locking up, Soldier succeeds in manipulating Akuma’s arms so that he’s saluting. An annoyed Akuma suckerkicks him and Soldier ends up in peril. Chuck hits him with a cool Flapjack, but he kicks out. Soldier briefly save himself with a Sunset Flip, but Chuck gets back up and silences him with one of his picture-perfect dropkicks. Akuma powerbombs Icarus’ body onto Soldier and then they do their triple-team dropkick in the corner spot. Soldier kicks out. Soldier rolls up Icarus for a sit-down pin, Icarus shoves him off and Soldier ends up being shoved right into his team’s corner, where he tags Worker in.

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Once again, I’d post the cover image but it too is a pretty big spoiler. A spoiler of an amazing moment.

On Demand
DVD

The CHIKARA Fan Conclave took place a couple hours before the show. I went, although I don’t recall too much about it, since it was a while back. I do recall seeing people going up to the Team IPW:UK guys to give them props, but absolutely nobody went near Da Soul Touchaz. After all, they didn’t compete during Night 1 and nobody had any idea who they even were. What a difference a couple hours would make.

There was also a Q&A session which included some fan questions like someone asking UltraMantis if those Kaiju monsters he fought were shrunken down or if the arena was enlarged to scale. Icarus also got the question of, “BOOOOOO?” When asked to do an impression of another CHIKARA wrestler, Chuck Taylor rolled into the ring and did his best Lince Dorado by going into a seizure.

Too soon, man. Too soon.

Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
The Southern Saints (Marcus O’Neil, Reno Diamond and Shawn Reed) vs. Team Japan (KUDO, MIYAWAKI and SUSUMU)

As the Southern Saints await the start of the match, the ref checks each member. He finds a chain concealed in O’Neil’s kneepad… then a chain concealed in Diamond’s pants… then one in Reed’s kneepad… and in the other one… and under the tape wrapped around his wrist. The ref shakes his head and chides him for not even trying. Reed and SUSUMU start it off, but appear a little too equal. MIYAWAKI and Diamond enter and each try to get the cheers of the fans. MIYAWAKI wins that little battle. As they grapple, Diamond wins out with a surprise spin kick and some heel tactics. Reed is tagged back in, punches MIYAWAKI a few times, then stops to poke him in the eyes. He lays him down and does a Jerry Lawler-style punch off the second rope, I guess to further his claim that they’re connected in some way. Diamond holds MIYAWAKI in a Camel Clutch as O’Neil dropkicks him in the face.

Shortly after, MIYAWAKI is able to get to his corner and tags in KUDO, who uses a lot of kick-based offense on O’Neil. O’Neil ends up as a punching bag for the Japanese trio until SUSUMU mistimes a leapfrog and gets grabbed into a Cobra Clutch into an STO. O’Neil sets up SUSUMU for a top-rope hurricanrana, gets shoved off, runs back up immediately and hits it on the second attempt. SUSUMU exits the ring and O’Neil dives out onto him. The ring begins to fill up and the Southern Saints take it to Team Japan, except O’Neil looks legitimately out on his feet when they each do a turnbuckle punch spot. The three meet up in the ring and then duck as the Japanese guys run at them, causing them to collide in the center. Team Japan quickly gets the advantage and clear the ring. SUSUMU and MIYAWAKI perform a double-team Lungblower on O’Neil, he staggers and turns around into KUDO hopping off the ropes to nail him with both knees. Diamond breaks the pin, but gets thrown back out. SUSUMU does an Attitude Adjustment on O’Neil and keeps on him. O’Neil fights back briefly, but then SUSUMU gets him with a twisting variation of the Yoshi Tonic and it’s over.

The crowd gives a great ovation to both teams for a fun starter. Reed angrily rants to the camera that, “The South will rise again!” before taking off.

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On Demand
DVD

Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
Team ROH (Alex Payne, Rhett Titus and Shane Hagadorn) vs. Las Chivas Rayadas (Chiva II, Chiva III and Chiva IV)

Backstage, Shane Hagadorn tries to pull off a straightforward heel promo about how you’re about to watch the best match of the first round, but Titus interrupts and starts ranting about how they’re going to grab Las Chivas by the antlers and milk them all. Titus is definitely the only one who has any strong mic skills in this segment. After those three enter the ring, Las Chivas walk out and take photos with various fans in the crowd, acting like excited tourists. They enter the ring and annoy the ROH team by taking a picture of Payne and blinding him with the flash. The crowd is already behind these guys a bunch. Chiva III grabs the ref and dances with him to the crowd’s delight. Titus tries getting the same reaction by dancing the Macarena with the ref, but Chiva III spanks him from behind and riles him up.

Chiva III outwrestles Titus and they each make a tag. Chiva II stretches Payne across his back, stands in his own corner and allows Chivas III and IV to jump off the top rope and each double-stomp him. Then two of them stretch him across the mat while the other takes a photo of his tortured face. Titus and Hagadorn clean house and leave only Chiva IV in the ring. They work him over for an extended period of time and there’s a noticeable botch in the middle of it when Titus does a legdrop while Payne does a senton over the ropes and misses by a mile. The tide turns when Payne and Titus stand outside the ring and hold Chiva IV in the corner as Hagadorn goes for a Baseball Slide. Chiva IV moves out of the way and Titus gets hit instead. Chiva III tags in and gets some hits in before Hagadorn cuts off the momentum. Chiva II comes in, places Payne on the second rope and then delivers a nice Lungblower. Hagadorn breaks the pin, but Chiva II is able to knock him out of the ring and then backdrop Titus onto him. Las Chivas try to do some elaborate triple team attack on Payne, but completely screw it up and repeatedly drop him with no idea what they should be doing. Finally, Chiva III simply just does a moonsault and pins him. Team ROH return to the back while arguing with each other the entire time.

Yeah, this isn’t the best way to start the show, but I guess it’ll only get better.

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Prelude to King of Trios 2008

A year had past since the first King of Trios and the 2008 take would be the most ambitious version of the tournament ever. No longer would it be in smaller venues, leading into the ECW Arena. This time the ECW Arena would not only house all three shows, but they’d even host a Fan Conclave before Night 2 for all the fans to meet and hang out with the various wrestlers. It’s like CHIKARA’s version of Wrestlemania Axxess, only with less extreme misspelling.

The big change is that rather than go with 16 teams, the 2008 tournament would feature TWENTY-EIGHT different teams. That means EIGHTY-FOUR wrestlers, making this the biggest tournament in all of wrestling. A huge undertaking, but what’s most amusing is that of all these teams, not a single one wants anything to do with Vin Gerard.

Since We Last Left Our Heroes…

Despite winning the King of Trios tournament, the team of Mike Quackenbush, Jigsaw and Shane Storm didn’t gain all that much momentum through 2007. Granted, Quack eventually got his long-awaited match against rival Chris Hero and won via the introduction to his new finisher the CHIKARA Special, but Jigsaw and Shane Storm had no luck in the tag division and couldn’t amount three points despite multiple attempts. The two went their separate ways with Jigsaw leaving the company for Ring of Honor, where he wrestled without a mask, while Storm went on to endure a nasty losing streak.

FIST and Chuck Taylor continued to team up normally and Chuck even became the official third member. They became a Kings of Wrestling splinter group and warred with Chris Hero’s faction until Mitch Ryder convinced them all to join back together and become a dominant stable made up of Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli (reluctantly, as part of a stipulation for a match he lost), Icarus, Gran Akuma, Chuck Taylor, Mitch Ryder, Larry Sweeney and Maxime Boyer. Boyer was later replaced by Shayne Hawke. FIST held onto the Campeonatos de Parejas for much of the year, while Chuck Taylor won the Young Lions Cup against Ricochet.

Over time, things fell to pieces for the super-group. Everyone and their mother was able to make Chris Hero tap to the CHIKARA Special due to Quackenbush teaching it to as many people as possible. FIST lost the Campeonatos de Parejas to the team of Hallowicked and Delirious. Chuck Taylor appeared to have gotten rid of Ricochet for good, but he returned with a mask under the name Helios and won the Young Lions Cup. Then Claudio turned on the team and blazed through all of his opponents until defeating Chris Hero, who had never appeared in a CHIKARA ring since.

Mitch Ryder feuded with Lince Dorado, believing him to be an illegal immigrant who was stealing the wrestling jobs away from Americans. The rivalry led to a Mask vs. Hair Match where Lince won, but at a terrible cost. A Shooting Star Senton hit a little too hard and he went into convulsions, causing panic in the crowd and the show to be cut short.

Another Mask vs. Hair Match ended with Chris Hero unmasking Equinox to reveal failed Wrestle Factory student Vin Gerard, who was not Mexican despite years of claiming to be. Gerard used the masked identity to sneak himself onto the roster as an international superstar and the revelation caused his excommunication from the locker room. This made him very, very bitter.

Eddie Kingston got rolled up by Hallowicked and lost an 8-man tag match, causing him to blow a gasket and start a war with Hallowicked over who is the best Wrestle Factory student. In Kingston’s rage, he needlessly brutalized newcomer Tim Donst in a singles match. Although Kingston was able to defeat Hallowicked in a Falls Count Anywhere Match, he did get rolled up and pinned by Donst in a trios match the night prior thanks to Hallowicked’s assist.

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Normally, I’d place the image of the DVD cover here, but I’ll save that for later. For some reason, they decided that putting the two final teams against each other for the image would be the best idea. In other words, even looking at the cover is a gigantic spoiler for the entire weekend of shows. Since I first saw the show in DVD form, that was really, really annoying.

On Demand
DVD

Match 1
King of Trios Semifinals
The Kings of Wrestling (Icarus, Gran Akuma and Chuck Taylor) vs. Team Kaentai Dojo (KUDO, MIYAWAKI and Yoshiaki Yago)

As Yago and Akuma face off, the crowd gives a hearty chant of, “YAGO!” before they even get started. The two go straight into kickboxing, hitting hard and blocking when possible. Finally, Yago has had enough and sends Akuma out of the ring with a reverse kick. Taylor bounces into MIYAWAKI’s shoulders a couple times and holds his own far better than Jimmy Olsen the night before, but still goes down in the end. MIYAWAKI and his partners each get their licks in against Taylor until he tags out to Icarus. He and KUDO do a bit of amateur wrestling. Icarus brings in Akuma and the two start striking each other stiffly. Akuma wins the battle and begins making frequent tags as they work over KUDO.

Meanwhile, the commentary team is Larry Sweeney and PWG personality Excalibur and it’s fantastic. Sweeney wasn’t there for Night 2 and asks Excalibur for some details only to discover that Excalibur wasn’t there either. So instead, they start talking about the NBA All-Star Game and Sweeney’s ability to jump 12 feet in the air.

KUDO saves himself against Akuma and does a weird reverse Tarantula type move against the ropes, rolls Akuma into the middle of the ring and dead-lifts him into a German suplex. Huge ovation for it. MIYAWAKI tags in and lays waste to the Kings of Wrestling with a series of bodyslams. All three rudos are toss into the same corner and MIYAWAKI runs in with an elbow. Yago arrives and delivers some heart punches to Akuma. He and MIYAWAKI put Akuma in a double STF as KUDO dropkicks him in the face.

The Kings of Wrestling focus on MIYAWAKI with a string of Chuck Taylor’s Sole Food, Akuma’s Yoshi Tonic and Icarus’ Shiranui. KUDO breaks the pin and then hits Icarus with knees to the face off the top rope. Akuma gives him the Falcon Arrow. Yago breaks the pin and gives Akuma a Rock Bottom. Taylor dropkicks Yago out of the ring and then dives onto all three Japanese dudes. Yago is thrown back in and they triple team him. Akuma and Icarus hold him down as Taylor performs a crisp moonsault, but he still kicks out. MIYAWAKI and KUDO climb to the top ropes and hit Icarus and Akuma with missile dropkicks. That leaves Yago against Taylor, where he puts him away with a Crucifix Powerbomb. Team Kaentai Dojo are off to the finals and the Kings of Wrestling limp off backstage.

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King of Trios 2007: Night 2

On Demand
DVD

Match 1
Gran Akuma vs. MASAMUNE

We’re shown a MASAMUNE promo, but it’s entirely in Japanese so… yeah. Thing to note about CHIKARA is that usually the commentary is really good. UltraMantis Black, Larry Sweeney, Bryce Remsberg, Mike Quackenbush, Leonard F. Chikarason and later Gavin Loudspeaker are all at least bearable. For this match, we’re given the team of UltraMantis and Icarus. Oy. Icarus and commentary do NOT go well together. He mumbles, tries too hard to play it straight and any jokes fall completely flat.

On the other hand, Akuma vs. MASAMUNE itself is pretty good. The two are very similar in style and it seems that MASAMUNE is supposed to be just as much a heel as Akuma. It’s brought up that MASAMUNE is a tag champ in Osaka Pro, adding to the idea that the two of them are evenly matched. In a good opening bit of grappling, Akuma gets the best of the exchange and armdrags MASAMUNE out of the ring. MASAMUNE angrily throws a chair, making it a point that he isn’t any more virtuous than the despised Akuma after all. Akuma doesn’t play face either, as once MASAMUNE reenters, he knees him with a cheap shot. While the chemistry is definitely there, the match appears to go into a pattern. They do a strike war against each other (chops, kicks, forearms), then one gives the other an elaborate submission hold that won’t take. Akuma goes for the Yoshi Tonic, MASAMUNE escapes and then hits Akuma with an Ace Crusher. While grappling with Akuma from behind, MASAMUNE briefly shoves the ref out of the way out of annoyance. During that diversion, Akuma gives him a mule kick to the balls, rolls him up and puts his legs on the ropes to get the pin.

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On Demand
DVD

The show starts out, uniquely enough, without a match. As it turns out, there’s a huge blizzard going on and the ring doctor hasn’t arrived yet, so the fans in attendance have to sit on their hands for a while and wait. To warm up the crowd, the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple arrive along with referee Bryce Remsberg, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. Accompanied by UltraMantis Black and Crossbones, we see that Hydra is wearing a blue bathrobe for some reason and is straining to drag a chair towards the ring. Bryce gives him a hand by easily picking it up.

Upon entry, UltraMantis announces the return of the Hydralock Challenge (occasionally pronounced “hydraulic”). Remember how Chris Masters used to do his Masterlock Challenge in mid-00’s WWE? Hydra’s decided to take it to another level. UltraMantis takes a second to rail at the crowd for being stupid enough to come to a wrestling show in such terrible weather and then has Hydra remove the robe. What a specimen.

The last time they did this bit, they made a teenage girl tap out (or should I say, UltraMantis tickled her and claimed her giggle was a sign of surrender). This time, he wants a challenger with more panache. When he’s about to announce the prize, a fan asks, “A bathrobe?” Angrily, UltraMantis calls him a rapscallion and shows that the winner will get $50,000, as shown in the roll of cash in his hand that he swears is not just a bunch of singles. A handful of fans raise their hands to volunteer, but UltraMantis refuses to acknowledge them. Then Robbie Ellis shows up, poses a little and volunteers to see if he can withstand Hydra’s “unbreakable” full nelson.

My favorite little fan moment in this is when he sits down and flexes, someone in the crowd yells, “He’s bringing sexy back!” and gets a good laugh from some of the others. Hydra does a lot of stalling, but finally secures the Hydralock. In an instant, Ellis taps out. UltraMantis boasts at how unstoppable Hydra is while slipping Ellis the wad of cash behind his back. Ellis smirks for a bit until inspecting the money and seeing that it isn’t the amount they agreed on. Ellis’ partners Mitch Ryder and Larry Sweeney run in, offended at the Neo-Solar Temple for trying to swindle a legend like Ellis. Ryder cuts a promo about respect and then makes a challenge for a pose-down: Sweeney vs. Hydra.

Hydra accepts. To his own theme song, he rubs oil on himself and does some lackluster posing. Then it’s Sweeney’s turn. He turns to referee Bryce and says, “You always walk around with a bottle of oil on you, right?” He does! Oiled up, Sweeney poses to cheers despite being a rudo. UltraMantis insists that it’s a draw and ups the challenge to a 6-way pose-off. The Fabulous Three oblige and flex their guns. Realizing they’re sunk, UltraMantis leads his henchmen to cheese it, declaring, “You planted this audience!”

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