I’m still working on my needlessly gigantic CHIKARA King of Trios article series, which should be going up later in the week. In the meantime, here’s something cute that I thought I’d share.
The presentation for this year’s King of Trios is based on WWF Wrestlefest, one of the greatest arcade games in arcade game history, which has recently been updated and ported to smartphones. I haven’t played the new version, but I hear that it’s ass.
Over the past few months, the official CHIKARA site has been announcing the 16 teams for September’s tournament. We have a team of old ECW guys, some nostalgic 80’s and 90’s WWF teams, some female wrestlers from Japan, the usual CHIKARA suspects, visitors from other feds, mishmashed teams of CHIKARA regulars who are forced together against their will and a group of guys who performed so terribly in 2009 and got jeered so hard that they’ve all banded together out of revenge against the fans.
On the site, each announced team would get a filename of “KOT12_#.jpg”. So the 13th team announced is “KOT12_13.jpg”. Obviously, there’s going to be somebody wanting to look forward by typing “KOT12_14.jpg” with hopes of seeing the next team to be revealed. Kind of like how people figured out the roster of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 long before they were meant to. Each time, the CHIKARA website has been messing with the fans trying to do this by putting in a fake team.
Unfortunately, I didn’t save all of them, but here’s a bunch.
This Saturday night, CHIKARA brings us their second iPPV event in Chikarasaurus Rex: How to Hatch a Dinosaur. Their first iPPV came last November in the form of High Noon, which ended up being a great show with no major technical problems.
The show officially starts at 7pm on GFL.TV, though there will be a live pre-show on Ustream.TV at 6:30. While nothing’s announced as of yet, there’s likely to be some kind of exhibition match in there for the sake of hype. The show itself is $15.
Justice League (Unlimited) is to animation what Avengers is to film. Just this perfect chain of world-building that escalates more and more, delivering all the while. While the first season of Unlimited was quite fantastic, it had one glaring flaw: no Flash. Wally only went as far as showing up a couple times with no lines in group shots. It wasn’t until the following season that he even got to do anything.
Everybody stopped being mad about that after the episode “Divided We Fall”, where the core members of the Justice League are taken apart by the hybrid of Lex Luthor and Brainiac. The villain prepares to kill off Flash, a prophecy set up throughout the season. Flash – the comic relief of the team – frees himself and runs off scared.
…or does he?
I don’t even care about anything after he vanishes. It’s the limit-breaking beatdown that I go back to. The beautiful way the score starts to creep in the moment he hits his first surprise punch. The way Luthor seems so taken aback that he doesn’t even try to come up with any plan, which, if you look at it, means that Luthor’s idea of merging with Brainiac is their undoing, since Brainiac wouldn’t have been so distracted by ego. Flash is someone who’s been ignored from episodes because he’s so hard to write and they’ve even nerfed his powers so much that he had a hard time catching up to a van one time, so his existence on the cartoon is vindicated in this moment where he kicks ass with such speed that he vibrates in place, Zoom-style.
22) It’s the YETAY!
When you ask a wrestling fan about the funniest and most absurd concept in the history of the business, they’ll give you one of two answers. One is the Gobbledy Gooker, a much-hyped and mysterious giant egg that finally hatched to reveal a dancing guy in a goofy turkey suit. Then there’s the Shockmaster, a complete failure of a segment where a new wrestler meant to be the next big thing proceeded to trip on live TV, knocking off his mask and causing the entire scene (as well as his career following) to fall apart.
For me, nothing is as gleefully silly as the Yeti.
The Yeti was born from a storyline involving Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage against the Dungeon of Doom, no doubt the silliest of all major factions in wrestling history. It was made up of an old, fat man barking orders at his “son” Kevin Sullivan and a collection of henchmen wrestlers, all goofy as all get out. The whole thing is such a clusterfuck that I’m going to bypass most of it, but the main conflict is Hogan vs. the Dungeon’s biggest and newest threat, the Giant. The Giant is billed as being Andre the Giant’s son, wanting to avenge his father against Hogan. On an episode of Nitro leading up to their big PPV match at Halloween Havoc, they show a huge block of ice. Kevin Sullivan refers to the figure inside as the Yeti, only he insists on pronouncing it “Yeh-tay”.
At the end of the final show before the PPV, Hogan fights off the Giant in the ring and some crazy lights start going off. The crowd is excited and with only a second of airtime left, the ice on the stage explodes to reveal… a seven-foot-tall guy dressed as a mummy.
And if that doesn’t tell you to purchase the PPV, I don’t know what does.
The match itself continued its clusterfuck ways and by the end, Randy Savage and Lex Luger come to Hogan’s rescue. Soon after, the Yeti follows, accompanied by Tony Schiavone on commentary screaming, “And the YETAAAAY!” Yes, even he’s insisting that not only is this giant mummy a yeti, but it’s pronounced exactly the way Sullivan insisted. Somehow, it’s that little detail that acts as the lynchpin to why this is so wonderfully ridiculous. Hell, they’re so focused on the YETAY! that it’s a footnote that Luger has already turned on Hogan and Savage in the ring. During this beating, the Yeti and Giant bearhug Hogan from each side and Yeti moves his hips back and forth in a way that makes him look like he’s raping Hogan. When he isn’t attacking anyone, he wanders the ring with his arms out like Frankenstein. Despite being in the ring for only two minutes, his bandages have already torn a bunch and we can see plenty of his skin, showing how flimsy a concept the mummy wrestler idea was to begin with.
As far as I know, there was no follow-up to Yeti fighting Hogan. Instead, he faded rather oddly into obscurity with no fanfare. First he started dressing like a ninja instead of a mummy. Then he kept that look and changed his name to Super Giant Ninja. He immediately lost to the One Man Gang and was repackaged for another day.
With all the wrestling I watch, my favorite company by far is CHIKARA. I’ve talked about it for years and have done posts about their DVD covers and my own experiences at their shows. Every now and then, I get people asking me about where to start or what to expect. With the company celebrating its 10 year anniversary, I thought it would be good to do a write-up of what the world of CHIKARA is all about for beginners.
CHIKARA is a Philadelphia-based independent wrestling company that’s both a promotion and a school known as the CHIKARA Wrestle Factory. The students learn a mix of different wrestling styles from around the world, with a strong emphasis on the Mexican luchador aspects. The shows are locked into a “family friendly” label, meaning no cursing or general lewdness to the point that when something seriously impressive happens, the fans are wont to chant, “HOLY POOP!” The in-ring antics tend to have a real comic book edge to it all, with colorful, masked competitors with over-the-top gimmicks and a share of fourth-wall-breaking comedy. It’s the kind of show where this would happen on a semi-regular basis.
Despite reveling in fun and goofiness, the shows tend to tell strong, long-running stories that any new fan could pick up on. CHIKARA treats every year’s worth of shows as a season, usually giving closure to major arcs by the time they reach the finale. Seeds for future storylines come in various subtle and unique forms, existing sometimes years before they’re brought into action.
While students and graduates are the core of the roster, they also include people from other ends of the indies and tend to include lots of foreign talent for flavor. Everyone tends to be labeled “tecnico” (good guy) or “rudo” (bad guy), with the insinuation that those two groups train exclusively together. They tend to do just over two dozen shows a year, usually with multiple shows over the course of a weekend, and always release them soon after (24 hours to two weeks, depending), available from Smart Mark Video in the form of DVD, online stream or MP4 download. Recently, they’ve started doing internet pay-per-views and have one coming up on Saturday, June 2nd.
They also sponsor YouTube sensation and internet wrestling fan staple Botchamania.
How it Started
In 2002, indy wrestlers “Lightning” Mike Quackenbush and “Reckless Youth” Tom Carter decided to start their own wrestling school, partially based on their distaste for there being no school that catered to anything international. Hence, they started up the CHIKARA Wrestle Factory in Philly. Their first class was made up of five students: Hallowicked, Ichabod Slayne (later Icarus), UltraMantis (later UltraMantis Black), Mr. ZERO and Dragonfly. The question came up of where these guys were supposed to compete. On May 25, 2002, they held their first show for the sake of showcasing the new guys, while including other indy names like CM Punk, Chris Hero and Colt Cabana.
Since then, the school’s been churning out groups of graduates every year or so. Early on, Tom Carter left the fold and Hero took his spot as instructor. The Wrestle Factory occasionally factors into the story, usually in terms of how the wrestler’s mask is something that they had to have earned through paying their dues and completing their training. To remove one’s mask or perform in one without earning the right is considered a prime insult.
For the past four years, I’ve been hyping up the indy wrestling fed CHIKARA. Originally just a wrestling school run by Mike Quackenbush, it translated into its own fed for the sake of giving its students somewhere to compete and over a decade carved its own niche. It’s got just about everything a wrestling fan could want. Great characters, great wrestling, great comedy and some of the better storylines in the business while at the same time keeping it something all ages can enjoy.
Of course, my support of the company can only go so far. While they’re doing shows more spread across the country nowadays, they are centered around Philly and I can’t expect anyone reading to go and buy a ticket on my say. Their shows are all available on DVD, but I can see the hassle in that, especially not knowing where to start.
On the other hand, this Sunday is High Noon, the company’s very first iPPV and I highly, highly, HIGHLY suggest giving some thought in checking it out.
High Noon is the finale of CHIKARA’s tenth season. It’s a climactic, big profile show that you can watch live from the comfort of your own home. It’s $15 and you can order and stream it through GFL Combat Sports. It starts at 4pm and has its own 45-minute free preshow beforehand.
Here’s a look at the card and what the show has to offer.
The main story of the 10th season has been crowning the first ever CHIKARA Grand Champion. Although the company has had tag champs and a Young Lions Cup (a singles title for people 23 and younger), they’ve been able to write around the fact that they’ve never had a world heavyweight championship. Until now. Twelve wrestlers were selected to take part in a year-long round robin tournament called the 12 Large Summit (“12 Large” being a catchphrase of the late Larry Sweeney, who died early this year). With all the matches done, we’re down to our finals.
On one side, we have “Lightning” Mike Quackenbush, the squeaky-clean head trainer of CHIKARA who is an absolute genius at technical wrestling. On the other side is “The Last of a Dying Breed” Eddie Kingston. Eddie is a brawler, who tends to win the crowd over with his pure emotion and never-say-die attitude, along with an intensity reminiscent of Taz in ECW. Despite Kingston being a major name in the company for years, I can’t recall too many times that the two have crossed paths. Either way, this should be good and constitutes as a perfect money match for someone to be crowned the first champ.
As of this writing, we’re fresh from the finish of Bragging Rights, the latest PPV in WWE’s overcrowded schedule. A lot of the event centered around Wade Barrett holding John Cena in his thrall against his will. It’s another chapter in what’s been a really good run for Barrett’s short-termed WWE legacy. I thought the show NXT was a fantastic concept, followed by an interesting second season (as long as you ignore the trainwreck final episode) and a hilarious self-aware third season where the commentators are open to how awful the show is. The Nexus storyline has been top-notch outside of random unfortunate instances that you can’t blame on the writing. Injuries, stupid firings, temporary deportation and even the stupid ending of Summerslam was improvised from time restraints.
Now it’s in an entertaining stage where John Cena is forced to follow orders from Wade Barrett or get fired. Wade has been demeaning him on a weekly basis, but it’s showing more ripples than just Barrett vs. Cena. Wade has been alienating himself from his Nexus peers by focusing far more on himself than the team. Cena is beginning to raise the ire of his friends in the locker room because he’d rather attack them based on Wade’s orders than be a jobless millionaire. A lot of it is borrowed from the Shawn Michaels/JBL storyline from a couple years ago, but it’s stronger here. For one, the villain is a man in his first year in the company, rising up and only getting better, as opposed to being a dude long past his prime like JBL.
But there was another “forced lackey” storyline this kept making me think of and the more I look back on it, the more I realize it was one of my all-time favorite wrestling storylines. When I think of my favorite angles, I think of things like Jake “The Snake” Roberts vs. Rick “The Model” Martel or Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect or “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs. The Rock (and by that I mean joining all their different feuds into one overarching story). The one in question isn’t even a WWE story, WCW, TNA or even ECW. No, it’s from the wonderful world of CHIKARA.
Since CHIKARA is far from mainstream, I thought I’d take some time to go over the angle for the uninformed.
Readers might recall that CHIKARA is my indy wrestling fed of choice. I’ve talked about CHIKARA a lot here and I’ve stated the wackiness of the product, but it isn’t completely dependent on it. Sure, they have storylines like a wrestling knight whose tag team partner is a younger version of himself pulled out of the timeline and they end up feuding and have a match where the loser is thrown in a time machine. They would have a tag team named 2.0 change their gimmicks and become the Badd Boyz, leading to a Badd Boyz vs. 2.0 match where the Boyz win by count-out due to 2.0 not showing up. There was a time when two wrestlers had a no-time-limit falls-count-anywhere match that went outside until the cameraman lost track of it and it continued to the next night’s show at another venue where there was finally a winner (23 hours and 36 minutes, longest match ever). Not to mention the time a tag match took forever to start up because two of the guys were too busy having arguments about the Sega CD.
Thing is, not everything is goofy in CHIKARA and even when they are silly, the booking is really good. They like to build each year up as a season with a basic main storyline with enough of an ending during the finale that would lead to the next year’s big angle. Our storyline here is one that mainly takes place during the year of 2007, but with more than enough lead-up and aftermath. It focuses on this man, Claudio Castagnoli.
The 6’5″ Swiss powerhouse could be argued to be one of the best performers in the world. It’s still a complete wonder why he isn’t tearing things up in the WWE right now, considering he’s a total package. He’s got size, strength, speed, agility, good psychology, a good look and loads of charisma. As a heel, he’s an egotistical, bullying Swiss banker with more money than you. As a face, he’s the chillest dude you’ve ever met. I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Last night I got back from yet another three days of awesome CHIKARA King of Trios action. For those out of the loop, CHIKARA is an amazing and super-fun indy wrestling federation that I follow the way hippies follow Phish. Every year, they do a tournament of sixteen teams of three, stretched over three shows in a weekend. Like every year, I had a complete blast.
But one of the biggest thrills I got came from the end of intermission. You see, these days, CHIKARA is being dominated by a stable of wrestlers called Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (“Brotherhood of the Cross”, BDK for short), made up of those who are angry at the company for one reason or another… as well as a giant viking guy. They’re such a force to be reckoned with that it seems like the tecnicos (good guys) and rudos (bad guys) will have to eventually join forces. Yet before intermission could end, the lights went out and this appeared on the big screens.
If you’re wondering, the wrestlers in the foreground are Worker Ant, Private Eye, Sumie Sakai, USApe, Mr. Zero, Blind Rage, Lance Steel, and Jervis Cottonbelly. I’m so down for this.
Nothing much is up so far on the CHIKARA: Rudo Resurrection website, but hopefully not for too long.
I’m sure some of you may have seen the site Tube Dubber. It takes two YouTube videos and merges them, showing one vid’s visuals and the other’s audio. As it turns out, there are a mountain of wrestling entrance videos, otherwise known as Titantrons, on YouTube. These being the looped highlight reel videos that play on the big screen whenever someone walks to the ring. Not only are seemingly all of them on YouTube, but some fans decided to make these videos for those wrestlers from earlier eras.
At the Something Awful wrestling sub-forum Wrestlehut, a bunch of us started playing around with Tube Dubber and seeing what we could do to improve on these wrestling Titantrons. Here are some of my better ones.
For the past couple years, I’d take a second every once and a while to talk about CHIKARA, an indy wrestling organization based out of Philadelphia. Founded by wrestler and head trainer Mike Quackenbush, it’s a school that turned into its own federation. With seven years under its belt, it’s grown to have its own cult following and for good reason.
I regularly bring guests to their shows, tending to take those along who know little or nothing to do with wrestling. They always have a blast. Where else can you see a mute sea monster in a muscle suit team up with a amateur wrestling Rocky Balboa against two clown-like figures dressed up like ice cream people? And not only that, but the wrestling is actually GOOD! It’s routinely funny and the storytelling is top notch.
Back when I first got into it, I did a post about how a bunch of the DVD covers are homages to notable comic book covers. As time went on, the article became a bit popular, but I lost track after a while and kept putting off an update. Now, I think it’s time not to pick up from after I left off, but to redo it from beginning to end. Here we go!
It’s been a while since I’ve given some love towards my favoritest wrestling fed in the whole wide world. I do have a full-on comic-to-DVD cover gallery in the works, but first I have to wait for an older show to reach my mailbox because nobody on the internet seems to have a good picture of the damn thing’s cover.
In the meantime, here are some YouTubian reasons why you should check out CHIKARA.
(The sound on this next one is a little off, but it’s Player Uno — the only wrestler to have his own pause button — debating the raving psychopath Delirious about Nintendo and its competitors)
So fun.
Personally, I highly suggest checking out all three nights of KingofTrios 2009. Especially Night 2, which features an amazing four-way elimination match between El Generico, Nick Jackson, Jigsaw and Kota Ibushi.
Posted in Chikara by Gavok | | Comments Off on And now… some more CHIKARA
