The big urban legend says that a long-lasting fight between Muhammad Ali and virtual unknown Chuck Wepner inspired Sylvester Stallone to write the screenplay to Rocky. Some say that that isn’t true and that he was inspired by Rocky Graziano’s autobiography Somebody Up There Likes Me. Whichever is true is a pretty heavy incident as like a prime event in a butterfly effect, it had major ramifications on pop culture. I’m not even joking. The creation of Rocky led to the sequels. The third movie springboarded the career of a former bouncer trying to make his way into acting, as well as a lesser-known professional wrestler who would become a household name after a fairly small role in the opening minutes.
As much as I love Mr. T, I’ll concede that his budding career isn’t exactly the most important thing in the world. The rise of Hulk Hogan, on the other hand, is a pretty big deal that may not have happened had he not been given that role opposite Stallone. Mr. T’s fame would increase as part of the ever-so-popular A-Team and he’d have a major role in the World Wrestling Federation’s increasing prominence, including the first two Wrestlemanias. Such a major output was created, possibly because a man refused to go down so easily against the greatest boxer in the world. It’s crazy to think about.
In the mid-80’s there was a time when Hogan and Mr. T seemed inseparable. Mr. T joined Hogan in his war against “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, but that was as his stage self. When Hogan would return the favor, he wouldn’t be teaming up with, “First name: Mr. Middle name: Period. Last name: T.” No, he and the world of the WWF would step into the reality of the A-Team.
The A-Team shouldn’t need an introduction, as the opening credits explains things so perfectly. It was probably the manliest of all shows, giving dudes four characters we wish we could be. The calculating genius, the suave ladies man, the lovable lunatic and the take-no-guff badass. All of them helping people while sticking it to a corrupt government. What’s not to love? Well, other than some of the first season and most of the fifth season? Luckily, when Hulk Hogan shows up, it’s during the fourth season when things are still going strong.
If you check this site regularly, you know that a week and a half ago, I went to Easton, Pennsylvania to check out CHIKARA’s 2012 King of Trios. The reason you would know is pretty much the same reason it’s taken me so long to even write about it: I just did an excessive amount of posts about the previous five years of shows. So I kind of needed to take a writing break.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back to talking about comics in a little bit.
I won’t get too in-depth on the trip, but it was easily one of the most fun weekends I’ve ever had. I was joined by my co-worker buddy Colin, his brother Sean and fellow internet writer guy and enthusiast of bat-related people Chris Sims. I had only met Sims once prior at Comic Con back in 2010 and he admittedly doesn’t even remember it. Anyway, after months of pestering him, I convinced him to fly over and check out the show. Everyone got along swimmingly and not a problem was to be had outside of my questionable driving. Sims is a really nice guy who I have a strong respect for, so it was great that he was able to make the trip.
I’m not going to go over the events of the show itself because you should really just check it out yourself. Only 24 hours after the third night, Smart Mark Video released all three shows. They’re available in streaming form for $10 each (Nights 1, 2 and 3), downloadable MP4 form for $12 (1, 2 and 3) and DVD for $15 (1, 2 and 3). While I do the first two options most of the time these days, I went with the DVDs because I felt the need to physically own them. I lucked out because for some reason my DVD cases are cherry-scented.
If you can only get one show, do Night 3. The second half of it is completely amazing stuff with the best comedy match, an incredible joshi match, a very violent singles contest and the finals, which itself is pretty epic. Also, the Tag Gauntlet earlier on introduces the first major CHIKARA appearance by my new favorite tag team, the Devastation Corporation, made up of Blaster McMassive and Max Smashmaster.
Somebody took the big comedy match from Night 3 and turned the highlights into a Vaudevillian silent film. Give it a look.
The Fan Conclave was an absolute blast. Jakob Hammermeier was schooling everybody in Smash Brothers Brawl, wrestlers took pictures with fans in front of a yearbook-style backdrop, Soldier Ant was playing Battleship with some folks and I got selected to take part in CHIKARA’s Not-Jeopardy gameshow. It’s just like Jeopardy with the differences of being hosted by Leonard F. Chikarason, it had the Swamp Monster remove the points squares off the wall and Icarus was there to make fun of you for getting the answer wrong… and often getting the answer right.
I did really well. In fact, I was cheated. You see, right before Final Not-Jeopardy, I was in the lead. I bet all but 100 points on the final question for strategy purposes. The final question was in the form of a sheet of paper asking various number-based questions (ie. how many people unmasked as Vokoder, how many matches has Mixed-Martial Archie won, how many moves is Johnny Saint a master of, how many title defense has Eddie Kingston had, etc.) then adding it all together. Nobody got it right. In fact, I was the closest by being only two points off! But then ol’ Chikarason had to suddenly curveball me with, “the closest without going over”. COME ON! This is Not-Jeopardy, not Not-Price is Right! So I got second place, netting me a $50 voucher for anything at the CHIKARA merch table.
The wrestlers were extremely cool in person. I found out that Chuck Taylor was reading up on the King of Trios Retrospective, which was major. At my B&N, one of my customers is Green Ant’s mother, so I awkwardly told him, “This is going to sound extremely weird and random, but I work at a Barnes and Noble and—” and he interrupted with, “Oh yeah, my mom.” Heh. Scott Parker and Shane Matthews both loved my vintage “Big Shot” Hardcore Holly t-shirt, especially when they saw the “NUT UP OR SHUT UP” text on the back. Matthews laughed and pointed out that he only said that catchphrase for like two weeks. I even briefly got to talk to the Warlord and told him that his match with the British Bulldog at Wrestlemania 7 is my all-time favorite match.
The best interaction was with Mr. Touchdown. I bought his t-shirt at the merch stand during one night’s intermission and he pulled out an 8×10 and a pen.
“Wait, before you go. What’s your name?”
“Gavin.”
“Gavin? Like Gavin Loudspeaker?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. And how do you spell that?”
“G-A-V-I-N.”
“What was that?”
“G-A-V-I-N.”
He started writing. “G-A-V…?”
“-I-N.”
“All right. Here you go.”
And so, he gave me the signed 8×10. At the top of it? “To: NERD!“
(Thanks to Suben, Flameingblack and Strenuous Manflurry for helping me on some of the profiles)
So here we are. As of this writing, we’re one day away from the sixth annual CHIKARA King of Trios. It’s been a year and a half since the last show, so let’s get caught up.
Getting Caught Up…
Director of Fun Wink Vavasseur decided that after ten years of existence, CHIKARA is ready to have its own major singles title that everyone can compete for, rather than just those who qualify for the Young Lions Cup. To crown the Grand Champion, he put together the 12 Large Summit. Everyone on the roster would anonymously vote for someone to qualify. The twelve with the most votes would be split into two round robin tournaments. The winners of those tournaments would face off in the finals at the 2011 season finale.
Some believed that the finalists would be Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli, bringing everything full circle, but that wasn’t the case. Claudio’s downfall came from a slightly more surprising direction. One of the 12 Large participants was Sara Del Rey. Even though all of the BDK members were ordered to vote solely for Claudio, Sara somehow received two votes and Claudio received two less than he should have. It was little secret that Sara was getting more and more frustrated at the way Claudio and Ares were treating her and with Daizee Haze’s help, she was going to break out on her own. Claudio ended up striking against the two and put Haze on the shelf. Sara fought against the BDK and defeated various members in one-on-one matches, including Claudio in the 12 Large Summit. Claudio didn’t make the finals and ended up leaving CHIKARA so he could… play rugby and date hot Lithuanian women, I guess.
The BDK fell like dominos around this time. Ares was betrayed by a cowardly Tim Donst during a tag match where a loss meant having to give up the Eye of Tyr to UltraMantis Black and Hallowicked. Ares, along with Pinkie Sanchez, vanished from the company and after losing his lengthy feud to Green Ant, Tursas quietly retired from the business. For a little while, the BDK was just the lowly tag team of Donst and Jakob Hammermeier, but after Donst lost decisively in a match against Hallowicked and came to terms with not being the best Young Lions Cup holder in history, Donst endured crippling depression that led to the complete erasure of the BDK name.
UltraMantis Black freed Delirious from the Eye of Tyr’s spell and gave him back his free will. Delirious was less than grateful and has dedicated himself to ruining the next two years of UltraMantis’ life, just like how UltraMantis’ actions led to the ruin of two years of Delirious’ life. He’s since become more enigmatic and calm, quietly walking around in a hooded cloak while gaining the favor of the Batiri and Ophidian.
Eddie Kingston defeated Mike Quackenbush in the finals of the 12 Large Summit to become the first CHIKARA Grand Champion. Since then, he’s taken on all comers and has stood tall. This has been the one piece of good news for the company in terms of the title picture as a visiting Tadasuke won the Young Lions Cup in 2011 and went back to Japan with it. Similarly, the Young Bucks had won the Campeonatos de Parejas from FIST and now hold the belts in ROH territory. CHIKARA and ROH seem to be bordering on a feud, but it’s been more like a couple unrelated instances than a full-out war.
Speaking of war, a group calling themselves the GEKIDO had invaded CHIKARA in the form of evil versions of CHIKARA staples. Led by the mysterious 17, the invaders include the Shard, combatANT, deviANT and assailANT. Quackenbush was able to decipher that the evil copies of the Colony – otherwise known as the Swarm – are actually Jose and the two Franks, three failed Wrestle Factory Students who have been subtly namedropped for years. They couldn’t play nice and didn’t want to pay their dues, so they were taught how to wrestle by 17, master of the 17 forgotten holds. Since his debut, 17 broke Quack’s wrist and ended the careers of several other wrestlers. The main CHIKARA crew banded together and got a big, climactic win over the GEKIDO, but it seems at the cost of Mike Quackenbush’s sense of decency.
Going into King of Trios, Wink Vavasseur came up with a new idea called Chikarametrics. An idea that only appears to make sense to him, he uses the stats of each wrestler on the roster to figure out who would make the perfect teammate for them. A big chunk of the teams in this year’s tournament are the product of this idea and none of them are exactly happy about it. History has shown that teamwork is the key to survival on this stage no matter how talented each wrestler is on their own. They better learn to live with Wink’s decisions or they won’t last long at all.
The Format
Seems like the usual style of eight tournament matches the first night, four the second and three the last. There’s been no Rey De Voladores tournament announced, so that’s a bummer. The second night will feature Eddie Kingston defending the Grand Championship against Tadasuke. Will he be able to steal away that title to Japan as well? We’ll see.
Match 1
King of Trios Semifinals
The Osirian Portal (Amasis, Ophidian and Hieracon) vs. the Colony (Fire Ant, Soldier Ant and Green Ant)
Handshakes all around from the two trios. Green and Ophidian start it up with some opening grappling. Amasis and Soldier do some low key holds to each other. Hieracon and Fire continue the feeling out process. Fire is pulled into the Osirian Portal corner and Ophidian comes in to chop at him. The match starts to speed up and intensify between the two. Soldier and Green come in to fight Hieracon and Amasis with synchronized offense, leading to dual backdrops sending them to the outside. With the Portal nestled together outside, they’re prime targets for the Antapult. Only this time, the Portal guys grab Green and Soldier by the legs and drag them out before they can pull off the move. Ophidian puts Fire in the Cobra Clutch, but the ant is saved by Soldier doing a saluting forearm. All three Colony members get a shot at Ophidian, then move on to hitting Amasis with a bevy of corner assaults. He ends up falling into the corner and the Colony do a variation of FIST’s triple dropkick corner move.
They prepare for the Anthill on Hieracon, but Ophidian shoves them down, then follows Soldier out of the ring with a leaping corkscrew into a forearm. The Portal focus on Green, each getting their licks in quickly. Ophidian does a springboard senton and Fire breaks the pin. Fire tries fighting Ophidian and Amasis at the same time, but isn’t good enough to keep track of them both and it blows up in his face. They beat him down with teamwork and Hieracon ends it with a standing moonsault. Fire kicks out. Hieracon picks him up for a vertical suplex and Fire reverses it into a Stunner. The Portal switch it up and focus on beating down Soldier. They have him laid out in the middle of the ring and Ophidian and Amasis climb the ropes for the Osirian Sacrament. Fire and Green try to stop them, but it just causes them to direct their jumping attacks at these intruders instead of Soldier. Ultimately saved, Soldier is able to get up, grab Hieracon and put him down with a TKO. Hieracon kicks out, so Soldier locks on the CHIKARA Special. Amasis rushes in to make him break the hold. Ophidian gets on Amasis’ shoulders and performs a superplex on Soldier. Without missing a step, Hieracon picks him right up with this weird rolling Angle Slam thingy here.
Soldier kicks out. Green clotheslines both Amasis and Hieracon, then reminds everyone of his Viking-slamming might by bodyslamming them both.
Amasis does a rapid flurry of palm strikes on Green, bounces the ropes, Fire pulls the top down and Amasis flies out. Hieracon and Soldier both crawl into the empty ring and end up literally head-to-head. Hieracon’s offense gets a little on the sloppy side, but he’s able to reverse a TKO into a DDT and follow with a Shooting Star Press. Soldier kicks out. Hieracon goes back to the top, Soldier stands up and dropkicks him. He climbs to the top, puts Hieracon over his shoulders, does a saluting Inverted TKO off the top-rope and gets the pinfall. The Osirian Portal take the loss well and Amasis tells his friends straight up, “The rest is up to you.”
You may have noticed that King of Trios 2011 has a major Transformers motif going on. There’s a reason for that. As it turns out, Mike Quackenbush is good friends with musician Stan Bush, best known as that guy from the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. His more modernized take on his memorable song “the Touch” is the official theme to King of Trios 2011. As part of that, he got to do a live performance of it at the Fan Conclave.
Also at the Conclave, they had a contest to see who could bodyslam Tursas. Many tried, including both fans and wrestlers, but nobody could do it. All of the sudden, Green Ant marched out and challenged him while wearing American flag Zubaz pants and a fanny pack. The two got in a scuffle and Green Ant briefly held him up. Before he could do anything, Jakob clipped Green Ant’s knee and Tursas crushed him. The rest of the Colony ran into the ring and Tursas backed off… for now.
Match 1
Archibald Peck vs. ???
A little background on Archibald Peck. In the months leading up to King of Trios, CHIKARA started showing these videos on YouTube about how “the Band” is coming. The videos acted like it would be this major event with a split-second sample from the nWo theme song. As it turns out, the Band is the name for the former nWo guys in TNA. That led to speculation. Would CHIKARA really have a team of Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman show up in King of Trios, let alone at all? Would that be a disaster of epic proportions? Well, that didn’t happen. The Band turned out to be bandleader Marchie Archie and his valet Veronica. If it was someone less entertaining, this would have fallen flat. Luckily, while Archie isn’t the real Band, he is the real deal.
He’s announced an open challenge against anyone in the back. He comes out to a marching band cover of “Any Way You Want it” by Journey and, much like the nWo, starts his promo with a survey. What month is it? April? No. It’s irrelevant because as long as Archie and Veronica are around, it’s always MARCH MADNESS! A taker to his challenge shows up in Colt Cabana. I wonder if he and Matt Classic crossed paths backstage. Archie challenges him to a duel by slapping him across the face with his glove. Colt removes his boot and does the same as to accept.
As he tries to put that boot back on, Archie puts him in a headlock. Archie keeps attempting shoulderblocks, but he bounces right off each time. Then in one instance, he stops himself and takes out Colt’s feet. After Colt falls, Archie goes around celebrating like he just won the lottery. Maybe twice as long. Colt gets up and knocks him over with another shoulder and does a mock celebration. Archie doesn’t take this too well.
The crowd chants at Colt, “SAY YOU’RE SORRY!” but he refuses. He spends the next few minutes making an absolute fool out of Archie, as if Archie needed the help. Archie gets some offense in there and knocks Colt down. He climbs to the top rope, sees Colt already standing and shouts at him to lay back down so he can do his finishing move. Colt can’t believe this and the ref asks him to just humor him. When Archie does jump off the top, Colt gets up and punches him in the stomach. Archie gets some fortune when he kick-shoves Colt so that he hits the corner post shoulder-first. He tries another top-rope diving headbutt and Colt moves out of the way. A minute later he tries yet again and this time lands on Colt’s boot. Colt gets up and goes on a rampage of clotheslines and elbows, knocking Archie down again and again. And again. And again. And again and again and again. Archie keeps getting back up only to be knocked down. Colt even stops putting effort into his strikes.
He prepares a Butterfly Suplex and Archie’s able to reverse it into a Playmaker. He makes another trip to the top rope and gets crotched. As he’s sitting there prone, Colt runs over, jumps and nails him with his posterior. He goes to the top for a superplex and Veronica starts distracting the ref. During this, Archie pulls out a baton and clocks Colt in the skull. Colt goes down, Archie FINALLY lands a diving headbutt and he wins the match.
The show begins on a somber note, showing a tribute reel to the dearly-departed Alex Whybrow, otherwise known as Larry Sweeney. After the video, we see most of the wrestlers standing around the outside of the ring, clapping their hands and slapping the mat as the crowd claps along and chants, “SWEENEY!” and, “SWEET AND SOUR!” It’s weird to watch, due to all the masked guys in there who are obviously more emotional than they look. Judging from the body language, Hallowicked and Soldier Ant appear to be hit the hardest.
Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
3.0le (El Generico, Scott Parker and Shane Matthews) vs. the Osirian Portal (Amasis, Ophidian and Hieracon)
3.0le cut a promo where Matthews identifies himself as the captain and the other two argue this fact. The arguing leads to Matthews punching Generico in the stomach as Parker lets out a, “BOOYAH!” and they go on their way. The match begins with Matthews vs. Ophidian, where Ophidian keeps getting in his head with his various snake tricks, like doing a handstand in the corner and slithering around, making Matthews frantically ask, “What are you doing?!”
Next up is Generico against Hieracon, which is extremely fast-paced. Generico wins out at first, then Hieracon gets his own streak of offense. Matthews and Parker tell him to pull on the mask or cheat in some way and Generico even considers poking him in the eyes, but then he thinks better of it and gives him a handshake. Then he pokes him in the eyes anyway.
He hides under a nearby table as Parker gets really excited over these turn of events. He steps in and faces Amasis, with the two of them dancing out of each other’s holds. Albeit Parker’s whiteness is very apparent in his moves. The gauntlet is laid down and all of the sudden “Everybody Dance Now” plays. Amasis and Ophidian cut a rug in their usual style with Ophidian even busting out an inverted worm. Parker and Generico combat it by actually doing the Macarena. In 2011! Generico chestbumps Ophidian by surprise, garnering a big, “YOU GOT SERVED!” chant that the Osirian Portal completely disagree with. The comedy keeps going when Generico moves his hands around to try and imitate the Osiran Portal hypnosis trick. It doesn’t work on any of Generico’s opponents, but Matthews is found staggering in a daze on the apron. He steps in there, throws Generico out of the ring, throws Ophidian after and then both teams try to break him free in a wacky spot where they lock hands for leverage and then let the audience join in.
This leads to a massive pop-lock and inspires the crowd to start doing the wave. Matthews finally snaps out of it and hits Amasis. Generico comes in there and Amasis pushes him into the Osirian corner. They make frequent tags and work him over a bit until he’s able to evade a couple corner attacks and roll into a tag. Matthews comes in there and Parker soon follows, doing double teams on Hieracon, Amasis and then Ophidian. The best of these moves is Parker tossing Ophidian upwards into a Spear from Matthews. Ophidian kicks out, but 3.0 keep on keeping on by clearing the ring and doing an assisted Lungblower. Hieracon sneaks in to break the pin. The Osirian Portal start breaking out double team and then triple team attacks, working to isolate Parker from the rest.
Ophidian does a top-rope moonsault with Generico breaking the pin. There’s a breakneck string of opponents switching up one after the other until Amasis and Ophidian start letting loose with a series of strikes on Matthews. Hieracon moonsaults out of the ring onto Generico and Parker, allowing his partners to hit the Osirian Sacrament. The pin is elementary and post-match, Matthews is steamed at his partners.
(Special thanks to Kung Fu Grip for helping with some of the profiles)
Previously on CHIKARA…
The BDK continued to dominate CHIKARA, but the CHIKARA roster slowly began to chip away at them. While Claudio and Ares held onto their Campeonatos de Parejas for most of the year and Tursas was just as unbeatable as ever, the rest of their members started to feel the effects. Pinkie Sanchez’s mentality was put into question when he claimed he kept seeing Tim Donst’s disguise gimmick Vokoder sneaking around. Lince Dorado competed for the new Young Lions Cup tournament and lost in the finals to Frightmare after Derek Sabato got knocked out and Bryce Remsburg left the commentary station to make the count.
Lince, by the way, ended up cutting ties with the company. He had shown up on a Scott Hall YouTube video without his mask on, identifying himself as Lince Dorado and rumor has it that got him in hot water due to the setting up of a match where his mask would be on the line. He no-showed a weekend of shows and that was that.
After UltraMantis’ failure to use the newcombers, the Batiri, as his soldiers, he became humble and practically begged Hallowicked to bury the hatchet with him and work together like the old days. It took time, but he gained Hallowicked’s trust with the mission to save Delirious from the BDK’s control. UltraMantis then put together a team for the annual Cibernetico match, featuring tecnicos and rudos alike. Then Vokoder — who was as real as Pinkie claimed he was — appeared as the final member and unmasked himself to reveal the long-missing “Sweet ‘n’ Sour” Larry Sweeney. In the end, it came down to Eddie Kingston and Tursas with Eddie knocking the big man down and putting him down with the Sliding D.
Another big hit to BDK came from the company being bought out by Worldwide Media Development Corporation. Part of this change came in the form of the doofy Wink Vavasseur being introduced as an auditor, keeping an eye on Dieter VonSteigerwalt and Derek Sabato. After Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw defeated Claudio and Ares for the Campeonatos de Parejas, Dieter was removed from his position and the Director of Fun position went to Wink himself. Even though he has very little idea about anything wrestling-related.
At this point, the BDK is wounded, but not completely done.
As a sad sidenote, four days before the show began, Larry Sweeney had passed on. As you can guess, the show is extremely emotional at points and dedicated to his memory.
The Format
Same deal as the last one. One thing of note is that the winning BDK team from the previous year has chosen not to potentially sully their victory by losing this year, so none of those three members will compete in the tournament. In other words, Claudio and Ares are off wrestling elsewhere this weekend.
Poor Gavin Loudspeaker. A weekend of frantic announcing and commentating has destroyed his voice and turned him into a less creepy Tom Waits.
Match 1
King of Trios Semifinals
Team Osaka Pro (Atsushi Kotoge, Daisuke Harada and Tadasuke) vs. the Colony (Fire Ant, Soldier Ant and Green Ant)
As the Colony walk out, Green Ant has a bag of sugar in hand. Prior to the start, it’s agreed by both sides that the sugar will be on the line in this contest, leading to a mighty, “SUGAR!” chant. Green Ant and Harada shake hands and start a slow feeling out process. Fire and Kotoge tag in there and pick up the pace with some sprinting and dodging. Kotoge keeps hitting Fire out of nowhere with flying kicks and eventually sends him rolling out. Soldier vs. Tadasuke is the logical follow-up, but it’s cut short when Harada aids his partner. They double team Soldier and when Fire and Green get involved, they’re taken apart as well. Tadasuke starts to heel it up a bit, messing with Fire’s antennae, garnering a handful of boos from the crowd. Harada gets in there and holds Fire up with a Gory Special while Tadasuke lands a dropkick. Fire is getting worn down and starts exchanging strikes with Kotoge. Once again, Kotoge tries for his flying kick attack, only this time he misses and falls out of the ring. Fire Ant dives out onto him, meaning he’s made his tag.
Soldier cleans house, culminating in a Northern Lights Suplex on Harada. Harada rolls to the outside with the rest of his team, the other ants join Soldier and they toss Fire Ant onto their enemies with the Antapult. Harada gets in there and faces down Soldier some more, catching him with his hiptoss/knee-to-face combo. He performs his own Northern Lights Suplex, follows with a Frog Splash and Soldier kicks out. After Harada suplexes Soldier off the top rope, Tadasuke is brought in to manhandle Green Ant with various backbreakers. He places Green in a Boston Crab, having to let go when he reaches the ropes. He pulls on him so he can put the move on again, but Fire makes the save with a kick into a Stunner, followed by Soldier picking Tadasuke up for the TKO. After dropping him down, he Baseball Slides onto Harada and Kotoge, dazing them both. Soldier and Fire climb to the second rope, Green stands in their hands and they gives a Super Antapult onto Tadasuke.
The Colony win and advance to the finals. A disgruntled Tadasuke hands over the bag of sugar and leaves while the other five celebrate their hard-fought match.
The Fan Conclave was on this day. What a time that was. I played Guess Who alongside Jigsaw and defeated Steve Weiner and another fan. I played Rock Band with Eddie Kingston. I had a class picture day photo taken with the Future is Now where Jimmy Olsen had me hold a jug of orange juice like it was a baby that I was very proud of. The biggest highlight is that me and Dasher Hatfield did a duet of “New York, New York” on Chikarioke, including a two-man kick line.
I saw some footage of us singing where Soldier Ant is in the background, covering his ears. How DARE he?
Match 1
Brodie Lee Open Challenge
Coming out to the unbeatable intro song of Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, Brodie grabs some of the CHIKARA staff and shoves them over, one of which gets a chair slammed onto him. He gets a mic and starts ranting about being overlooked by the company. He demands an opponent, whether he be big, small, masked or unmasked. The crowd demands Christopher Daniels, but instead they get Brodie’s former partner Grizzly Redwood. He storms in the ring and gets in Brodie’s face (er, a couple feet lower than that) as the ref Jonathan Barber tries to break it up. Grizzly passes through him and gets all over Brodie, latching on him with a sleeper with both legs wrapped around him. Brodie pushes him off, but Grizzly keeps attacking. Whenever he’s shoved off, he keeps pounding back onto him.
Brodie gets his bearings and slaps Grizzly around. Grizzly starts working on Brodie’s legs, chopping them one at a time as the crowd chants, “CHOP ‘EM DOWN, GRIZZLY! CHOP ‘EM DOWN!” With a clip to the back of Brodie’s leg, he sends him tumbling to the outside. Brodie tries to climb back in and gets knocked back with a Baseball Slide, followed by a tope. Letting Brodie reenter, Grizzly climbs to the top and jumps off, getting caught in a devastating Black Hole Slam.
Grizzly gets back to his feet, ducks a haymaker, runs the ropes and eats a boot to the face. Brodie pins the little man and walks off victorious.
Something of interest I should point out is how before all these King of Trios shows, the live crowd would get to see various episodes of the CHIKARA Podcast-a-Go-Go while waiting. During the weekend, they’d show about 3-4 of them prior to each show, working its way from episodes dated a couple months ago to the present. Many of these were filled with King of Trios updates on the scheduled teams and opening matches. No matter how many times the pre-recorded Gavin Loudspeaker would namedrop Team Mexico as one of the trios, the crowd would go into one huge boo frenzy.
Also, the BDK’s personal ring announcer (he was doing it before Ricardo Rodriguez) Jakob Hammermeier would constantly glare at people and scream with a heavy German accent as a way to convince them to buy a BDK t-shirt.
Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
FIST (Icarus, Gran Akuma and Chuck Taylor) vs. the Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield, Sugar Dunkerton and Matt Classic)
The Throwbacks get to cut a promo where Sugar is excited over the prospect of going the distance. Matt Classic is very disgruntled and openly asks about when people like Sugar were allowed into wrestling, which Dasher is distraught over, but Sugar misconstrues what he says and treats it like a positive. Either way, Classic is crotchety and wants to get to wrestling instead of talking to a piece of glass… whatever this “camera” business is. Once in the ring, Dasher and Sugar decide on who will wrestle first by doing that baseball bat handle game that I can’t remember the name of. Dasher wins out and hands the ref a basketball so he and Icarus can do a tipoff.
Icarus is angry at this and yells, “This isn’t basketball!”
Sugar responds, “This is CHIKARA, man!” They do the tipoff, Sugar gets the ball, passes it to Dasher, Dasher passes it into Icarus’ chest, Sugar goes for a Sunset Flip and Icarus kicks out, angry at the ref for not considering that a foreign object and grounds for disqualification. Sugar keeps on him and Cannonballs him in the corner. Classic is tagged in and puts the Claw on Icarus. Sugar and Dasher enter the ring to turn it into a triple Claw. Icarus and Akuma break it up, but then Classic gives both of them the Claw. Icarus axe-handles him in the back, Classic turns around and scares him off with a simple pose.
