What a weekend. Maybe a write-up later. Tired (and according to that image, dead) now. I did get a muffin kicked into my face. So there’s that.
Seriously, I can’t recommend going to a live CHIKARA show enough.
This has been a rather bad week for me, especially on the writing front. I haven’t been able to post much due to a variety of things, but one of them is that I’m writing like 50 projects at once. A new Deadshot’s Tophat installment, a thing on Booster Gold, a thing on Two-Face, a new Ruin the Moment compilation, another compilation of CHIKARA covers based on comics, something on Dark Knight and a bunch of other things I won’t mention in fear of being incriminated when I don’t get around to finishing them.
When my indecision was driving me absolutely cross-eyed, CHIKARA’s own Tim Donst showed up to slap some sense into me. He was interested in an interview. God bless him.
Now, you may be saying, “Say, didn’t you interview Tim Donst already?” Well, yes and no. Months back, I tried, but young Timothy was in a rather unique situation. Due to a knock on the head and some brainwashing, Tim had become a member of UltraMantis Black’s sinister group, the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple. That worked out in regards to how the abbreviation “ONST” makes up most of his name, but it kind of soured my interview. Rather than getting any real answers, I just had UltraMantis Black answering on Tim’s behalf. The scoundrel.
Ah! But it was merely a ruse. Tim Donst wasn’t brainwashed after all. He was just a spy, working to gain UltraMantis’ trust and exploit it for information. With his work done, he escaped the Order’s clutches unscathed and went back to his patriotic and wholesome ways.
Only, while a member of the Order, Tim struck up a bizarre friendship with Hydra, the Starscream/Beast Man to UltraMantis’ Megatron/Skeletor. The two of them acquired the three consecutive wins necessary to garner a title shot against the tag champs. But after the truth about Tim’s behavior was revealed, UltraMantis was less than pleased.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Hydra to turn against UltraMantis and form a level of BFFitude between an American icon and a sea creature unseen since Captain America and Namor! In fact, all we need is Fire Ant and we have the CHIKARA version of the Invaders!
On to the interview!
Today I went to yet another CHIKARA show. When all the fun was over, I walked outside to find an ice cream truck. Since it was hot as hell in the arena, I indulged in a vanilla cone with sprinkles. As I’m enjoying it, I find wrestler Vin Gerard just lounging around by the entrance.
Gerard’s story is this: he used to be Equinox, a masked luchador with sloppy high-flying skills that hung around the undercard until being unmasked. He was exposed as being Vin Gerard, a drop-out of the CHIKARA Wrestlefactory who decided to sneak onto the roster by pretending to be a Mexican export. He was ostracized by his peers and fell down a downward spiral of anger and black eyeshadow. Basically, he’s emo.
The thing is, he uses this twist to give what may be one of the most genius pieces of wrestling merchandise I have ever seen. Sometimes wrestlers will give you a signed 8-by-10 of themselves for a couple bucks. Not Vin. No, for a couple bucks, you get a H8-by-10. He will sign a picture of himself, make it out to you and list just why he hates you.
I couldn’t pass this up and paid him with my free hand. By this point, the sun has already melted my ice cream to the point that it’s covered my hand and is dripping on the sidewalk. Ergo…
What a guy.
And on another note, during intermission, me and CHIKARA newcomer Steve “The Turtle” Weiner (whose theme is that awful/awesome song from the TMNT Coming Out of Our Shells Tour) did a happening duet of one of Coach Z’s greatest hits. Truly, this man is my kindred spirit.
Yep. It’s already time for another interview, this time with an honest-to-Gog comic fan. First, I should point out that it’s been a while since I’ve done any articles that compare the CHIKARA DVD covers to their comic book counterparts, but I should be getting around to that next week. I hope.
In the meantime, check out this awesome cover of Café Culture, featuring Claudio Castagnoli.
Obviously, that’s based on the comic cover where… uh… Despero was… er… enjoying a cup of coffee. Yeah.
…………
So! This time I get to interview Shayne Hawke, a charismatic youngster in the CHIKARA ranks with a lot going for him. He’s entered in this weekend’s Young Lions Cup 6 tournament, convinced he’s going to make it to the end and acquire the championship trophy. Meanwhile, he and his raspy mentor Mitch Ryder have won three tag matches in a row, thereby earning them a title shot against the tag champs Delirious and Hallowicked.
Shayne Hawke agreed to meet me up on the 4th Letter Helicarrier for an interview, mainly as an excuse to keep his pale hide out of the sun for a few minutes. I mean, that’s not what he told me, but I got that vibe just from looking at him. Anyway, the interview.
CHIKARA is getting set for another group of shows, so once again I’m capitalizing by badgering one of their wrestlers. This time, it’s Tim Donst, an American icon who mixes the best traits of Rick Steiner, Rocky Balboa and Dan Hibiki into one red-blooded grappling machine.
As coincidence would have it, my very first CHIKARA show was also young Donst’s first match. Being my first experience with the wacky fed, I was more enamored with the antics of the masked cultists calling themselves the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple, his opponents in a six-man tag match, and paid Tim little mind. Months later, I watched his performance as a singles wrestler at Young Lions Cup V and saw potential in his unique amateur/pro wrestling hybrid style. He just needed an extra, undefined something.
Then came the infamous match against that big bully Eddie Kingston, where the outclassed and overly punished Tim Donst stood up against Kingston’s never-ending in-ring torment and fought back, winning the hearts of the fans in attendance. With his newfound gusto, Tim gained respect in his following matches, no matter whether he won or lost. He even got the last laugh against Kingston by pinning him in a tag match.
The weekend of chunky guys dressed like Colossus and hot women dressed as Slave Leia has come to an end. I myself had a great time, spent with hermanos from this very site and a whole bunch of guys from Funnybook Babylon. Sadly, Thomas “Wanderer” Wilde deemed himself “too broke” to consider joining us and Hoatzin would have probably involved a gigantic plane ticket paid in rare diamonds, since he’s from Europe. I don’t know. I really have no grasp on how that type of thing works. Besides, Hoatzin seems to have vanished from our planet. What happened to that guy?
Day One
Last year I got to New York the day before the con started, which allowed me enough rest and whatnot. This year I had to come in the first day of the event and kill time until David Uzumeri came in from Canada, since he was in charge of dealing with the hotel. I walked straight from the Port Authority bus terminal to the Javits Center, which tired me the hell out.
After getting my swanktastical press pass, I met up with hermanos and Joseph of FBB. They were at a panel starting up that was a screening for a new Will Eisner documentary. Since I was tired from all that walking, I decided to stick around and watch it. I found it interesting in the sense that I honestly didn’t know all that much about Eisner, which is almost a sin if you’re a comic fan. The four of us (David U. showed up towards the end) mostly agreed that while it had some fantastic stuff in there, such as taped conversations between Eisner and guys like Kirby, the sum of it was incredibly dry.
Shortly after, we went to the panel on online journalism, with guys from Newsarama and CBR there. It wasn’t as good as the comic blogging panel from last year and mostly focused on arguing over criticism vs. getting press releases. Once that was done with, I was rested up enough to do some wandering.
First off, the latest Comics From the 5th Dimension is up. This time it’s part one of a two-parter where I discuss Luke Cage’s 70’s rogues gallery. I’ve gone over some of it here before, but I go into more detail and discuss why I believe Luke Cage is currently a Skrull.
The mega wrestling site Figure 4 Weekly Online recently had Leonard F. Chikarason as a guest on Dr. Keith’s radio show. You might remember Chikarason’s interview on this site months back. It’s apparent that he does, since he proceeds to give us a quick shout out. What a guy. Even if he does read Countdown.
I should return the favor by mentioning that CHIKARA has shows this upcoming weekend. Saturday is Deuces Wild at Hellertown, PA. Sunday is Passion and Persistence at the ECW Arena. I will be making one or two of the shows in May, but not these shows.
No, instead, I’m going to be at New York Comic Con this weekend. It’s going to be me, hermanos and some of those jokers from Funnybook Babylon. I’ll be the dumbass with the 4th Letter t-shirt, so if you see me, be sure to keep your dirty fucking hands off my nachos. And say hello if you feel like it. I honestly don’t even eat nachos. I don’t know where that came from.
You may have noticed that for the past week or so, I haven’t said a damn word on this site. That’s because last Friday I went off to Philadelphia for the three day CHIKARA wrestling show known as King of Trios ’08. What a blast.
King of Trios was the biggest tournament in wrestling history, featuring 28 sets of three-man tag teams. The first two days would feature 14 teams each, whittled down to four teams after ten matches and two byes. By the third night, they’re down to eight teams, with several non-tournament matches added on. Follow that? It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that there were 31 matches over the course of three days and it was rocktastical.
That’s not to say that there weren’t any disappointments in the roster. CHIKARA top guys Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli are in Japan, so they missed out. Plus some of the more memorable guest stars from last year like Yago, Dino and American Balloon weren’t returning. Despite that, we had some of the reliable mainstays, surprisingly entertaining new guys and some bizarre surprises.
Next Friday I’m going to be taking a 3-day trip to Philly for CHIKARA’s King of Trios tournament. This thing is going to be crazy epic as over these days they are going to hold a tournament of 28 teams of 3. That’s 84 guys in there!
Other than the CHIKARA mainstays, teams are coming in from other independent wrestling feds and several other countries. It even has some stranger attractions like a team of Kaiju Big Battel monsters and a team made up of 80’s legends Demolition Ax, Demolition Smash and the One Man Gang.
I figured this was as good an excuse as any to get another CHIKARA interview down. This time I chose to interview the Osirian Portal, a tag team made up of the insidious human cobra Ophidian and the cold dancing machine Amasis.
Ophidian debuted back in July at Showdown in Crisisland. After a couple weeks of build-up, he made his first appearance by taking on fan-favorite Player Uno. Showing off his viperlicious attack style and slithering to and from the ring rather than actually walking, Ophidian got everyone’s attention by knocking out Player Uno with a Cobra Clutch combined with leg scissors.
In September, at the show called Cibernetico and Robin, he was joined by Amasis, the Funky Pharaoh. As the Osirian Portal, they won their initial match against veterans Jigsaw and Shane Storm. Despite Amasis’ mastery of mixing wrestling with dancing, he still comes off as annoyed and with little patience when it comes to the CHIKARA crowds.
As it turns out, these guys don’t actually read comics. Well, not anymore at least. When Amasis wasn’t looking, Ophidian slipped me a note talking about how “Sssssspawn” is still the greatest superhero ever. Man, these guys really are evil. Nonetheless, I couldn’t pass the chance of interviewing two grown men dressed as up like Egyptian supervillains.
This past weekend was the 2007 season finale for CHIKARA. The third and final show ended very badly, when young wrestler Lince Dorado landed wrong during a Shooting Star Senton (if you have any idea what that move means, you can see how it can go very wrong) and caused a major scare. He was taken to the back with the wrestlers, Lince’s family and the fans in fear of his fate. Thankfully, he’s relatively okay, but it could have been a lot worse. The main event of Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli was cancelled. Despite the year-long build-up, I don’t think anyone objected, considering the circumstances.
I wasn’t at that show, but I did make the one on Saturday. Fantastic stuff, including a main event that gave me some of the biggest laughs I’ve had all year. Being behind on my DVD’s for shows I didn’t have a chance to go to, I shelled out more money than I should have and bought a handful. More specifically, I got myself a copy of Bruised.
Based on Incredible Hulk #181, the battle of the doofy-looking Wolverine and Hulk is replaced with Tim Donst going up against Eddie Kingston. For some reason, they changed the background color and it looks more like a box of Wheaties.
