The Nightshift (Blind Rage & Hallowicked) vs Team
Midwest (Brad Bradley & Jimmy Jacobs)
Fun opener here. Bradley is the wildcard factor of the
match, being substantially bigger than the other guys. He dominates both of the
Nightshift with his strength, before press slamming his partner to the outside
onto their opponents. He follows with a super-impressive tope, with Jacobs
holding the Nightshift in place as a nice touch. The heat, logically, is worked
on Jacobs, with some nice double-teams. Particularly liked Blind Rage hitting a
tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and holding Jacobs in place for Hallowicked to drop an
elbow. They establish Bradley as an easily distracted hot-head here, as
Nightshift barely have to provoke him before he tries rushing into the ring,
distracting the ref. Bradley looks great again on the hot tag, with both
Nightshift members taking big flips off clotheslines. Great back suplex on both
heels by Bradley, before his short-attention span costs his team the match.
Hallowicked grabs his foot as he runs the ropes, prompting him to leave the
ring, leaving Jacobs to get pinned following a bridging O’Connor roll from
Rage. Good tag formula.
Team Toryumon (Arakencito & Skayde) vs the Superfriends
(Chris Hero & Mike Quackenbush)
This one never felt like it got going in a meaningful way,
and felt too exhibitiony for most of it’s time. Before the match, it’s
announced that Arakencito only needs to pin Hero or Quack for a 2 count to win,
and they’d need to pin him for a 4. Arakencito is a little spark plug here, and
I dug his run of offence in the closing stages, hitting repeat leaping
headbutts on Hero in the corner. The opening stages, however, are given up to
some matwork between Quack and Arakencito, and Skayde and Hero. It’s all very
smooth and enjoyably goofy (loved Skayde turning a Hero hiptoss into an
abdominal stretch), but it all feels quite uncompetitive, like none of the
wrestlers are really trying to win. There is an Arakencito tope to Quack that
looks great, but there’s no sense of trying to stop tags or actively win the
match. The end sees Arakencito try and ill-advised Tiger suplex on the much
bigger hero, and Hero instead locking in the Hangman’s Clutch for the tap.
Team FIST (Gran Akuma & Icarus) vs The Conundrum (Jigsaw
& Rorschach)
This wasn’t very good, which surprised me because some of
these guys were really good within 12 months, but a lot of this was very
awkward and sloppy. The reversals of go-behinds by Jigsaw and Icarus looked
really co-operative. Akuma hits a lovely dive on Jigsaw, which I hoped would
kick start things to life. Jigsaw does some nice heeling here, arguing with the
ref whilst draping his knee over his opponents throat, and opportunistically
slapping his opponent from the apron. There are some good moments from the
heels, including a series of reverse and normal atomic drops, but there are
several signs of greenness and hesitancy throughout. The faces regain control
following a terrible looking twisting splash that misses by Jigsaw. Rorschach
grabbing Akuma to go all the way over on a sunset flip and instead be hit with
the Jig N Tonic was nice, before Jigsaw takes a stunner/crossbody combo for the
loss. Patchy at best.
American Gigolo & Jolly Roger vs UltraZERO (Ultramantis
& Mr ZERO)
At first this feels like a step in the right direction. Mr
ZERO looks terrific in the early going, showing himself to be quite graceful
for his size and showing nice touches like slapping Roger’s chest to open him
up for a headlock. Gigolo and Roger seem to be working heel, and gain control
of Ultramantis by Gigolo simply outwrestling him. There’s a lot of
headscratching moments throughout, like Gigolo trying to whip Ultramantis
towards his own corner during the heat section (and worse, Ultramantis deciding
to reverse it), and there’s a few sloppy moments like Roger having to stand
like an idiot and watch Ultramantis climb to the top. The faces win with a
double-team neckbreaker on Roger, who gets abandoned by his partner.
Swiss Money Holding (Ares & Double C) vs Senior Assault
Team (Lester Crabtree & Melvin Snodgrass)
Double C is, of course, the future Cesaro. Brief comedy
squash, with the SAT being two masked lads playing old men. Double C sends
Irish Whips Snodgrass, sending him off very slowly. This gives the Swiss time
to destroy Crabtree in the corner and still have time to hit the onrushing
Snodgrass with a double-team spinebuster/neckbreaker combo. Effective enough.
Mercedes Martinez & Sumie Sakai vs The Wildcards
(Blackjack Marciano & Eddie Kingston)
Intergender tag match here, and one that does show some of
the pitfalls of the genre. Mercedes is pretty tall and looks quite strong, so
it’s not too much of a stretch to see her keeping up with and controlling the
Wildcards, especially when Marciano is cockily underestimating her. Sakai,
however, is tiny, and as talented as she is, it doesn’t look believable for the
heels to bump for her. A top rope crossbody to the floor looks very safe given
how easily they catch her en route to the floor, and you can see Marciano
clearly protecting her on some slams. I did like the story of Kingston in
particular being dismissive of Sukai, with some loud mouthed trashtalk, before
Sukai gives him comeuppance, but some timing issues mean Kingston is on his
feet looking like an idiot on more than one occasion before getting downed with
a missile dropkick. Kingston takes slow looking ranas from both women, before
Sakai accidentally dropkicks her partner. This allows Marciano to roll up Sakai
for the victory. I do like Sakai, I’ve seen her have very good matches with
other women, but even in those matches she looked small, so against two men she
looked positively tiny, and her offence didn’t look tough enough to overcome
that.
The Nightshift vs Team FIST
On the retrospective commentary on the first CHIKARA show,
Mike Quackenbush revealed that Blind Rage had some wrestling experience before
coming to learn in CHIKARA, and boy does it show. He’s really on here, love the
sequence where he hits a necksnap on Akuma, slaps Icarus in the face then holds
a chinlock on Akuma whist staring daggers at Icarus on the apron, all in one
slick sequence. Everything looks a level above the last FIST match, as the
Nighshift are both more experienced than the Conundrum. Icarus looks really
good on the hot tag, nicely fired up, though he soon falls prey to a huge
crucifix bomb by Rage. The end sees Hallowicked hitting a Michinoku Driver near
the ropes, with Rage holding onto a leg to guarantee victory. This was fun
Swiss Money Holding vs The Superfriends
This was a whole heap of fun, and despite going 30 minutes,
didn’t feel overlong or padded out. All four guys exchange some really nice mat
sequences at the start, including Double C falling victim to the Sword in the
Stone from Quackenbush. There’s a fun early spot where Ares twice fakes getting
slapped in the face off a rope break by Quack, so on the third time, Quack does
just slap him. Things heat up with a dive series, with a Quack flip dive
followed by a Double C tope and a twisting dive from Hero. This takes us to the
second stage of the match, where SMH work a heat section on Quack, including a
great STO/Side Russian legsweep double team. After a long heat period on Quack,
Hero then becomes face-in-peril, and this is even better. They pepper in enough
hope spots to keep it interesting, but you get little details like Hero ending up
in the wrong corner to prolong the heat. Things break down and the SMH
spinebuster/neckbreaker only gets two. Hero’s Welcome on Ares gets 2. Hero
locks in the Hangman’s Clutch on Ares as Double C locks a chickenwing on Quack
and it’s a race to see who taps first…only for the bell to go for the 30 min
time limit. Dig the fact they didn’t do any time announcements so as not to
telegraph the result.
The Wildcards vs UltraZERO
They were always going to struggle to follow that, being two
teams of rookies, but this was also really good. Wildcards jumped their
opponents at the bell, which is a sensible change of pace from the previous
match. The Wildcards do nothing fancy in this match, they’re just dirty
cheating heels, and this also helps their opponents stand out. They concentrate
an assault on Mr ZERO’s leg, and I love all the cheating from the apron behind
the ref’s back, and Kingston trashtalking to the other corner whilst holding a
Boston crab is great. Hot tag is made, and even when all four guys are in the
ring and it breaks down, Mr ZERO still sells the legs, which I appreciate.
Lovely sequence sees Marciano block the Praying Mantis bomb with a Northern
Lights suplex, which Ultramantis holds onto and hits the Praying Mantis bomb
second time round. It ends disappointingly though, as Ultramantis hits a really
shit looking top rope…suplex? Kingston looks legitimately angry at his landing
and ZERO awkwardly covers for the win. Until then, this was good.
UltraZERO vs The Nightshift
This is the tournament final, filmed on another day, but
they’ve helpfully added it to this show. UltraZERO control this to start, with
Ultramantis frustrating Hallowicked with armdrags, and I dug Mr ZERO holding an
abdominal stretch on Hallowicked whilst Ultramantis dropkicked him, with
Hallowicked having to eat the full impact. Blind Rage’s offensive run on
Ultramantis is really good looking, love the big back suplex and a nice
Fujiwara armbar. Rage also has nice little touches like rubbing his head after
giving a headbutt, putting over how much thrust he put into it. ZERO tags in,
and both Nighshift members take hilarious flip bumps from Mr ZERO clotheslines.
Odd moment as Ultramantis goes for the Praying Mantis bomb on Rage, and
Hallowicked runs at him but elects not to stop it, instead breaking up the pin
on a two count. Hallowicked plants Ultramantis with a top rope brainbuster, and
this gets the win and the tournament for the Nightshift.
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