Melvin Snodgrass vs Darkness Crabtree vs Ultramantis vs
Jigsaw vs Sumie Sukai vs Jon Thornhill vs American Gigolo vs Mr ZERO vs Blind
Rage
Opening match rumble to kill some time basically, with the winner facing Hallowicked for the Young Lions Cup later in the night. It opened
with some old man comedy between Snodgrass and Crabtree, before Ultramantis
hurled both guys out with gusto. There wasn’t much drama in this rumble, as
most elimination attempts consisted of people hugging other wrestlers stood
near the ropes, though Jigsaw took a dumb looking bump from a Sukai dropkick to
be eliminated. Blind Rage, who has been the most impressive guy in early
CHIKARA, gets binned almost right away, before ZERO eliminates Gigolo and
Ultramantis at the same time to win. Some tension is teased between Ultramantis
and ZERO at the end.
Rorschach vs Jolly Roger
Roger is basically working a party pirate gimmick and I
kinda hate him. This is a pretty bland match, just passable rookie wrestling,
with a few fun touches. I like Rorschach chopping Roger in the back, like a cat
o’ nine tails, and you could see the Quackenbush training as he locks in a fun
looking submission. There’s a terrible spot where Roger waits awkwardly on the
turnbuckles, just waiting to be powerbombed, but on the whole, this was ok.
Roger wins with a running unprettier, called Walk The Plank
American Gigolo vs Ultramantis
Gigolo is more experienced and there’s a noticeable upgrade
in crispness from the previous match. Gigolo heels it up nicely, cheating to
retain control, and I loved his seated Cattle Mutilation. Ultramantis makes a
comeback and gets a two off a Skull Crushing Finale. Gigolo is still ahead and
is able to regain control easily, locking in a beautiful takeover pin for the
nearfall, only for Ultramantis to get a crucifix pin for the win. Short match,
but fine.
Hallowicked vs Mr ZERO
This was actually pretty good. Loved the early matwork, with
nice little touches like ZERO punching Hallowicked in the knee to break a body
scissors. Both guys have their partners on the outside, and Hallowicked keeps
provoking Ultramantis which allows Blind Rage to interfere on his behalf.
Hallowicked concentrates his attack on ZERO’s head and neck, hitting a DDT and
two neckbreakers, as well as teeing off with punches and kicks. ZERO gets to
make a comeback after Hallowicked takes a needless chance, missing a cartwheel splash
in the corner. Two uranage’s get two. Hallowicked hits a non-too-pretty looking
sunset flip, before Rage drops ZERO neckfirst on the rope. This allows
Hallowicked to hit a Michinoku Driver for the win. Pretty fun.
Jigsaw vs Sumie Sakai
I’m not a big intergender fan, but this was pretty well
worked. Here, it actually made sense for Sakai to be able to control at the
start of the match, given that she’s more experienced than a relative rookie in
Jigsaw, and Jigsaw is so rail thin here that you buy her being able to knock
him over without too much hassle. Jigsaw really bumps and stooges throughout
the match to put over her offence too. When he does get control, Jigsaw does
real asshole stuff, like standing on her face in the corner. He gets a really
close two count off a Death Valley Driver after doing squats with her on his
shoulders. Sukai’s comebacks come after Jigsaw gets too cocky, missing an elbow
after dicking around, though he also gets screwed by the ref delaying him going
to the top rope for a missed corkscrew splash. Jigsaw takes a few more massive
bumps to put over Sukai’s missile dropkicks, but her moonsault only gets knees
and a superkick gives Jigsaw the win. Again, not my favourite type of match,
but this was ok.
The Wildcards vs Gran Akuma & Icarus
This was built up earlier after the Wildcards accepted a
challenge for a match by attacking from behind, and severely working over Akuma’s
leg. The result of this is that Icarus comes out alone and, though he runs wild
at first, the Wildcards number advantage gives us a handicap match. Marciano
hits a lovely flying knee to the head to down Icarus and the Wildcards are in
total control Kingston is so confident he just hangs about in the crowd, while
Marciano dominates. Eventually, Akuma comes to the ring on crutches to help out
his partner, but even when Icarus gets a few hope spots (like a nice crossbody
for 2), he refuses to tag in Akuma. Akuma eventually blind tags in, and gets in
a few bits of offence that don’t involve his knee, causing the Wildcards to
collide into each other and hitting a nice one-legged dropkick on Kingston.
Eventually though, Marciano hits him with a chop block and Kingston locks in
the Kondo Clutch. Just to rub it in, Marciano handcuffs Icarus to the ropes to
leave Akuma no choice but to tap. More angle than match, but the Wildcards were
great as heels here.
Skayde vs Mike Quackenbush
This is for Skayde’s AULL Mexican Middleweight title and is
2/3 falls. With this in mind, it’s a very brief match, with the second and
third falls being particularly short. The match kicked off with some lovely
matwork, with some impressive holds and counters being used, most of which I
don’t know the names off.Things start to heat up as both find their way into
the match. It’s Quack who hits a suicide dive to really push things along, and
inside Skayde seems to be driven by this, hitting a legdrop to Quacks head and
tying him up to earn the tap out. The second fall also kicks off with matwork,
but takes less time to get heated as Skayde starts slamming Quackenbush to the
match, seemingly to get a quick win, but Quack hits the Quackendriver for the
equalising fall. The final fall sees a big dive by Skayde early on, and Quack
take a nasty looking bump as American Gigolo pushes Skayde out of the way of a
suicide dive. The smack as Quack hits the floor is nasty. Quack just beats the
count and hits a victory roll for the title. Odd match, what we got was really
good, but it seemed to be over before it really got going.
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