Now, as promised, a special comment about Sunday's CHIKARA show at the King Arts Complex in Columbus, Ohio.
DISCLAIMER: I'm biased. Deal with it.
The final segment of our odyssey had a more leisurely pace...we even got a bit more sleep than we had in previous hotel stays. All things considered, that probably did some of us some good...speaking for myself, I was getting worn out from the long trip. Kudos to Michael for doing all of the driving on this excursion.
We met up with Michael's friend Derek at the Tasi Cafe for breakfast; I had a croissant sandwich with orange juice. Unfortunately, I had to change T-shirts since the first bite squirted grease on the one I was wearing...eep. If nothing else, one of the workers at the cafe gave his ringing endorsement to my Wayne's World cap/Decepticon T-shirt ensemble...I switched to a Nintendo-themed shirt for the rest of the day.
Since we had some time to kill before the show, we visited the Big Fun Store and Laughing Ogre Comics...Big Fun had all kinds of vintage toys(Transformers!) and video games(Atari 2600!), among other curiosities. They had more lines of action figures than I knew existed...very impressive. From there, we made a Target run and a Sonic stop-over before heading to our fourth and final rasslin show of the weekend...
Your ring announcer was Alex Proen(?); your referees were Bryce Remsburg & Larry Peace.
Dasher Hatfield vs. Ophidian: The show kicked off with this technico-contra-technico matchup. (All right, we get it, I took high school Spanish...I also took college Spanish.) Both men are team captains in the Challenge Of The Immortals competition, but this match was not part of that series. After a fine wrestling contest, Dasher delivered a superplex and went straight into a Jackhammer(Grand Slam?) for the win in 9:26.
El Hijo Del Ice Cream(Crown & Court) vs. Blind Rage(Nightmare Warriors), Challenge Of The Immortals: This could be classified as an "atypical" matchup. Hijo conversed with a toddler in the crowd, leading to the referee checking with both participants and the child to see if they were ready for the opening bell. This prompted a "Baby" chant from the fans. The actual match started with the good old Test O' Strength...but then they maneuvered through the ropes and continued their lockup on the floor. The two grappled all over the building, through the fans(with Hijo apologizing profusely along the way), and finally out the door of the building! The referee, not wanting to see a double countout, simply tried to corral them back into the ring...and they finally returned to the proverbial squared circle. Shortly thereafter, Hijo pulled off a surprise small pacakge for the flash pin in 5:19...yup, that was the whole match.
Icarus vs. The Proletariat Boar Of Moldova(w/ Prakash Sabar): Icarus dragged the Estonian Thunderhammer to the entrance stage as a reminder that he has it...he can move it around, but only The Estonian Thunderfrog was able to pick it up(a la Thor and Mjolnir). With the somewhat-similar-looking Farmer Frog becoming a regular, I suspect this will be important at some point. (Oh sure, I guess all frogs just look alike to you...) They made a big fuss about the water bottles, leading to a demand that the referee taste-test the water. I wondered if this would lead to the official collapsing and having convulsions or something, but no go (har har). This was a standard David/Goliath bout with Prakash Sabar interfering from the floor...but it finally backfired as Sabar ate a boot from Boar that was meant for Icarus. Icarus capitalized with a Death Valley Driver into the turnbuckles called the Blu-Ray(...since it's better than a "DVD"...), notching the three-count in 8:37. Icarus brought the hammer back with him...I figured he'd leave it on the stage and then Farmer Frog would nonchalantly pick it up at some point...
"Smooth Sailin'" Ashley Remington(Battle Hive) vs. Oleg The Usurper(Arcane Horde), Challenge Of The Immortals: I felt bad for the fans with Dalton Castle T-shirts since they didn't get to see their favorite wrestler...all they got was the very-similar-looking-but-totally-not-the-same-guy Ashley Remington. (It was a pure coincidence that Remington only worked the Sunday CHIKARA show while Dalton Castle was on the Ring Of Honor shows earlier in the weekend.) Despite that, Remington was OVAH...his doppleganger's recent TV exposure has raised his stock in a major way. We were reminded that Remington is enough of a gentleman that HE BREAKS ON ONE~! Oleg didn't quite understand Remington's mannerisms, particularly the finger-gun(HEYYYYY~!). That led to an impromptu duel with finger-guns against pantomimed swords...and Bryce Remsburg had to confiscate all of the invisible weapons. (Ring announcer Alex had trouble carrying Oleg's imaginary-yet-heavy sword. :)) After an entertaining bout, Oleg won with Off With His Head(crossface smash) in 11:31...aww. Mutual respect ensued after the match, but fruit baskets did not. I suspect Dalton Castle's increased ROH exposure may lead to a phasing-out of his smooth-sailing counterpart...
Intermission~! Per request from Billy McNeil, I picked up an Arcane Horde shirt; unfortunately they didn't have a large-sized shirt left so I had to settle for XXL. Billy joked that he'll have to bulk up in a hurry...bwahahaha. Got a CHIKARA cup as a free gift with my merchandise purchase...score.
Princess Kimber Lee(Crown & Court) vs. Jakob Hammermeier(Bruderschaft Des Kreuzes), Challenge Of The Immortals: Given Kimber's strong weekend up to this point, I didn't see Jakob posing much of a threat. Kimber did her pre-match tradition of giving her tiara to a ringside child for safekeeping...so Jakob stole it and pranced around with it, prompting a chant of "He's A Princess". The tiara was returned to the child and Jakob made the kid's father hold his stable's flag...yup, that's how this one started. They had a fine quick intergender match, ending with a pop-up powerbomb(!) by Kimber into the folding press in 3:38.
Eddie Kingston vs. Blaster McMassive: No flippies in this one, it was just Irresistable Force vs. Immovable Object. Both guys threw bombs with the opponent powering through the assault...Kingston withstood two Rainmaker-style short-arm lariats before winning with two spinning backfists in a row in 5:08. He Wants Da Belt(tm).
"Mr. Touchdown" Mark Angelosetti, Young Lions' Champion Heidi Lovelace, & Fire Ant vs. Grand Champion Hallowicked, "The Kentucky Gentleman" Chuck Taylor, & "The Anarchist" Arik Cannon: The premise of this match was that all six participants had held the Young Lions' Cup in their careers. Hallowicked nearly found himself as the lone rudo once again, but Chuck decided to go heel after a weekend of being the fan favorite. He established this by procuring a pair of scissors and popping Touchdown's football...ooh, that means war. At one point Chuck stormed out of the ring, walked out the door, and scared off a group of kids who were watching the show through the window...bwahahaha. (Vintage Chuck Taylor~!)
Hallowicked didn't want to wrestle Heidi, saying she was an unworthy tag team partner the previous night so she was an unworthy opponent as well. Chuck brought up his past history with Fire Ant; they feuded as singles and also in tag team competition as part of Team F.I.S.T. and The Colony (respectively). Cannon was a more reluctant tag team partner as he didn't want to strike Heidi(despite Hallowicked's encouragement to do so); however, this built to a moment when Cannon suddenly planted a kiss on Heidi. She slapped him, so he hauled off and decked her...OW. The high point of the match came when Touchdown hit Hallowicked with his delayed superplex...and Hallowicked's feet hit a hanging light on the ceiling, knocking part of it down onto them! (Check my Twitter for Michael's picture of that.) The end came when Heidi was left alone with Hallowicked...she got a good run of offense, but Hallowicked blatantly gouged her previously-blackened eye and finished her off with the exploder fisherman buster in 22:07. That was quite a battle...
One More Match? One more match...
13-Man Royal Rumble: We weren't sure WHAT kind of match this was...the ring announcer brought out Campeon De Parejas "The Generator" Race Jaxon and Prakash Sabar, so we thought it was just a singles match. However, "Juke Joint" Lucas Calhoun entered after a few minutes, so maybe it was a triple threat (there was a similar delay before Fire Ant's entry at the Chicago Show). Next out was the other half of the Campeones De Parejas Hype Rockwell, then The Proletariat Boar Of Moldova and Missile Assault Man. (I guess it didn't matter whether you had already wrestled or not.) Farmer Frog was the seventh entry; sadly the hammer was nowhere to be found. Darin Corbin was number eight and immediately put the match into SLOW MOTION~!...even the ring announcer got into the act as he slooooowly introduced the next participant. Number nine was a surprise appearance by Mr. Azerbaijan...WOO~! Number ten was Juan Francisco De Coronado who once again took his sweet time...so Ophidian(entry number eleven) blew right past him to enter the ring.
With Ophidian's Osirian Portal teammate Amasis absent, he got an assist from Bryce Remsburg to do his wheelbarrow hypnosis move...that left everyone in the ring in a trance and the dance party began. (Juan was still outside the ring and simply looked aghast at the ongoing events.) Soldier Ant was the party pooper at number twelve and he cleaned house on everyone, breaking them out of their trances...then Dasher Hatfield was final entrant at number thirteen, literally walking over from the merchandise table. Dasher encouraged TEAMWORK~! and they all ganged up on Soldier Ant to throw him out of the ring...then we discovered that this was a battle royal format. Bryce quickly bailed out of the ring to assume the position of battle royal official, so the stage was set.
Calhoun eliminated Race Jaxon, pushing a potential N_R_G vs. Battleborn feud (Battleborn has two points at the moment). Ophidian hung from the turnbuckles and used hypnotism again, causing Missile Assault Man and Mr. Azerbaijan to eliminate themselves. However, Farmer Frog took out a mirror and turned the snake's charm against him, causing Ophidian to eliminate HIMself. (Yes, this all happened.)
Everyone got together for a multiple-suplex spot, but Sabar freaked out when he realized that he had accidentally suplexed his own partner Boar. The brief dissension allowed Frog to use FARMER STRENGTH~! to eliminate the Boar. Calhoun, Farmer Frog, and Corbin all got together to dump Prakash onto his teammate at ringside. Dasher was thrown out, but he kept one foot off the floor and hopped around for a little while. However, he forgot himself for a moment and jumped when a big move happened in the ring, causing his other foot to touch the floor...aww.
Farmer Frog eliminated Hype Rockwell, but Calhoun ELVISED-UP~! and threw out Corbin and Farmer Frog. He thought he had won, but Juan Francisco De Coronado had never entered the ring and finally jumped in for a sneak attack. His advantage was short-lived and he hit the floor in short order, giving Lucas Calhoun the unlikely win in 17:28. Whew!
Our core group(myself, Michael, Lauren, and Will) got together with Derek and another fan(Joe) for dinner at Melt after the show...even with a half-sandwich, I couldn't finish my buffalo chicken selection and had to get a to-go box. The fries probably didn't help in that regard. I had a root beer to drink...in my defense, I did a good job of not overdoing it on the soda for this weekend. (There are your salient junk food details, Ben Simon!)
At any rate, it was time to part ways as Will was riding with Joe from there...it was a long haul down I-70 to return to the greater St. Louis area. I finally arrived back at the house around 1:15 AM...and I really wish I had asked off work for Monday instead of just asking off for Thursday & Friday. After the Langans stuck around the area on Monday to be St. Louis tourists, the final mileage count on the rental car was around 2300 miles...yikes, glad it held up through all of that.
I had to wait until the following afternoon to pick up the dogs from my friend's place...thus ended my legendary CHIKARA excursion. I traveled through several states I had never visited: Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio. I went from the Central time zone to Eastern back to Central, severely confusing my cellphone's clock setup. On top of that, I got quite a few travel-planning lessons...food for thought.
Updated Challenge Of The Immortal standings:
1) Dasher's Dugout (12)
2) Crown & Court/Wrecking Crew (11)
3) Nightmare Warriors (9)
4) Arcane Horde (8)
5) Snake Pit/United Nations (7)
6) Bruderschaft Des Kreuzes/Battle Hive/Gentlemen's Club (6)
With Ultramantis Black's seemingly-career-ending knee injury(suffered in Indianapolis in June :( ), the stage has been set for an upcoming eight-man tag match with the Arcane Horde being allowed to choose a substitute for U.M.B. The last two shows before the season finale have some intriguing matchups, including the first-ever Fire Ant vs. Silver Ant matchup...sadly, the Nightmare Warriors have turned Silver Ant to the Dark Side of The Force in recent months.
Records for the weekend(only counting the winner in the Rumble):
4-0: Princess Kimber Lee
2-0: Punk Rock All-Stars, Lucas Calhoun
1-0: Ariya Daivari
3-1: Hallowicked, Icarus, Oleg The Usurper
2-1: Shynron, Soldier Ant, Dasher Hatfield, El Hijo Del Ice Cream, Blind Rage
2-2: Eddie Kingston, Ophidian, Chuck Taylor, Arik Cannon
1-1: Frightmare, Missile Assault Man, Ice Cream Jr.
1-2: N_R_G, Juan Francisco De Coronado, Prakash Sabar, Darin Corbin
1-3: Heidi Lovelace, Mr. Touchdown, Blaster McMassive, Proletariat Boar Of Moldova, Jakob Hammermeier
0-1: Drew Gulak, Ashley Remington, Wildcat, Kody Rice, Venom
0-2: Orange Cassidy
0-3: Fire Ant, Farmer Frog
There are no local wrestling shows this coming weekend due to the Halloween holiday...honestly, I won't mind taking it easy for once.
A really busy November looks like this:
-Friday 11/6: Pro Wrestling Epic in Brownstown, IL; World Powerhouse Wrestling in Jerseyville, IL
-Saturday 11/7: Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Fenton, MO; Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance in St. Louis, MO
-Friday 11/13: St. Louis Anarchy in Alton, IL
-Saturday 11/14: St. Louis Anarchy in Alton, IL; Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling in Swansea, IL; World League Wrestling in Troy, MO
-Saturday 11/21: Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Wood River, IL; Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling in East Carondelet, IL
-Saturday 11/28: Dynamo Pro Wrestling in St. Louis, MO(Ready Room); Wrestling Invades America in Swansea, IL; World Powerhouse Wrestling in Collinsville, IL
Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.
-PB, Watching Wrestling Wrong Since 1991
P.S. We are all marks.
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