Reflections on Aniversario:

 

Warning, if you haven't watched "No Compromise" be aware that there are spoilers ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of unanswered questions amongst the Chikarmy right now.  I have many myself and intend to cover them at by end of this post, but first and foremost I want to address the wrestling.  No matter how the night ended the matches that took place should be given the attention they've earned.

 

I wouldn't officially call this a review of the show on my part.  I'll probably want to do a more complete one of those when I can re-watch the show for the details I might have missed.  I'm trying to be a little experimental with this.  The matches are not covered in the order in which they happened, but in the order in which I am eager to talk about them.  (I sometimes have trouble ratcheting down my enthusiasm when it comes to wrestling.)   The only exception to this is the Main Event which I am covering last due to its complicated nature.  When I do an actual review I will stick to chronological order, but I think this is a good way of organizing my first impressions and what I have taken away from the experience that was "Never Compromise". 

 

I'm going to start with the match I was most invested in, and if you read my earlier blog entries then you know that I'm talking about the hair vs. hair match between Gavin Loudspeaker and Tim Donst.  I have to admit that I was shocked by how well prepared for this match Gavin was.  Those few weeks training in the Wrestle Factory left him with a better offense than I could have anticipated.  I nearly did a spit-take when he locked in one of Saturyne's favorite holds almost as well as she does it.  I'm not saying he should quit his day job, but for his first time in the ring this was really impressive.  Of course, Gavin's surprising in-ring skills weren't the only highlight of the match. Gavin would win in large part due to interference from Jakob Hammermeier.  Part-way through the match, Jakob was called into the ring by Donst.  I'm not sure what he wanted Jakob to do, but Donst sat on the top turnbuckle while Jakob wandered over to a prone Gavin.  The referee was distracted because Donst had just knocked Steven "The Turtle" Weiner off the ring apron.  Donst was pretty abusive towards his followers throughout this match.  He even broke Veronica's baton and threw the pieces at her.  Jakob eventually turned away from Gavin and approached Donst.  In a moment that defines "catharsis" Jakob hit Donst with the knockout punch he has been using in matches for several months.  Jakob then fled into the crowd where he celebrated for a few moments with the Chikarmy who I think he has finally accepted are his true friends.  I couldn't be happier for him than I was in that moment.  Gavin eventually found his way to his feet and seeing Donst was sitting knocked out on the top rope finished him off with a superplex.  Gavin fell unconscious after the pinfall and sadly wasn't even awake when Donst came around and realized he was going to have his head shaved again.  While Donst was still coming to grips with what was going on, The Turtle walked out on him in anger over Donst hitting him during the match.  This only left Veronica at ringside in his corner.  The crowd chanted her name as she entered the ring.  She walked up to Donst and slapped him across the face before making her way to the back.  It's a good feeling to know that all three of Donst's followers have found their way out of his shadow.  Gavin remained unconscious in the ring, and I have to give Donst credit.  He took the razor and shaved his own head before leaving the ring.  It's a stark contrast to his reluctance to cut his hair last year at "Chikarasaurus Rex".  I don't know if Gavin could hear the announcement that he had won.  I wish he had been in good enough condition to make it himself.

 

 

Next I want to talk about The Colony vs. The Devastation Corporation.  If the hair vs. hair match was about emotional investment, this one was about pure adrenalin  This match never slowed down from start to finish.  I wish I could remember more detail of what happened but most of it is a blur.  I remember Max Smashmaster throwing Fire Ant off the stage, and being surprised to see the Hot Property on his feet again later in the match.  I remember some brutal offense from Blaster McMassive.  I remember a very impressive cross-body from the top rope to the floor by AssailAnt that took down all three members of The DC.  I remember Green Ant doing an insane dive from the balcony of the Trocadero that wiped out almost everyone.  I remember Sidney Bakabella trying to interfere on more than one occasion and the last attempt earning him a superkick from Green Ant.  And I remember Green Ant locking in the Cloverleaf on Blaster McMassive for a submission victory.  This was a great contest with lots of great offense.  I'm used to matches featuring larger competitors having a slower pace, but that definitely was not the case here.  I should also mention that The Colony showed some fantastic team work throughout.  If these six decide they want to lock horns (or antennae as the case may be) again, then I look forward to it. 

 

 

Going from The Colony to its cheap knock-off, The Colony X-treme Force vs. The Spectral Envoy was rather intense.  I would first like to note that DeviAnt was not in the corner of his team.  I don't know what kept him away, but that was definitely a boon for The Spectral Envoy.  Despite the absence of their leader X-treme Force exhibited some great strategy and teamwork with a minimum of time wasted on self-promotion.  They really were working like a well-oiled machine.  Ultramantis Black and Frightmare showed obvious signs of the rage they have expressed towards the X-treme Force several times during the match.  They did not, however, allow it to make them do anything stupid.  In fact, the only real evidence of their anger were the loud sounds of the impacts that echoed through the arena whenever they would strike.  Hallowicked would finish off this match by making Orbit Adventure Ant tap out to the Chikara Special (a very complex but effective submission hold developed in Chikara by Mike Quackenbush). 

 

 

In the free to watch pre-show Saturyne faced Mr. Touchdown Mark Angelosetti for the Young Lions Cup.  When I wrote about this match before, I said I hoped for Saturyne to win.  She didn't, but I'm not upset about it.  Mr. Touchdown won this match fairly, and while he showed no sportsmanship after the match (he interrupted Dasher Hatfield who was offering Saturyne a handshake as congratulation for a good effort), I cannot fault him for his behavior during the match.  I also realized that it can be seen as a good thing that Saturyne did not win the cup this time.  The Young Lions Cup tournament usually takes place in the summer.  If she had won the championship now then she would have had a very short reign before a new champion was crowned because  the holder of the Cup is not allowed to enter the tournament.  Just like last time, this was a great contest between these two.

 

 

Leaving the matches I've already written about the build toward (I'm saving the Main Event for last), let's talk about 3.0 vs. Pieces of Hate.  This match was for the Campeonatos de Parejas and was therefore two out of three falls.  Jigsaw and The Shard have blended very well as a team in a very short amount of time.  They only started teaming together at the end of last year, but the way they work together makes it seem like a lot longer than that.  3.0 have more than a decade of history as a team so their continuity is a little more understandable.  This was a hard fought match.  I was surprised that Jigsaw and Shard worked over Shane Matthews for most of the match.  I had expected them to attack Scott Parker's ribs that the Batiri injured at "The Ghost of You Clings".  The first two falls were split between them.  In the end, Pieces of Hate won the titles in the third fall when Shane Matthews was knocked out by a superkick from Jigsaw while The Shard had him in an ankle-lock.  I'm a big fan of 3.0 and thought I would be disappointed when the day came that they lost the titles, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  I think it's because I'm still a fan of Jigsaw despite his change in attitude over the last several months.

 

 

Amasis vs. Ophidian wasn't quite the match I expected, which in some ways was a blessing.  Don't get me wrong, I expected a great match.  I found myself going into it lamenting that most matches between former long-time tag team partners tend to involve more counters than successful moves.  It's a by-product of the wrestlers knowing each other so well.  Thankfully, neither of these men were interested in fighting defensively for long.  The first ever Sarcophagus match was unique to say the least.  It featured some very hard-hitting moves, including an Egyptian Destroyer (a flipping piledriver) onto the lid of the Sarcophagus.  Both men seemed determined to wear each other down before attempting to win the match (I should probably mention that in order to win this match one man had to seal his opponent inside the Sarcophagus.)  Kobald interfered at one point, but didn't really do Ophidian any favors as Kobald accidentally speared him instead of Amasis.  Ophidian became desperate at one point and attempted to use a mind-control trick that is part of his arsenal to get Amasis to seal himself inside the Sarcophagus.  Amasis proved to be too strong-willed for Ophidian's hypnosis to end this one, but it was a close thing.  There came a point at the end when Ophidian knew he was beaten and just asked Amasis to finish him off.  Amasis removed Ophidian's mask (which would have drawn a disqualification in a normal match) and revealed that he was wearing the mask Amasis had worn during their days as a team underneath.  Amasis would seal Ophidian inside the Sarcophagus.  Before the match took place both men said that this would be the end of things between them.  I wonder what their individual futures hold.

 

 

Delirious fought Dasher Hatfield in a rematch from  Chikara's season opener event in February.  The encounter between these two earlier in the year was very short and saw Dasher pick up the victory.  After the match Delirious attacked Dasher (with some help from his hench-goblin Kobald).  At "Never Compromise", Dasher was just returning from an injury to his ribs that he suffered at the hands of The Devastation Corporation.  I was surprised when I heard he wasn't going straight after them upon his return but was instead looking to settle a score with Delirious.  This match nearly ended as quickly and suddenly as their last one.  Both men showed signs of a vicious-streak in this match, which is par for the course for Delirious but very unusual for Dasher.  Normally Dasher tries to have fun in a match, but he decided to forgo most of his usual antics and faced Delirious head-on.  If not for a timely spear by Kobald while the referee's back was turned this likely would have been a win for The Old-Timey King of Swing.  Unfortunately, Delirious would steal this one.

 

 

Finally, we come to the Main Event.  Eddie Kingston vs. Icarus for the Chikara Grand Championship was far different from how I imagined it when the match was first announced months ago.  I wouldn't have guessed back then that Icarus would be the crowd favorite and Kingston would get a decidedly mixed reaction.  I wouldn't have imagined Icarus coming to the ring in gear that was a replica of Marty Jannetty's attire from 1993.  I wouldn't have expected Jannetty to agree to be at the show in support of Icarus but to then be conspicuous by his absence.   I couldn't have predicted that Icarus would play by the rules but that Kingston would use a chair as a weapon while the referee was down.  It was all quite surprising, but not as surprising as what came after.  Icarus would fight off the pain from the chair shots to his back (I like to think his tattoo absorbed some of it) and after a dramatic comeback he would lock in the Chikara Special.  It seemed like the perfect ending to a great match between two Chikara Gen-1 Originals.  As Kingston appeared to lose consciousness the referee checked his arm.  The arm dropped twice and if it dropped a third time Icarus would be the champion and the long reign of The War King would be at an end.  We will never know if his arm would have dropped that third time.  A group of men who I believe Dasher Hatfield identified on commentary as "Condor Security officers" stormed the ring and removed the referee and both competitors from it.  Wink Vavasseur, looking very disheveled came out and began directing them to disassemble the Chikara set at the entry way.  The last thing I heard before the feed went black was a voice I believe to be Chikara Senior Referee Bryce Remsburg saying he saw Archibald Peck (Update: Upon watching the replay I am quite sure this was Leonard F. Chikarason who had been on commentary for the match.  There were a lot of confusing things going on in the last few minutes of the broadcast and I misremembered this one.).  Peck is a can of worms I won't get into tonight, but I will try to summarize the strange saga of his career in another entry in the near future.

 

 

The last thing I want to cover before I get to my closing thoughts is an interlude that happened partway through the night.  A man named Derek Sabato who I am mostly unfamiliar with but I have heard used to be a referee in Chikara announced that he had information about the company that owns Chikara.  He had an envelope with him that I believe was seen at the end of "The Shoulder of Pallas" event at which time it was given to Mike Quackenbush.  How it came to be in Sabato's possession is purely a matter of speculation, but I believe he did mention being in contact with another "former Chikara employee" which would indeed describe Quackenbush.  Sabato tweeted a picture of some of the executives from a company known as the Titor conglomerate which is the owner of Worldwide Media Development who I understand bought Chikara in 2011.  One of the executives he mentions is named Conrad Vavasseur.  I can't confirm it myself, but I have heard some say that this is the father of Wink Vavasseur.  Sabato never got to finish his announcement.  He was escorted out of the ring at Wink Vavasseur's orders.  I believe he left his envelope behind.     

 

 

What Knowwon is thinking: 

 

1.  Knowwon spent this entire show in anticipation.  Chikara really pulls out all the stops during their IPPV matches.

 

2.  Knowwon hopes Gavin suffered no injuries in his match.  He had to be helped out of the ring even though he was victorious.

 

3.  Knowwon is unsure whether Tim Donst and Jakob Hammermeier will seek each other out in the ring following the events of the hair vs. hair match.  It's not hard to imagine either of them wanting to fight the other (Jakob because of over a year of mistreatment, Donst because Jakob cost him his hair).  On the other hand, Jakob may feel he has avenged himself with one punch and may not want a match against his former friend and Donst seemed oddly at peace after shaving his head.  If it happens, I welcome it.

 

4.  Knowwon wonders why Ophidian was wearing the mask of Amasis underneath his own.  It also doesn't hurt to wonder if Amasis plans on keeping the mask he took off of Ophidian.

 

5.  Knowwon can only imagine what evil task kept DeviAnt from supporting his team in their match.

 

6.  Knowwon was glad to see Dasher Hatfield make his return to action so soon after his injury.

 

7.  Knowwon can't believe Marty Jannetty broke his word.  What could have kept him from being at ringside?

 

8.  Knowwon wants to know just what was in the envelope Sabato had with him.  Could its contents have something to do with the way the show ended?

 

9.  Knowwon isn't sure it's a coincidence that the show was interrupted just as Eddie Kingston's title reign appeared to be in jeopardy.  It seems odd that Wink Vavasseur's panicked actions at the conclusion of the broadcast may have prevented the title change he has so desperately sought for months now.