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CHIKARA: The Offical Thread


Boon Town Rat

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Quackenbush is a well known weirdo. For a bloke who runs a fake nerd culture promotion, you'd think he'd have a sense of fun about him, but he doesn't. He'll charge his students if they get outside bookings, he wont talk to them if they wrestle without their Chikara gimmick and stuff like that.

That's apparently the reason why Saturyne (now unmasked as Hania) wasn't part of the proceedings.

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Recap of *not much bad to say about anyone, former Chikara head trainer* Chris Hero's shoot when asked about Chikara:

 

The conversation steered toward his tenure with CHIKARA and his run as a trainer for the Wrestle Factory. Hero says Mike Quackenbush has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) which shows in the detail-oriented product he puts put. He also says Hallowicked is the most underrated and under-appreciated wrestler in the business and describes him as a "wrestler's wrestler."

 

But unfortunately, CHIKARA is a niche product according to Hero. He says a lot of talented guys work for the promotion but can't get experience anywhere else because Quackenbush won't let them

 

"Mike wants what's best for Mike and Mike wants what's best for CHIKARA."

 

He said only the guys who spoke up got the leave the CHIKARA bubble, guys with strong enough personalities to break the "Mike Quackenbush aura."

 

"Who has transcended CHIKARA? Eddie Kingston. Larry Sweeney. Two guys with strong personalities..."

 

Hero says especially in 2004, it was an unwritten rule not to cross Quackenbush and a lot people either love him or hate him while he's in the middle.

 

The former King of Wrestling relays a story about his way. He was wrestling for CHIKARA for two years, making $75 a show the entire time. He asked for a raise and got $5. When he brought it up, he was then offered $100 but Quackenbush demanded a bunch of stuff including going to boards and talking up CHIKARA.

 

He discusses his departure from the promotion which was due to some inappropriate text messages he shared with his trainee Shane Storm's girlfriend. Hero says it was a case of him simply being immature and pretty much falls on his sword.

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Thought I'd dig this thing up to post that they're doing dates over here next year in Cardiff, Wolverhampton and London next April.

 

http://chikaratix.com/

 

I'm not the biggest fan but may do one of the Wolves dates out of curiosity. Wonder who's bankrolling this.

My assumption would be a link with the 'Defend Indy Wrestling' guys, some of whom have done stuff with Chikara before. Cardiff as the Sunday show, being one of the bases for ATTACK! Wrestling, seems to back that up, as do the 2 shows in the West Midlands.

 

That being said, I understand that when Ophidian was over here in the summer, that was funded by a local government arts grant by promoters in Jersey...

 

It's a strange one. Typically, the majority of the Chikara roster are no better (and in many cases not as good as) the British wrestlers you can see week in, week out. Where the attraction will be is in the promotion as a whole, with it's unique, deep, story-rich approach, colourful presentation and bizarre comedy.

 

I've tried and failed to get into Chikara before, since there's so much deep backstory to everything it's impossible to just start watching. Those who do follow it absolutely love it, but it's niche beyond niche and pretty inaccessible on anything more than a high-level to anyone but the super-loyal.

 

That said, I'll be coming along to some of these UK shows since it us something completely different. I'll be hoping they run them more like 'exhibition' shows, rather than full, deep storyline, since I've enjoyed the characters etc. when they've done similar things before (e.g. guest matches in other promotions).

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Bit of a bump...

 

With Chikara’s first ever UK tour coming up in a few weeks (Wolverhampton x2, Cardiff and then London, over Easter weekend), here is the list of names which have been confirmed as appearing, some of which I know, some of which are completely new to me (my notes in square brackets):

Icarus [current Grand Champion, shit back tattoo, I remember him from the old days in F.I.S.T.]
Devastation Corporation (Blaster McMassive & Max Smashmaster) [current tag champions; a 1980s Powers of Pain/Demolition/Road Warriors-themed gimmick?]
Chuck Taylor
Soldier Ant [no longer with The Colony?]
Eddie Kingston
Hallowicked & Frightmare
Ultramantis Black
N-R-G (Hype Rockwell & Race Jackson) [they look like an early 90s WWF ‘HIGH ENERGY’ themed gimmick!]
Amasis [I knew him as the dancing one in the Osirian Portal]
The Colony (Fire Ant & Worker Ant) [This Worker Ant is the guy that was AssailANT, yes?]
Kodama [from the Batiri]
Dasher Hatfield [from The Throwbacks]
Jaka [???]
Bloc Party (Prakash Sabar & Mr. Azerbaijan) [East European comedy gimmick, I think]
​Juan Francisco De Coronado [???]
and
Los Ice Creams (Ice Cream Jr. & El Hijo Del Ice Cream)

That’s at least 20 guys coming in, so these will definitely be very close to feeling like a genuine Chikara show (and I can’t think of any of the other ‘guest’ promotions that have run the UK bringing in that many guys at once without fleshing it out with British talent).

So, with that in mind, are there any regular Chikara followers on here that would care to give us a run-down/summary of the current key storylines, characters, feuds, angles and scenarios going on with these guys in the lead-up to these UK shows?

As mentioned previously, I’ve been interested in bits and pieces of Chikara over the years, mainly the colourful cartoon/comicbook character side of things, but have never really been able to get into the storyline side simply due to the time, effort and dedication it would take.  It is, after all, probably the deepest, most detailed pro wrestling product out there.

That being said, I’ll usually make an effort to try and see these ‘guest’ promotions when they run over here, if only for the chance to check out and try something different that I wouldn’t normally get to see.  I’m hoping to be at both nights in Wolverhampton and intrigued to see what it’s all about.  I don’t think I’ll be going to Cardiff, but may well make it to the London event on the Monday since it’s an easy ‘add-on’ to a tasty-looking RevPro event at Broxbourne, (which is effectively London) on the Sunday.

They’ve managed to get some coverage in the somewhat-mainstream press for the tour, including this item that popped-up on the front page of Yahoo a few days ago.

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Further info for the Wolverhampton shows on top of the 23 announced Chikara stars on the tour..

 

International Talent

Davey Richards announced (show 1)

Drew Gulak announced (shows 1 & 2)

 

UK Talent

Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven)

Hunter Brothers

Morgan Webster

Nixon Newell

KYS (Pete Dunne & Damian Dunne)

Chris Brokes

Eddie Dennis

Dan Moloney

 

Matches

MK McKinnon vs. Davey Richards (show 1)

Moustache Mountain vs Hunter Brothers (show 1)

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Having never seen Chikara can anyone recommend an event from 2015

 

Thanks

 

Season Finale - Top Banana is Good, Any of the UK shows from the beginning of year (April i think) are fun too but especially the London one. and of course the triple header of the King of Trios from September is amazing.

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Having never seen Chikara can anyone recommend an event from 2015

Thanks

 

 

Season Finale - Top Banana is Good, Any of the UK shows from the beginning of year (April i think) are fun too but especially the London one. and of course the triple header of the King of Trios from September is amazing.

Cheers For The Info

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