Santo vs. The Daughter of Frankenstein

If you had to ask me one of my own pet peeves about horror movies, I'd probably have to say that I rarely if ever enjoy the main protagonist.  Assuming we aren't classifying Jason or Freddy as the good guy, of course.  Most notably in slasher movies, your main character is usually bland and interchangeable if not downright obnoxious.  Don't worry though, Mexico has your remedy.  What if, instead of some pimply faced teen, you had a masked luchador staring down your maniacal killer?  This is the basis of Santo vs. The Daughter of Frankenstein.  

El Santo is maybe the most famous guy in Mexico ever.  Think like, George Clooney and Barack Obama, except with more high-flying offense.  In these Santo vs. movies he is sort of a Pro Wrestler by day Super Secret Agent by night.  And of course, lover of women.  Chances are if you're reading this blog, you probably know the story of Dr. Frankenstein.  Well, his daughter does too and she sticks with it for the most part.  She has an army of red-sweater-ed henchmen who drag dead bodies into her underground lair to stitch together a monster.  Also, everybody is hundreds of years old.  Yeah, in addition to wanting to create new life in untraditional ways, she also wants to live forever.  So, she distributes this serum to all her centuries-old minions in exchange for their loyalty.  This is a lady with a lot going on!  And honestly, who wouldn't want to live forever in an underground lair with a maniacal woman who forces her bidding upon you?

In the meantime, we see Santo having a 2/3 falls match for the number one contendership for the World Middleweight title.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, we're in the middle of a semi-horror movie.  How long would you say we should show footage from this match?  Maybe one or two minutes?  How about 15?  It's possible it just felt like that.  Such is the magic of Santo.  His girlfriend is pretty excited anyway, and is certainly in no danger whatsoever. 

Dr. Frankenstein is no thousand year old fool, she knows you can't just do crazy headscissors and not have super blood.  She tested some blood from Santo she got at a wrestling match and it turns out he's got some serious diesel coursing through his veins.  Enough to make her life-extending serum potent possibly forever.  Luckily, apparently underground in their lair the girlfriend of Santo and her whereabouts are pretty common knowledge.    The red shirt brigade kidnap her with little trouble and leave a note for the Saint.

 

Santa never got his letter.

Santo and his girlfriend's Mom find the note and Santo agrees that taking an old woman on a kidnapping rescue seems like an ok idea.  Meanwhile, Dr. Frankenstein is dishing out life-serum to some new recruits.  We get to enjoy a montage of pained old Mexican men!  If you care much for the acting process this is a good scene to watch, since this is where it dies.  Soon after, we get our first victim as she refuses to give the serum to some guy for leaving his dishes in the sink or something.  

Of course, this wouldn't be a Frankenstein movie if there wasn't a monster.  This one is apparently a human with ape blood, that old classic.  He breaks his bonds so he can wander this luxurious palace, making sure to recoil in terror at a torch in the hall.  He decides to break down the door that holds Santo's girlfriend captive.  She escapes while a red shirt holds the monster at bay with the torch.  Meanwhile, Santo is hitting on her mom in the woods.

The Doctor and her pals give chase,  Santo is waiting on a tree stump which he promptly leaps onto them from.  Santo beats up around 12 men before finally the Doctor turns a gun on his girlfriend, forcing his capture.  Once he's set up in chains, the doc wants to test out her new toy.  That means, Frankenstein Fight!  In the end, Santo beats him to death with his own shackles!  A metaphor for life, we all have to beat Frankenstein's monster, in spite of the bonds that leave us shackled daily...or something.  The doctor says "Screw it" and hypnotizes Santo's girlfriend to gouge out his eyes.  Why not?

They send her into a room where Santo is tied down and the guards wisely step outside and shut the door behind them.  Moments later, Santo breaks in to the laboratory where the Doc is at work and we get a second Frankenstein Fight!  Two in 10 minutes?  This movie spoils me.  Anyway, Santo hits him with a chair to the face and they escape.

In what I would consider a smooth move, Santo decides to leave his girlfriend in a graveyard while he looks for help.  This graveyard, coincidentally, houses a false grave leading to Doc's lab.  The monster stealthily sneaks up on the girlfriend, no small feat considering that before this time he couldn't go a second without groaning.  Santo kicks Frankie backwards where he's impaled on a really sharp grave marker.  Santo sends his girlfriend and her mother off with a stranger as he goes back to put a stop to the Doctor.

A flying crossbody off of a grave onto Frankenstein's Monster?  Yes please.

 When he goes back to the graveyard, Frankie is bleeding profusely but still alive.  Santo takes off his fine cashmere shirt and wraps his wound.  What a gentlemen.  Santo falls victim to some booby-trapped corpses that spout gas from their eyes.  That old trick!  Anyway, the injured monster returns to make the save!  So we've been swerved and now we've got a Santo/Monster tag team!  

...also, I'm gonna need that back.  Dry-cleaned.

The stranger that Santo sent the girls off with promptly turns them over to the red shirt brigade.  Now Doc is ready to harvest their eyes for a new monster.  Tonight in the laboratory!  Santo/Monster vs. Doctor Frankenstein/Her assistant.  Santo handily dispatches the assistant, and the Monster locks on his deadly choke hold, but receives a vial of horrible burning acid to his face.   

He stumbles backwards and hits the self-destruct button for the lair and all I can think is that it's a shame this palatial suite will be gone forever.  Santo, nice guy that he is, yells for Frankie to follow him.  That's right, he yells for a monster brought to life from nothing who has a horrible wound where he was impaled on a stake and who just seconds ago had acid poured over his face, to follow.  Frankie is, unfortunately, too busy holding his burned face and assuredly now non-functional eyes to follow and he's killed in the explosion.

With no real segue, we go straight to the arena where Santo captures the Middleweight Title and they all live happily ever after, except for all the dead people.  In the end, it turns out that mankind is the real monster.  

Just kidding, it's this guy!

Santo vs. Las Lobas

What's the number one problem plaguing Mexico today?  Mexican Drug Cartels.  You know what is NOT the number one problems?   

Yup

Werewolves.  Much like Frankenstein monsters (in my first review) they were on the wrong side of a vs. with El Santo!  While he has a son, El Hijo Del Santo, unfortunately he has not had as many high profile run-ins with monsters.

Let's not preface too much though, let me tell you how Santo got rid of the werewolves.  It seems that the Queen of the Wolves is in trouble.  She's come to end of her life and frankly it's looking a little bleak.  So she convinces a leggy blonde girl to stab her and I guess forcibly reincarnate her into the woman.  The lady seemed ok with it, so who am I to judge?  Then what do we get?  Further information on the wolves?  Maybe some background on how the lineage works; something to orientate ourselves?

Wrestling!  Santo and a guy who is of no consequence vs. a couple of other guys.  I say the guy is of no consequence because Santo beats the shit out of both the guys by himself.  When he finally tags out, the nameless tag partner proceeds to get beat up before Santo submits everyone.  In the back, the aforementioned new Queen of the Wolves comes to visit Santo and hits on him, but he breaks out the flying cockblock and shuts her down.  After she leaves he gets another visitor, this time it's a representative from a small village.   

I say werewolf, you say lycanthrope...

Santos isn't buying this werewolf jive and sends him off as well.  Queen Wolf wasn't happy with the results of our visit and we get our second match!  Santo vs. a pack of dogs!  Thankfully, they follow the rules of Professional Wrestling and only one dog comes in the ring at a time.  Meanwhile, Queen Wolf convinces the rep that she was attacked by...something.  So he does what any gentleman would do.  Takes her to her hotel room, tells her she was imagining things and starts to seduce her.  Meanwhile....

Surprise Dog!

Santo tries to call that weirdo, but he's busy getting killed by Queen Wolf.  Santo shows up at the location the representative gave him and meets...a werewolf hunter.  This man briefly explains that since Santo has been bitten by one of the dogs, he's a victim of the curse of the werewolf and has to stop them before the 'accession of the red moon'.  We get a quick cut to a girl in the nearby pool calling out for help and before we can quick cut back, this nameless man is already running.  Guess what?!  It's a werewolf!  She tries to drown him, but Santo intervenes and she escapes.  In a hotel room he further explains that his family is immune to the curse and now they're trying to kill him 'in original ways' to make it look accidental.  They then show him at a golf course and I'm not at all sure what they're insinuating here...I think the werewolves were hitting golf balls at his head?  Is that a natural cause of death?  I'm surprised we didn't get a montage of werewolves placing strategic banana peels on sidewalks.  Why not just do Werewolf Home Alone?

Mere moments later our mysterious stranger is jumped in a barn by a she-wolf!  His, apparently, minions seem to think he's in trouble though are in no great hurry to help.  They do know exactly which wolf did it though and track her down where she dies of...natural causes?  She just sort of lays down.  Apparently that was Queen Wolf, too.  So they're fucked.  Unless...

There's always time for some fruit juice.

Santo arrives at the airport and meets an old train station hand who points out an eerie package from Transylvania!  We learn that that guy who died a few scenes ago was named Cesar Harker.  A good name for a good man.  Santo instead is put in contact with his identical twin brother who was nice enough to lay his dead brother out on the coffee room table. 

Guess who's dying!?  It's the train station hand.  He actually gets the goriest death I've seen in a Santo movie thus far.  The box from Transylvania is open and IT'S THE KING WEREWOLF!  Is my lore wrong?  Are all iconic monsters from there?  I thought it was just vampires.  Well, he's here to take things over and pick a new Queen.  How can a man choose just one of these lovely, hairy ladies?  But no!  It's a random girl in a room somewhere!

Santo heads to the border town he was told about originally where they give him the traditional Mexican greeting of beating him with pitchforks and throwing rocks.  His buddy Rob Halford from Judas Priest shows up and they're friends now walking through a cornfield to escape the scorn of this little village.  I know it sounds like I didn't watch this movie carefully enough and that's why I keep using phrases like 'I guess that...' and 'Apparently...' but in fact I've watched this movie three times now and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on.  For instance, men surround them in the corn field with guns!  I'm assuming these aren't werewolves...were they paid by werewolves?  Where do werewolves get money?  Are they villagers?  If so, that escalated pretty quickly.  Well, Gipsy (aka Rob Halford) and Santo split up in the corn field.  How will they escape this?!  Well, they don't really have to because the worst sniper in history proceeds to shoot all of his friends.  His one alive friend tells him to stop shooting and runs away.  Meanwhile, Gipsy is laughing in a tree eating bamboo, apparently impervious to conventional weapons through years of waxing himself?

I might be too if this came through my quiet town.

Poor Cesar's funeral is today, Santo wears his finest suit and mask, Gipsy his best vest with no shirt. 

We're introduced to the mysterious...actually mysterious implies a kind of calculated suspense; this is more like they didn't feel like having any continuity so they threw him out there.  Anyway, here's Dr. Marcus...wonder who this guy who just showed up could be?  He invites everyone to his mansion for a party.  Probably best to forget about all this werewolf stuff and the impending doom that assumedly will accompany the red moon.  This begins the climactic ending!  The lights are turned out and werewolves descend upon Santo, Gipsy and the girl who was the supposed new Wolf Queen maybe...after about 2 minutes they realize "hey, maybe we should turn the lights back on so people can see the fight."  Anyway, Santos body slams some werewolves (for any faults this movie has, and there are plenty, I'll watch them all for that) and they get away after incapacitating the Wolf King.  

Good night, Sweet Prince

It turns out the reason Santo is so important is because of his silver mask.  You see, because the bane of Werewolves is silver.  He's the silver symbol they were told about!  Just in case, though, he hands out silver bullet-shooting rifles to a bunch of villagers as they prepare for the REAL final battle. Hey guys, remember about a paragraph ago, I mentioned how the poor lighting was ruining the fight scene but then they came to their senses?  Well, sense is for people who do not make these movies.  Yes, as you'll recall it's the night of the RED MOON.  And the moon is SO FREAKING RED that everyone looks like a bland, detail-less blob.   

If you stare hard you can see forever.

I tried adjusting the picture using brightness and contrast, tried adjusting the colour to no avail.  On third viewing, it actually is starting to slowly become apparent...I guess my eyes now suck as much as the editing.  Santo chases down the Wolf King.  Santo doesn't take offense from anybody!  He basically beats the crud out of the Wolfman, and throws him off a cliff.  Fin.

Seriously, the poor guy hits the bottom of the valley and that's it.  I'd be disappointed but aside from maybe a killer rendition of "Breaking the Law" I can't say I'd really care for anything else this movie might have offered in the way of an epilogue.

You may ask, what have we learned?  That werewolves are cunning?  That Santo doesn't job to any movie monsters?  That life itself is fleeting and we must fly at it with the fury of a 70's luchador and ride that momentum until you finally crash? 

Or just, werewolf bodyslams.

Hallowicked vs. Mike Quackenbush - 12 Large Summit - Anniversario and His Amazing Friends - 5/21/11

This may be my pick for most fun match of the year so far, and it's actually my favorite match I've seen this year. The entire first 6-8 minutes are devoted to matwork. And not just switching headlocks and hammerlocks, they actually are intuitive and reactive with it. When Mike puts Hallowicked in the Indian Deathlock, he first tries to go for Mike's leg, before squeezing out the back and into a headlock of his own. Of course, the hallmark of a CHIKARA match isn't just great wrestling, it's also a sense of humour, as displayed when Quack tries to escape a headscissors by using a kip up, only to kick out right into the ropes. "What are these doing here?"




They trade a couple of dives on the outside, including Hallowicked nearly taking out a kid, followed by a Quack Asai Moonsault which he was pretty proud of.
When they return to the ring Quack uses a unique armbreaker using his feet. This starts the bulk of the match, which is Quack taking one of his first students to task with every arm wrench variation he knows.



Wrestling has always had a different set of physics from the rest of the world. I think this match is one of the best examples of wrestling physics. In reality, a move like a full nelson would only be moderately effective and it would vary depending on your own strength. But in wrestling, it's raw fury and break neckitude is off the charts.



All holds have counters, and that is where we dabble into the British Catch as Catch Can style, wherein they have the tricky escapes like, bringing your knee up to your arms, grabbing it and kicking down to break out of the nelson. It's stylish enough that it's pro wrestling, but it's just real enough that it's viable. Even if it's not recommended should you be attacked in a bar with a Full Nelson. I don't think the Warlord goes to bars anymore anyway.



Attack and escape are of the utmost importance in this match, and they make it all viable enough that you're really intrigued with how they'll counter one another. And when they break into the highspots to close out the match, it's just as fluid. And when they finally hit the 3 count, it's a counter that does Quack in. Really awesome match, and you should go out of your way to check it out.

Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk - Empty Arena Match

When I watched this match I realized that it really wasn't much of a match but more an angle. There is some brawling in it, but the bulk of the presentation on this disc is the build up, and the anticipation. Terry Funk saunters on screen with an envelope in hand.



"First of all I'd like to say that Jerry Lawler is a son of a jackass. He is a lover of chickens."

And if there were more fierce fighting words than calling someone a chicken fucker, I don't know what they are. Terry Funk is belligerent and assured that he can't get a fair shake at Jerry Lawler. Everybody's on Jerry Lawler's side because this is his town. So he hands the envelope over to Lance Russell to deliver to the King. It has a time and it has a place.

When I was about 13 years old I remember the time and the place was the Huntingburg City Park at 4:45, because it would take you about 40 minutes to get home and check in with your parents from when school was out at 3:20 PM and another 45 minutes to get across town to the park. Word had gotten down, somehow, from the High School to the Middle School that there was going to be a fight. By the time I strolled in with a couple of my friends I came upon two 17 year olds with their eyes locked flanked by about 40 kids who didn't have cable TV. They paced that circle for what seemed like another 40 minutes before a voice from somewhere in the back said the words that have started so many epic battles throughout the years. "What are you guys, pussies?" And suddenly they flew at each other in a flurry of awkwardness and testosterone. I'd say it was probably about 40 seconds before one of them laid with a busted lip and appeared to have tears welling up in his eyes. I remember the victor slowly rising up off of him, quietly. And then everyone just disappeared, like fog billowing and dissipating all inside of 30 seconds.

Years later, after achieving what could legally be called adulthood, I remember sitting at the picnic tables at that same park. It was late in the evening, and as there's really not many bars in small town Indiana, the park was often used as a meeting place for the young and the old alike. There were brick shelters in a couple of spots inside the park, punctuated by a beach volleyball net on one side and a baseball field on the other. These shelters had all the style that could be expected of small town government ventures. An assortment of rainbow-coloured picnic tables inside them, the paint chipping off and splinters for all. It never stopped people from booking them out.

I could hear a ruckus and the locust-like sound of scurrying sets of feet coming towards me. Alcohol wasn't allowed in the park, but it seemed to reside there anyway. And I saw, stumbling out of the shelter a khaki-short wearing young man, glasses on his head backwards and the scruff of his neck being held by a balding old coot with the waistline of his slacks approaching his chest. The entire way, the kid was insulting every branch of the guy's family tree. Finally, he discarded him outside of the shelter and started to wipe his hands of the whippersnapper. Then that young man said the words that have started so many epic battles throughout the years. "What are you, a pussy?"

Cue the locust swarm. This old guy instantly about-faced came back out and had his dukes up like a 1930's prize fighter. The old guy basically opened up a clock cleaning business right on the drunkard's face. I'll never forget that guy wailing afterwards, and how the fog vanished as he was left there crying about his nose and his expensive sunglasses. When the police arrived and found this bloody mess, I could hear him crying again, but this time he was telling them how he got sucker punched and he'd have taken him in a fair fight, even though he could barely defeat falling over on his rubber legs as he yelled.



We see the empty arena, where Lance Russell is talking to the camera man about what may or may not happen this evening when Terry Funk walks into the arena cussing up a storm. Jerry Lawler eventually shows up, and becomes the first man to ever show up to a street fight wearing a crown and cape.



Funk continues running Lawler down as only a crazy belligerent person can. Lawler wants to keep this a wrestling match but it quickly disintegrates into the street brawl it was meant to be. Eventually Funk hits a piledriver on the floor, and goes to the wooden steps where he breaks a piece of it off. His voice is getting higher and higher in pitch before he tries to stab Lawler IN THE EYE with it.


"You son of a bitch you tried to kill me! I'm gonna get his eye!"

It ends up backfiring as Lawler kicks Funk in the elbow and the stake goes into HIS eye. Lawler goes down to his knees and prepares to punch Funk again but holds up as Funk is screaming in agony and nearly in tears. Lawler stands up slowly and walks away. All the while Funk begs for help, which turns to him asking where Lawler went? "Where is that coward?! He's yellow. Lawler's yellow."

It's fantastic to see. Everything. Conflict is a part of life. You can be a hippie or you can be a businessman and you'll still find conflict somewhere. And where you see conflict, you'll see people. When I was 13 years old, I remember thinking 'this is how kids solve their problems'. And then when I became an 'adult' I realized that adult is just a word we make up to pretend we don't fight and scrap exactly like we did when we were 13. And there are millions of ghosts shifting in and fading out around those scraps.

CHIKARA High Noon Preview

It wasn't all that long ago that wrestling companies started pumping out Internet Pay Per Views. It's much cheaper than the traditional cable pay per view and it skips past all the non-sense that comes with getting on different providers and obtaining a decent slot amidst the UFC's, WWE's and TNA's (Well, maybe not TNA's...). A lot of people were asking when CHIKARA would come on board. They've made leaps and bounds in the past year. Ever since the huge success that was King of Trios 2011, there have been more eyes on them than ever and it's fitting that their first iPPV would be the one that crowned their very first Singles Champion.

Just in case there are people a little weary of the idea of an internet PPV; I was too. I assumed the quality would be poor or perhaps there might be issues with connection speed. GoFightLive (gfl.tv) has a test stream available to gauge how your internet can handle it. In the handful of times since I've jumped on the bandwagon, I've never run into any issues with buffering video at all. For the record I just have a basic ethernet connection. Additionally, just like the grand old days of VHS, once you've purchased the feed, it's yours. You can go into your account at any time and watch the stream again. With the technicalities out of the way, let's take a look at the card.

Jigsaw vs. El Generico - Preview before the PPV

This will be the preview for the show streaming at U-Stream: http://www.ustream.tv/user/CHIKARAMedia

Jigsaw has been out with a bicep injury for a number of months and he and partner Mike Quackenbush just dropped the Campeonatos de Parejas to F.I.S.T. a short while ago. Without question, he's one of the sharpest guys on the CHIKARA roster and it's a shame he's been limited so far in his return. El Generico is one of the top 5 wrestlers in the US right now by my estimation. He's had amazing matches in PWG, ROH, CHIKARA and anywhere else he's shown up.
There's no real storyline to this match, but you can expect it to be fantastic and really a great way to entice people showing the fun spirit of CHIKARA and some fantastic wrestling.

Amasis Speaks

Not long after their great showing at KoT '11 the Osirian Portal very suddenly lost its Funkiest Member. Amasis was pushed out of action 'indefinitely' in June 2011 due to injuries sustained outside of wrestling. This was a huge blow in a lot of ways because I've found if there's one guy who I can nudge my non-wrestling friends into watching some wrestling with, it's Amasis. He's super charismatic, and let's face it, everyone loved Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Amasis is that movie incarnate. This is actually one of the things I'm most interested in on the PPV. It would be wonderful to see him in the ring again, but I just hope he's doing well and that he sticks around CHIKARA in the years to come.

Colt Cabana vs. Archibald Peck

The undisputed Leader of the Band, Archibald Peck has found a new mascot: former CHIKARA competitor and Tag Team specialist Colt Cabunny. Cabunny was in a tag team with CP Munk many years ago. He had been in retirement, assumedly in a whole, outwitting Dutch Mantell and WWF mainstay Skinner before Peck enlisted his services. His namesake, Colt Cabana, however, isn't convinced that the partnership is amicable.



Indeed, it seems that Cabunny somehow was coerced into becoming Peck's mascot, and since joining has been tormented by Marchie Archie as evidenced in this blog post (http://www.chikarapro.com/blog/11-2-2011.php). In their first meeting, Peck used some underhanded methods (including time travel) to best Cabana. With Cabunny doing his bidding now, it certainly looks like Archibald has the advantage. You can bet Colt has a gameplan though, and if he can get through to his old friend, it could certainly prove interesting!

Green Ant vs. Tursas

One thing CHIKARA does better than any other company is re-create that feeling of being a kid that loves wrestling. The Green Ant/Tursas feud is my favourite example of this. They took what might have been a very average feud between two young guys and injected some CHIKARA serum into it. That serum consists of great long-term storytelling, a little bit of nostalgia and some common sense. That last one is much more of a commodity nowadays.

The feud started at King of Trios, when Tursas' interference in the Colony vs. BDK match backfired and Green Ant, a rather tall, skinny ant hoisted him up ala Lex Luger on the USS Intrepid and slammed him down. He then finished up with a Rebel Rack on Jakob Hammermeier for the win. Leading up to Chikarasaurus Rex, Green Ant hopped aboard the Flex Express harkening back to the Lex Express that Luger took around America. Their match at Chikarasaurus Rex was an excellent match. The thing that works with Tursas is he really works like a big man and doesn't just bump all around and it makes it that much more impactful when someone does get him off his feet. In the end, Jakob interfered costing Green Ant the match.

This looks to be the final showdown between the two and Green Ant has gotten some advice from both Eddie Kingston and Ultramantis Black, the only two men to beat Tursas. He's got a tall order ahead of him to say the least!

Gregory Iron vs. Icarus

I don't think that Icarus has ever been cheered in CHIKARA. Which is quite the accomplishment givien the light-hearted nature of the company. Between his membership in F.I.S.T. and his horrific back tattoo he is a perennial bad guy through and through.

Gregory Irons, on the other hand, is a miraculous story. In spite of having Cerebral Palsy, he's managed to become a Pro Wrestler, and a pretty good one at that. He really makes no qualms about his disability, his nickname being the "Handicapped Hero" and his entrance music is Bobby Brown's "On Our Own" from Ghostbusters 2.

If you haven't had a chance to see Iron work, this should be a good showcase.

The Colony (Fire Ant and Soldier Ant) vs. the Young Bucks

Two teams with two points towards tag team gold meet up. A third point in CHIKARA would earn one of these teams a shot at the Campeonatos de Parejas. The Colony (with Green Ant) are the current Kings of Trios, and have been on a roll since acquiring their awesome golden ant capes.



The Young Bucks left TNA earlier this year and have been mainstays in CHIKARA the last few months with great results including wins over the Batiri and the BDK on their way to High Noon.

Whoever wins will get the F.I.S.T. team of Gargano and Taylor for the titles.

The Spectral Envoy vs. Ares and Tim Donst - No Disqualification

Ultra Mantis Black and Hallowicked are putting their masks on the line, Donst is putting up his hair and Ares is putting up the Eye of Tyr in this match. The Eye of Tyr, of course, has been the catalyst for many big events in CHIKARA, most notably the forming of the BDK and the brainwashing of former Spectral Envoy stablemate/friend Delirious.

This match likely is the BDK's last stand as if they lose the Eye of Tyr (and to a lesser extend Donst's luscious locks) their destruction is imminent. Ares has put off a showdown with Ultramantis on countless occasions, to the point where the devious Black made a point of attacking BDK members to draw his attention and show his intentions. Just as the theme to the PPV states, "It's High Noon, for the BDK". Will they make it to 12:01?

12 Large Summit Final: Eddie Kingston vs. Mike Quackenbush

This is probably the most fitting final to a Tournament named after the late, great Larry Sweeney. Quackenbush and Kingston, by all accounts, were two of his closest friends and if you watched the Opening night of King of Trios, you could see the outpouring of emotion from both men in their matches. This is both a fitting tribute to a fallen friend, but also an important mark in CHIKARA history as it will decide the first Singles Champion in a company that's been going for 10 years.
Quackenbush is the founder of the company and he's been wrestling for many years. I often recall reading results during the genesis of the Internet featuring him alongside Reckless Youth. Mike's had some monumental matches in that time. Just in CHIKARA, the tag team match last December where he and Jigsaw won the Campeonatos de Parejas was molten hot and a terrific match, as well as his 12 Large Summit match with Hallowicked documented earlier in this blog. There is going to be the pressure to 'live up' to the main event of CHIKARA's first pay per view, and Mike Quackenbush always delivers.

On the other side will be Eddie Kingston. A CHIKARA original as well, and also one of the scariest men on the roster. The great thing about Kingston is that he can, for instance, do the hilarious play-by-play he did on Dragon Dragon's debut (YouTube it!) but then just shut the smile off and narrow his eyes and he suddenly becomes a very frightening and intense guy. For example, his promo for this very match.



This is a very important match. It's important to both men for what it means to their fallen friend, to CHIKARA going forward, and to how they'll be perceived after this point.

The one thing I can say about CHIKARA, and I can't say this about much wrestling anymore, you will have fun watching it. Fifteen dollars is a small stipend for the great wrestling you will undoubtedly see and the laughs you will have. If it sounds like I'm shilling, I absolutely am, but only because CHIKARA brought me back into wrestling and has given me the ability to enjoy it and share it with other people.
If you thought about watching wrestling again, if you were a fan and you've ever wondered what it's like nowadays, check out High Noon. You won't be disappointed.

Prose Wrestling

Professional Wrestling has always told stories. It's its own brand of fiction. Fighting fiction. In this way, it can be kind of limited because eventually somebody has to pin another guy. I think that's part of what I love about wrestling. It gives you this set of parameters and says "What will you do with this?". I've always needed a little direction, myself, and so I love seeing the creativity that flows out of these tight spots.

So, when I see someone do something REALLY crazy and unique, I have to share it.

Big Japan Wrestling is a Death Match Organization. I can't begin to tell you the crazy matches they've had. The tame stuff would probably be Bed of Spikes Death Matches or Barbed Wire Light Tube Death Matches. In a lot of ways I think this would be akin to say a Horror genre within movies. That is, something that has art to it, but is looked down upon. It houses some of the ugliest men you'll ever see destroying one another and bleeding all over the place.

With that in mind, they have been putting on these specialty shows for the past few years. What's more special than a Barbed Wire Spider Web Scaffold Match, you may ask?

SHAKESPEARE.



The shows are equal parts acting, and wrestling. The wrestlers will have a monologue or a scene pre-match and a prologue after the match.

The matches themselves are themed as well. Such as Romeo (Jun) Kasai vs. Juliet (Jaki) Numazawa in a Poison Death Match...Well watch for yourself.





Up next? Macbeth.