IWTV Worth Watching: Quackenbush Atomicos

Mike Quackenbush/Razerhawk/Thief Ant/Green Ant vs. Cornelius Crummels/Sonny Defarge/Hermit Crab/Cajun Crawdad Beyond 7/3/19

ER: I really do like Chikara Atomicos matches, but the best ones tend to include Quack, because he's clearly the guy running the show. And I'm not sure even with practically two decades of training guys that he's even come close to getting one guy up to his level of Atomicos match director. Quack looks like the best of the 8 here, and is treated as such. He also mostly pairs off with Cajun Crawdad, which is smart because that guy is probably the least of the people in this. I've never seen Crummels or Defarge, but they are obviously Chikara through and through, wearing suspenders and bowlers and shockingly not riding a bicycle with one large wheel to the ring. Seeing this kind of person in Chikara is just expected, in the same way that unicycler casually rolled past a group of friends and I as we were leaving a Portland restaurant, and nobody had to say anything. Razerhawk has breakout potential. He's super small but really flies around that ring, his ranas and headscissors and big ringpost bump already look ready for actual lucha, and his flying around was easily a highlight here. Hermit Crab seems like the best of the rudos, bringing some professional basing and hitting heavier than the others, but he and Crawdad - outside of both being dressed somewhat like crustaceans - don't have a ton of team chemistry; they are similarly sized but don't really gel, and that's possibly due to Crawdad's lack of experience. Crummels had some nice running strikes, both Ants hit pretty spectacular dives, and the big move chaining ramped up more impressively than I was expecting. Quack is that maestro, like Bruce Lee directing traffic during fight scenes, and he's smart about giving guys chances while not letting them get too far over their heads. His segments were great, I dig his short palm thrusts to make space, loved him trying to make Crummels' shoulderblades touch, really hope this guy isn't actually going to hang it up after this year.


Mike Quackenbush/Mick Moretti/Cabana Man Dan/Lucas Calhoun vs. Logan Easton LaRoux/Eel O'Neal/Killian McMurphy/Alan Clayball Flying V 9/14/19

ER: I am a sucker for vets vs. young guys, and this is mostly that. LaRoux is certainly a vet, but the rest of his team is made up of two very new rookies and a guy with under 100 matches, so he's the guy leading some lamb to slaughter. And this was overall another fun Quack atomicos, but one that was shaping up to be something special before hitting the backloaded comedy and then rushing to the finish. You traditionally start something like this was the good feelings and comedy, and if it's going to be there I'd much prefer it to start than as a late match breather. Here our beginning sections were so intriguing that I had no interest in seeing any comedy, just wanted them to keep building and see how they could peak it. Well, we never really got that peak. But I loved the beginning. Quackenbush works 4 layered minutes opposite Eel O'Neal, a wrestler so new that he somehow has less Twitter followers than we do. He's a tentative rookie and they work a rookie acceptable headlock takeover/headscissors sequence, with Eel eventually handspringing out of the headscissors. But then Eel gets to show some personality, gyrates oddly into Quack, unzips his wetsuit gear while making eyes at him, and then Quack gets to pay him back for his insolence by rushing him with a tight single leg, muscling him into a pendulum and smacking his head against the bottom buckle, and the work a cool sequence where Quack is pushing off Eel's ankle with both feet while Eel tries to pull him to his feet. Their exchange started out as a basic student/teacher exchange and built to something more interesting over 4 minutes. And the match finished with them squared off again, and Quack absolutely shaking him with a superkick before eating a LaRoux cutter. I like Moretti as he always does a couple impressive acrobatic flourishes and lands heavy on crossbodies, and CMD is a certified pro who is good at working fast exchanges that make these things go. I like the bites everyone is taking, like how the pairings are ramping up, but then we gotta hit comedy. Silly strike exchanges, group headlock, tandem overplayed axe handles off the apron, stacking 4 people in the corner at once, that kind of stuff. It isn't terrible and they kind of cut right to the finishing stretch after, but it easily could have just been left out. That kind of thing robs us of time that could be spent on pairings we didn't get, but it's also expected.

Read more!

Matches from CHIKARA Aniversario: Scotch Mist 5/26/19

The Crucible (EM Demorest/Matt Makowski/Tunku Amir) vs. The Colony (Fire Ant/Green Ant/Thief Ant)

ER: I hadn't heard of Makowski until that Bloodsport show a couple months ago, where he had one of my favorite matches of the year opposite Rory Gulak. So, obviously I'm going to seek out more Makowski, and here we are! This is a fairly sloppy trios match, but the sloppiness kind of worked to the match's advantage. Makowski looked cool throughout, looked great on his missed strikes (great spot where he swung for face on a kick that Fire Ant narrowly avoided) and landed well on his big strikes, and tangled Green Ant up into a cool triangle attempt. All members of The Crucible are super new, and Demorest and Amir look super new, but Makowski already looks like he's been doing this for awhile. It's kind of amazing how quickly MMA people have been able to crossover and adapt. The Crucible is a pretty cool idea, a group of guys throwing a wrench into the gears of the most established trios team in the company. I dug all the spots of Crucible catching the Colony on dives and interrupting their momentum and flow, and how it lead to cool stuff like Green Ant absolutely crushing Makowski with a double stomp off the top while Makowski had a submission locked in. Crucible interrupting the flow of dives, Colony interrupting subs, that's just smart layout. The Colony were clearly pros leading a some sequences, and that's cool, as my main takeaway was just how awesome Makowski looked regardless of experience.

Ophidian vs. Mike Quackenbush

ER: Well this was not what I was expecting. Ophidian jumps Quack to start and locks on a guillotine, then hits a flipping piledriver after sufficient choking had taken place, locks on a sub and Quack's arm hits the mat three times. Well, I'm the one who always gripes about how flipping piledrivers mean nothing, and this certainly put over the danger of a flipping piledriver. The angle was put over strongly by Quack, who did insanely great neck selling post match, looking like a guy who clearly knows the ins and outs of neck pain and neck injuries. I was obviously hoping for an actual match, but am admittedly curious where this angle leads.

43. Mask vs. Mask: Dasher Hatfield vs. Boomer Hatfield

ER: Now I'm not someone who keeps up on Chikara storylines, but that's why I have always appreciated Quackenbush's commentary skills. He presents silly information with a straight face, like Joey Styles without the smarm or digs at competition, and there aren't many commentary guys who can naturally go over storylines while calling action, explaining why certain moves should have more meaning. This is a father and son mask vs. mask match, Dasher one of the longest tenured Chikara guys, and the confusingly named youngster Boomer being an 18 year old rookie. There's a pretty significant size difference, Dasher being possibly the largest guy presently in Chikara and Boomer being practically half his size. But they made up the difference well, with Boomer relying on fast leverage moves like backslides, crucifix roll-ups, hanging off Dasher with guillotines, or just flying into Dasher body or feet first. Dasher worked this less flashy, really being a bully, coming in hard with big one knockdown chops and hard single arm lariats, and using his size advantage to toss him around like a dummy, but also doing dickhead heel stuff like faking a ball shot only to get a minor cheap advantage. Dasher hits a couple powerbombs - one a huge running Liger bomb - and maneuvers him into a cool Gory Special, and I liked how after taking some damage, Boomer started firing back with nice uppercuts. I thought they ramped nicely into the big spots, with one awesome moment really ramping things up: Boomer had reversed lariats into a hanging guillotine a couple times already (and Dasher was really great at selling the guillotine, making it seem better than it looked, really yanking on Boomer's arm to try to free himself), caught him in another, and seeing no better way out Dasher rushed the ropes and took both of them painfully to the floor. Dasher even suplexes him into the ringpost/buckles once they're on the floor. I thought they did a real good job at working like they knew what was coming, really putting over the mentee son angle, and I liked a lot of the learned behavior results (loved Dasher catching a running back elbow and quickly converting it into a Gory bomb into the turnbuckles). I did think the ending was a bit sudden and meant Boomer had to shrug off some pretty big offense, but overall this was a great main event that I thought captured the drama that an apuestas match should have.

PAS: This was shockingly great for a match between an old timey baseball guy and a smaller old timey baseball guy. I couldn't be less interested in this match on paper, but man did they deliver. Dasher was really great as a Great Santini style abusive dad, who continued to escalate his abuse as he began losing control. I thought all of the cheap shot stuff really worked as Dasher was especially dastardly while trying to beat and unmask his son. I thought they built to guillotine really well, with Quackenbush putting over how quickly that move can put someone out, and Dasher already desperately diving out of the ring to avoid it earlier in the match. I didn't like Boomer almost no-selling a top rope powerbomb to put it on, but that was really my only problem with this match. I get the sense that this match was worked out move for move at a training center, but it kind of makes me want to watch more huge Chikara main events.


ER: It looks like you'll be seeing more Chikara on Segunda Caida. We've mostly avoided it over the years, but I watched this show on a lark and came away impressed with some things I wasn't expecting. I liked the allure of the mask match - that's mostly what brought me here: I'll give any lucha unknowns a chance if it's a mask match. I'm a sucker for them. Phil mentioned the main event felt really written out, and I agree, but it's a kind of worked out that makes me want to seek out more of their main events as well. I like how they laid this out and presented the story, and would like to see more of their layouts. We're a Chikara blog now? Seems like.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Matches from Chikara's We Must Eat Michigan's Brain 6/26/10

Mike Quackenbush vs. Green Ant

ER: Phil had reviewed the Kingston/Danielson match later on this show, but I scanned through the show and a couple other matches caught my eye, so I decided to officially make us a Chikara fansite. This Green Ant is the eventual Silver Ant, who is better than the current Green Ant. And the match is worked with some cool Green Ant headlock variations in an attempt to counter some of Quack's weirdest and most painful subs. Quack twists GA in some awesome ways, locks in a cool single leg bow and arrow, wraps his arms in violent ways, and does a great long reversal of a body vice. I thought Green Ant's couple comebacks were well done, and the Cloverleaf was a nice touch as a bit of potential danger for Quack. Ant's disappointed reaction when Quack made the ropes was really well done, and I liked how Quack stepped a little over the line to teach younger guy a lesson with his final sub.

Soldier Ant/Fire Ant vs. Super Smash Brothers

ER: The more I see, the more it looks like I would have been an Ants fan in the 2010s. Soldier Ant is Drew Gulak, and it's cool seeing him wrestling with the same high end basics as Gulak, but break out weirder (and sometimes more dangerous) offense as Soldier Ant. Fire Ant is a risk taker and also has among the best basics of Chikara grads. Smash I have a more complicated relationship with: Dos does a lot of backflip offense and not all of it looks good, Uno I prefer as a heel but still like him as a face. But this is a fun action tag, peaking nicely and building to bigger and bigger things, without getting ridiculous. The Ants were great, especially Gulak's Soldier: Soldier hits his lariats as well as Gulak hits them now, but he also had some wild diving offense, saluting his way into a couple of crazy belly flops. He salutes and hits a huge diving headbutt, salutes and hits a torpedo in the corner, and I even but into his diving pinfall save because this guy has shown diving into the mat is his specialty. Fire Any attempts a crane kick off the top rope and it gets ducked, and what an absolutely bonkers thing to try; have none of them seen Sid or Gronda?? But the Ants are good at setting up Smash, both teams pull off good double teams, Uno bridges his spots nicely with things like nasty double hand strikes to Fire Ant's ribs, a chestbreaker to Fire Ant gets a cool set up that could have easily not worked, Dos hits a huge tope con giro into the crowd, all of this was good.

Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson - GREAT

PAS: This was Danielson first match in his brief return to the indies after being fired from the WWE. It was also in the midst of Kingston doing kind of a dream match tour in Chikara while feuding with Claudio and BDK. This was a Danielson showcase, the crowd was their to see him do his shtick, and he had great shtick. Kingston does a classic Kingston selling job, as Danielson really works over his hamstrings with kicks and nasty submissions. Kingston lands some big chops and suplexes, but this was mainly a Danielson match, I would have loved to see Danielson work a Kingston match. Still this was mostly awesome stuff, held back by kind of deflating finish with Claudio distracting Kingston so he got rolled up in a small package. Not at the level of the classic matches both guys have had, but this was still a fun little photograph of this time in both guys careers.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

Read more!

IWTV Worth Watching: Space Pirates! Work Horsemen! Quack! Colony!

Space Pirates (Space Monkey/Shane Sabre) vs. Work Horsemen (JD Drake/Anthony Henry) Freelance Wrestling 6/14/19

ER: Fun tag that didn't get the ending it deserved, but had a real nice extended peril segment from Space Monkey, with some big fireworks happening once we dropped the tag structure. Work Horsemen get rid of Sabre fairly quickly, and I got really into the story of Space Monkey going alone, EXTREMELY disappointed in the commentary crew (one of whom sounded uncannily like me, no joke) not pointing out that - due to his NASA training - he was used to going it alone for long, lonely missions. We had nearly 10 minutes of Sabre being gone, leaving his boy in their alone, and nobody is talking about all the sensory deprivation training Space Monkey had gone through. I thought they did real interesting things with SM getting to the corner and finally noticing Sabre wasn't there, continuing to eat a beating, making it back to the corner, only to find Sabre still not there. Henry mocks Monkey, gets on the apron and reaches in the for tag, and then Space Monkey starts kicking at Henry, knocking him to the floor, then hitting a mean baseball slide. I loved how they handled Space Monkey getting back into the action, not just having him eat a 7-10 minute beating and then make a comeback, but instead finding a couple logical ways to have the action swing (har har) into his favor. Space Monkey is essentially El Generico, only I liked how SM peppered in his comebacks, dug those tornado DDTs that Drake and Henry took on the side of their respective heads. What I didn't love, was Sabre's eventual hot tag. I don't like a lot of his offense, and coming in after a 10 minute layoff and hitting a silly spinning facebuster isn't going to cut it.

But we do build to a nice and hot finish run with some real cool sequences strung together. My favorite was Space Monkey hitting the Molly go Round on Drake only to eat an immediate kick from Henry, who then eats an immediate spear from Sabre. That's a sequence that isn't played, and they executed it great. The nearfalls were good, genuinely thought Space Monkey was going to pull things out, and I liked the way they swung momentum throughout. They were good at not just having someone start hitting their offense until their turn was up, instead turning in situations like Drake catching a Monkey rana and powerbombing him onto Sabre. I really dug where they were taking this and was there for the full ride, but the match ended disappointingly on an unseen count out. Both teams brawled outside and cameras weren't able to follow, so we stare at fans' midsections for a couple minutes until the ref gets in the ring to call it off. Flat. Still, Space Monkey is someone who stood out over our long ass WrestleMania day, and I took a blind stab at this match, left even more impressed and fully into his face in peril tag work. With a proper finish this would have landed on our MOTY list, and he was the chief reason why.

Mike Quackenbush/Lance Lude/Rob Killjoy vs. The Colony (Fire Ant/Green Ant/Thief Ant) Flying V Fights 7/13/19

ER: Quack has been working more in 2019 than he worked the last 6 years combined, heading several trios and atomicos matches. A lot of the earlier sections were Quack working primarily Green Ant, sending him through cool holds and nice mat exchanges. I know people who don't love Quack think his stuff looks too exhibition-y, and I think it looks that way because it looks so odd, as it certainly doesn't look that way because he's having trouble applying moves or requiring a ton of time stand still moments. He has a singularly vision for wrestling and pulls it off. I love the foot stomps he uses to set up spots, and he doesn't skip steps in mat exchanges. I love his maestro style of matwork where you can see each step of the move but can't necessarily prevent it from happening, and some of the leverage spots he pulls guys into come off physically super impressive. I loved him twisting Green Ant's arm one way while maneuvering Ant's legs with his own legs, throwing distraction to one body part while always working towards another. He locks on a weird inverted bow and arrow and lifts GA upside down over his own knee in a way that comes off effortlessly, as if he knows the proper ways to lift someone while exerting the least amount of force.

Match gets derailed for awhile when we work a very long comedy routine with Coach Mikey accidentally catching an Ant, then wanting to get involved, then not being allowed, then pouting, the kind of several minute distraction that you expect to happen in Chikara and Chikara-related matches, but I certainly never look forward to it. The comedy chops improv stretch did at least divide the match into two main segments, before comedy halted everything it had been all mat based, and after the comedy wall was when we went into full spot sprint, which was great. Ducks are both guys with some nice spots, who take big bumps. Killjoy drops a really great sitout powerbomb, Lude comes into the ring with that cool Erin O'Grady rope flip rana and gets dropped with a disgusting neckbreaker/powerbomb combo, Launchpad McQuack hits hard and gets a good nearfall, Quack continues hitting cool little legsweeps and works a slick abdominal stretch/reversal/roll back into the stretch (like the action was rewound but came off perfect), Lude and Killjoy hit a cool moonsault combo, the Ant Hill is a pretty great triple team move, a weird Eiffel tower spot ending in a splash; basically there was lots of great stuff. Fire Ant clearly has the most polish out of the Ants (pretty sure he is an original Ant, so he's been doing this for awhile) and I wish we got a lot more Fire/Quack, but Quack seemed to mostly punish Green. I dig the way Quack sets up these trios matches, and it's a format I dig watching him in. 

Arik Royal vs. Isaiah Frazier CRAB 8/3/19

ER: This was shorter than I wanted, only 5 minutes, but made sense as Frazier had worked earlier in the evening. So considering he had already worked, I like how they approached this even though I was hoping for more of a match. Royal drops him right at the bell with a Face Jam, and I'm a big fan of Royal matches where he's working with an immediate head start. He's great at working as the cocky guy with an advantage, and great at showing ass when he's getting his comeuppance. I love Royal talking smack to ringside fans before turning around and hitting his sliding shoulderblock, and I dug Frazier's two big comeback topes. Royal is super skilled at taking big offense right next to fans, without putting fans in any danger. That's kind of a specific skill, but one of many for him. Royal bookends this nicely with another Face Jam to finish. This was a smart way to work the match to set up future Royal title defenses, so I can't really be critical of the ring work, which was good.

Read more!

WWE Cruiserweight Classic: EVOLVE Qualifying Matches

Drew Gulak v. Tracy Williams EVOLVE 61 5/7/16

PAS: Awesome match, really a showcase for the style of wrestling these guys represent. Violent mat wrestling with William using his power to get advantages, while Gulak played the role of the more skilled veteran. The match then built to some pretty great bomb throwing, with William really unloading some huge lariats and throws, and Gulak throwing some thudding chops and dropping him with his great bodyslam into the ropes. Williams gets rolling and it looks like he is going to overpower Gulak before Drew snatches him out of midair with a dragon sleeper, just an awesome flash finish and a capper to a great match. Catch Point is my favorite thing in wrestling right now.

ER: Gotta second Phil on this one, Catch Point is definitely my favorite thing in wrestling right now. I love that sometimes their matches don't necessarily have a coherent story or narrative, not necessarily follow a "work the knee, guy fights through knee pain, knee eventually gives out" type line, but more just two talented guys with a bunch of tricks, who are always prepared to catch somebody with an unexpected trick. Gulak is probably my #1 guy in wrestling right now, running a tight race with Hero,   and I just adore all the tricks he breaks out in a match. He doesn't put the blinders on and go for one way to the finish, he really blends into a match and takes opportunities as they come, while commanding an awesome control over all these little things. All of his pinfall roll-ups feel like things that could legitimately pin a man. His sunset flip is killer, his crucifix is great, they look like actual pinfalls. He does stuff every match that I'm not sure I've seen, and not in some sort of dorky innovator of offense way, but neat little wrinkles to his work. At one point he put his arms up to block a Williams forearm and caught the forearm with his forearms, but then dropped his left arm to shake it out as the strike likely hurt, which led to the left side of his face being opened up to Williams' next forearm. He easily just could have taken two forearms in the strike exchange, but he decided to make it more interesting. He's really great at fighting to the ropes, looking for openings, reversals, hits one of the greatest spinning lariats, hits one of the greatest headlock takeovers where it just looked like he locked in a super snug headlock and went right over, with Williams having to decide if he's going over too, or if his head is going to get popped off his shoulders like an action figure. But Gulak also breaks out awesome, more complicated things, like the sub where he has Williams' left leg grapevined and is grabbing his right leg and bringing it down with force over his own shoulder, like a cross between an indian deathlock and a stretch muffler. Too bad we'll likely never get to see Gulak get a lucha run as I would love to see him against guys like Virus and Blue Panther. I don't get too into fantasy dream booking but damn would 10 minutes of those matches make my year. I've spent this whole time talking up Gulak, but Williams keeps getting better too, and I liked all of his pump dropkicks and like how he represents a more traditional "pro wrestling" style within Catch Point. Who's gonna get me my Catch Point shirt!?


WWE CRUISERWEIGHT CLASSIC GUIDE

Read more!

Reader Request: Drew Gulak vs. Green Ant

Drew Gulak vs. Green Ant, Wrestling is Respect 6/30/13

So after watching and loving the recent Gulak/Busick match from CZW a helpful and friendly reader of the blog suggested we check out some recent Gulak/Ant matches from the Wrestling Is… feds (I assume those feds are part of the Chikara banner?). Apparently there was a recent match between the two, and this one is from a year ago, but this match was a real beauty. Gulak is apparently a former ant (Soldier) and I haven't seen much Green Ant but I've watched a bunch of Chikara (granted much of it was from 2006-2009) and I don't remember the Ants being this awesome. Maybe my brain is just thinking of too many awful Egyptians matches, but I remember the Ants being fairly so-so. But now I find out Gulak was an Ant and here we have Green Ant working as a non-ironic Volk Han. Shoot for all I know Green Ant could have been Timothy Thatcher. This match is just 10 minutes but didn't need any more time. There were no highspots the whole match, no rope running, no strikes, just a bunch of cool grappling based around headlock takeovers, wrist locks, knee bars and awesome leveraged pinfalls. Green Ant has a cool assortment of rolling ankle picks, and breaks out the old Volk Han flying body scissors. Both guys are really good at turning the other's knee bars and ankle locks into pinfall attempts, sometimes holding onto their own legs to get a better grip on a pinfall. A lot of cool stuff with using the other guy's weight against them. At one point Ant reversed an O'Connor Roll into a sweet rear naked choke w/ body vice and I flipped out. This was an excellent mat display, really cool stuff. Makes me want to go back and watch all the Ants stuff from old Chikara shows. Complete & Accurate Ants!!

Read more!