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