Independent Wrestling *Possible Spoilers*

gnfnrhead is pretty on the ball when it comes to CHIKARA. For me CHIKARA's year long, big picture have sucked since the reveal of the BDK. They have just ran out of steam before midseason, meandered and then puttered out. Case in point the Geiko storyline began super intriguing with a lot of heat but then they were jobbed over & over. This ominous group of ex-CHIKARA students were turned into a benign collection of roster members. While moaning about CHIKARA this year one of her friends told me that Sara Del Ray WAS going to win the CHIKARA Grand Championship. Once she left for WWE they kinda had nowhere to go. However despite these issues CHIKARA/booker Mike Quackenbush who is actually OCD can always be relied on to produce a pretty much an air tightly structured card for their bigger shows - King of Trios or iPPVs. CHIKARA routinely makes me happy and generates the same sense of wonderment that I had at the age of 8 watching Wrestling.

In terms of King of Trios 2012 I really enjoyed a lot and the final was super duper satisfying. But for me it didn't compare to 2011. 2011 was far more consistent than this year's. I dislike talking about it on this level but 2011 had an unique advantage on a human interest level given that it occurred the same week as one of their ex-wrestlers and CHIKARA school students Larry Sweeney hung himself. The locker room were wrestling for Larry and trying to make sense of the terrible event. Along with that you had the dual thing of X-Pac's rehabilitation as a wrestler. Just a real heart felt event. An unreal promotion dealing with a very real tragedy.

I am too exasperated by ROH to write anything about them so I will leave it to Dave Meltzer and last week's Wrestling Observer:

In hindsight, this entire Sinclair Broadcasting era has been a disaster. A wrestling company owned by a television company needs to have at least production that comes across as major league, something they’ve never had. But there are also other issues. They haven’t been able to expand their fan base, and as No. 3 in the market when the genre is cold and No. 2 isn’t doing well, No. 3 is a bad place to be. And their own fan base doesn’t like that it’s not what it once was, even though what it once was also wasn’t working. Still, what it used to be was more entertaining than what it is. Plus, Kevin Steen comes across as almost an albatross. He’s by far the biggest star who is over the most and gets being a star the most, as well as talks the best. But nobody but the existing fan base is going to take a promotion seriously when they see him as the biggest star. But the fan base booed Matt Hardy, as they don’t seem to want mainstream stars, and newcomers have a very difficult time being accepted.

PWG inhabits what ROH used to provide me which is a high end workrate company with a sense of progression featuring my favourite wrestlers and an avenue for newer wrestlers to show their stuff. Also being based in California it comes from this brighter, more creative and cooler headspace. They are always pulling out these crazy main events and multi-man matches that when they are announced make you wonder why no one had thought of it. It is also this weird no man's land where TNA, ROH and Dragon Gate wrestlers wrestle each other under the radar. However I do sympathise their shows are too exhausting and their matches are often too similar to each other.

For all the sniggering and raised eyebrows towards their fans, after parties, the concept of Amazon wishlists the promotion probably is the most consistent when it comes to commentary, engaging characters and in ring wrestling. Their DVDs are a very easy watch.

EVOLVE and DGUSA have good matches and great ones on top from a star rating POV but in terms of storylines they lack greatly. Also they failed to create their own fanbase to attend their shows so they piggyback other promotions shows to the matches in front of liveless crowds either that or they draw like 60 people in some function room in South Carolina which makes you wonder why am I streaming this at 4am in the morning.

*BUMP*

For the purposes of full discloser I haven't seen any 2013 CHIKARA (yet) but they have an iPPV coming up: http://smvod.com/premium-video/chikara-june-2-2013-ippv-aniversario-never-compromise-philadelphia-pa


CHIKARA runs in seasons like major HBO and such like dramas. It has become increasingly obvious to some like the people involved in this podcast: http://gredunzapress.com/themandibleclaw/?p=53 and then subsequent entries on this blog: http://themandibleclaw.wordpress.com/
that this season of CHIKARA has been running on an alternative timeline.

Even if you have never seen CHIKARA but like the Watchmen graphic novel (the primary influence it seems) and the idea of doppelgangers associated with it the podcast is worthwhile listening to as it demonstrates the level of detail possible in Wrestling. Worth noting is that the owner and booker of CHIKARA Mike Quackenbush is very open about suffering from OCD and that has always permeated his storylines.

Actually there's theories and actual talk that this is the last ever CHIKARA show.

Here:
http://freeadmissionfr.com/?p=5309

Sorry lads half took a break from this forum, half got really immersed in this storyline. :P

Last Tuesday I kind of got interested in all the theories leading up to the show. The lead to finding out the business aspects of the promotion too. It snowballed and snowballed. Had all sorts of people contact me unsolicited via direct message from fans, insiders and others.

I largely knew the finish before it happened and I knew all of the business issues that came out along with other odds and sorts.

It was mental I played a feckin journalist or private eye for a couple of days. Imagine this what it would like living through the Montreal Scewjob or the formation of NWO.

Starting points:

Storyline:
http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/1dvwp9/chikara_conspiracy_theory_how_season_12_is_an/c9uikp1

Post show developments:
http://completeshot.tumblr.com/post/52154959822/the-fallout-of-never-compromise

Real world business situation:

The following statement was issued to PWInsider.com this morning:
"Some people have been attempting to distract from what happened on Sunday's iPPV by circulating rumors about an affair, a bitter divorce, or a dispute over the ownership of CHIKARA. All of these rumors are absolutely false."

A previous statement issued to PWInsider.com from CHIKARA's promotional end late last night claimed the promotion was liquidating its merchandise and that it would be selling off whatever physical assets (production material, etc.) off.

The idea fronted by the release was that the promotion had been struggling since their Joshimania events did not do well and they had been running in the red since late 2011. The implication was that the "parent company" had pulled the plug - literally, given the end of the show Sunday - on the promotion.

The statement claimed that all agreements with "third party vendors", such as their DVD deal with Smart Mark Video, would be honored through the end of 2013.

The canceled 7/21 date in NYC is now being filled by Kaiju Big Battel. Several of the CHIKARA "Wrestling Is..." sister promotions have already announced other dates that were formerly announced for CHIKARA as well.

As we move further down the rabbit hole, it certainly appears to be a completely massive angle, although what the end game on an angle that shuts down your company and potentially dilutes the brand name by splitting it across seven sister promotions remains to be seen.

If I haven't given people a textbook to read already I had to share this as it made me really sad:
http://themandibleclaw.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/chikara-a-love-letter/