Preamble: This is the second show in the UK tour, and see the previous post in this series for some comments on the practical issues of writing four shows on consecutive days – principally, that nothing can happen on this show that would be essential knowledge for the next two shows of the tour, since those audiences won’t have seen this one.  This particular show is the high water mark of that issue; it consists almost entirely of Challenge of the Immortals tournament matches, in the early stages of a round robin that runs through to the rest of the year.  So while it’s certainly useful to burn through some of these early matches and get the scoreboard looking a bit more meaningful, very little of immediate consequence actually happens on this show.

When and where: It’s Saturday 4 April 2015, and we’re… still in Wolverhampton.  Yes, that’s right, they did a four-date UK tour and half of it was in Wolverhampton.  We’re moving on to Cardiff and London next.  The show is sold out.

1.  Challenge of the Immortals: Crown & Court v Dasher’s Dugout, Match 1

The back story: It’s a tag match.  Crown & Court lost their first match to the Wrecking Crew in March, though at least they hung in for longer than expected against the tournament favourites.  But only half the team are on the UK tour, and it’s Los Ice Creams (El Hijo del Ice Cream & Ice Cream Jr), who are massive jobbers.  The Dugout are 1 for 2, and are fielding the former tag champs the Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Mark Angelosetti).  This ought to be an easy point for them.

The match: El Hijo immediately walks to the back and fetches a kendo stick, with which he whacks Mark, and which he then tries to hide behind his back.  The Ice Creams bring a fan into the ring and use her as a foreign object.  Finally the Throwbacks cut this off and a wrestling match breaks out.  The Ice Creams put up a better fight than usual, and actually manage to control with proper offence for a bit.  But Rome wasn’t built in a day, so Mark makes the hot tag and the Throwbacks use a kid from the front row as a battering ram to take out the Ice Creams.  The small child pins El Hijo to win the match for the Throwbacks in 13:36, in what seems a generous refereeing decision.  The usual Los Ice Creams nonsense, but they were on form here.

The upshot: Arcane Horde, Dasher’s Dugout & Wrecking Crew 2, Nightmare Warriors, Snake Pit & United Nations 1, everyone else 0.  So the Dugout draw level with the tournament leaders, albeit that any other result would have been a surprise.  And we continue the angle of Los Ice Creams proving, if not exactly effective, at least less dismally incompetent since joining Crown & Court.

2.  Challenge of the Immortals: Battle Hive v United Nations, Match 1

The back story: A singles match.  The Hive have yet to score after two matches, and are fielding team captain Amasis.  The United Nations are 1 for 1.  Their captain Juan Francisco de Coronado is their best singles wrestler, but he’s wrestling Icarus later tonight, so Prakash Sabar will take on this match.  Sabar is a notionally a Pakistani expatriate now residing in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (thus justifying him as a member of the Bloc Party), but his actual gimmick is that he’s an X-Pac clone, and he’s also now proclaiming himself World’s Sexiest Man (after stealing the sash at National Pro Wrestling Day back in February).  The sheer pile-up of unrelated gimmicks seems to be the joke.

The match: Amasis toys with Sabar, but decides he’s overdoing it and apologises.  Sabar promptly kicks him in the gut and takes control with X-Pac’s signature offence.  He stays on top for a surprisingly long time, until Amasis mounts his comeback.  Sabar misses X-Pac’s Bronco Buster, which he never, ever hits – this is being developed into a running joke – and gets pinned with a 450 splash in 9:02.  Sabar (who seems to be a genuine rookie) looked good there.

The upshot: Arcane Horde, Dasher’s Dugout & Wrecking Crew 2, Battle Hive, Nightmare Warriors, Snake Pit & United Nations 1, everyone else 0.  Battle Hive are off the blocks, and United Nations suffer their first defeat.  As for Sabar, he outperforms expectations, so the match still helps him.

3.  Challenge of the Immortals: Arcane Horde v Gentleman’s Club, Match 2

The back story: It’s an eight-man tag.  The Horde – UltraMantis Black, Oleg the Usurper & The Batiri (Obariyon & Kodama) – are 2 for 3, but both of their wins were scored by the Batiri in tag matches.  The group as a whole have teamwork problems, because the Batiri don’t like or trust Mantis, and Oleg is the spare fifth member of the Wrecking Crew, who was palmed off on the Horde as part of a trade.  Last time the Horde wrestled as a quarter, Crew manager Sidney Bakabella told Oleg to throw the match, and he got pinned while he was dithering over what to do.  But winning the tournament without Oleg’s input would be tough, and if they’re going to give him another chance, this match is as good a place as any.  The Gentleman’s Club – Chuck Taylor, Drew Gulak, Orange Cassidy & The Swamp Monster – are not the strongest opposition.  Taylor and Gulak are a genuine threat, but Cassidy is usually barely conscious, and the Monster is just weird.

The match: Like last night, Taylor keeps tagging out the Swamp Monster.  Gulak is his team’s workhorse, and he does plenty of technical wrestling early, to establish that this is going to be a proper match.  Cassidy grudgingly accepts a tag at one point, but soon ambles out again.  The Club – well, mainly Taylor and Gulak – manage to isolate Mantis.  But an attempted double team by Cassidy and the Swamp Monster backfires, and Mantis is forced to hot-tag Oleg, as his nearest teammate.  Oleg is trying to win, but the Batiri still tag him out as fast as they can.  The Batiri double team Cassidy, which provokes a short-lived burst of energy and a flurry of high flying before he drifts off again.  Oleg squares off against the Swamp Monster, but Taylor rolls him up from behind and pins him in 16:31.  The rest of the Horde aren’t pleased.

The upshot: Arcane Horde, Dasher’s Dugout, and Wrecking Crew 2; Battle Hive, Gentlemen’s Club, Nightmare Warriors, Snake Pit, and United Nations 1; everyone else 0.  So the Gentlemen’s Club are off the blocks, and Oleg loses the match for the Horde again.  Oh, and the only teams still to score are the BDK and Crown & Court.

4.  Challenge of the Immortals: Nightmare Warriors v Wrecking Crew, Match 1

The back story: This was originally announced as a singles match between Eddie Kingston and Jaka, but Kingston dropped out of the tour at the last minute and was replaced in four of his singles matches by Silver Ant.  The other three matches are now just matches on the card, but for whatever reason, this has been deemed a COTI match, with Silver Ant representing the Warriors and Jaka representing the Wrecking Crew.  (Incidentally, Jaka and Kingston go on to feud over the next couple of shows, so it’s likely that something significant was supposed to happen in this match as originally planned.)

The is Jaka’s first singles match of the season.  The whole Wrecking Crew have a collective gimmick of being throwback monster heels, led by manager Sidney Bakabella, a Tony Clifton-inspired figure who seems to literally believe that it’s still the territorial era.  Jaka is a fairly mild version of the “savage” trope, which is a stock 80s figure and thus fits with the stable theme, though the WWE was using it only a few years back with Umaga.  Jaka uses the same character in other promotions, and he was mainly working for Beyond Wrestling when he adopted it, so I assume it’s not a persona created specifically for Chikara.  Before that, he was “the Smooth Savage” Jonny Mangue, so apparently he’s fond of the motif.  In the Wrecking Crew, he’s often a straight man for his more flamboyant stablemates, and so he’s usually presented as serious and competent.  In many ways that makes him closer to Rusev than to previous versions of this character, and there’s room for an interpretation where it’s all an act.  But there are still occasional throwbacks to more dubious Umaga-type territory, and he’s a character I’ve never felt at all comfortable about.

The match: As with last night’s Silver Ant match, in the absence of any particular story, this is your pure technical contest for the show, though rather heavier on the exchange of strikes tonight.   Silver Ant wins clean with his Chikara Special: Green submission in 10:16.  Good match; whatever my doubts about his character, Jaka has a pretty good strike rate for decent matches, certainly against solid opponents like Silver Ant.

The upshot: Arcane Horde, Dasher’s Dugout, Nightmare Warriors, and Wrecking Crew 2; Battle Hive, Gentlemen’s Club, Snake Pit, and United Nations 1; BDK and Crown & Court 0.  Silver Ant finally gets a win for the Nightmare Warriors after a series of defeats – perhaps significantly, in a match where he isn’t having to tag with a lunatic who worships Nazmaldun – and the Wrecking Crew suffer their first loss of the tournament.

5.  Challenge of the Immortals: Dasher’s Dugout v United Nations, Match 1

The match: Another singles match, as Icarus represents the Dugout against Juan Francisco de Coronado of the United Nations.  Icarus is the Grand Champion and already beat de Coronado in a title match last year, so he’s the favourite on paper.  But he’s also defending the title against Hallowicked in two days time – is his mind really on this one?  In a pre-match backstage promo, Icarus says that as champion, he represents the title and the company every time he steps into the ring.  He guarantees victory.

The match: Lots of early stalling as Juan plays to the crowd.  Icarus isn’t rattled, and poses for the crowd himself.  The crowd enters into the spirit of this by starting a “This is Wrestling” chant before any wrestling has, strictly speaking, happened at all.  Finally, they wrestle, and at first Icarus’s confidence seems justified.  But eventually Juan gets control and works on the back for a while.  They trade near falls as Icarus tries repeatedly for his Blu-Ray finisher.  He finally hits it on the third try, but Juan rolls out of the ring to prevent the pin.  Icarus tries for a German suplex, but Juan low blows him with a mule kick, and pins him with his own German suplex in 15:38.  Slower and more character-driven than the last match; obviously the idea here is that Icarus’s over-confidence catches up to him to a degree.  Tainted finishes are fairly rare in Chikara, so they carry more weight.

The upshot: Arcane Horde, Dasher’s Dugout, Nightmare Warriors, United Nations, and Wrecking Crew 2; Battle Hive, Gentlemen’s Club, and Snake Pit 1; BDK and Crown & Court 0.  A worrying loss for Icarus as he goes into his title defence.  As for the tournament, it ends the night with nobody taking a clear lead, but two teams jostling for the ignominy of being last to score.

6.  The Devastation Corporation (Max Smashmaster & Blaster McMassive) & The Nightmare Warriors (Hallowicked & Frightmare) v. N_R_G (Race Jaxon & Hype Rockwell) & The Colony (Fire Ant & Worker Ant).

The back story: Max and Blaster are the tag champs, and N_R_G will be challenging them tomorrow night in Cardiff.  So this is the preview, rounded out by four other guys the fans will want to see.

The match: DevCorp go straight for N_R_G and throw them out of the ring.  The Colony can’t make any real headway against DevCorp either, but at least get them out of the ring by low bridging them.  N_R_G take on the Nightmare Warriors and do pretty well.  Loads of dives to the outside (yes, even Blaster), and the match breaks down into ringside brawling for a bit.  The rudos isolate first Fire Ant, then Worker Ant.  DevCorp go for their Death Blow double team on Worker, but Fire breaks it up, and N_R_G clear the ring.  Frightmare takes on N_R_G himself, but misses the Kneecolepsy and gets pinned with their superkick/Hyperwheel combo in 13:43.

The upshot: N_R_G get a win going into their title match, albeit against the most expendable member of the other team – and the Colony worked most of the match here, so it’s not like N_R_G came out of it looking that strong.  That might be intentional to avoid over-pushing N_R_G, or it could simply be a case of spreading the workload given that their main event match is up tomorrow in Cardiff.

Worth getting?  Another show of solid wrestling across the card, and again, not much going on here in terms of actual story.  So if you’re only getting one of the UK shows, the next two are likely of more interest.