Preamble: Yes, I’m still doing these.  Yes, we’re falling further and further behind.  That was always the plan, since now I know where a lot of this is going.  Anyway, this is the third show on the four-date UK tour.

When and where: It’s Sunday 5 April 2015, and we’re in the Masonic Hall in Cardiff, which the Chikara website gamely describes as “intimate and picturesque”.  It is indeed a charming little room, presently dominated by a wrestling ring.  Looks like a nicely mixed crowd, actually.  The stage set up is a bit rudimentary.

1.  Elimination Match: Los Ice Creams (El Hijo del Ice Cream & Ice Cream Jr) v. The United Nations (Juan Francisco de Coronado & Prakash Sabar) v. The Wrecking Crew (Jaka & Oleg the Usurper) v. The Gentleman’s Club (Chuck Taylor & Drew Gulak).

The back story: The four-team elimination match is a Chikara staple.  The winning team will get a point towards a tag title shot for every team they eliminate.  Nobody has any points coming in, but you only need three for a title shot, so a clean sweep could win you a title shot right away.  (This handily explains why anyone would bother tagging in for the first fall.)  All the teams are technically rudos, but only the UN are unequivocal baddies; Los Ice Creams and the Gentleman’s Club are loveable cheats, while Oleg is teasing a face turn.  This is the first time Oleg has wrestled as a member of the Wrecking Crew since being left out of their squad for the season-long Challenge of the Immortals tournament.  But it fits with the storyline of the Crew trying to assert their continuing control over him.  Los Ice Creams are jobbers, but everyone else has a credible shot.

The match: Oleg seems perfectly happy to work with Jaka – who is, after all, his regular tag partner.  The Ice Creams and the Club are indeed working as de facto babyfaces.  A Juan does a pre-match promo sucking up to everyone and asking them not to ruffle his well-groomed hair, which oddly never leads to anything.  A lot of largely well-done comedy in this one, with Gulak and Jaka periodically bringing some more serious wrestling to keep the match on the rails.  Prakash is still trying for the Bronco Buster to complete his X-Pac homage act, and still can’t hit it.  (He’ll get there in the end, but it’ll take him a while.)  Everyone else goes after Oleg, but they can’t keep him down.  Sabar manages an X-Factor on Ice Cream Jr, but Jaka breaks it up.  Ice Cream Jr is still motionless, so Juan saunters over to pin him. Before he gets there, Oleg hits him with the Off With His Head, then pins Juan and Jr in quick succession to win the first two falls.  That leaves the Wrecking Crew and the Gentleman’s Club, with a tag shot on the line if the Crew win the fall.  They do a few minutes of back and forth action.  Oleg takes on both members of the Club for a bit, but the numbers catch up, and Gulak jackknifes him to win the match in 17:11.

The upshot: Good opener, even though it’s a very lengthy segment once all the entrances and pre-match comedy is thrown in.  The Gentlemen’s Club leave with one point.  Oleg gets to look strong by winning two falls and coming close to a third.  And Jaka and Oleg show no tension at all, which is a story in itself (and the kind that doesn’t overshadow the match).

2.  Silver Ant v. ???

The back story: This was originally announced as Eddie Kingston versus a mystery opponent, but Silver Ant was slotted into all of his matches on this tour when he pulled out at the last minute.  It’s a Magic Move match – if either wrestler hits the “randomly drawn” Magic Move, everyone in the crowd wins a (low value) prize.  Today, it’s the Shooting Star Press.  The mystery opponent is TNA’s Mark Andrews, who’s a local.  He wrestled in King of Trios last year, and also won a bonus singles match after his team were eliminated.

The match: Both guys are tecnicos, and in the absence of any wider story, this is your technical showcase for the night.  It’s flyer versus submission wrestler, at least in terms of their signature style, but Andrews can hang on the mat.  Silver Ant tries a bit of flying, to rather less success.  It’s a lovely exchange of moves and reversals, this one.  Silver tries to indulge the crowd with the Shooting Star Press once, but he can’t do it, and thinks better of it the next time the opportunity presents itself.  (The Magic Move isn’t a winning stip, after all.)  Andrews has no such difficulties, and pins Silver Ant clean with the SSP in 11:30.

The upshot: Andrews now has two points towards a Grand Championship shot, so if he comes back for another singles match, a title shot will be on the line.  We’ll see him again, but not until September.

3.  Challenge of the Immortals: The Nightmare Warriors v. The Battle Hive.

The back story: I’ve explained the tournament set-up before, but it’s been a while, so let’s briefly recap: ten team captains each draft a four-man team from the roster.  The teams compete in a double round robin – each team faces every other team twice.  It’s up to the team captains to decide whether each match should be singles, tag, trios or atomics (8-man).  One point for every match won.  The top two teams at the end of the double round robin will advance to a final.  (Did I mention that?  Not sure I did.)  Everyone on the winning team gets a “Golden Opportunity”, which is basically the right to book themselves into any match they want.  (It’s been a while since they actually spelled out explicitly what the prize is, though.  It’s not being stressed at this stage.)

This is a tag match.  The Battle Hive is Amasis’s team, and they have only 1 point from 3 matches.  Amasis & Fire Ant are the team tonight, which is odd, since Fire’s usual partner Worker Ant is also on the tour and wrestling in a different COTI match later tonight.  Mind you, there’s a personal stake in that match, so maybe he was particularly keen to have it.  The Nightmare Warriors are Hallowicked’s squad of Nazmaldun-worshippers (plus Silver Ant, who was drafted onto the team to his utter bemusement).   Frightmare & Blind Rage are representing them here tonight.  Frightmare normally tags with either Hallowicked or Silver, but Hallowicked is challenging for the Grand Championship tomorrow, and Silver was added to the tour after this match had been booked.  The Warriors have 2 points from 3 matches.

The match: Hallowicked comes out with his team.  The undead Blind Rage is baffled by Amasis’s dancing.  It’s a standard tag story – the Hive control at first, the Warriors come back by isolating Amasis.  Rage slips up by going for an uncharacteristic top rope move, and Fire Ant gets the hot tag.  Hallowicked interferes by getting in the way of a dive to the outside, and Frightmare takes advantage of the distraction to pin Amasis with the Kneecolepsy in 9:42.  All pretty straightforward, but solid, and Frightmare and Fire Ant had some really good exchanges.

The upshot: The scores are now Nightmare Warriors 3, Wrecking Crew 2, United Nations 2, Dasher’s Dugout 2, Arcane Horde 2, Snake Pit 1, Gentleman’s Club 1, Battle Hive 1, BDK 0, Crown & Court 0.  So the Battle Hive are not doing brilliantly after four matches.  The Nightmare Warriors move into the lead, but they won’t be alone on three points for long, because…

4.  Challenge of the Immortals: Arcane Horde v Dasher’s Dugout.

The back story: Both teams have 2 points after 4 matches, so the winning team will join the Warriors in the lead on 3 points.  The Horde are fielding team captain UltraMantis Black along with the Batiri (Kodama & Obariyon).  In a backstage promo, Mantis stresses that despite his dubious history of manipulating them in the past, they’re definitely all on the same page now.  The Batiri seem willing to play along, and at the very least, they don’t have the divided loyalties of their fourth member Oleg the Usurper to worry about tonight.  The Dugout are fielding current Grand Champion Icarus and the Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & “Mr Touchdown” Mark Angelosetti).  In theory the Dugout trio have the advantage of more experience working as a team, but Icarus has a title defence tomorrow night, and he lost yesterday, so is his mind on the tournament?  Officially both teams are tecnicos, but the Horde are distinctly morally flexible.

The match: The Welsh crowd is particularly keen to join in on Dasher’s pre-match huddle.  We work through various pairings in the first few minutes, leading to a (deliberately) contrived spot of everyone biting the guy in front (started off by Kodama, who isn’t exactly above that sort of thing).  UltraMantis, as a vegan, frets over whether to join in, but eventually succumbs to temptation.  We return to regular wrestling with control going back and forth as the teams take turn to try and isolate one of their opponents.  Everyone trades finishers.  Icarus slips up again and gets double teamed by the Batiri, but he manages to Blu-Ray both of them, and pins Kodama for the clean win in 17:12.  Decent action, maybe a bit sprawling in terms of the match story.

The upshot:  Nightmare Warriors 3, Dasher’s Dugout 3, Wrecking Crew 2, United Nations 2, Arcane Horde 2, Snake Pit 1, Gentleman’s Club 1, Battle Hive 1, BDK 0, Crown & Court 0.  So the Dugout become joint leaders (though the Warriors have a match in hand).  Icarus gets a win before his title defence tomorrow, but he’s still showing cracks.  The Horde seem to be able to work together effectively when Oleg isn’t around to cause trouble – again, the sort of plot point that doesn’t overshadow the match.

5.  Challenge of the Immortals: Battle Hive v BDK.

The back story: It’s a singles match, with Worker Ant for the Battle Hive and Soldier Ant for the BDK.  Soldier, you’ll recall, used to be a member of the Colony but apparently got brainwashed somewhere along the line, and has wound up as an enforcer for the Bruderschaft des Kreuzes – though he isn’t actually a member of the Brotherhood himself, and their control over him often seems to be limited to “point him in the right direction and hope for the best”.  Naturally, his former Colony teammates would like to shock him back to his normal personality.  He beat Silver Ant last night.  Tonight it’s Worker’s turn.  Worker is a reformed rudo who replaced Soldier on the team, and so he’s not Soldier’s favourite guy at the best of times.  In his pre-match promo, Worker seems to view Soldier more as a traitor than a victim – and entirely glosses over the fact that they were never actually teammates.  He’s done this sort of thing before, so it’s probably deliberate.  A win here will get the BDK off the blocks in the tournament, not that Soldier could care less.

The match: Soldier looks confused by Worker Ant.   Worker keeps asking Soldier to explain himself, but he doesn’t respond, and just sticks to the wrestling.  The crowd are certainly into the match but don’t seem inclined to treat the story quite as seriously as Chikara were probably hoping.  It’s a slower affair, which is fine as a change of pace on the show, and works in large part thanks to Soldier’s odd behaviour.  He methodically dominates, and (as usual since his brainwashing) largely shrugs off Worker’s offence.  He doesn’t look invincible – he can be staggered, he can be wrestled down for a two-count with leverage – but nothing seems to have serious lasting effects on him.  Soldier twice fails to break on a five count, but the rookie referee bottles out of actually disqualifying him.  Soldier pins Worker with the Trench Slam in 12:51 and looks quizzically at the other ant for a while before leaving.

The upshot:  Nightmare Warriors 3, Dasher’s Dugout 3, Wrecking Crew 2, United Nations 2, Arcane Horde 2, Snake Pit 1, Gentleman’s Club 1, Battle Hive 1, BDK 1, Crown & Court 0.  So Crown & Court are the only team still to score.  And the slow burn of Soldier failing to respond to the other Colony members continues.

6.  CHIKARA Campeonatos de Parejas: The Devastation Corporation (Max Smashmaster & Blaster McMassive) (c) v. N_R_G (Race Jaxon & Hype Rockwell).

The back story: This is the DevCorp’s second defence since winning the tag titles at the end of last year.  They beat the Osirian Portal last month.  N_R_G got the three points for their title shot by beating the Colony: Xtreme Force at “A New Start” in January, Flying Francis at “National Pro Wrestling Day” in February, and the Throwbacks in a four-way eliminator at “Alter Egos” in March.  Their usual gimmick is that Race is ludicrously excitable and poor Hype is always exhausted because Race makes him do all the driving.  Obviously that doesn’t work on a UK tour, but Hype is conveniently jet-lagged.  This still undermines the idea that Race is a bit of a dick who doesn’t realise that he’s the problem – but that angle will get quietly dropped anyway in a few months, when a product placement deal yanks N_R_G’s storyline in a different direction.  As with all Chikara tag title defences, this is best of three falls.  N_R_G are emphatically underdogs.

The match: Race manages to get the upper hand, but has to wake Hype in order to tag him in.  Max is understandably not very intimidated by the sleepy man, and amuses himself by stalling with the fans.  DevCorp get overconfident, and N_R_G manage to take advantage with some double team offence.  But normal service is soon resumed as DevCorp isolate Race.  Once again, the champions start looking overconfident.  Heel miscommunication allows the hot tag to Hype.  N_R_G manage their superkick/Hyperwheel combo finisher on Blaster, but Max breaks up the pin.  He throws out Hype, and the DevCorp pin Race with the Death Blow to win the first fall.  Race is out cold.  Hype nobly takes on both champions on his own… and gets pinned with the Death Blow in less than two minutes.  The rudo champions win clean in straight falls at 14:54 total.  A good match given the limitations of N_R_G’s gimmick; it’ll get easier for them later in the year when their story moves beyond this stage.

The upshot: When you do 3-fall matches regularly, it’s always worth reminding the audience that a win in straight falls can happen.  N_R_G plainly need to sort out the “half of the team being asleep” thing if they expect to win the titles.  This, of course, will be their storyline going forward.  In the meantime, an emphatic loss to the DevCorp helps the champions’ dominance.

Worth getting?  The Sunday night show (with Icarus’ title defence) is really the one to go for from the UK tour, but this is a solid show up and down the card.  Incidentally, the 2015 shows are just starting to appear on Chikara’s subscription service, which is cheaper than buying them individually anyway.  It’ll be a few months before they get to this one, though.