CHIKARA Hot Off The Griddle Review

CHIKARA kicks off Synergy in Chicago!!

CHIKARA Hot Off The Griddle

Chicago Ridge, Illinois 4/28/12

1.) Jigsaw & The Colony vs. The Swarm & The Shard: ***1/4

The Swarm & The Shard make their entrance through the crowd and Jigsaw & The Colony waste no time making their way out & going after the outsiders. This was a very good opening tag. Starting things off with a bang and the crowd was into it.

2.) Mixed Martial Archie vs. Kobald: **1/2

Archie, I gotta say, is great no matter what role he's playing, he's always entertaining. I loved how Archie really played up the MMA thing, not knowing what a cover was. Very funny stuff that has to be seen.

3.) The Throwbacks vs. The Batiri: **3/4

Here we have another entertaining tag team match, something CHIKARA does very well. I thought the dynamic between Hatfield & Touchdown was great, with Touchdown acting heelish (or Rudo-ish) with Touchdown not approving of Touchdown's actions. 

4.) Tianlong vs. 17: DUD

This was more of just a segment as 17, a member of GEKIDO, injures the debuting Tianlong, a student of Mike Quackenbush, who was injured by 17 a few shows back. Afterwords, Quack goes out to check on his student.

5.) Arik Cannon & Darin Corbin vs. The Young Bucks: ***1/4

Here we have, you guessed it, another entertaining tag team contest. Come to think of it, when have The Young Bucks ever been not entertaining? Cannon & Corbin impressed me in this one.

During intermission, Hallowicked was in the ring signing autographs, but was attacked by a disguised Tim Donst. This has an impact on the next match...

6.) 3.0 & The Spectral Envoy (UltraMantis Black & Hallowicked) vs. Die Brüderschaft des Kreuzes (Tim Donst & Jakob Hammermeier) & The Bravados: ***

Because of what happened at intermission, this match starts off as 4 on 3. Hallowicked eventually makes his way back out & the tecnico team takes the win. While not as good as the earlier 8 Man Tag, this was still good. 

7.) CHIKARA Grand Championship – Eddie Kingston vs. Kevin Steen: ***1/2

This was set up after what happened at ROH's 10th Anniversary Show. This was a pretty good match between these two. The DQ did hurt the match a little, but it left the door open for future encounters to come.

8.) Gran Akuma vs. FIST: **1/2

Handicap Matches are an extreme rarity in CHIKARA I believe, as Gran Akuma takes on his former stable. Gregory Iron comes out during the match and helps Akuma get an upset win. This was decent, as it kept the Akuma/FIST story going.

9.) Sara Del Rey vs. El Generico: ****

The Main Event sees Sara Del Rey take on the Generic Luchador. This was the best match on the show. Really impressed with what these two were able to do. Definitely a big win for the Queen of Wresting.

Overall: 8.0/10

Once again CHIKARA puts on another great wrestling show. Nothing on here was terrible, and pretty much everything was at least enjoyable. Of course their is great wrestling action. An overall great show.