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At “Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Show”, it was announced that Smart Mark Video would have the DVD up for sale TOMORROW! If you were going to buy the DVD anyway, this is an opportunity to go into the show spoiler-free. While I am particularly proud of this edition of my column, I’d rather you buy it without spoilers if that is what you wish. Just a friendly heads up. Click the cover below to purchase the show!
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This edition of CHIKARMY Insider covers last night’s Chikara show “Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Show”, which has been confirmed as the biggest show in the history of the company. Among other exciting moments: two huge six-man tags featuring Chikara Pro talent taking on the stars of Dragon Gate, the reemergence of a certain cyborg long thought to be a figment of imagination, the announcement of the American and Chikara debut of a wrestling legend, and F.I.S.T. simultaneously kicks a member out and welcomes a new member to the family. Big thanks got to various Twitter users and Chikara101 members for little snippets of information and for a few pictures, but the biggest thanks goes to Jerome Cusson. He texted in the live results to me and even called me after the show with more info. What a guy! This event will be talked about for a very long time to come, that’s not the only thing you’ll get in this column. As a nice bonus, I’ve listed my TOP TEN Chikara vs. Dragon Gate Dream Matches for your viewing pleasure. 3…2…1…MAKE COLUMN GO NOW! *presses button*
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Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Show

July 25, 2010 ~ Philadelphia, PA

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1. Eight-Man Tag: The BDK (Donst/Sanchez/Dorado/Tursas) d. Frightmare & The Colony (14:31). Pinkie Sanchez pins Frightmare with the Burning Snicklefritz. Young Lions Cup VIII preview anyone? After the match, the lights begin to flicker and…Vökoder appears! OH MY. Pinkie has been complaining the last few months that Chikara fans are out of touch with reality, believing in robots and ants from the future. So the appearance of Vökoder caused the psycho Sanchez to lose his mind as the rest of the Bruderschaft stared in shock.
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2. Chikara vs. DG #1: Shingo Takagi d. Jimmy “Equinox” Olsen (10:02). Jimmy Jam took a nasty bump off of a dive and may have hurt his shoulder. Shingo killed him with the Pumping Bomber for the victory. Said to be a good match.
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3. Dream Women’s Tag: Sara Del Rey & Daizee Haze d. Amazing Kong & Raisha Saeed (11:31). Haze gets the win for her team thanks to a German Suplex on Kong. That’s insane. Apparently it was ****ing Bridging German Suplex, too. That Daizee delivered. TO KONG. That’s like balancing your wallet on a matchstick! That’s like a bamboo stick flipping a panda! That’s like…okay I’ll stop. Seriously, I can’t wait to see this.
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4. Chikara vs. DG #2: CIMA, Super Shenlong, & Masaaki Mochizuki d. F.I.S.T. (15:17). The so-called Friends In Similar Tights are all wearing different outfits. So either there’s a break-up on the horizon…..or F.I.D.O. has risen! CIMA pins Gran Akuma with Meteora in the best match so far. Afterwards, Johnny Gargano shows up. There’s a discussion and…Icarus pedigrees Gran Akuma! GRAN AKUMA IS OUT OF F.I.S.T.! They take off his gauntlets and give them to Gargano. All three men pose together! WOW! As Akuma rose from the Pedigree, the fans chanted his name and really got behind him.
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5. Grudge Six-Man Tag: Drake Younger & The Osirian Portal d. The UnStable (13:57). Younger is wearing Osirian Portal tights, so I guess “Drake’s On A Plane” is officially a team…or maybe it’s just a fancy one-off. Colin Delaney is wearing a tie for some reason. Younger took a Tombstone on the ringsteps from STIGMA. Vin ended up in a garbage can. The Osirian Portal get the victory after the Osirian Sacrament on STIGMA. After the match, Younger danced with Amasis & Ophidian! Said to be an insane brawl and a really fun match.
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6. Grudge Tag Match: Claudio Castagnoli & Ares d. Eddie Kingston & Tommy Dreamer (15:24). Derek Sabato is out as the referee…that’s not good. Claudio’s Very European Mohawk is apparently ridiculous-looking. Finish comes when Claudio hits a release Ricola Bomb on Dreamer for the dubya. Lots of slow counts from Sabato in this one. There was an insane amount of heat, but it was not a great match. Dreamer unsurprisingly got a lot of heat but he can’t really go anymore. BDK goes undefeated on the weekend.
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7. Chikara vs. DG #3: Mike Quackenbush, Jigsaw, & Hallowicked d. WORLD-1 (16:53). Quackenbush pins Doi with the Quackendriver II in a really awesome match and may be the best of the entire show! The finishing sequence was said to be insane. Whether this leads to a future title shot for Quack in DGUSA against Hulk or Dragon Gate against Yoshino remains to be seen.
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Various Degrees of Awesomeness:
– Jacob Hammermeier was wearing a neck brace thanks to Kingston’s Backfist to the Future and Dreamer’s DVD back at Aniversario Elf. The bad news: it doesn’t cover his mouth.
– Eddie Kingston came out to induct Tommy Dreamer into the Arena Hall of Fame. Classy speech from Dreamer…and he didn’t cry!
– UltraMantis Black stated on his Twitter that he would be coming to “C-Rex”…and that he wouldn’t be alone. He was flanked at his merch table and the Commentation Station by two hooded figures. Couple that with the return of Vökoder and it appears that The Neo Solar Temple may be rising from the ashes.
– The legendary Manami Toyota will be making her American debut in Chikara Pro on September 18th in Baltimore, MD and September 19th in Brooklyn, NY! Word right now is that she will be hand picking her opponents for both nights. This is a HUGE honor, and anybody saying, “Well it doesn’t raise Chikara’s profile…” needs to be shot in the face with a Nerfzooka. Do those exist?
– The announcement that “Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Show“ would be up for sale TOMORROW at Smart Mark Video still has me in shock. According to LFC on the Chikara101 boards, Chikara “specially recruited a dedicated video editor to work through the night, and he is already capturing the footage from tonight’s show to start cutting the matches.”
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Overall Thoughts

This event can only be viewed as an unmitigated, smashing, rousing achievement for Chikara Pro. Over 750 fans were in attendance to witness a really good show with some amazing moments: the return of Vökoder and three awesome-sounding six-man tags are just the tip of the iceberg on the DVD. While I haven’t heard that any specific matches are match of the year candidates or anything, every match has received compliments in some way or another, especially the Main Event. Dreamer/Kingston vs. Claudio/Ares was, as expect, not so great, but everything else is getting high marks. I will be buying this first thing tomorrow morning, and I’d suggest the rest of you nerds do the same.

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It was a big night for Chikara wrestlers at EVOLVE 4: Danielson vs. Fish on July 23 in Union City, NJ as the spectacular event saw several of the company’s finest come out on top. Despite Hallowicked & Jigsaw being a less-than-familiar tag team with one another, they still managed to beat Aeroform is a crazy match. Ricochet AKA Helios was involved in a 4-Way Match, but he was uninvolved with the finish. Brodie Lee fought Jon Moxley to a Double DQ with fans already clamoring for a rematch. The Osirian Portal fell to former Chikara roster members Cheech & Cloudy in a fun tag match. But the big winner was “The Kentucky Gentlemen” Chuck Taylor who beat the current Win Leader Jimmy Jacobs in a great match to claim that title as well as that of Longest Winning Streak in EVOLVE.
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DGUSA’s Philly return PPV, Enter the Dragon 2010, is one that Chikara fans will not want to miss. While Lince Dorado wrestled Super Shenlong to a ten minute draw on the Bonus Card, Chuck Taylor once again made a name for himself by winning a 4-Way Match that many called the show-stealing match of the pay-per-view. Taylor pinned longtime rival Ricochet with the Omega Driver for the victory. He placed himself at the head of the line to join the International WARRIORS with the victory. Seriously, when CIMA asked on Twitter who he thought would be a good fit for his International WARRIORS, I tweeted him Taylor. So…you’re welcome Chuck. YOU’RE WELCOME. Also of note was Brodie Lee, who did not have a match but intruded several times on other people’s contests, destroying everything in sight like a Godzilla villain. The PPV Main Event was an Elimination Match between Mike Quackenbush, Jigsaw Hallowicked & Masato Yoshino against the KAMIKAZE USA team of YAMATO, Jon Moxley, Gran Akuma & Akira Tozawa. This was original set to end the feud between Chikara Pro and KAMIKAZE USA, but due to the adding of Bryan Danielson to face SHINGO, this contest would simply fan the flames of war. Hallowicked was eliminated first via YAMATO and his devastating Gallaria piledriver. Moxley drilled Jigsaw with a chair and earned a disqualification. Jimmy Jacobs ran him off. YAMATO eliminated Jigsaw with easy after the chair shot, leaving Quackenbush and Yoshino to fight off YAMA, Akuma & Tozawa. Quackenbush eliminated Gran Akuma to even the odds. The finish saw a double submission as Quack tapped Tozawa with The Chikara Special and Yoshino tapped YAMATO with Sol Naciente! Chikara Sekigun and Masato Yoshino got a huge victory and the momentum going into the inevitable feud-ending future match!
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There are many things to mull over when compiling a list of dreams matches. It would be easy to just put the best Dragon Gate has to offer against the stars of Chikara Pro and call it a “Dream Match”. However, with the diverse characters of Chikara and the rich history in DG, there is more to be considered than just which two guys might have the best possible match. A common gripe I have with the indy scene at large is that too often wrestling bookers are concerned with creating high drama with forty minutes slugfests between two over but very flawed performers. Sometimes, I get more joy out of a well-conceived squash match than these so called “epic contests”. Now, I know that the fact that ROH owes Dragon Gate money makes any wrestler on their roster off-limits, but we’ll just pretend Ring of Honor didn’t stiff DG out of some dough. Just for this piece. With that in mind, here’s my list of the TOP TEN Chikara vs. Dragon Gate Dream Matches.
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NOTE: These matches have not been announced, nor are they at present scheduled to take place. I made these banners myself to lend authenticity to the piece and, well…for giggles. I even left the damn watermark so that no one would get confused…though I imagine some people still will…

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Honorable Mentions

– Jigsaw vs. Naoki Tanisaki – Outside of them both sharing the same devastating finisher, I couldn’t think of many other good reasons to pair these two excellent workers together. They are both criminally underrated performers in the shadows of more popular grapplers. Both have some nasty strikes in their arsenals, Jig with his superkicks and Naoki with his various knee strikes. With Jigsaw in DGUSA, this actually could happen someday…but Tanisaki would have to get booked there first. Ya here me, Gabe?
– Cyber Kong vs. Lince Dorado – While both performers have suffered serious head injuries in the past, comparisons between them stop there. Kong is a hulking brute who could run through the diminutive Dorado like a knife through warm water. But Cyber works well with smaller guys, so I imagine the beating would be short, but ever so sweet.
– Jagged & Shane Matthews vs. The Florida Express – 3.0 are comedy geniuses, and they would be the perfect fit in a match against Jackson and Johnson Florida, who haven’t faced quality comedic competition in a very long time. Just the looks on 3.0’s faces as Jackson stumbles to the ring on his gimp knee might be worth the price of admission.
– DEEP DRUNKERS vs. The UnStable – A common theme I had when conceiving these contests was pairing top heels with top heels and the faces against one another. I don’t know why, but the idea of the perpetually hammered Kenichiro Arai, an unhinged Kzy, and…Yasushi Kanda…teaming against Vin Gerard, Colin Delaney, & STIGMA brought a smile to my face.
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10

This was just a no brainer. Amasis, a former holder of the Campeonatos de Parejas with Osirian Portal stablemate Ophidian, has a penchant for funky dance moves. He started his career as a heel but, as time wore on, fans got tired of feeling like they had to boo they guy and just started cheer him on. BxB Hulk, the current Open the Freedom Gate champion in DGUSA, is the fan-favorite in his home promotion, and like Amasis, he has an affinity for getting down with his not-so-bad self. A dance contest between the two would be epic, and the winner would simply be whoever’s backyard they were in. It’s a classic styles clash between a choreographed pop dancer and a freestyle rhythmic rumpshaker. Also, they’d probably find time to wrestle. Both are high-flyers, and Amasis even uses a retro Hulk move that BxB rarely ever busts out anymore. “The Funky Pharaoh” calls it the Twist of Funk while Hulk calls the BxB Smash. A stipulation where the winner of a dance contest between the two got to name the move permanently would be beyond awesome. It’d be shmawsome.
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9

Tim Donst may be the best heel in Chikara Pro today. At the ripe age of 24, the current Young Lions Cup holder has already earned a reputation for his smart, lengthy promos and his solid in-ring work. He also has a nasty side, known for using various cheating methods such as using ropes for leverage during pins and working the nipples of his opponents. His perfect foil would be a man not unlike himself, known for his ruthless personality and questionable tactics in the ring. That man is Gamma, a former Twin Gate, Triangle Gate, & Brave Gate champion in Dragon Gate. Gamma utilizes his trusty kendo stick to not only smack you across the head, but he’s just as likely to catch you where the sun don’t shine, too. Like Donst, Gamma is a man who seems to revel in his lack of scruples. Unlike Donst, people have gotten behind the veteran Gamma after years of intense hatred. He has made up with longtime nemesis CIMA and they now team as Osaka06 to the delight of the fans in Dragon Gate. Donst may think he’d have the upperhand against Gamma, but the first time Gamma gargled water and sprayed him with it like a devious fountain…he’d know forever the lengths that a truly disgusting guy would go and whether or not he could rise to his level.
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8

Incoherence is one of Chikara’s best-known and well-liked tag teams. Hallowicked, a Chikara veteran and former Campeon de Parejas, was still teaming with Delirious when he first started bringing Frightmare to the ring, usually with a steel chain wrapped around him to keep him in check. After Delirious was torn away from the trio, ‘Wicked started teaming with his young protégé, keeping the Incoherence name and attitude. Both would be elevated in stature by leaps and bounds over the next few months, as Frightmare would be declared the 2009 Rookie of the Year in all of professional wrestling  and Hallowicked would start working in EVOLVE and Dragon Gate USA. Similarly, Super Shisa and Shisa BOY also share the same relationship as master and charge. While Super Shisa is a former Triangle Gate and Brave Gate champion, Shisa BOY has yet to have his big break out in Dragon Gate. But this match isn’t about accolades and accomplishments; it’s about talent. From a pure lucha standpoint, The Shisas are two of the best and most innovative on the DG roster. Incoherence had also shown to be two of Chikara’s best with it comes to innovative flips and death-defying dives. But these four guys in the ring together and I’m betting they crap out some magic. There’s gotta be a better way to say that, but I’m drawing a blank. The…the match would rule. There.
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7

Even the crankiest, most narcissistic independent wrestling fan has to see some upside in a match between the jabbering, excitable veteran know as Delirious and the…jabbering, excitable young wrestler Akira Tozawa. Delirious was Hallowicked’s partner when the two won the Campeonatos de Parejas back in 2007, but he has since joined The Neo Solar Temple and now the Bruderschaft de Kreuzes. The current Delirious is a mind-wiped drone…and no fun. I loved the laughing, chatty Delirious when he was wearing the trademark green mask, and that’s the Delirious you’d want to face Tozawa, a former Triangle Gate champion and a future main eventer in Dragon Gate. Even as a teenager, Tozawa rose above his fellow students with his loud mouth and vibrant personality. Tozawa will go on long rants about…I don’t know. I don’t speak Japanese. But he’s definitely prone to tirades, with his mouth constantly trying to cash checks his ass can rarely cash. But against Delirious, he may find someone just as loud and crazy as he is.
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6

It doesn’t take that many neurons to realize that teams like Incoherence, QuackenSaw, The Osirian Portal, and The Colony would turn out better matches against the team of Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino. Doi, a former Dream Gate champion and the first man in Dragon Gate history to hold every major company title, is joined at the hip with heterosexual life partner Yoshino, the current Dream Gate champion and the most decorated champion the Dragon Gate history. They have looked like they were breaking up many times over the years, but the two have weather storms and can lay claim to being the best tag team in DG history and perhaps in all of wrestling. They have a lot in common, a big one being that they both come from baseball backgrounds. Hell, Doi started his DG career as under a baseball gimmick as Second Doi. Enter Dasher Hatfield & Sugar Dunkerton: The Throwbacks. After a match in Chikara back at Hiding in Plain Sight that is now simply known as “The Baseball Game”, it became clear that Chikara knew how to use sports in a variety of comedic ways. Just imagine Yoshino, the fastest man in wrestling, having a footrace around the baseball diamond-esque ring with Dasher. Imagine Dunkerton trying to baffle Doi with some slick basketball moves. This is the type of hilarious imagery that lead to this match coming to fruition on this list. Speed Muscle has proved time and time again that they can have amazing matches with just about anybody. But to pull off a comedy match outside of Japan would be a new type of challenge, one that, knowing them, they’d rise to the occasion for.
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5

I’m sure a lot of people will be baffled by this pairing, as Gran Akuma makes more sense in a discussion about the stiff kicks and nasty head drops of Masaaki Mochizuki, a former Dream Gate, Twin Gate, & Triangle Gate champion. I honestly found that pairing a little too obvious, and I had plans for Akuma elsewhere. In his twenty years in the wrestling business, Mochizuki has faced his fair share of hard-kicking opponents. I felt like the concept of Mochi versus a young striker is being done to death, and Masaaki is usually able to enforce his will upon them given time. Even at age forty, he is taking on all comers and seems to be in the best condition of his life. His many kicks aren’t just inventive. They may be the hardest and nastiest kicks in wrestling. He is as legit as you can get in modern wrestling, so the idea of putting him in the ring with someone not in his own mold intrigued me. It hit me like a Yakuza Kick…”Big Rig” Brodie Lee, a Chikara mainstay known for his devastating Big Boot and intimidating size. He would present Mochi with all kinds of problems: he’s at last half a foot taller, a hundred pounds heavier, and has the length to keep out of Masaaki’s kick range while still inflicting significant damage. Of all the guys in Chikara Pro, Brodie would provide literally and figuratively the biggest challenge for Mochizuki. It would be difficult for Mochizuki to even get his leg high enough to fire off a headkick, but I’m sure the crafty veteran would find a way.
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4

It would be a battle of the two true, undisputed aces of their home promotions. It would be a war between two of the top athletes in wrestling today. Claudio Castagnoli and CIMA have a helluva lot in common: both are the unrivaled top guys in their companies, both guys are known for their high-impact, innovative offense, both wowed WWE officials in tryout matches on Smackdown!, and both are among the most decorated members of their respective rosters. CIMA is Dragon Gate’s only two-time Dream Gate champion and the only man in company history to have held absolutely every active title at one point or another. Castagnoli has won almost everything there is to win in Chikara Pro: 2005 & 2006 Tag World Grand Prix, 2007 Torneo Cibernetico, 2010 King of Trios and the Campeonatos de Parejas…twice. As far as I know, they have only been in the same ring once: Claudio, alongside Austin Aries, Delirious, & Rocky Romero faced CIMA and members of Typhoon at All-Star Extravaganza III for Ring of Honor back in early 2007. Since then, both wrestlers have grown to become ever greater wrestlers, and hopefully one day they will face off again in a Chikara ring.
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3

Their rivalry stems from one simple truth: YAMATO doesn’t respect Mike Quackenbush and he doesn’t respect Chikara Pro. At the very first Dragon Gate USA show, Quack made a challenge to any Dragon Gate wrestler to take on any Chikara Pro wrestler and see who the better man was. YAMATO emerged and claimed not to know who the hell “Lightning” Mike was and proceeded to low-blow him. YAMATO enlisted the help of his own student Gran Akuma, and at DGUSA’s second show, Quack teamed with Jigsaw to gain a measure of revenge against YAMATO & Akuma. Soon after this, YAMATO’s Dragon Gate faction went international and KAMIKAZE USA was born. Now, the fight was between two entire stables of wrestlers as YAMATO, Akuma, Akira Tozawa, Jon Moxley and Shingo Takagi began attacking Quackenbush, Jigsaw, and the rest of the Chikara wrestlers. At the latest DGUSA event, Enter the Dragon 2010, Quack got a measure of revenge by teaming with Masato Yoshino & his Chikara brood to defeat YAMATO and KAMIKAZE USA in Main Event Elimination Match. Naturally, a singles showdown between the two looms. Both men are known for their cunning ingenuity in the ring, and in a battle of not only physicality but their very scruples, they’ll need to be firing on all cylinders to best the other man.
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2

This is another fantasy match-up where the accolades of the competitors speak for themselves. The trio of Icarus, Gran Akuma & Chuck Taylor has been through a lot as a trio. Last year, they ended their three year war against The Colony in one of the biggest matches in Chikara history. They beat The Death Match Kings, The F1rst Family, The Future Is Now and Team Uppercut in winning the 2009 King of Trios tournament. Akuma and Icarus won the 2005 and 2006 Torneo Cibernetico matches respectively and then teamed together to win the Campeonatos de Parejas, holding them for longer than any other team thus far. Likewise, the team of Dragon Kid, Ryo Saito, & Genki Horiguchi is Dragon Gate’s most decorated triumvirate. They are the only threesome to win the Open the Triangle Gate titles more than twice, and with them recently reunited in the WARRIORS, they could earn even more. But the major reason that these men are known together is simple: Ring of Honor. 2006. Supercard of Honor. Against the Blood Generation, Do FIXER inspired the raucous crowd and the six men put on a performance that not only won Match of the Year in 2006, not only earned a 5-Star rating from Dave Meltzer, but helped popularize and broaden the reach of a company for years to come. They are the two finest trios in their companies…and thanks to Johnny Gargano, this match is never gonna happen. Gargano…YOU’RE ON NOTICE.
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1

This was the match that not only inspired this list but the very intellectual fabric behind it. As you may have noticed, I’m not content to just throw people in the ring together. I want to see the most decorated trio face the most decorated trio, the best athlete face the best athlete and the amateur baseball players face the old timey ball chuckers. Yeah, I’m pretty deep. This battle of hard-hitting heavyweights was inspired by one specifically shared trait between Shingo Takagi, a former Open the Dream Gate champion and leader of the KAMIKAZE faction, and “The Last of a Dying Breed” Eddie Kingston. That trait is ego. Shingo and Eddie are both their worst own enemies. Late in 2009, Shingo injured his knee and it became a focal point for the attacks of his opponents. The situation was exacerbated by Takagi’s repeated pounding of his own knee, as if he were baiting the challenger to break him. While Shingo’s ego is fueled by physical scars, Kingston’s comes from emotional ones. Eddie feels that he always misses out on the big matches in Chikara, that he’s always playing catch-up with the guys in the masks. He’s felt some level of dejection his entire life, and he uses the pent-up aggression to unleash a flurry of violence on his adversaries. Sometimes, this pride leads to disappointing losses, but more often than not, it acts as jet fuel for their fighting spirit and pushes them to succeed. So when it’s laid out like this, one wonders what would happen if they were to stand across the ring from one another. Two tireless warriors, both drunk on rage…ten feet apart. That’s a potential nuclear holocaust of lariats and arrogance…and that’s why it’s number one.
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– Please leave any comments or questions you might have and I’ll do my best to respond with as much colloquial Irish gossip as I can conjure. I’d like to do a contest or something cool like that, but I’m not sure how much interest there’d be. Let you voice be heard! Also, let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see in the column, like fantasy booking, treasure hunts, wish-lists, secret handshakes, etc.
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