The Tiger's Take 12.26.07: Thank You, CHIKARA

Posted by Mike Campbell on 12.26.2007

A heartwarming tale of finding something you love.

In my twenty five years of age, I can't think of a single time that I've stopped watching wrestling. There's times I've stopped watching certain promtions, my mom offered to order me WrestleMania XIX and I told her not to bother because I'd gotten sick of WWE. But there's never been a time when I've completely given up wrestling.

However, the last couple of months have actually had me coming close. I was simply starting to get burned out. WWE PPVs were fun, but more for going out than the actual show. Take Armageddon for instance, I'm an Edge Head from way back and I love that he won the title, the booking of some of the matches left a lot to be desired in my book. My local 2CW shows are a blast to watch, and I'm pleasantly surprised how well some of them hold up on DVD, but they only run one or two shows every couple of months. My favorite promotion right now is easily Dragon Gate, but lack of monetary funds has kept me from seeing much of them recently, although that will soon change. I'm a big SHIMMER fan, but they've taken the winter off. Then I discovered CHIKARA.

Well 'discovered' isn't the right word. I'd known of them for quite a long time, but hadn't actually seen them. My good friend, Brian Jodoin (who's a big fan of the Impact Crater), was a big follower and had mentioned to me many times how great it was, so I decided to give them a try. So I purchased the 2006 Tag World Grand Prix, made it through the first two nights, moved to my new apartment, and promptly forgot about it for 11 months. I finally found the discs for the second night, and enjoyed what I saw. I asked Brian what would be good to check out, and he told me to read some results, and let him know what peaked my interest and he'd lend me some. After now seeing Anniversario? from this year as well as starting the King of Trios, I'm happy to say that CHIKARA has made me love wrestling all over again.

CHIKARA is the perfect example of Mick Foley's analogy about wrestling being a circus, there's something for everyone. If you enjoy straight up good wrestling, you have Chuck Taylor, Mitch Ryder (my personal favorite at the moment), Max Boyer, Chris Hero, Mike Quakenbush, Hallowicked, Team F.I.S.T, Lince Dorado, and Claudio Castagnoli. If you like goofy gimmicks you have Los Ice Creams, Hyrda, MosCow, CP Munk, and the disturbing, yet awesome, Kaiju Big Battel fight on Anniversario? If you like heated feuds and good angles, there's the recent Equinox/Vin Gerard saga, the Chris Hero/Mike Quackenbush feud, and the Eddie Kingston/Hallowicked feud. They've even showcased women's wrestling by bringing in Sara Del Rey, Daizee Haze, and Alison Danger.

Having only seen a few complete shows myself, I'm certainly not going to tout myself as a CHIKARA expert, but if after only seeing a few shows, and I'm dying to see as much as I possibly can, they've certainly done something right. I'm also not going to say CHIKARA is the best indy fed in the U.S. right now, but they score major points with being able to present a good product and effectively skew it to appeal to as wide an audience as they can. So in closing, if you're feeling a bit burned out, like I was getting, I urge you to at least give CHIKARA a chance, you may not love it as much as I did, but you're bound to find something you'll enjoy.

For some more information about myself, and stuff I enjoy check out The Cool Kids Table.