ROH vs CHIKARA

[du5tin]

Enjoy the show. Bring in some new fans!

[subvert69]

I'll be hitting up the Dayton show this afternoon.

[Deleted]

Apr 29, 2012 7:26:41 GMT -5 subvert69 said:

I'll be hitting up the Dayton show this afternoon.

Likewise. Not thrilled it's at Hara, but whatever. I'm hyped for O'Reilly vs. Generico and Davey vs. Cole.

[jrgoldman]

Really had fun last night, although I didn't think it was a very good show unfortunately. Most of the entertainment for me came in the form of bringing my girlfriend, whose knowledge of wrestling consists of watching part of Raw and seeing the occasional pimped indy match. Here are some of her comments:

"Do they still shake hands, or does that only happen when Asians are involved?"

On Jimmy Jacobs: "He is like Puck from Midsummer Night's Dream!"

On Adam Cole: "He's like a wrestling Tim Riggins."

On Davey Richards: "He is the worst guy we have seen so far."

Strangely, my thoughts pretty much are the same. We always get on WWE for not building new stars, but ROH has basically done nothing since 2008. The most over people were guys who were over in the heyday, and all the new people were treated and felt like filler.

Also, I hate to be negative, but Kyle O'rielly might be the worst wrestler I have ever seen. Like, nothing he does makes sense or looks good. It's like if backyarders imitated Davey instead of deathmatch guys, you would get Kyle O'Rielly.

Anyway, it was fun, and I'm glad I went. Always great to see Tom and meet new people!

[Vegas]

I'm already back home in Las Vegas, but I had an incredible amount of fun yesterday at Synergy in Chicago!

Last time I went to Chicago in June for a CHIKARA show and the release of the CHIKARA set, I also did some sight seeing such as going to the Willis Tower, Chicago Theater district, Chicago River area, Geno's for deep dish pizza, Challenger Comics, Chicago waterfront (including an extreme speedboat tour of Lake Michigan,) Lake Shore Drive, and Wrigley Field. But this time in under 30 hours I was in and out only for wrestling.

Although I consider myself a really big sports fan, my passion for wrestling is even greater. For ROH, I have yet to miss an episode of ROH since they began their new TV broadcasts last year (although I sometimes watch it later in the week on their website,) and I am an annual ROH Ringside member (best $60 value anywhere around for wrestling fans IMO.) For CHIKARA, thanks to their $9.99 streaming option (another great value for wrestling fans IMO,) except for one of the three Joshimania shows last December, I have not missed a single CHIKARA show since last October. So for the chance to attend ROH and CHIKARA in the same day, with no regrets I absolutely used my First Semester bonus paycheck from my extra jobs as a Key Club advisor and as a student mentor to fly to Chicago and see both feds on the same day. I will probably use my bonus Second Semester paycheck for something similar.

at Synergy, ROH had a sale on all of their DVDs and I bought the recently released Nigel McGuinness 2 disc DVD set. I also bought 2 copies of the new CHIKARA 5 pack and 2 copies of the new color Briscoe cards with the ROH logo on the back (for Legends and CHIKARA, I always buy at least 2 copies of everything- one copy for playing and 1 copy for autographs)

For CHIKARA's Hot Off the Griddle, I sat with daytondave in general admission. My favorite matches were El Generico vs Sara Del Rey and the opening atomicos match of The Colony and Jigsaw vs The Shard & The Swarm. I have not seen the previous CHIKARA show since it was just made available on DVD and streaming, so I didn't know about Archibald Peck's transformation into Mixed Martial Archie- but I really enjoyed his new character.

At intermission, I saw someone who I thought was El Hijo Del Ice Cream since he was wearing an El Hijo el Ice Cream mask. I asked him to sign my copy of his CHIKARA card but he responded saying "I'm sorry, I'm just a fan" which really threw me off because he did not have the build of your typical wrestling fan. Well it turns out, although he was not El Hijo Del Ice Cream, he also was NOT just a wrestling fan.

Right after he got done talking to me, the guy wearing the El Hijo Del Ice Cream mask got in the line to "meet" Hallowicked in the center of the ring. When it was his turn to meet Hallowicked, he suddenly attacked Hallowicked to steal the Young Lions Cup and ripped off his mask to reveal himself as Tim Donst! So I was talking to Tim Donst wearing an El Hijo Del Ice Cream mask without knowing at the time it was Donst. '

Also at intermission, I got to say hi to Chuck Taylor who I've seen alot at PWG and I also got to say hi to Gavin Loudspeaker (who remembered me and even called me by my first name) and get Jakob Hammermeier, Johnny Gargano, Jigsaw, 3.0 (both members,) and the Batiri (all 3 members) to sign my copy of their CHIKARA color cards. After the show, I also got Gregory Iron to sign my copy of his card and at the bar after the ROH show I also got my Dark Menace color card signed too which means I now have a total of 28 of my color CHIKARA cards signed (but my Archibald Peck card is only signed by Veronica so far and not by Peck yet.)

after the CHIKARA show, me and Daytondave went to this beer and pizza joint called Rosies where Payback and Tom met up with us. But although me and Tom each had a beer, they were just too understaffed and we weren't able to place a food order as there was not alot of time before they started the ROH preshow meet and greet.

at the ROH meet and greet I got to say hi again to Kenny King who was surprised to see me in Chicago since he knows me from our home town of Las Vegas. We talked a little about his match against Remy Marcel last weekend at Sam's Town for FSW, about Sam's Town as a venue for wrestling (it is a great place to see a show- and it is also where I see all the WWE PPVs for free and where I am going to see Extreme Rules this afternoon!,) and about his possible upcoming FSW appearances.

also at the ROH meet and greet, I got my new Briscoe color cards signed. Jay Briscoe actually remembered me and Grant signing them to the game back at Wrestle Reunion 4 in Los Angeles as he saw me and said "From California! How are you doing?" and then offered me his hand to shake. Jay Briscoe even gave me a free 8 X10 which he wanted to address to Filsinger Games because he really likes his new cards and I presented it to Tom who said he is going to frame it and hang it in his office.

also at the meet and greet, Kevin Steen appeared and (with two middle fingers raised in the air) loudly announced toward the ROH officials at the meet and greet "F**k you! I am doing this for free!" which instantly brought alot of people to his table which was on the other side of Tom's table (located between the regular ROH meet and greet and Steen's table) and Tom told me he was glad it happened because Steen in the process caused alot of traffic to pass by Tom's table.

For the ROH show, I had a great seat right in the middle/center of the ring of the front row of section A. If I sat in that same location at PWG I would have either been constantly jumping out of my seat to avoid getting hit or I would have been landed on multiple times, but thankfully ROH has guardrails. My favorite ROH matches were the main event of the Briscoes vs Jigsaw and Hallowicked, BJ Whitmer & El Generico vs Kevin Steen & Jimmy Jacobs in a no DQ, and the Colony vs Jay Lethal, Adam Cole, and TJ Perkins.

Afterwards, me, Tom, Payback, daytondave, RingsYde, and some others went back to Rosie's for some drinks where we saw Eddie Kingston, Chuck Taylor, and 3.0 and had a good discussion about both Legends and COTG and about the WWE including today's Extreme Rules PPV which ringsYde gets to attend in Chicago.

Really glad I made the trip to Chicago this weekend! One of my best weekends of 2012- and I can say that now with the year only 1/3 of the way over!

[cruefan68]

Sounds like you had a great time, Vegas. Thanks for the recap and that was classic with the Tim Donst-Ice Cream story. Too funny.

[LWPD]

Apr 29, 2012 13:01:43 GMT -5 Vegas said:

I'm already back home in Las Vegas, but I had an incredible amount of fun yesterday at Synergy in Chicago!

Glad you had a great time Mr. V! Having seen them up close/side by side, in terms of presentation, what would you say are the main differences between the two companies (ROH & CHIKARA)? What little things does each promotion 'do right' that you as a fan would like to see other promotions (large or small) emulate?

[Vegas]

Apr 29, 2012 17:23:53 GMT -5 LWPD said:

Apr 29, 2012 13:01:43 GMT -5 Vegas said:

I'm already back home in Las Vegas, but I had an incredible amount of fun yesterday at Synergy in Chicago!

Glad you had a great time Mr. V! Having seen them up close/side by side, in terms of presentation, what would you say are the main differences between the two companies (ROH & CHIKARA)? What little things does each promotion 'do right' that you as a fan would like to see other promotions (large or small) emulate?

CHIKARA has a lucha libre style and (compared to ROH) their shows are more geared toward families and kids while still having a strong appeal for adult wrestling fans too.

One thing in particular I personally like is how both feds have strong tag team divisions (although not necessarily to the extent of the ROH show last night where every match except one was a tag match) which you do not see much in the WWE (for example, no tag match on tonight's PPV.) On the Indy level today, tag matches are often exciting with their multiple pin saves, double team maneuvers, and brawls between all 4 (or more) competitors. There is a reason I made a strong effort to see PWG's annual DDT4 tag team tournament in Los Angeles last weekend after missing the previous PWG show back in March. Lots of exciting action in today's tag team matches which are unfortunately basically an afterthought in the WWE.

[payback]

Awesome recap by Mr. Vegas! I'll give a little recap of my own here.

Tom drives into Detroit, actually he stopped downriver aka south of Detroit to see his family. Swarm and myself are at Swarm's place awaiting his arrival when we get a call saying his GPS is trying to take him through Canada! Not sure why it did that but it was a funny way to start the weekend off.

Swarm ends up getting a really bad case of the flu and he doesn't make the trip, which royally sucked but Tom and myself forged ahead to Chi-town.

Turns out the hotel we stayed in did some promotional work for The Avengers movie and Marvel had a comic book specially made mentioning the hotel. We each grabbed one and later on proceded to have a sweet Chikara card using all of the new guys in the Synergy set. Payback vs. Tom!

Great matches ensued - Grizzly beat Greg Iron by DQ when Iron hit Grizzly with his log.

Tom told Greg Iron what happened in our match the next day and Greg said, "Why would I do that?!"

Tom said, "Grizzly hit you 1st but the ref didn't see it."

The Chikara show was awesome and Jack/Gavin did a great job hyping up the game and a whole bunch of people made their way over and we definitely recruited some new players to the game!

SDR vs. El Generico was amazing! SDR used a piledriver to win and that made the crowd pop huge!

ROH meet & greet sets up next to our table and who am I sitting 3 feet away from??? Maria Kanellis (scantily clad BTW - amazing!)

Met some older game fans including a guy who said he played 30 years ago (which I know isn't possible but you knew what he meant) and he bought some new stuff to get back into playing.

ROH show was good but I thought Chikara's was better. Kevin Steen really won me over this weekend. He is a gifted athlete for someone his size. His match against Kingston on the Chikara show was really good and his no DQ tag match was probably my favorite of the card.

Great drive home on Sunday and now I'm so excited to use my new Chikara cards and the Briscoes will definitely be making an appearance.

Picked up a few shirts and DVDs so my wrestling cup has been refilled!!

Had an absolute blast hanging with everyone, seeing some familiar faces and meeting game fans I hadn't met before. Watching ROH and Chikara in the same day was off the hook! Very bummed Swarm couldn't be there with us but we kept him updated the whole time so we could keep him in the loop. If you haven't seen ROH or Chikara live and you get a chance to, you need to go - you won't be disappointed!

The Synergy pack of Chikara cards and the ROH cards for the Briscoes are great and I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of them!!

[LWPD]

Apr 29, 2012 23:25:54 GMT -5 Vegas said:

Apr 29, 2012 17:23:53 GMT -5 LWPD said:

Glad you had a great time Mr. V! Having seen them up close/side by side, in terms of presentation, what would you say are the main differences between the two companies (ROH & CHIKARA)? What little things does each promotion 'do right' that you as a fan would like to see other promotions (large or small) emulate?

CHIKARA has a lucha libre style and (compared to ROH) their shows are more geared toward families and kids while still having a strong appeal for adult wrestling fans too.

One thing in particular I personally like is how both feds have strong tag team divisions (although not necessarily to the extent of the ROH show last night where every match except one was a tag match) which you do not see much in the WWE (for example, no tag match on tonight's PPV.) On the Indy level today, tag matches are often exciting with their multiple pin saves, double team maneuvers, and brawls between all 4 (or more) competitors. There is a reason I made a strong effort to see PWG's annual DDT4 tag team tournament in Los Angeles last weekend after missing the previous PWG show back in March. Lots of exciting action in today's tag team matches which are unfortunately basically an afterthought in the WWE.

Thanks for the insight Mr. Vegas!