Before I begin, I should mention this is my first time watching a full CHIKARA event. So to any CHIKARA fans, if I happen to butcher anything or sound like a total dumbass, I apologize now.

La Loteria Lethal
September 6, 2008



The show starts out with some guy with crazy hair singing a song about CHIKARA. I assume the song is called CHIKARA is necessary (English translation I guess). Checking Smart Mark Video, the guy is Louden. No idea what's the point of it, but I enjoyed it.

Icarus and Ultimo Breakfast vs Tim Donst and Helios
Icarus is a member of Team FIST and I've seen a little from him before. Ultimo Breakfast is a masked men with bread coming out of his mask. Icarus is the greatest scrabble player this side of PA. Nice. Icarus wins Rock, Paper, Scissors to start the match. Donst stretches Icarus a lot in the early going. Breakfast and Icarus works well together early on, but after Icarus slaps him for a tag, they spend time arguing. Helios has some nice fast paced moves. End comes with Icarus hitting the Pedigree on Donst, but Helios interrupting it. Breakfast comes back in and hits You're Toast (Razor's Edge) to pick up the win for him and Icarus. Helios impressed me a good amount. I wouldn't mind seeing Helios vs Icarus one-on-one. Good enough match to start off the show. 10 minutes. 2 Stars.

Lince Dorado and Jimmy Olsen vs Shane Storm and Eddie Kingston
A brawl begins before the match. Both Kingston and Storm murders Dorado for most of the match. Olsen is tagged in and get in some offense before sending Dorado out for a suicide dive to Storm and Kingston. Back in, Dorado makes Kingston tape out to the CHIKARA Special. Kingston releases his anger by hitting the ring post with a chair. Short, but enjoyable. Everything felt a lot more serious than with the first match. The finish felt too rush though. I liked that the bad ass Kingston was forced to tap, but it seemed too quick for it to happen. 7 Minutes. 3 Stars.

Halcom Guerrero and Mitch Ryder vs Colin Delaney and Vin Gerard
Interesting pairing with Guerrero and Ryder. Ryder's gimmick of being an old school racist works well with a Mexican wrestler. Colin is just making his return from the WWE or as the commentators say, his African safari. Guerrero tries some moves with Gerard, but he botches everything. Delaney plays the face in peril for most of the match. A lot of old school moves by Ryder. Delaney tags in Gerard and he quickly makes Guerrero tap out to the STF. Gerard looks like he has some talent, while Ryder has a nice gimmick and Colin is always good at getting his ass kicked. Guerrero was pure shit though. No idea why it was given so much time. The match didn't do much for me. 11 Minutes. 2 Stars.

Larry Sweeney and Claudio Castagnoli vs Pinkie Sanchez and Mike Quackenbush
Sweeney and Claudio teaming up is incredible. Pinkie with a lot of butt bumps early on in the match. Sweeney's strategy is to be in the ring with Pinkie and let Claudio take on Quack. On the outside, Sweeney bails on Claudio to let Pinkie land on him. Claudio does the longest giant swing I've ever seen (49-50 times around) on Pinkie. The fans are very into this match. Tag into Sweeney, but he only gets a 2 count. Pinkie runs and hits a suicide dive on Claudio on the outside, but is caught by Claudio. Quack surprises Sweeney with a roll up to win the match. Post match, Sweeney demands to know where Claudio was. In true Sweeney, his explanation for losing the match is "My Bad". HA. Awesome match. Sweeney kept the fans into the match the entire time. The first match where all of the wrestlers actually impressed me. Sweeney is always incredible. 12 Minutes. 4 Stars.

Brodie Lee vs Hydra
This is a non-Lethal Lottery match of course. Unlike the other matches, I haven't seen either wrestler before. Brodie instantly gets points from me for having God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash as his theme song. Hydra has a Crash Holly circa 1999 gimmick of thinking he's bigger than he really is. Tonight he's in Diesel mode, complete with Diesel's WWE theme music. With his cut jeans, Hydra looks more like a gay biker. This is a total squash with Lee winning after a big boot. Nothing really special, but it was fun seeing Hydra and I look forward to seeing more of him. Claudio vs Brodie in a steel cage at the next show sounds awesome. 4 Minutes. 1 Star.

Icarus and Ultimo Breakfast vs Lince Dorado and Jimmy Olsen
Ultimo this time wins Rock, Paper, Scissors to start the match with Dirado. However, Icarus tags himself in before any action. A lot of yelling by Icarus and both men tags in their partners. Ultimo tapes his mask to his head so that Jimmy won't pull his mask off. I kinda like the idea of a storyline where someone is trying to pull masks off. Icarus and Ultimo works well together working on Olsen. Olsen is in the ring for a long time. Several long two counts, but Olsen refuses to lose. Dorado comes in, but gets set up for You're Toast, however he reverses it into a hurricana. Ultimo rolls right up into a superkick by Olsen. Nice sequence. That's enough for the win. Damn, I was actually digging Ultimo and Icarus as a team. Easily the best match thus far tonight. There was a good amount of serious wrestling too. I really wanna see more of Olsen. 10 Minutes. 4 Stars.

Colin Delaney and Vin Gerard vs Pinkie Sanchez and Mike Quackenbush
Gerard doesn't want anything to do with Quack so he splits, allowing Delaney to sneak up on Quack. Quack is on defense a good portion of the match. Delaney and Gerard works pretty well together. Gerard works over Quack's knee, even biting it. Sanchez gets in the match and starts hitting his butt bumps on Gerard. Delaney gets Pinkie in the tree of woe and calls out E-C-W and tries for Tommy Dreamer's dropkick to the head, but Pinkie moves out in time. The commentators play it off beautifully, saying how Delaney was using some kind of code he must of picked up on his African safari. HA. On the outside, Gerard locks his STF on Quack. Inside, Delanley hits the FU on Pinkie to pick up the win. The better working team won, which sets up Delaney and Gerard vs Olsen and Dorado for the finals in October. (Which happened on the 18th). Another quality tag team match here. Like the last one, this was more serious than the first round matches. All four men are good in their roles so much that I actually care about them. Gerard and Quack was set up well for tomorrow's tag team match. If Gerard was just a little bigger, I could see big things from him. Who knows, if Evan Bourne can get a nice push from the WWE, maybe so can Gerard. 9 Minutes. 4 Stars.

Gran Akuma, Chuck Taylor, Amasis and Ophidian vs Hallowicked, Fire Ant, Worker Ant and Soldier Ant
I'm excited to see more of Hallowicked, I enjoyed his time in ROH last year. I've seen a little of Akuma which I've dug. This is my first time seeing the Colony, Chuck Taylor and The Osirian Portal. Taylor and the OP I'm particularly looking forward to seeing what they can do with all of the talk of them this year. A lot of action in this match. Solider Ant tricking Ophidian into doing the salute. Chuck Taylor doing a hand grenade with it going in Worker Ant's tights, which as cheesy as it was, it was extremely entertaining. Mid way through, they don't even bother with a legal man as all 8 man comes in the ring and we get a lot of spotty action. Some quality tag moves especially from FIST and the OP. Fire Ant is able to his the Ant Hill (Double stomp with the other two Ant's holding the opponent up in the air) on Akuma to win the match for his team. This was pretty much what I expected with a lot of mindless spotty wrestling. I enjoyed the first half a lot more. There was a lot of comedy and action, but you didn't miss any moves because of too much going on at one time. That being said, the match was given a lot of time so that I didn't feel ripoff with the match only being a spotfest. All six guys that I never saw before (OP, Taylor and the Colony) proved to be entertaining workers. I'm curious to see what Taylor can do in more serious matches perhaps with Quack? 24 Minutes. 3 Stars.

Overall
With this being my first show, I'm sure I totally overrated some matches (Especially later ones), however; the matches thoroughly entertained me and the quality improved throughout the match. With the exception of Halcom Guerrero, I enjoyed everyone on the card and I want to see more of them and CHIKARA. At the same time, this probably wasn't the best show to begin my CHIKARA viewings with. There wasn't much storyline development or insight. Not to mention all of these teams (Except for final match) aren't even full time teams. However, the show did entertain me enough that I will seek out more, which I suppose is the point of any first time show.

Next up - Style & Substance

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