9/1 CHICKARA “KING OF TRIOS 2017: Night One” in Wolverhampton, England: House of Throwbacks vs. House Attack, House Strong Styles vs. House Whitewolf

CHIKARA “KING OF TRIOS 2017” REPORT – NIGHT ONE
SEPTEMBER 1, 2017
WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND AT STARWORKS
REPORT BY DAVE GREEN (@dagreeno), PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

(1) House Calamari (Chris Brookes & Kid Lykos & Elijah) defeated House Bike Cops (Officer Warren Barksdale & Dez Peloton (Donald Kluger & Jasper Tippins)). Fun opener to kick off proceedings. Dez Peloton showed unity with their partner by wearing police uniforms of their own rather than their usual bike lycra. The home crowd gave the Calamari team no breaks as they were booed heartily, with everyone telling Lykos to shut multiple times as usual. CCK hit their tandem finish to allow Elijah to pin Barksdale to advance to the next round.

(2) House Rot (Hallowicked & Frightmare & Kobald) defeated House Bodyslam (Emeritus & Michael Fynne & Vasyl). This was an interesting first round match due to the unique characters involved. Bodyslam are from the company of the same name in Denmark. Flynne is very much like R-Truth in appearance and style, Emeritus has a skeleton character and masked man Vasyl is a huge man that held a small teddy bear throughout the match. After several beatdowns, the hot tag was made to the teddy itself. Vasyl laid it down in front of Frightmare, who threw it all the way to the back of the room. Vasyl then hit each member of House Rot with huge power moves. It was all in vein as Hallowicked scored with Never Wake Up on Emeritus to allow House Rot to advance.

(3) House Seven Seas (Hermit Crab, Cajun Crawdad and Merlok) defeated House Revival (Jonny Storm, Jody Fleisch and Johnny Moss). House Revival represented the early 2000’s comeback of British Wrestling to television screens via The Wrestling Channel. They received a chant of “FWA”, which old school UK fans will appreciate. This started out as relatively light hearted, with Moss calling out the big man of the opposition Merlok to tag in, only for Crawdad to think he meant him and tag in himself. A series of dives was surprisingly completed by the heavyweight Moss, but in a bit of a shocker to yours truly, Merlok rebounded to put Storm down for the win with an Emerald Flosion variation in the upset of the first round.

(4) House Strong Style (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate & Pete Dunne) defeated House Whitewolf (A-Kid, Adam Chase & Zayas). If I were to state any criticism of the first half, it would be that maybe there hasn’t been anything for the crowd to really sink their teeth into. They had been responsive, but it hadn’t yet been anything that felt natural and guttural. This match changed all that. The Whitewolf team from Spain had a healthy contingent of fans in the house to support them. These six men started hard and fast and did not let up at all, with no moment where the action died down at all. A ten minute sprint ended with a Tyler Driver ’97 to advance House Strong Style, but House Whitewolf gained a lot of fans with their performance. The crowd lapped this up.

(5) Casa Dorada (Chikara Grand Champion Juan Francisco de Coronado & Cornelius Crummels & Sonny DeFarge) defeated House Sport (James Mason & Danny Boy Collins & Mal Sanders). A wonderful match to come back to after the interval. The House Sport are made up of two legends of the World of Sport days, Sanders & Collins, and Mason who is a practitioner of that style of wrestling. The British team ran circles around their younger adversaries, especially Sanders, the elder statesman of the team who received a big pop when he first tagged in. Members of the crowd engaged the home favourites with many of the chants that would accompany a traditional British camp show. After a lengthy bout, JFC cradled Mason with his feet on the ropes to get the dirty cheating pinfall. House of Sport received a respectful standing ovation.

(6) House Furies (Solo Darling, Travis Huckabee & Fire Ant) defeated House Fight Club (Millie McKenzie, Kyle Fletcher & Omari). This was the match of the night. Fight Club Pro assembled a team of newcomers from their training school and were matched up with the usually very popular Furies tandem. As this show took place at FCP’s home venue, their popularity heavily outweighed the Furies. This was extremely well worked and even throughout, despite the FCP contingent having less overall experience. Eventually Solo put Millie in the Long Bow for the submission but believe me when I say that this match over delivered in a big way and is well worth checking out.

(7) House Sendai Girls (Meiko Satomura & Dash Chisako & Cassandra Miyagi) defeated House Xyberhawx (Razerhawk & Nytehawk & Sylverhawk). The young tandem of Xyberhawx 2000 made a good accounting of themselves in this encounter with the defending Queen of Trios, but the Sendai Girls were certainly who a lot of the crowd came to see, which each member of the team getting a big chant whenever they tagged in. Dash Chisako was the workhorse of the team tonight, taking a huge brunt of offense from Xyberhawx, but after it all broke down Chisako hit a big frog splash on Nytehawk (I think!) to get the win.

(8) House Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Mr Touchdown Mark Angelosetti & Simon Grimm) defeated House Attack (Chief Deputy Dunne & The Brothers of Obstruction (James & Lee)). This was a cracking main event. The Attack Pro Wrestling tandem were made up of their top rudo stable, the Anti-Fun Police. The Brothers of Obstruction are otherwise known as the Hunter Brothers outside of the Attack Universe. They were accompanied by Dunne’s newest recruit Los Federales Santos Jr, who was a constant nuisance at ringside. This match was great fun, with Grimm looking particularly good at one point with a beautiful looking takedown into an armbar. With Santos Jr keeping Grimm occupied outside, James and Lee attempted to position Touchdown for a top rope attack from Dunne, but Dasher entered the ring to climb onto the pile of bodies and deliver a Super Jackhammer to Dunne for the pinfall. Great ending spot which brought the crowd to it’s feet.

FINAL THOUGHTS: All in all, a fine start to King of Trios weekend. It flowed well with all the matches ranging from good to great, with only the Rot vs Bodyslam encounter being mostly skippable. The show breezed by at around 3 hours, including interval. It must be noted that this was not a sell out crowd by any means. There were quite a lot of empty seats, with upgrades being offered upon entry to the venue. The word going around was that a lot of people were only coming to tonight’s show, as it’s the only guarantee to see everyone in the tournament. Ticket prices were quite expensive for the first few rows, which may explain the emptiness, but hopefully after tonight it will pick up for the rest of the weekend. Those that did attend made a lot of noise, particularly during the stellar second half.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Night 2, with the quarter finals and the opening matches of the Rey de Voladores tournament.

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