"Six little tiny shoes, all at one time!"

January 16, 2013 5:47 AM

CHIKARA Pro Wrestling is notable, in the wrestling world, for taking the position that intergender tag matches should just happen whenever men and women want to fake-fight one another - but perhaps this is just part of CHIKARA's particular worldview, which is one that includes a time-traveling knight from medieval times who came to the present day and then formed a tag team with another version of himself from three weeks later who also traveled in time to the present day and the Super Smash Bros., who are very defensive of the original Nintendo Entertainment System. At this year's King of Trios three-day super-event, two all-female teams competed, including the Sendai Girls from Sendai Girls' Pro Wrestling. The Sendai Girls made it to the semifinals where they competed against Team Ring of Honor in what was subsequently deemed by many wrestling fans to be the best intergender match yet wrestled in North America. This week, Chikara put the match up free on Youtube.
posted by mightygodking (17 comments total)

Well. This throws Rick Flair's "If you want to be the man you have to beat the man" theory all to hell.
posted by three blind mice at 5:57 AM on January 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cool. I saw you posting about wrestling on your own blog and hoped you'd talk about it here too. I love reading posts about CHIKARA in the same way I like posts about EVE Online: insight into a narrative universe I have little desire to experience firsthand.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:58 AM on January 16, 2013 [5 favorites]

That was an extremely entertaining match. Thank you.
posted by 256 at 6:03 AM on January 16, 2013

Chikara really is where I go for the fun aspect of pro wrestling. It's 100% family friendly, has loyal fanbase, and these workers are extremely skilled. Not to mention that even though he's billed from Raccoon City, Chuck Taylor is from the town I'm living in now.
posted by deezil at 6:18 AM on January 16, 2013

That was really great!

That bicycle kick move was awesome, and the submission hold the women put on the men was really great! Are those moves common now? I've never seen them (I haven't seen wrestling in decades.)
posted by oddman at 6:27 AM on January 16, 2013

Sp, how does one get ahold of this stuff. I heard great, great things about this year's king of trios, and I wanted to actually get it, but I could find no way to either buy a digital copy or order a DVD. Any suggestions? Because seriously, WWE is just making me sad these days.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:03 AM on January 16, 2013

oddman, AJ Styles does the Pele Kick on TNA pretty regularly. That submission move is not commonly done in either TNA or WWE. For all I know they are both done constantly in the indie circuit.
posted by jermsplan at 7:09 AM on January 16, 2013

Ghidorah, Smart Mark Video is what you're looking for. For physical copies, http://smartmarkvideo.com/. For VOD, smvod.com.
posted by Lusy P Hur at 7:10 AM on January 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

That match was terrific, thanks mightygodking. I'm sure my memory is colored by nostalgia, but as far as best intergender match in North America, I remember Chyna and Jericho having a pretty good feud back in 1999/2000, during which they became co-IC Champions. I feel like some of their matches could give this one a run for the title.

Still, this match had the type of energy I seriously miss when watching the major brands on TV. As Ghidorah said, they disappoint so often these days.
posted by jermsplan at 7:15 AM on January 16, 2013

jermsplan, don't go watch those matches again. Just keep remembering them as good.

Honestly though, this might have been the best intergender moment from this year's King of Trios.
posted by Lusy P Hur at 7:19 AM on January 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

The finish was... fantastic. Plucky underdogs would have won if not for cheating, followed by insane move (triple Superkick), by setup move (reverse Samoan Drop), by finisher (450 Splash), by ANOTHER finisher (Moonsault).

Advance the heels, protect the faces? Ideal. /smark
posted by andreaazure at 7:36 AM on January 16, 2013

Man, I really wanted to go to King of Trios last year, but I couldn't get the trip together. I really dig what Chikara does; I only wish they'd come back to LI.

What an awesome match. This is what happens when you just let talented workers do their thing. They absolutely take advantage of the size differences to put on a great match.

And yeah, awesome, awesome finish.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:49 AM on January 16, 2013

I'm sorry, but NOTHING BEATS EGYPTIAN HYPNOSIS that causes spontaneous breakdancing and stripping. Sure, it might be illegal, but that's okay.
posted by THAT William Mize at 8:21 AM on January 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

Is the Osirian Portal still around? I really dig me some ancient egyptian wrestlers!
posted by steambadger at 9:30 AM on January 16, 2013

They're not. Amasis had a pretty terrible injury in 2011 that ended his career. At the end of 2011 Ophidian turned on Amasis (during Amasis' retirement announcement) and Hieracon. Now Ophidian is aligned with The Batiri and Hieracon is gone completely.
posted by Lusy P Hur at 9:45 AM on January 16, 2013

A glorious match, as usual. The workrate of joshi wrestlers has consistently blown me away ever since I first saw Satomura's training in the GAEA Girls documentary years ago. There really should be an FPP about the remarkable phenomenon of Japanese female wrestling being among the very best in the world. It's great that Chikara are finally introducing these incredible athletes to the western fans.
posted by Kandarp Von Bontee at 10:18 AM on January 16, 2013

That double powerbomb looked painful.

And as always, the Chikara announcing team improves the entire match by a factor of three.
posted by ShutterBun at 3:26 PM on January 16, 2013