Heidi Lovelace vs. Missle (!) Assault (!) Ant (!) Set for the Chikara Finale

Missile! Assault! Ant! for Young? Lions? Cup? Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

For those who don't know, I attended Wrestling Is Fun!'s Young Lions Cup Night Two this past weekend (got a bit too busy to write the report, but one may still be forthcoming). The show packed an efficient punch of wrestling action in not a whole lot of time. Chikara and its subsidiary promotions have gotten really good over the last few years of producing quality without allowing all the matches drag on forever and ever like some other marquee promotions. Anyway, long story short, Heidi Lovelace, as I expected, came out of the fray as the winner and the second finalist for the 11th annual Young Lions Cup tournament. Her opponent was decided last month in Haverhill, MA. The cocksure Twitter cult hero Missile Assault Ant won the first semifinal eliminator, setting up a showdown of good against evil, woman vs. man, spunky rising star from the Midwest taking on the Hodor of The Flood.

The bigger news coming out of Lovelace's win, however, was that said final match will be taking place at the 2300 Arena (formerly ECW Arena) on Decmeber 6 for Chikara's season finale, Tomorrow Never Dies. This match is the first to be officially slated for the finale. I imagine the rest of the card won't take shape until after the New England doubleshot later on this month, but having a bigtime title match scheduled for the show is a strong positive, especially one of this caliber. Missile Assault Ant has broken out as maybe the best wrestler within the Colony: X-Treme Force, and Lovelace has made bones all around the Midwest. In Chikara-lore, she holds a victory over Eddie Kingston at a Wrestling Is Heart event way back in the summer of 2013. Basically, while this match won't be the main event, it could be a solid, sub-main that gets the crowd all worked up right before intermission.

Lovelace's inclusion in the final also brings another thread from National Pro Wrestling Day full circle. She had Joe Pittman locked in the Chikara Special with La Copa Idolo (Wrestling Is Heart's grandest prize before its closure) in her sights when The Flood interrupted the match, closed the offshoot promotion, and made its intentions to kill the last bit of Chikara left alive known. Even though she's been distant from the action for the most part, her use of the Special signifies that she is just as much a part of the fight for the company's soul as those who have been around the whole time. The Flood hurt her too, and now, she's out to make them pay.

In other news, Danny Cannon, who was the wrestler I was most looking forward to seeing live, no-showed the event. He was replaced by Lovelace's fellow School of Roc graduate Tripp Cassidy. No official reasoning was given for Cannon's no-show, but my guess it had something to do with his flight, based off this tweet:

My journey ended at Indianapolis Airport this morning. My spirit is broken and I am returning home. I'm so sorry, my friends.
— danny cannon (@dannycannonfire) November 1, 2014

I do know that winter storms were brewing across the Midwest this weekend, but I'm not sure whether his flight was directly cancelled because of wintry conditions. Regardless of the reason, Cannon missing the show was a bummer. Hopefully, he'll get another shot to work for Chikara in the future though.