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| The near-decimation of FIST... foreshadowing? Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
I don't know if you've noticed, but with the exception of the Spectral Envoy and the Batiri, the traditional alliances within Chikara are falling apart at the seams. The Colony is fractured and divided. The Throwbacks are without Sugar Dunkerton, and even they aren't seeing eye to eye as much as they'd like. Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw have seemingly irreparably split, with Jigsaw taking refuge with the mirror who came in last year in part to expose his own seedy underbelly. The Osirian Portal was the second of these entities to show discord, and now, Amasis has returned for revenge. The first entity to splinter? That would be Team FIST, who kicked off the proceedings innocuously enough by booting Gran Akuma in favor of Johnny Gargano all the way back in 2010. What they started has now come raging back into their camp as the stable has seemingly imploded right before our eyes this weekend down South.
As battle lines are being drawn in the most schismatic of places, it feels like disorder is inevitable. Chikara has long been built upon its alliances, and no event has typefied that structure more than the greatest yearly wrestling event on the calendar, bar none, King of Trios. However, if there are no trios left standing, can there even be a tournament? Well sure, as long as the newly liberated men and women actually co-mingle and find new partners to take up arms with. However, there exists a real possibility that the strife taking place within the company now is all-encompassing, and that no one will end up wanting to team with anyone else voluntarily. What happens when everything's broken, and the pieces that remain don't want to be combined with any of the shards (pun not intended) that have fallen from the other vases? Well, that's when you break out the super glue of conscription.
The Lethal Lottery concept, or - for those who aren't aware of it - the random pairing of tag teams from a pool of singles competitors, has been utilized by Chikara before. In the fall of 2008, they conducted a tag team tournament called La Loteria Letal (The Lethal Lottery translated into Spanish, of course), which was won by Jimmy Olsen and Lince Dorado. Curiously enough, from those random alliances that met in the finals of the tourney came the bases for two trios going forward: The Future Is Now (Olsen as Equinox, Dorado, and Helios) and the UnStable (Colin Delaney and Vin Gerard as the team that lost in the finals, coupled with STIGMA). So, we have a crumbling roster and a company that has gone to the random draw well before in play here.
Furthermore, this year will be the first time since 2008 that Chikara will have more than one tag-style tournament on its calendar year. They're bringing back Tag World Grand Prix, as I've been previewing the last few weeks with the team announcements. In '08, they had King of Trios, Tag World Grand Prix, and La Loteria Letal. Obviously LLL and TWGP were separate entities, but with the return of TWGP this year as fulfilling their quota for both a two-person tag team tourney and one where stable teams are entering, I can almost see the company inserting chaos into the three-person team tournament in a big way.
So, with the continued disintegration of the familial bonds within Chikara accelerating and the fact that we have a tournament this year dedicated to teams that have been together and have bonds that aren't being rent asunder by jealousy, anger, hate, or Wink Vavasseur's machinations, I posit this projection; King of Trios will be in Lethal Lottery format this year. It's not a prediction that I think is based in evidence. They could very well go with the already-drawn-up teams with a different kind of super glue holding them together (read, decree of Vavasseur), or they could draw up new trios without the use of Bryce's lucky hat. But if any promotion out there has a flair for the dramatic, it's Chikara.
From a booking standpoint, it makes sense. The entire roster gets opened up to participate in King of Trios. Last year, names such as Tim Donst, Eddie Kingston, and Saturyne were left out in the cold because they didn't belong to trios. There were other ways of getting them action for the weekend, sure, but even more than the Grand Championship, King of Trios is the biggest deal in the company. Second, it might open up the guest star pool a bit in that they wouldn't need to have prepackaged trios put together to join the fray.
I don't think I should need to verbalize too much how exciting it would be for the fans. The random draw always feels so fresh and exciting, even when the team size is two per unit. Imagine when that set gets opened up to three. Throw that in with Vavasseurian meddling that might get certain teams in the fray intact like, I don't know, the Colony X-Treme Force, and you've got yourself almost unlimited possibilities.
If a Lethal Lottery trios tournament is the way they go, then it could very well be the best tournament they ever do. If I'm wrong and they don't though, I still get the feeling Trios this year will be special if just to fit in the general theme of disorder and discord that they've engendered for themselves. All in all, Chikara is treading into some interesting territory this year. Whatever the endgame is, I get the feeling it's going to be epic in scale. IN that vein though, I'm not sure anything would feel as big as taking 48 wrestlers and throwing them into one hat for the craziest King of Trios ever seen.
As battle lines are being drawn in the most schismatic of places, it feels like disorder is inevitable. Chikara has long been built upon its alliances, and no event has typefied that structure more than the greatest yearly wrestling event on the calendar, bar none, King of Trios. However, if there are no trios left standing, can there even be a tournament? Well sure, as long as the newly liberated men and women actually co-mingle and find new partners to take up arms with. However, there exists a real possibility that the strife taking place within the company now is all-encompassing, and that no one will end up wanting to team with anyone else voluntarily. What happens when everything's broken, and the pieces that remain don't want to be combined with any of the shards (pun not intended) that have fallen from the other vases? Well, that's when you break out the super glue of conscription.
The Lethal Lottery concept, or - for those who aren't aware of it - the random pairing of tag teams from a pool of singles competitors, has been utilized by Chikara before. In the fall of 2008, they conducted a tag team tournament called La Loteria Letal (The Lethal Lottery translated into Spanish, of course), which was won by Jimmy Olsen and Lince Dorado. Curiously enough, from those random alliances that met in the finals of the tourney came the bases for two trios going forward: The Future Is Now (Olsen as Equinox, Dorado, and Helios) and the UnStable (Colin Delaney and Vin Gerard as the team that lost in the finals, coupled with STIGMA). So, we have a crumbling roster and a company that has gone to the random draw well before in play here.
Furthermore, this year will be the first time since 2008 that Chikara will have more than one tag-style tournament on its calendar year. They're bringing back Tag World Grand Prix, as I've been previewing the last few weeks with the team announcements. In '08, they had King of Trios, Tag World Grand Prix, and La Loteria Letal. Obviously LLL and TWGP were separate entities, but with the return of TWGP this year as fulfilling their quota for both a two-person tag team tourney and one where stable teams are entering, I can almost see the company inserting chaos into the three-person team tournament in a big way.
So, with the continued disintegration of the familial bonds within Chikara accelerating and the fact that we have a tournament this year dedicated to teams that have been together and have bonds that aren't being rent asunder by jealousy, anger, hate, or Wink Vavasseur's machinations, I posit this projection; King of Trios will be in Lethal Lottery format this year. It's not a prediction that I think is based in evidence. They could very well go with the already-drawn-up teams with a different kind of super glue holding them together (read, decree of Vavasseur), or they could draw up new trios without the use of Bryce's lucky hat. But if any promotion out there has a flair for the dramatic, it's Chikara.
From a booking standpoint, it makes sense. The entire roster gets opened up to participate in King of Trios. Last year, names such as Tim Donst, Eddie Kingston, and Saturyne were left out in the cold because they didn't belong to trios. There were other ways of getting them action for the weekend, sure, but even more than the Grand Championship, King of Trios is the biggest deal in the company. Second, it might open up the guest star pool a bit in that they wouldn't need to have prepackaged trios put together to join the fray.
I don't think I should need to verbalize too much how exciting it would be for the fans. The random draw always feels so fresh and exciting, even when the team size is two per unit. Imagine when that set gets opened up to three. Throw that in with Vavasseurian meddling that might get certain teams in the fray intact like, I don't know, the Colony X-Treme Force, and you've got yourself almost unlimited possibilities.
If a Lethal Lottery trios tournament is the way they go, then it could very well be the best tournament they ever do. If I'm wrong and they don't though, I still get the feeling Trios this year will be special if just to fit in the general theme of disorder and discord that they've engendered for themselves. All in all, Chikara is treading into some interesting territory this year. Whatever the endgame is, I get the feeling it's going to be epic in scale. IN that vein though, I'm not sure anything would feel as big as taking 48 wrestlers and throwing them into one hat for the craziest King of Trios ever seen.