Heart Punch

Okay, here's how I'll do this here CHIKARA recap thing. I'll chop the first round from each night into two parts, then do the second round in a separate post. So there's 6 posts worth of new material from me. The world trembles. Not sure how night three will end up looking, because I haven't actually done it yet. Anyway... The Intro: If you're not familiar with CHIKARA Pro Wrestling , let me try to drop a bit of insight into your bland, colorless world. Based in PA, CHIKARA is one of the few wrestling companies out there that purposely looks to be family friendly. The matches are heavily lucha influenced, mixed with the more typical US indy style. You'll see lots of comedy spots as well. In the world of ultra-serious indy wrestling companies, CHIKARA has a sense of humor. Most of the regular CHIKARA crew are trainees of Mike Quackenbush and Chris Hero . This is night one of the World Tag Grand Prix. They decided to go balls out and hold the biggest tag team...

FOR : JBL putting the rematch clause in the contract. AGAINST : Long not actually honoring it. FOR : Orlando's tape job. FOR : Booker & Benoit's nod of recognition before jumping the heels. FOR : Benoit going right for the Crossface. FOR : Cole pointing out that this may not be the end of Orlando shenanigans tonight. FOR : The Anaconda Vise. FOR : Benoit's baseball slide. AGAINST : Orlando not breaking up the Spinarooni. FOR : Orlando breaking up the Scissors Kick run. FOR : Christian tagging in from the grapevine. FOR : Nick Patrick stopping Orlando's illegal switch. AGAINST : Benoit as cheerleader. FOR : Booker's heel kick taking Christian out of mid-air. FOR : Cole and Tazz wondering why Christian bailed on OJ. AGAINST : Giving Heidenreich a razor. Just on principle. FOR : Not overexposing these guys. AGAINST : I'm not sure Cruise is the right guy to be asking for spin advice these days. FOR : Wow, those are huge. AGAINST : What in the blue hell is THAT?...

What does that post title even mean? Hell if I know. What I *do* know is that Meltzer is reporting that WWE has resigned James "Jamie Noble, BOY!" Gibson and Brian "Spanky" Kendrick. Happy days are here again! Two phenomenal talents back where they belong, which is on my TV for free. I'd do the normal "WWE has finally realized that they need to push the cruisers!" song and dance routine, but I think we're all past that now, aren't we? That's more trite than rumors about ECW returning at this point. At any rate, London, Spanky & Gibson vs. Mexicools. Book it or I KEEL YOU ALL!

You know, until Kurt came along I was the second-best thing to come out of the Burgh. (Heinz ketchup.) We go from the sublime to the ridiculous like that. WHOA! And she's actually his friend from the first kiss last year. Well, time to wash down this crow with some Pepsi. Hero! Jackass! I bet Ska's laughing his ass off right now. Though you'd think of all the times to announce Kurt as being from Pittsburgh...holy CRAP. Kurt's WTF face RULES IT. Over/under on a Special Olympics joke: 9:14 next Monday. Damn, Mo's shrunk. Turning around and getting Kane would've been a better payoff. Lillian's heart is starting to mend. Why? Because Trish is nursing her back to health. Thus begins a 48 minute time period of which I don't recall being unconscious. Midgets = ratings. Gotta respect heels cheating against a midget. That was the funniest comedy spot in the post Edge & Christian era. If only they'd done a recharge the batteries joke. WHE...

PPV Heat? You know the drill. I only recap first run material, because I've already seen all of this and none of it is interesting enough to sit through again. Also, I'm lazy. Mostly that second reason. - Orlando Jordan promo. He has new tights. Unfortunately, they probably won't help his lame duck title reign. I like OJ, but his US Title reign has pretty much killed the belt for good. Fortunately for him, the belt has pretty much been dead since they brought it back anyway, so it's not all his fault. Anyway, the promo. Words, words, words...hey! It's Chris Benoit! He gets right up in Jordan's grill. OJ: "You got something to say?" Benoit proceeds to punch him right in the mouth, then smiles! Awesome. -Moments ago, Batista arrived and immediately starting laying down some mack moves on Candace. -Tomorrow on Raw: Battle of the Bands (this plus Diva Search means that I'll be watching Raw in under an hour for sure! Love that extraneous crap!). Also, ...

"Arab-American Wrestler Taken Off Show" STAMFORD, Conn. - A company that organizes wrestling entertainment has agreed to remove an Arab-American character from a popular television show after receiving hundreds of complaints about an episode that aired the day of the deadly London bombings. World Wrestling Entertainment said it would no longer feature Muhammad Hassan on its "SmackDown!" program, which draws more than 5 million viewers a week. Hassan will be featured Sunday on a pay-per view event. Beyond that, his future is uncertain. The WWE's Web site said the character "has taken a leave of absence from SmackDown." Wow. Who knew UPN -- UPN!?!?!?! -- would flip out over this sort of thing. The working plan for Smackdown over the past few weeks was to having Randy Orton cost the Undertaker his match against Muhammad Hassan at the Great American Bash PPV. This would then establish Batista vs. Muhammad Hassan for the World Title and The Undertaker vs. R...

FOR : JBL's "victory speech". Such wonderful hubris. FOR : Rey vs. Crazy! FOR : Rey being a little distracted and tentative. AGAINST : Crazy not really taking advantage of it. FOR : Eddie's arrival making things interesting. FOR : The match picking up. AGAINST : Tazz trying to grill Eddie for info. It's not gonna work. FOR : See? FOR : That step-up springboard moonsault Crazy does. FOR : Eddie attacking Rey to get an advantage. FOR : Eddie to win. FOR : The JBL-George Washington video. High comedy. FOR : "It's a secret." AGAINST : "Seacrest?" Damn, Christian. What'd Josh ever do to you? FOR : Animal's just as concerned about Heidenreich as the rest of us. AGAINST : The chances of these two guys already in the ring. FOR : That's the most impressive thing Heidenreich's ever done. FOR : Cole actually calling it the "Doomsday Device." FOR : MNM looking concerned, then confident again. FOR : MNM to retain. FOR : E...

Via Meltzer: Lord Al Hayes, an in-ring star in the 60s and 70s who was best known for his role as a television announcer for WWE in the 80s, passed away this morning. He was 77. Hayes had been in poor health for some time, slowed by ring injuries and eventually, contracting gangrene which caused amputation of part of his leg. He suffered a fall a few days ago in the Dallas area nursing home he was living in, which led to a series of strokes, which are believed to be the cause of death. I don't know what's worse about these posts...knowing that they come far too frequently, or just the idea that all of the people I grew up watching are leaving us. I don't know that I ever saw Hayes work, but I do know that the pure buffoonery of the Hayes/Sean Mooney announce team got me through many a boring mid 80s WWE match.

Since the TNA deal with Spike TV has been announced, let me just officially say that if it ends up in the Velocity timeslot (or any other timeslot that works for him, I guess), Johnny will likely end up doing it. If he can't do it, I will. Speaking of news shows that need to be recapped...does anyone have any interest in covering the new MMA shows that will start airing this fall (UFC on Spike and/or Pride on FSN)? Let me know if you're interested. I'm not too proud to admit that I'm far too clueless about the sport to even think about giving it a shot. With the WWE b-shows getting canned once they jump to USA this fall, I'm not really sure what the hell I'll be doing around here. Perhaps I'll *finally* get around to recapping all of the tapes I've accumulated. That was the entire point of the original site, after all. If nothing else, I can say that I've started working on the CHIKARA World Tag Grand Prix shows from February. I'm hoping to get N...

Handicap match. We all know he's going for a handicap match. Or a lumberjack match VS. the handicapped. I guess we're getting our IC Title match now? So, Carlito's getting DQed this week. The mans' crafty, yo. How 'bout the pop for Shelton. C'mon, Sideshow Bob chant...Flying Lariat Giveaway Night at Not The Spectrum. Wow, they all referenced the original incident right off. Good job. Damn, Carlito rules. Nice counter into the Tree--I think the first time I've seen a counter that way and also showing he learned from getting victimized last week. San Juan! Thank you, J.R., thank you. Cool Effect! Some...weird Flatliner looking deal! And there you go. How can you not love Carlito: he smiled right when the bell rang! Philly fans chanting "YOU SUCK!" That's new. Kurt must love TNT. Me & Kurt had the same reaction at the same time. Now that--that's cool! "Man, you lie a lot!" The fourth I: IRONY. It sends an a...

Wow. It's been quite a long time since I graced the world with a Heat recap. Somewhere along the line, this became my favorite show to recap. Maybe because it's only an hour long. Maybe because I like Raven, Stevie, Rhyno and a hundred other guys who aren't around anymore. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm a glutton for punishment... Victoria v. Talia - You know why Victoria is awesome? Not because she's the best (the only?) female wrestler left on the roster, but because she's secure enough in her womanhood to wear an airbrushed t-shirt. That's just ghetto. For the record, it tells us that she's a "widows peak freak." Coach likes freaks. Don't we all? Talia, on the other hand, works various northeast indies, notably 3PW (Meanie's company) and JAPW. She's most notable for the extremely ugly and unfortunate tattoo she has on her back. Not even a tramp stamp, which a person can get used to, but a big nasty tat that takes up half her back. Hey...

FOR: Well, that's not Rey's... oh, that's Eddie's wife and kids. Well, this was unexpected. FOR: The pop for Vicki grabbing the mic away from Eddie. AGAINST: Wait, does she know what it is? FOR: If you're gonna go down this road, you might as well go all the way down. FOR: Eddie's mood swings. FOR: Holly getting involved. Well, they're wrestling tonight. FOR: Super Crazy carrying a rake~~~ AGAINST: Oh, Paul. Scotty and Funaki? This is the best you could do for backup? FOR: Scotty superkicking Crazy into next week. FOR: The double running dropkick. AGAINST: It taking so long. AGAINST: Cole not knowing what "The Juice" means. FOR: The Mexicools using the numbers game to their advantage. AGAINST: No rake spot? Boo. FOR: Candice's top. FOR: Christian ripping off Brian Gleine's act. (Maybe three people will get that.) AGAINST: Josh's hair. FOR: Batista's suit. FOR: Batista's understated manner. FOR: Batista SMILING after his in...

Sexy! -So how about that Matt Hardy? From the shithouse to the penthouse in just a few short weeks. I haven't seen this much discussion about one guy for years. -The Rey/Eddie feud is awesome . I know when Eddie tells his bedtime story after he defeats Rey at GAB, it'll just make things better. Plus, wouldn't it be awesome for Vicki and the kids to turn on Rey? -If you're not reading DEAN RASMUSSEN'S SMACKDOWN COMIX~! (right after Matt's For/Against - hey Matt, where is it?) over at DVDVR then you're missing out on the best damn thing out there. OK, enough rambling. Onto the show. TV-PG V WWEntertainment! It's entertaining! EARLIER TONIGHT: JOSH "NOT TOUGH ENOUGH" MATTHEWS is standing by with the newest member of the click... FRANKIE KAZARIAN ! Hey I know that dude! And he gets to speak! "Well bro, my thoughts are, things HAVE to change around here. We need something new. We need the future of wrestling to take over. The future is now. N...

We're down to the final 3 tables of the big event, folks. The remainder of the tournament moves to Binion's Horseshoe Casino. Play is set to kick off for today in about 4 hours or so. Here's the complete list of players left, as well as their chip counts. 1. Mike Matusow (Las Vegas, NV) $5.14M 2. Phil Ivey (Las Vegas, NV) $4.635M 3. Steven Dannenmann (Severn, MD) $4.3M 4. Tex Barch (McKinney, TX) $3.9M 5. Greg "Fossil Man" Raymer (Stonington, CT) $3.84 6. Brad Koudrachi (Kingston, PA) $3.16M 7. Joseph Hachem (Melbourne, Australia) $3.125M 8. Scott Lazar (Studio City, CA) $3.025M 9. Michael Kessler (Spotsylvania, VA) $2.7M 10. Daniel Bergsdorf (Umea, Sweden) $2.55M 11. Andrew Black (Dublin, Ireland) $2.09M 12. Minh Ly (Las Vegas, NV) $2.050M 13. Aaron Kanter (Lodi) $1.925M 14. Tuan Vu (Las Vegas, NV) $1.87M 15. Tim Phan (Westminster) $1.575M 16. Oskar Silow (Goteborg, Sweden) $1.44M 17. Bryant King (Liberty Lake) $1.44M 18. Conor Tate (Bury, Ireland) $1.265M 19. Ti...

Only 58 players remain at this year's WSoP Main Event, and only one former World Champion remains among the field. I believe that today is the day that play moves from the Rio in Las Vegas to the traditional setting for the World Series, Binion's Horseshoe Casino. Not a whole lot else to add today. . .so, stolen directly from Tao of Poker (who got it from PokerWire), the complete list of players remaining. 1 Tim Phan $ 3,244,000 2 Mike Matusow $ 2,561,000 3 Farzad Bonyadi $ 2,402,000 4 Steve Dannenmann $ 2,143,000 5 Phil Ivey $ 2,027,000 6 Tex Barch $ 2,025,000 7 Tiffany Williamson $ 1,992,000 8 Johnny Howard $ 1,806,000 9 Scott Lazar $ 1,629,000 10 Tuan "Tommy" Vu $ 1,571,000 11 Bart Rice $ 1,414,000 12 Raymi Sanchesz Thorn $ 1,288,000 13 Lee Watkinson $ 1,221,000 14 Tom Sartori $ 1,208,000 15 Daniel Bergsdorf $ 1,144,000 16 Brad Kondracki $ 1,136,000 17 Minh Ly $ 1,102,000 18 Terry Burt $ 1,080,000 19 Steve Marx $ 1,042,000 20 Per Hildebrand $ 1,017,000 21 Michael ...

First off, a big shout-out to Christopher Hamlynn, aka "Trocar Slush Weasel" from the DVDVR message boards. He qualified for the main event online some months ago, and managed to make the money, busting out yesterday in 295th place when his flopped set of 9's was defeated by a flopped set of 10's (Flop came down T-9-3.) He managed to pick himself up $24,365 for his efforts. Anyway, back to those who are still left. . .and at the start of play today, there was a VERY familiar face at the top of the leaderboard. Last year's champion, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, currently sits on top of the heap with 185 players remaining going into today's action. Raymer is currently only one of two players that are currently over the $1 million chip mark ($1,064,000). The other is the man who was the chip leader after Day 2, Rodney Pardey, Jr ($1,041,000). Some other notable pros who are still on the board going into Day 4: 7) Phil Ivey - $722,500 31) Howard Lederer...

Where's Shelton's rematch? Thanks. How much longer can they keep him heel? October? DUELING HEELS~! HEEL, Jersey, the man's a heel now. "Yard sale of a set." OBSCENELY EXPENSIVE! He's right, you tubby bastards, tuck that shit in. "You don't dictate what's cool to me--I'm Canadian! " Sideshow Bob! oh ho ho ho ho ho ho SNAP. Johnny Carson, not Carson Daly. Cue Bischoff. OR...see, Chris, this would be the originator. Heh. Buckwheat. Chris Masters. Jennie Finch. Tough choice. Damn commercials. "I don't hate the player whatsoever." Mmm...Jennie Finch. Lovie Jung? Lovie Jung! You couldn't let Jessica White have a moment there? You know, booking Kane the same day as Natalie Portman? Not smart. He did look dapper, I must concur. It's going to be even funnier watching Matt/Chris Daniels given time to hit four stars while Edge gets subsumed by HHH's return, HBK, Carlito, and Angle. Nobody cares. ...

Via Meltz: Shinya Hashimoto passed away at approximately 9:30 a.m. Monday morning in Yokohama, Japan. His death is believed to have been due to a brain aneurism. He collapsed suddenly and was rushed to the hospital and is believed to have been dead on arrival. No other details are available at this moment. He was 40. Hashimoto, a many time IWGP champion and Hall of Famer, had, along with Hulk Hogan, headlined more successful huge live pro wrestling events than any wrestlers in the history of the business. He had been out of action for several months due to a shoulder injury and the collapse of the original Zero-One promotion. He was recovering from surgery in December. Rest in peace, HUSTLE King...

567 players remain in the race for the biggest first prize in poker history. As I mentioned in my last post, the top 560 players will all get paid. I'm sure there's going to be a little stalling when play kicks off here in about an hour and 15 minutes. There are some big names in the upper part of the leader board. The current overall chip leader is Ron Pardey, Jr. with a chip count of $464,000. The positions of some of the more notable names still remaining: 9) Greg "Fossilman" Raymer - $318,700 14) Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi - $294,800 41) "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan - $211,900 63) Layne Flack - $188,100 75) J.C. Tran - $175,800 83) Sam Farha - $173,600 122) Paul Darden - $144,000 130) John Juanda - $141,100 156) Howard Lederer - $127,800 172) Mike Matusow - $120,100 183) Mark Napolitano - $116,200 208) Dutch Boyd - $103,800 259) Phil Ivey - $89,600 338) Clonie Gowen - $64,400 342) Kiril Gerasimov - $63,700 Phil Hellmuth - Still out

To kick things off, here are the official payout numbers, provided by Tao of Poker . 5619 players Prize Pool: $52.8 Million 1st = $7,500,000 2nd = $4,250,000 3rd = $2,500,000 4th = $2,000,000 5th = $1,750,000 6th = $1,500,000 7th = $1,300,000 8th = $1,150,000 9th = $1,000,000 10-12 = $600,000 13-15 = $400,000 16-18 = $350,000 19-27 = $304,680 28-36 = $274,090 37-45 = $235,390 46-54 = $173,880 55-63 = $145,875 64-72 = $124,835 73-81 = $107,950 82-90 = $91,950 91-100 = $77,710 101-140 = $54,965 141-170 = $46,245 171-200 = $39,075 201-230 = $33,197 231-260 = $28,375 261-300 = $24,365 301-350 = $21,070 351-400 = $18,335 401-450 = $16,055 451-500 = $14,135 501-560 = $12,500 So yeah, if you make the final table, you're guaranteed at least $1 million. Not bad work if you can get it. The highlight from yesterday (or lowlight, depending on your perspective) was provided by none other than Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. About an hour into yesterday's play, Matusow dropped the dreade...

The second of the three "Day 1's" at this year's WSoP Main Event is in the books. For the record, I might have been off a bit concerning the overall number of participants in this year's Main Event. According to the folks at PokerWire , 1885 people started on Day 1a. At the end of the day, 663 of those 1885 people remained alive in the tournament. For Day 1b, which I'll get to momentarily, 1878 players began play on Friday morning, and when things wrapped up on Friday night there were 606 players left. Based on those numbers, we're looking at a total field of about 5600 players. . .a field that, by this time tomorrow, will have been whittled down to approximately 18-1900 or so. Apparently, PokerStars sent 1100+ players to the Main Event, or roughly 20% of the entire field. At $10,000 a piece, that means they spent approximately $11.5 million in entry fees alone . Not to mention that a lot of those guys are having their hotels paid for by PokerStars, and go...

Bloody hell, WWE actually released Jim Cornette, of all people. JIM CORNETTE! You know, one of the two or three greatest wrestling minds of the last 25 years, if not ever? JIM CORNETTE! You know, the guy who did his damndest to make sure that the next generation of WWE Superstars didn't totally suck, regardless of who the sacks of crap they sent him were? Ugh, what a stupid, nearsighted move. His loss will be pretty much any other company's gain. Too bad he hates Ian Rotten, because Corny being involved with IWA-MS would be a thing of beauty. Guess I'll be nice and throw up a photo credit for Wade Keller. Visit http://www.pwtorch.com for all your wrestling news needs. If Meltzer's site is down, at any rate. That was just needlessly cruel, wasn't it?

FOR: No opening credits so they can redo them after the BLOODLETTING. It's like they're clearing cap room. (And what are they gonna do with whatever they use it for? That cryptic enough yet not for you?) FOR: JBL's "Bret Hart/parking ticket" line. FOR: JBL referencing his title win at the last Great American Bash. FOR?: The bWo? AGAINST: I know what this is about and I honestly don't care. AGAINST: JBL/Meanie tonight? Somebody's getting fucked up. FOR: Booker vs. Benoit! FOR: That counter into the cross-armbreaker. FOR: Booker's blocks of the Crossface. FOR: Orlando watching Benoit win. AGAINST: Technically , Hassan, you were counted out. Didn't you hear Chimel go over the rules? FOR: Hassan/UT at the Bash, as I suspected. That means Orton's not quite ready to come back full-time yet. AGAINST: But for the No. 1 contendership? Putting the Orton point in mind, there's no compelling reason for either man to win. FOR: Eddie's kind of...