Chikara "Caught In A Cauldren Of Hate"

Claudio Castagnoli vs Dasher Hatfield

Mediocre extended squash. The crowd was pretty hot for Dasher, but a lot of Claudio's offence was choking and sleeper holds. Went way too long and dragged a lot near the end.

Brodie Lee vs Sugar Dunkerton

I was taken aback at how good this was. The angle leading up to this was Brodie powerbombing Sugar onto steps the last show, so Sugar was super fired up and out for revenge. I have never seen him before, but he looked like one of the better Chikara guys and his chops and punches were all pretty solid. Brodie was really great at working as a big man, barely even acknowledging Sugar's offence early on and beating the tar out of him. Sugar catches Brodie off-gaurd and starts going to town on working his leg over, slamming it into the post, punching and chopping at it and going for submissions (including one nifty looking Indian Deathlock). Brodie sells it tremendously, even falling out of the ring as he got to his feet at one point, and makes Sugar look like a star by the time the match is over. Shockingly good match.

Eddie Kingston vs Johnny Gargano

Pretty sweet carryjob from Eddie. Most of the early parts were simple holds like headlocks and wristlocks, but they actually made them feel like a struggle. Gargano started working over Kingston's hand, and Kingston's selling of it was pretty excellent and made the match. Gargano isn't anything great, but is atleast better than other FIST members. The crowd were pretty insufferable during this though, to the point where I thought they may have been purposely trolling (chanting "wristlock!" was particularly awful).

Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw vs The Batiri (2/3 Falls)

Maybe it's because I'm in a good mood but I also thought this was suprisingly good, if not quite as good as Brodie/Sugar. The Batiri are a little green, but most of their offence looked good and they hit their stuff really well. They main thing that impressed me about them was how well they worked as a team, busting out plenty of cool double-teams and really feeling like a pack of wolves all over their opponents. Most of the match was built around Jigsaw selling a leg injury, which is pretty much what Jigsaw is best at doing, so they managed to keep it dramatic throughout. Throw in some well done nearfalls (without going overboard) and Quack and Jig making their opponents look real good, and I thought this was a pretty good match.

Best Of 2011