Anniversario?

Chikara: Anniversario?
American Legion Hall - Hellertown, PA

The Chikara Anniversary Show weekend is taking place this year across two shows.  The first show was earlier tonight in Hellertown, and the second is tomorrow at the old ECW Arena in Philadelphia.  We have tickets for both shows, and the first night did not disappoint.

Results:

• The Colony (Fire Ant and Soldier Ant) defeated The Olsen Twins (Colin Olsen and Jimmy Olsen)

• Brodie Lee defeated Equinox

• Shayne Hawke defeated Player Uno

• Worker Ant defeated Hydra

• "Marvelous" Mitch Ryder defeated Shane Storm

• El Pantera and Lince Dorado defeated The Kings Of Wrestling (Claudio Castagnoli and "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney)

• Chikara Young Lions Cup Match
  Max Boyer defeated Create-A-Wrestler

• Hallowicked defeated "The King Of Diamonds" Eddie Kingston

• Team FIST (Gran Akuma and Icarus) defeated Dragon Yuki and Kagrra

• "Lightning" Mike Quackenbush defeated Chris Hero

During intermission, a bunch of folks from the roster came out to the merch tables to meet with fans, sign autographs and take pictures, so of course I had to get a few nerdy photos with some of the wrestlers at tonight's show.

The Olsen Twins: Colin Olsen (left) and Jimmy Olsen (right)

Hallowicked

Worker Ant

Ultramantis Black (this dude is hilarious!)

Dragon Yuki

Kagrra

Icarus

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UPDATE: Quite a few wrestlers on this show went on to wrestle in WWE, AEW, ROH, TNA, or in another major promotion outside of the United States.  Here is a list of their current names and promotions (as of July 2020):

• Fire Ant wrestles as Orange Cassidy in AEW

• Soldier Ant wrestles as Drew Gulak in WWE (Smackdown brand)

• Colin Olsen wrestled as Colin Delaney in WWE (ECW brand) and in AEW

• Jimmy Olson has retired, but what I didn't realize is that he also wrestles under a mask as Equinox, so he wrestled in back-to-back matches on this show.

• Brodie Lee went on to wrestle as a member of Age Of The Fall in ROH.  He also wrestled in NXT and across both brands of WWE as Luke Harper (who was a member of The Wyatt Family and The Bludgeon Brothers).  Presently, he is signed to AEW where he wrestles as the leader of The Dark Order, Mr. Brodie Lee.

• Player Uno wrestles in AEW as Evil Uno, and is also a member of The Dark Order

• "Marvelous" Mitch Ryder wrestled across the independent scene since this show.  He hasn't signed with WWE, AEW or ROH, but he did wrestle as enhancement talent for WCW in the early 90's as Mitch Bell.

• Shane Storm continued to wrestle for indie promotions, including Chikara and CZW, under the names Shane Storm and Stigma.

• El Pantera has wrestled all over the world since 1985 and continues to wrestle to this day at 56 years old.  He wrestled for the WWF in the late 90's, and appeared in the 1998 No Way Out pay-per-view in a match against Taka Michinoku for the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship.

• Lince Dorado wrestles in WWE as a singles wrestler in the Cruiserweight Division on Raw and 205 Live, and in the tag team division as a member of Lucha House Party.

• Claudio Castagnoli wrestles as Cesaro in WWE for both Raw and Smackdown

• "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney died on April 11th, 2011.  He was only 30 years old.  I met him on several occasions and he was an extremely kind and talented man.

• Create-A-Wrestler has wrestled under many different names in Chikara and elsewhere, including Dasher Hatfield, Avery Good (as in "A Very Good Professional Wrestler"), Moscow the Communst Bovine, and Ultimo Breakfast.

• Eddie Kingston has wrestled across the indies and internationally for many years.  He has worked for ROH and TNA, and has just signed with AEW in July 2020.

• Chris Hero has signed with WWE on two separate occasions and wrestled as Kassius Ohno for NXT and NXT UK.

One last wrestler from this show that I feel like I have to mention is Kagrra, because he is an absolute mystery to me.  First of all, I know that he's not a figment of my imagination.  I watched him wrestle at the "Anniversario?" and "Anniversario!" shows on May 26th and 27th, 2007.  He's on the DVD release of the show.  Hell, I met the man during intermission of the Hellertown show and he took a photo with me.

I also know that Kagrra was visiting the United States from a promotion called Pro Wrestling Kageki that is based in Fukuoka, Japan.  I was able to find a lot of information about many wrestlers that worked in this company, including Dragon Yuki, who is also on both of these shows.  He was in a tag team match alongside Kagrra on the 26th and he wrestled against him on the 27th, so I know this isn't a situation like Jimmy Olsen wrestling in a tag team match, only to come right back out for the very next match under a mask and calling himself Equinox.

When I researched all of the wrestlers from this show to see what they're doing today, I found a lot of information for all of them... except Kagrra.  In fact, the only time I saw his name mentioned at all was in references to these two shows.  The Internet Wrestling Database has a profile for him, but the only matches that are listed are the May 26th and 27th, 2007 shows from the Chikara anniversary weekend.  So, I'm guessing that either one of two things happened:  either Kagrra changed his gimmick and no one ever thought to associate his new character with the one he used in Chikara, or he spent all that time training in Japan only to wrestle two matches in Pennsylvania and then retire from the business forever.  The first option seems more likely, but it's been over 13 years since this show.  You'd think that there would be someone out there who would have added a footnote that said "Hey, Wrestler X once went by the name Kagrra on a tour of the United States".  If I ever find out the answer, I'll add a second update to this post.  If you're reading this and you know who this dude is, by all means, please reach out to me on Twitter and let me know.