In my last installment of this periodic series, I re-booked a Wrestlemania match between Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar. I've debated since then about what my next installment should be about. Re-book a specific match, or a gimmick concept, or even expound on how I would change up the pay-per-view structure.
I've re-thought things a bit, and this idea just came to mind. One of my favorite indie wrestling companies is Chikara Pro, based out of Philadelphia. What makes Chikara unique is its approach to long-term storytelling, very unlike most other wrestling companies. Not everyone agrees with some of the storytelling decisions that are made, and I'll admit to being one of them.
Today, I'll be taking a look at Eddie Kingston vs Tim Donst from Chikara's 2012 season finale, and its aftermath.
How It Originally Happened:
Tim Donst and Eddie Kingston were no strangers to one another. Very early in
Donst's Chikara career, he had an infamous match against Kingston, in
which Kingston absolutely brutalized him. It helped make Donst known,
since he survived the match, and is still held up today as one of the
most one-sided beatdowns in Chikara history. They'd clashed a few times
since then, but the "Under the Hood" match was for much higher stakes.
Eddie Kingston had won the Chikara Grand Championship after winning the "12 Large: Summit" tournament a year previously, at "High Noon," that year's season finale. Kingston was a tecnico (face) champion for much of 2012, defending the title against all comers, especially as Kingston's attitude rubbed Chikara's Director of Fun (authority figure) Wink Vavasseur the wrong way. Kingston had long been a rudo (heel), for his hard-hitting style and his enjoyment of beating up the tecnicos, but had turned face during the preceding two years during Chikara's internal war with the BDK stable.
Tim Donst had been an All-American tecnico for most of his Chikara career, until turning rudo and joining the BDK, becoming an egotistical rudo. Following the BDK's break-up, Donst had a hanger-on, in former BDK ring announcer-turned-wrestler Jakob Hammermeier, who was a suck-up crony to Donst, who could be quite abusive to Jakob, who nevertheless remained loyal to him.
Things got worse after Donst was on the losing end of a Mask-vs-Hair Match against Hallowicked, triggering a darker edge to Donst's character. His abuse of Jakob got worse. He was sullen and angry. He attacked Kingston during King of Trios 2012 weekend, cutting a bitter promo on Kingston. He cited their first encounter, and how it had left him bruised and beaten, and talked about how professional wrestling was screwed up, citing how forensics could catch criminals years later and lying politicians could be kicked out of office. "Karma doesn't exist," he declared, "because if it did, I'd still have my hair, and you wouldn't have [the Grand Championship]." He made it plain he was coming for the championship, and after winning the Torneo Cibernetico in November, he got his opportunity.
In the match itself, Donst was able to stand toe-to-toe with Kingston, giving as good as he got in terms of striking (and Kingston was frequently cited as one of the hardest strikers in Chikara) and taking advantage of Kingston's lingering injuries from his long title reign. He even baited him, spitting in his face and daring Kingston to "show these people what kind of monster you really are." Donst threw the referee into the line of fire, causing Kingston to miss a pinfall, then forced a reluctant Jakob to get him a loaded bag of tools to hit Kingston with. When the ref was revived, however, it only got Donst a two-count, and he furiously blamed Jakob for his hesitation. This distraction allowed Kingston to recover and hit a final flurry of finishers to win and retain the championship.
After the match, Kingston continued to attack Donst, prompting Jakob to leap on Kingston's back to save his "BFF." Kingston easily threw him off, and Jakob pleaded for Donst to come save him. Instead, Donst left him to the wolves, and a bemused Kingston let Jakob scurry off.
Following the loss, Donst's sullen anger got deeper as his character slid further into depression. Many fans compared the Donst of the next few months to Raven, as he had much in common with the ECW character, and like Raven, Donst drew the freaks and outcasts of Chikara to himself-- a shunned Veronica and the easily-misled Steve the Turtle Weiner. Donst would ramp up his abuse of Jakob even more, including humiliating him by giving him a badly shaved head and torn ring gear. Eventually, Donst started bullying ring announcer Gavin Loudspeaker when Gavin tried to convince Jakob to walk away from Donst. And finally at "Aniversario: Never Compromise," Donst faced Gavin in a Hair-vs-Hair match, which saw Jakob finally break his metaphorical chains and render Donst unconscious with a knock-out punch. Chikara went on hiatus after the event, and when it returned a year later, Donst was no longer a part of the company.
As for Kingston, his defeat of Donst led to more fans starting to turn on him as champion. He was getting increasingly more rudo reactions from fans, and his continued disrespect to Wink Vavasseur led to the director forcing him to defend the championship at every show. When the hiatus came up, and the "Ashes of Chikara" storyline began in the interim, Kingston was shown to still possess the championship, which he referred to as "Her" and steadfastly refused to give "Her" up, or even to come to the defense of the beleaguered remnants of Chikara.
Tim Donst's last appearance in "The Ashes of Chikara" saw him under medication, and eerily cheerful in his new role as the manager of a furniture store. Icarus came to him for help, but Donst turned him down. He did, however, give Icarus his old Young Lions Cup trophy and asked him to give it to Jakob if he saw him, the closest thing to an apology that Donst would ever give.
The Re-Booking:
I would primarily leave the lead-up to the "Under the Hood" match the same as it is. Donst's loss to Hallowicked and the marked change it caused in Donst's character would stay as-is. It was some of Donst's best character work and promo ability. In departure of my usual rules for Re-Booking Wrestling, I'm changing the outcome of the match.
The match happens largely as it originally does. Donst exchanging strikes with Kingston, talking trash and baiting him. Jakob gets abused, and is still reluctant to help Donst cheat in the home-stretch. Kingston kicks out of the loaded bag hit, but Donst doesn't waste as much time yelling at Jakob for it. Instead, he takes advantage and lays out Kingston with a Sliding D elbow strike and wins the Grand Championship.
The immediate aftermath is much the same-- Kingston gets back up and goes after Donst, with Jakob leaping in to save him. And much like in the original, Donst walks out and leaves Jakob to fend for himself, and Kingston lets the poor abused Jakob leave.
It's what follows that that sets things different. Kingston is a man possessed with trying to win "Her" back, getting more savage and violent. He demands his rematch with Donst, but due to his disrespect to Wink Vavasseur, the director isn't interested in giving him one, and benches him after one too many aggressive altercations with the "War King."
As for Donst, we get a post-season vignette about what happened to him. One would expect that getting the championship would elicit a more cheerful disposition from him, but Donst looks even more sullen and depressed than before. Much like the "Jimmy Loves Lacey" angle in ROH, Donst has not found the fulfillment he was looking for in winning the thing he wanted most. Donst had felt hollow inside, but winning the Grand Championship did not fill the void like it had with Kingston.
Thus, we still get Donst sinking into his depressive state, even more disillusioned than before, and still draws his own "Nest" to him. The abuse of Jakob continues, and Donst defends the championship not out of any desire to retain it, but out of spite-- "I don't care about keeping it, I just want you to not have it," essentially. This continues up through "Aniversario: Never Compromise," where it is Donst who defends the Grand Championship against Icarus, rather than Kingston. And the match there ends the same way-- with Condor Security breaking up the match and throwing everyone out of the venue before the company shuts down.
There would be some necessary changes to "The Ashes of Chikara." Kingston's refusal to help Icarus would remain the same, though he wouldn't have "Her" with him. And there would be no visit to Donst at the furniture store, either.
The return of Chikara at "You Only Live Twice" would see Tim Donst return to defend the Grand Championship against Icarus, and then lose it to him. This would spell the end to Donst's Chikara run, as he would leave Chikara and work elsewhere (such as for AIW). Kingston would be reinstated, and would be trying to get wins to earn points for Grand Championship contention, but his own violent actions would get him disqualified on a couple of occasions. And his desperation would lead to The Flood's leader, Jimmy Jacobs, reaching out to Kingston much as he did in the "prime timeline." And thus the order of things as they were in the "prime timeline" would continue from there.
Why the Change in Re-Booking?
As I noted above, I broke my own rules here-- I changed the outcome of the match-- but I did this here because I felt there were some other storytelling opportunities that could have been explored with a Tim Donst win. I was also one of those people who felt that Kingston's title reign had gone on too long by that point, and perhaps there was a little bit of my drive to "fix" things.
Chikara is also uniquely suited to this sort of "what if" booking. They take unconventional approaches to their storytelling-- like shutting down the company for a year as part of a wider story arc-- and that's especially true right now. 2017 was supposed to be the start of Season 17, but after the first show of 2017, it was announced that it was actually the start of Season 18, and there was an entire "secret season" that Chikara would be periodically releasing on their Chikaratopia streaming service for binge-watching.
I recently saw a post on Chikara's 101 forums speculating on the possibility of a "season from an alternate universe," with lots of what-if scenarios, and that resonated with me to an extent.
Your thoughts?
Liked my re-booking of this match? Let me know in the comments, or you can reach me on the Twitter machine or let me know on Facebook.
Have a match you'd like to see me re-book? Let me know, and I'll do my best. I will generally adhere to my ground rules unless I can see a way to tell a good story in a short-term before how things actually turn out can re-assert themselves. My general ground rules are as follows: (1) Try not to change the winner. (2) No additions to the match or changes of stipulation. (3) Fine-tune the build-up and aftermath to tell a better story.
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