Earlier this month, CHIKARA wrapped up their very successful 14th season. This year the very comic book influenced wrestling company was a war zone. If you haven’t been keeping up with CHIKARA, let me quickly recap for you the overarching plot of this season: After being shut down by their enemies, CHIKARA was resurrected on National Pro Wrestling Day in February. Icarus rallied the troops and led CHIKARA to war against a group called the Flood. Under the leadership of the monstrous Deucalion, the Flood was a grouping of all of CHIKARA’s past enemies, united in their hate of the company. The war wasn’t just an intense fight. Wrestlers lost their lives at the hand of Deucalion and his chokebreaker. The battle intensified as the months wore on and eventually led up to the final event of the year; Tomorrow Never Dies. There, CHIKARA Grand Champion, Icarus met Deucalion in a steel cage and vanquished the monster, once and for all.

Today I’m talking with CHIKARA founder and current Director of Fun Mike Quackenbush and we’re taking a look back at the past year for the company. This interview was conducted over a series of emails.

PoP!: Do you feel like the huge return of CHIKARA in season 14 validated the very unprecedented way that season 13 was handled with The Ashes of CHIKARA?

Mike Quackenbush: The turn-out for our May event certainly felt validating. Just seeing the views on YouTube climbing and climbing as the Ashes web series gradually rolled out felt validating. By the time the full movie was released, the series had about half a million views. Clearly, people wanted to see what came next. It was a very extreme experiment, and while there is always the desire to nitpick things in hindsight, overall, it has been satisfying. We’ve broken a number of company records this year, and we’re building a stronger CHIKARA for the seasons to come.

PoP!: CHIKARA went in a darker direction than ever before in season 14. What was the driving force behind that?

MQ: Stories take on a life of their own. J.M. DeMatteis discusses this idea at length in the foreword to Kraven’s Last Hunt. If you ask questions like, “what happens if the bad guys can’t be stopped?” “What happens when a wrestling company dies?” “What happens when all the biggest threats get organized and become an omni-threat?” “What happens when the assumed puppet-masters are revealed to just be someone else’s puppets?” …all of that starts to point you into darker territory. We’ve never shied away from darker material, despite the fact that we work tirelessly to deliver performances acceptable for all ages.

Pro-wrestling, as a storytelling medium, tends to tell and re-tell the same stories again and again. But asking questions like those above move things into new territory for the medium. That is very exciting. That is worthy of exploration. And those stories deserve the time to be told, and told right. The story takes on a life of its own, and in this case, goes places, touches on emotions, and explores ideas that I happen to think pro-wrestling has never previously engaged.

PoP!: Personally, I saw the brutality of Deucalion and his killings as a reaction to the increasingly violent state of superhero comics. Would you say that is a fair reading of the story?

MQ: Pro-wrestling, in my mind, is art. And art is subjective. What you take from it, what you see in it, is entirely valid. Your experience is entirely valid. If that is what it reflects to you, rest assured, you are correct.

PoP!: Was there a worry that delving into this darker territory would alienate current fans?

MQ: Absolutely. It was incomparably risky. These last 2 or 3 years have been steeped in risk for us all.

PoP!: When you look at the CHIKARA/Flood war start to finish, do you see things laid out in a three act structure or is it something different entirely?

MQ: Reflecting on it, yes, you can see that structure there. With that in mind, you could say that Seasons 12, 13 and 14 tell one, overarching story.

PoP!: Eddie Kingston effectively turned the tide of the war twice; once when he joined the Flood and then again when he defected to the CHIKARA side. What is it about Eddie that makes him such a cornerstone in CHIKARA?

MQ: When Eddie goes on a journey, you go with him. It runs deeper than his historical significance as our first Grand Champion. He is a Gen 1 original at CHIKARA, and he wears his passion on his sleeve. To understand his influence, you only need to watch this:

PoP!: Now that Deucalion has been vanquished (though a part of me wonders if we could see him return one day), is the Flood broken apart or do they still pose a threat?

MQ: Well, I guess that remains to be seen.

PoP!: Speaking of Deucalion’s demise, I saw several fans online criticizing Icarus’ decision to use ThunderFrog’s hammer to kill the monster. Do you think that Icarus went too far or was this a consequence of war?

MQ: I don’t know how others may choose to interpret the final scenes at Tomorrow Never Dies. I saw Icarus vanquish Deucalion rather authoritatively, last striking him with the Hammer of Peace. I do not think he went too far. Every viewer is entitled to their opinion, though.

PoP!: What went into the decision to give the shows in season 14 the Bond movie theme?

MQ: Each season has its titular theme. We’ve had seasons named for 80’s cartoons, or strings of shows named for Talking Heads albums. There is always a bit of thematic relevance between our universe and the allusions we are making. The Bond theme really presented itself because the bookends of You Only Live Twice and Tomorrow Never Dies seemed particularly fitting given the story of Season 14.

PoP!: With season 14 officially kicking off at the end of May did you guys feel rushed at all or pressure to pack a year’s worth of action into a little over six months?

MQ: The shorter season was in some ways, a relief. There may be shorter seasons going forward as a result, actually. To contrast against the WWE, where the narrative is essentially infinite, I find that exhausting as a viewer. A point I make a lot, when advocating for the kind of stories and characters I like best, is about the character Kane. That character had a shelf-life of about 2 or 3 years. The character should have had a very finite lifespan. Sometimes the tighter timetable allows greater focus, whereas a looser timetable allows for focus to be lost, and regained, and ignored, and then found again, et cetera.

PoP!: That’s a really interesting point about Kane. The character has gone through so much over the years and, outside of his pyro and music, barely resembles the original Kane. Do you think characters like Kane stick around past their expiration date because of the infinite narrative of WWE storytelling or is it because of a worry that the performers behind the characters won’t be able to find the same success with a new character?

MQ: I think a variety of things probably contribute to that, and please bear in mind I have no first-hand knowledge about any creative decisions regarding the Kane character whatsoever. Absolutely zero. I feel like part of what allows characters like that to stick around well past their expiration date is the fear that the character to take its place will not be as over with the audience. So they will, in effect, downgrade by rotating the character out. The character gets a certain reaction at a certain level, and there is most likely a concern over gambling with that for a potentially smaller return. So even though he’s stale, he stays on the table, just in case the next one coming up isn’t all that fresh in the first place.

PoP!: How have the additions of the Wrestling Is… satellite companies over the past couple of years changed the planning of CHIKARA shows and their schedule?

MQ: The Wrestling Is companies – Cool, Heart, Intense, Awesome, Respect, Art and Fun! – served a rather essential function: they were the lifeboats into which the CHIKARA roster were loaded when CHIKARA proper fell. For a decent-sized chunk of our most recent arc, they were the entire schedule, as CHIKARA ceased to be.

PoP!: A lot of wrestlers had great years in CHIKARA in 2014. Who really caught your eye by having a great 2014 in the company?

MQ: I think you would be hard-pressed to argue the point that the two wrestlers to “breakout” the most in Season 14 were Juan Francisco de Coronado and Ashley Remington. They walked on the stage back on May 25 as relative unknowns, and in next to no time, commanded the audience’s attention. That is no easy feat.

PoP!: I completely agree with you on de Coronado and Remington. There are very few wrestlers that make me smile as much as Ashley Remington does and both men have a gorgeous German suplex.

The ending of night two of King of Trios really sticks out in my mind as one of the most memorable moments of the year. The unmasking of Deucalion and then the killings of Equinox and Create-A-Wrestler were so intense. That moment was a prime example that CHIKARA offers a product that is completely different from any other wrestling company. I’ve told so many people about the closing of that show, whether they care about wrestling or not, because it was one of the most dramatic and impactful things I had seen in any bit of entertainment all year. What moments from 2014 stick out as being the most memorable to you?

MQ: Wow, there is a lot to consider. The DeLorean rolling up to save the day at National Pro Wrestling Day. The red carpet premiere for The Ashes of CHIKARA is one of the most surreal things I’ve ever been part of. About 25 minutes before belltime at You Only Live Twice, the Palmer Township police came into the venue for our event and wanted to know what’s causing traffic jams in all the surrounding areas. The answer: the CHIKARMY is out in force like never before. And seeing that sea of humanity packed into the Palmer Center that night is a memory that will stay with me forever. I could go on and on. It’s been a crazy ride, to say the least. Really big moments, small intimate moments. All of it. It would be impossible to name just one.

PoP!: Any final thoughts on season 14 that you wanted to share?

MQ: The last three seasons of CHIKARA have been as out-of-the-box as I think pro-wrestling gets. It has been an arduous road, rife with greater challenges than we ever anticipated when we set out on that course. But like we always do – we overcome. And we have triumphed. And I am certain I speak for all of us when I say how much we are looking forward to Season 15, to January 25th, to A New Start.

PoP!: Where can people find you online?

MQ: I host The Trending Show and co-host The Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe, so if you like podcasts, I am headed for your ears. You can follow me @MikeQuackenbush as well. Thanks!

PoP!: Thanks so much, Mike! Congratulations on the great year and I’m looking forward to seeing what season 15 will hold.

Filed Under: Features • Interviews