The story of a submission hold that would become quintessential to, and synonymous with, CHIKARA starts with the men who served as head trainers at the Wrestle Factory in 2003: Mike Quackenbush, and Chris Hero. They formed a tag team known as the "Super Friends," drawing inspiration from the iconography of both the Flash and Superman.

The Super Friends were successful for a year and a half, until April 2005. At that year’s Tag World Grand Prix, the Super Friends advanced it to the finals, where they would face the team of Arik Cannon and Claudio Castagnoli. In said match, Hero would betray Quackenbush, joining with Cannon and Castagnoli, thus forming the first iteration of the "Kings of Wrestling."

For two years, Quackenbush would feud with the Kings of Wrestling, until a climax was reached at Aniversario? on May 26, 2007. After taking a winding route, at last, Hero vs. Quackenbush was set to take place. Quackenbush, not yet known as “The Master of A Thousand Holds” in those days, had a worthy adversary in Hero, who knew all of Quackenbush’s favorite holds. The two fought a match of ‘who will slip up first’ until Quackenbush debuted a new submission hold, in the match’s final moment. Neither Chris Hero nor anyone else, had ever seen the hold before and left with no counter, Hero had no option but to tap out.

From then on, Quackenbush dubbed the hold The CHIKARA Special, and proceeded to teach it to everyone he could, in order to thwart Hero.

For the remainder of the season, The CHIKARA Special proved to be Hero’s kryptonite. Any of his opponents that could lock it on would force Hero to submit. But when Hero lost to the bumbling luchador, Equinox, it was the final straw for Hero. The two were set to battle at the 2007 event "The Sordid Perils of Everyday Existence," but Hero would turn the match into a Lucha de Apuesta. The wager? If Hero lost, his head would be shaved. If Equinox lost, he would be forced to unmask.

As the match came to a close, it seemed Equinox would once again claim victory via the CHIKARA Special. However, in a moment that stunned everyone, especially Mike Quackenbush watching from Commentation Station, Hero countered The CHIKARA Special. Quackenbush demanded to know how Hero knew the reversal while Hero gave Quackenbush a cheeky wave and picked up the win.

Having lost, Equinox was unmasked and revealed to be Wrestle Factory drop out, Vin Gerard. Gerard had bought a colorful mask, learned some Spanish, and convinced trainer Jorge Rivera, a.k.a. “Skayde”, into vouching for him.. The tecnicos shunned Gerard for his deception, causing him to become a bitter rudo for the remainder of his wrestling career.

Hero would go on to lose to his one-time partner, Claudio Castagnoli and was subsequently vanquished. However, Quackenbush was still perturbed. Someone in the tecnico locker room had betrayed him, in leaking the counter to the CHIKARA Special to the rudos. The devious UltraMantis Black implied on an episode of Podcast-A-Go-Go that he knew how Hero had learned the secret, but swore he would never tell a soul.

April 2008. At "Deuces Wild," a rookie Tim Donst was dropped on his head by UltraMantis Black’s lethal move, the "Praying Mantis Bomb," and then helped to the back by Mantis and his "Order of the Neo Solar Temple" cult. It was revealed that after the head injury, Donst suffered retrograde amnesia. As a result, it was put into his head that he had ALWAYS been a loyal member of the Neo Solar Temple. Won over by vegan treats and lies, Donst began wearing face paint and became Mantis’ "chosen one," setting him up to enter the Young Lions Cup tournament that very summer.

That same summer, Quackenbush formed a tag team with Factory graduate Shane Storm, a duo sometimes referred to as "Lightning Storm." They quickly accumulated 3 points to challenge for Los Campeonatos de Parejas. But following their 3rd win at the Young Lions Cup VI event, Donst appeared at ringside, and whispered something in Quackenbush’s ear. This caused Quackenbush to react furiously and attack his partner Storm, ending in Storm fleeing the venue.

The next night, Quackenbush explained his actions, stating that he’d been looking for the mole in the tecnico locker room that had leaked the secret of The CHIKARA Special to Hero and the rudos. When Mantis claimed knowledge of the mole, Quackenbush saw an opportunity when Donst was spirited away by Manis’ Neo Solar Temple. When Mantis THOUGHT Donst had lost his memory, Donst and Quackenbush hatched a plan to earn Mantis’ trust. After weeks of earning the Order’s trust, Mantis confessed to Donst who quickly put the info into Quackenbush’s ear. The traitor amongst the tecnicos was none other than: Shane Storm.

In 2007, Storm had gone on a losing streak he seemingly couldn’t break. The slump was so bad, it caused his friend and partner Jigsaw to end their tag team and depart CHIKARA. Following Jigsaw’s departure, Storm went to Mantis for help on how to beat Mantis’ minion, Hydra. Mantis agreed to trade him a win over Hydra, but at a price. That price being: the secret of countering The CHIKARA Special. Desperate for a win, Storm agreed, and beat Hydra after Mantis bewitched him mid-match. Now, also shunned by the tecnicos, Storm gravitated to Vin Gerard, who pushed and prodded Storm and, in a parody of Jigsaw’s unmasking, became the unrelenting rudo, STIGMA.

Even with the counter to the CHIKARA Special made public, the hold remained quite potent, and in 2009, a new twist on the hold was introduced. New Colony member Carpenter Ant debuted the The Inverted CHIKARA Special to win the card-ending circuit match at "Cibernetico Increible." When Quackenbush asked how he knew the move, Carpenter Ant responded with a cryptic “you’d be surprised at what I know”.

It later came out that Quackenbush had invented the Inverted CHIKARA Special specifically for use by one person: Tim Donst. He had given Donst the move, to give Donst an edge going into the Young Lions Cup VI tournament. Quackenbush demanded to know how Carpenter Ant learned the move, to which Donst sarcastically replied, “he’s from the future!” The arrival of a Carpenter Ant, and a robotic-looking wrestler called Vokoder, had in fact been foretold in the pages of CHIKARA's comic book. This did not ring true to Quackenbush's ears. The truth wouldn’t actually come to light until the advent of the Brüderschaft Des Kreuzes, or BDK.

Donst had joined the BDK to further his own ambitions, and taught the Inverted CHIKARA Special to the rest of the group. This included Carpenter Ant, who unmasked himself, to reveal it was the equally disenchanted Pinkie Sanchez. Due to the positioning of the head, wrist, and leg in the inverted variation, the counter that can be used to escape the standard CHIKARA Special is an impossibility. This submission became the group’s signature hold, and gave the BDK dominant momentum for the rest of the year...until the "Dark Cibernetico."

As Team CHIKARA fought Team BDK, Donst looked to apply the Inverted CHIKARA Special on its’ creator, Mike Quackenbush. Quackenbush, however, had decided this time to keep the counter to the inverted variation to himself. This allowed him to turn the tables on an unsuspecting Donst. Having no means of escape, Donst was eliminated via the hold from the Cibernetico. Following the loss, the Inverted CHIKARA Special has been seen far less frequently, while the CHIKARA Special itself has become symbolic of CHIKARA itself, and the wrestlers that wave its flag.

Shortly thereafter, a resilient rookie known as Green Ant would reveal yet another new variation, The CHIKARA Special: Green. This variation traps both legs, and makes use of a Figure 7 shape, first being debuted at the CHIKARA pay-per-view event "High Noon."

The CHIKARA Special would appear again on June 2, 2013, an infamous date in CHIKARA's long lore. Icarus finally got his shot against reigning Grand Champion Eddie Kingston at "Aniversario: Never Compromise." But with the hold locked in and the match won, as referee Bryce Remsburg went to check on Kingston, members of the privatized security force, Condor Security, stormed the ring at the command of Director of Fun Wink Vavasseur. This initiated a year long shutdown of the company, and sparked Icarus’ voyage for redemption. He and Kingston would meet again at "You Only Live Twice," the first CHIKARA event upon returning to battle not just Condor Security and their overlords, the Titor Conglomerate, but a giant cabal of villains known as The Flood. Icarus once again locked on The CHIKARA Special in the title bout, and finally captured the Grand Championship that had eluded him since the 12 Large: Summit tournament.

The submission would once again save the new champion, when unstoppable force Deucalion scorched a path of destruction through CHIKARA. At Season 14’s finale card, "Tomorrow Never Dies, Deucalion entered the steel cage carrying the masks of luchadores he had dispatched with his brutally effective Chokeslam variant. Icarus went to the cage with his Grand Championship, and carrying the Estonian ThunderFrog’s hammer. Icarus would reverse Deucalion’s lethal move directly into The CHIKARA Special to earn a submission, before putting Deucalion out for good with ThunderFrog’s hammer.

Nearly one year to the day later, Princess KimberLee and her team "Crown & Court" would win the season-long "Challenge of the Immortals" tournament. Each team member was handed a Golden Opportunity at "Top Banana." The Princess would quickly cash in her opportunity on then-Grand Champion, Hallowicked. In a whirlwind sequence, the Princess locked on The CHIKARA Special. She walked out as the first female Grand Champion, and the first female to hold the top championship in a male-dominated organization.

The hold would not make an appearance again until King of Trios 2018. All year, Green Ant and Thief Ant fought to earn the respect of Fire Ant, as well as fellow members of The Colony like Worker Ant and Soldier Ant. As the trios tournament progressed, Green Ant would lock in The CHIKARA Special on Travis Huckabee in a modern retelling of CHIKARA’s historic feud, The Colony vs F.I.S.T. The two stables had been inextricably warring through various line-up changes and more than one decade. Green Ant would once again lock the hold on to win the finals of King of Trios, leading to a celebrated victory for the ants, and earning the stamp of approval from Fire Ant to finally be called official members of The Colony.

Even more recently, the CHIKARA Special appeared at King of Trios 2019, but surprisingly, in the Rey de Voladores mini-tournament. Although it tends to spotlight high-flying wrestling, the Rey de Voladores, as well as Alex Zayne, are not immune to The CHIKARA Special. After being consistently treated as inferior by the Herald of The Crucible, Ophidian, up-and-comer The Whisper looked to distinguish himself with an accolade that Ophidian could not claim. The Whisper met Alex Zayne in the finals of the tournament, and after a hard-fought match, locked on The CHIKARA Special. This win made The Whisper the only 2-time Rey de Voladores ("king of flyers,") proving that in one clear way, The Whisper was actually superior to Ophidian. And while The CHIKARA Special, a symbol of CHIKARA, was an overt statement to The Crucible's Herald, The Whisper continues to follow Ophidian's orders.

To celebrate the positive power of pro-wrestling, CHIKARA originated National Pro Wrestling Day years ago. But it was National Pro Wrestling Day 2020 that saw the most recent appearance by this legendary submission hold. For the final bout of his 25th Anniversary Tour, the innovator of the CHIKARA Special, Mike Quackenbush, deployed the time-honored submission hold against one of his very first proteges, Hallowicked. Not unlike it's maiden voyage in our mythology, the CHIKARA Special has proven to be a kryptonite for Hallowicked as well, giving the tecnicos of all experience levels a vaunted weapon against the most dangerous of rudos.

Contributed by Neil May