It’s Official! This year’s King of Trios tournament will be held September 14th, 15th and 16th!
Chikara’s King of Trios is arguably the best three day wrestling event on the Pro Wrestling scene today. King of Trios is an off shoot of Chikara’s Tag World Grand Prix (Chikara’s interntational tag team tournament). It is Chikara’s annual event in which teams of three compete in a three day tournament in order to crown a team the King of Trios. Bar none, no other modern pro wrestling tournament has hosted the same amount of talent at the same time, at the same venue, for the same purpose. In terms of size, the tournament usually hosts sixteen teams of three which totals to forty eight competitors, however in 2008 the company decided (for one time only) to expand the field to 28 teams of three which totalled to eighty four competitors. Normally each team has some sort of theme which unifies them. For instance, the 1-2-3 Kid (Sean Waltmann) teamed with Arik Cannon and Darin Corbin to form Team Minnesota, Curry Man and Los Ice Creams teamed together to form Team Delicioso, and of course you had Chikara’s resident stable of The Colony (Fire Ant, Soldier Ant and either Worker or Green Ant) forming a trio. Other than the King of Trios tournament, other attractions that happen at this three night event are the Rey de Voladores (or King of the Flippys) tournament which is Chikara’s mini tournament featuring the best high flyers and high spot wrestlers on the international indy scene today, the Tag Gauntlet which is a gauntlet style match featuring tag teams vying for an opportunity to gain points to challenge for Chikara’s Campeonatos de Parejas (tag team titles), and also several “unlikely” matches (for instance, Austin Aries versus Eddie Kingston, Colt Cabana versus Archibald Peck, or Jigsaw versus Ultimate Spider Jr.). In short, King of Trios is definitely a must see event for Pro Wrestling fans or people trying to open themselves to International Independent Pro Wrestling.
If your new to the event, the best King of Trios in the event’s five year history was the 2009 King of Trios (with 2011 being a very close second). The roster was a who’s who of Indy wrestler and Veteran talents representing a diverse range of styles and coming from all over the world. In addition to Chikara’s resident stable teams like Incoherence (Delirious, Hallowicked, and Frightmare) or F.I.S.T (Chuck Taylor, Gran Akuma and Icarus), some teams of note were, The Masters of a Thousand Holds (Mike Quackenbush, Jorge “Skayde” Rivera, and Johnny Saint), The Cold Front (Al Snow, Glacier, and surprise addition of D’Lo Brown), Team DDT (Kota Ibushi, Kudo, Michael Nakazawa), The Deathmatch Kings (Brain Damage, Necro Butcher, and Toby Klein), Team PWG (El Generico and the Young Bucks), and of course Team Uppercut (Claudio Castagnoli (now Antonio Cesaro), Dave Taylor, and Bryan Danielson (now Daniel Bryan)). Before the tournament even started, the amount of talent in those teams, had people salivating at the possible match ups that could occur, and boy did the event deliver. The highpoint of the weekend was definitely Night 2 of the tournament. Night 1 had a lot of solid competitive match ups, that had a lot of interesting moments and the predicted “Chik-anary” one can expect from a Chikara show (Kingston calling out Danielson), but Night 2 set a new standard as to what one could expect from the event from that point on. It did have a major lowpoint in the LWA Showcase match, but like all great events, it recovered in show stopping fashion with the Rey de Voladores Qualifiers, in particular the second qualifier (video above), and also the night’s main event which featured Team Uppercut versus Team Masters of a Thousand Holds. Night 3 was also great, but Night 2 was definitely the event that set the bar for future King of Trios torunaments. Aside from the great matches that occured, what really set this particular event apart were the breakout performances of several young talents. Normally you could point to one or two pro wrestlers that really stood out at a Wrestling show, but this weekend there were at least eight young pro wrestlers who had career highlight matches (Kota Ibushi, the Young Bucks, F.I.S.T., Frightmare and Player Dos). Not to mention, the veteran talent who seemed like they were having fun, pro wrestling in front of an appreciative crowd (has anyone seen Dave Taylor, Johnny Saint or anyone on Team Cold Front smile that much in a ring at any point in their careers?). It seemed like after the 2009 event, King of Trios weekend really became one of Independent Wrestling’s premiere Pro Wrestling events, attracting up and coming talent from around the globe looking to make an impact and the best talent from yester year looking to make one big splash before they were too far past their prime.
If anyone wants to see what Chikara is all about or is looking to sample Indy pro wrestling with a family freindly twist, definitely a good start point is Chikara’s King of Trios!
Damnit that was amazing. Still gotta catch up on some Chikara. Always entertaining.