History YMMV / CHIKARA

** Dasher's friendship with Mr Touchdown. After the scandal involving him stealing Veronica from Archibald Peck, Mr Touchdown was one of the biggest pariahs in Chikara history. But Dasher, ever the paragon of virtue, sought to help Mr Touchdown redeem himself and gain acceptance from the rest of the locker room and ultimately fought to free him from mind control. For this, when Mr Tocuhdown won the world title and had to find someone to be interim champion after being injured, asked Dasher (who had never been able to seal the deal and win the belt himself) to serve as his interim replacement as a sign that Mr Touchdown trusted him to be the best man for the job. Unfortunately, gaining physical possession of the belt awoke a dark side in Dasher that led to Chikara facing it's greatest threat in it's 21 year of existence and Mr Touchdown paid an unspeakable price, being crippled and forced to retire, at the hands of the only man who was willing to believe that he was not beyond salvation.

* NightmareFuel: Dasher Hatfield's heel turn, especially his increasingly abusive relationship with his son Boomer which was foreshadowed prior to the heel turn with his "tough love" approach to Boomer when he started wrestling. It has all of the elements that are associated with the trope of a well love, beloved figure in the community who everyone loves and on the surface is the most nice, generous, and helpful person imaginable that, upon a deeper dive, turns out to be in private, a sadistic, cruel, and physically and emotionally abusive parent. Adding to this nightmare element, is Dasher brutally assaulting Razerhawk when he started implying that Dasher was always a monster and had been physically and emotionally abusing Boomer before his heel turn in private, along with Molly Mccoy's status as a member of the Hatfield family who is torn between standing behind the uncle who she adores and worships as her hero, and her suffering cousin.

** Dasher Hatfield started out with three lame gimmicks: MosCOW, Create A Wrestler, and Ultimato Breakfast before landing the Dasher Hatfield gimmick.

** Juan Francisco de Coronado, primarily for his never-ending reign as Grand Champion. He wasn't really involved in angles or much of anything at all outside the Championship during his reign, but until he was finally unseated by Mark Angelosetti, he was Champion for almost a year and a half.

** Molly Mccoy: Dasher's niece and one of his chief enablers during his heel turn. Sadly, Chikara's closure and Dsaher Hatfield's refusal to participate with Mark Haggerty's "Lockerroom Dicks" ironically denied Molly a planned redemption arc (Molly was ultimately going to be used as an audience surrogate to reveal that Dasher's heel turn was permanent and not the result of demonic possession as seen in previous heel turns) as Molly went from heel to face, partnering with Boomer with zero build-up.

** There has also been accusations, that were later (granted jokingly) confirmed by Dasher Hatfield, that Quackenbush has a fetish kink for making handsome men wear full face mask that effectively reduces them to being faceless "TheBlank" due to him being very much insecure about his looks and not wanting to be around other more attractive men, especially younger men. Notably, Max Zero and Boomer (now Weber) Hatfield got a lot of comments on their looks after unmasking, and Edith Surreal joked after winning a mask match that she's not actually good looking enough to take hers off.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: CHIKARA simply announced that Wani would be on Juan Francisco de Coronado's squad for the Torneo Cibernetico at ''Top Banana'' and never developed a character or backstory for him. He didn't do much of note during 2016. Then he defeated Space Monkey for the Young Lions Cup and, once he lost it to Sylverhawk, he left and was completely forgotten. It later turned out that Kai Katana, the performer under the mask, had never wanted to wrestle masked in the first place, similar to [=Hieracon/Jonathan Gresham=].
** Scott Steiner showing up for King of Trios did not amount to much except for stunt casting to get viewers and sell tickets. Given that this was also around the time that Dasher Hatfield's heel turn was in full effect, they could have gotten some mileage out of Steiner vs Dasher

*** As bad as Mr Touchdown did Archibald, he got it in spades when his actions made him persona non grata to the rest of Chikara and the only man willing to give him a second chance to redeem himself, turned out to be a monster and crippled him, effectively ending his career.

** Boomer, once his father turns evil.

* [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moment Of Awesome]]: Yoshiaki Yago vs Necro Butcher at Tag World Grand Prix 2006. What really put this over the top was Eddie Kingston on commentary totally marking out the whole time.
** Night One of the 2007 King Of Trios. Team Japan vs The Thomasellis. Miyawaki and Sal slug it out. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9bpnlXggCY Then...]]
** The Torneo Cibernetico between Team CHIKARA ([=UltraMantis=] Black[=/=]Eddie Kingston[=/=]Icarus[=/=]Larry Sweeney[=/=]Jigsaw[=/=]Mike Quackenbush[=/=]STIGMA[=/=]Hallowicked) and the BDK (Ares[=/=]Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli[=/=]Tursas[=/=]Wrestling/SaraDelRey[=/=]Tim Donst[=/=]Delirious[=/=]Daizee Haze[=/=]Pinkie Sanchez) at ''The Dark Cibernetico'', October 23, 2010. Whereas previous Ciberneticos had run an hour or longer, this one manages to pack in ''years'' of storylines into a, by comparison, mere ''35:45''.
* [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Crowning Moment Of Funny]]: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhov41UQbUI The match in slow motion]] mentioned under RuleOfFunny on the main page.
* [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming]]: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwazFvHhrk4 Hydra's farewell.]]
* DorkAge: Ryan Cruz (of the North Star Express)'s "Version 2" gimmick of being a Matt Hardy rip-off.

** There has also been accusations, that were later (granted jokingly) confirmed by Dasher Hatfield, that Quackenbush has a fetish kink for making handsome men wear full face mask that effectively reduces them to being faceless "TheBlank" due to him being very much insecure about his looks and not wanting to be around other more attractive men, especially younger men.

** Dasher's heel turn and unmasking, especially since Chikara went out of business with the storyline still ongoing and Dasher's own statement that he would never wear the mask again or play a good guy.

** Race Jaxon post-N_R_G, reinventing himself twice over (first as the narcissistic "That Young and Handsome", then as the egocentric artiste BLANK) to escape the CreatorsPet label the team had been tarred with. The latter persona in particular quickly became highly regarded, especially after the introduction of his "creations", the Nouveau Aesthetic. BLANK and his sole remaining "creation", Still Life with Apricots and Pears/Edith Surreal, still compete post-CHIKARA as the Nouveau Aesthetic

** Molly Mccoy: Dasher's niece and one of his chief enablers during his heel turn. Sadly, Chikara's closure and Dsaher Hatfield's refusal to participate with Mark Haggerty's "Lockerroom Dicks" series meant her faceturn never happened, as Molly went from heel to face, partnering with Boomer after chosing him over Dasher.

** Several wrestlers who've done time in CHIKARA have hated being forced to wear masks and hide their faces, especially since Quack generally won't let them use their masked gimmicks in other promotions. Saturyne is notorious for hating her mask, but Hieracon (Jonathan Gresham), Wani (Kai Katana) and Sylverhawk (Wheeler YUTA) all quit Chikara over the mask issue. Ironically, only Dasher Hatfield has managed to force the issue to make Quackenbush let him take off his mask and even then, it only happened once Quackenbush introduced Boomer Hatfield to be his go-to replacement.

** Dasher Hatfield has become this in recent years, due to the heel turn no one really asked for and the fact that since rebranding after Chikara shut down, Dasher has repeatedly badmouthed the gimmick that made him famous and vowed never to turn face again in terms of prefering to play the villain full time going forward.

* NightmareFuel[=/=]WTHCastingAgency: CHIKARA [[https://twitter.com/CHIKARApro/status/1133427595104669697 announced on its Twitter]] that one of the teams for ''King of Trios 2019'' will be captained by '''[[Wrestling/ScottSteiner SCOTT STEINER]]!''' Some people are actually ''happy'' about this, despite the fact that (A) no sane person wants to give that psycho a live mic; (B) he hasn't had a good match since UsefulNotes/BillClinton's first term as President; and (C) If his team loses, how do you stop him from trying to kill anyone in his path[=/=]TrashTheSet?
** Fortunately, this didn't go as badly as some people thought it would. After getting up to his usual behavior the first night, Steiner apologized on the second and put the contents of his wallet into a swear jar, with no further incidents from him.
** Similar reactions were had when Nick Gage (who is also infamous for such behavior) was announced for an event, and continued to happen each time he was announced despite his having been fairly well-behaved each time.

** Race Jaxon post-N_R_G, reinventing himself twice over (first as the narcissistic "That Young and Handsome", then as the egocentric artiste BLANK) to escape the CreatorsPet label the team had been tarred with. The latter persona in particular quickly became highly regarded, especially after the introduction of his "creations", the Nouveau Aesthetic. BLANK and his sole remaining "creation", Still Life with Apricots and Pears/Edith Surreal, still compete post-CHIKARA as the Nouveau Aesthetic.

** Cajun Crawdad and Hermit Crab because, well, they're pretty bad in the ring (and show no signs of improvement), and not very interesting as characters either, basically being filler for the Creatures of the Deep. Any time the discussion of 'what went wrong with Chikara' starts, they're going to get mentioned as embodying the problems with post-slump Chikara.

** Several wrestlers who've done time in CHIKARA have hated being forced to wear masks and hide their faces, especially since Quack generally won't let them use their masked gimmicks in other promotions. Saturyne is notorious for hating her mask, but Hieracon (Jonathan Gresham), Wani (Kai Katana) and Sylverhawk (Wheeler YUTA) all quit Chikara over the mask issue.

* WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings: The original official Chikara forums were the fan-run [=ChikaraFans=]. And the owner and moderators fell afoul of the {{GIFT}} and started acting like Internet Big Deals and running the forums like a fiefdom. So Chikara ended the affiliation with [=ChikaraFans=] and created their own official forums, [=Chikara101=]. Predictably, the guys who ran [=ChikaraFans=] turned completely against the promotion, renamed the forum to the Jorge Rivera Appreciation Society[[note]]this was shortly after the incident where Jorge "Skayde" Rivera screwed with CHIKARA shortly before King of Trios 2010[[/note]] and then the Tuck Hanson Fanclub[[note]]Tuck Hanson was a indy wrestler in training who was unhappy with his time at the Wrestle Factory and posted a call-out on the [=Chikara101=] boards[[/note]] and used the boards for mudslinging and outside-kayfabe rumors until the owner let the domain die.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: CHIKARA simply announced that Wani would be on Juan Francisco de Coronado's squad for the Torneo Cibernetico at ''Top Banana'' and never developed a character or backstory for him. He didn't do much of note during 2016. Then he defeated Space Monkey for the Young Lions Cup and, once he lost it to Sylverhawk, he left and was completely forgotten.

** Race Jaxon post-N_R_G, reinventing himself twice over (first as the narcissistic "That Young and Handsome", then as the egocentric artiste BLANK) to escape the CreatorsPet label the team had been tarred with. The latter persona in particular quickly became highly regarded, especially after the introduction of his "creations", the Nouveau Aesthetic. BLANK and his sole remaining "creation", Still Life with Apricots and Pears, still compete post-CHIKARA as the Nouveau Aesthetic.

** Similar reactions were had when Nick Gage (who is also infamous for such behavior) was announced for an event, and continue to happen each time he's announced despite his having been fairly well-behaved each time.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: CHIKARA simply announced that Wani would be on Juan Francisco de Coronado's squad for the Torneo Cibernetico at ''Top Banana'' and never developed a character or backstory for him. He didn't do much of note during 2016. Then he defeated Space Monkey for the Young Lions Cup and, once he lost it to [[Wrestling/Xyberhawx2000 Sylverhawk]], he left and was completely forgotten.

** The Proteus Wheel have lost more matches than they've won following the feud with Wrestling/JukeJointLucasCalhoun, Wrestling/JeremyLeary, Brett Michael David, Wrestling/MissileAssaultMan, and Axel Ford.

** The accusations levied against Mike Quackenbush as part of the [=#SpeakingOut=] movement caused base breaking not only among the fans but among the wrestlers themselves, as many announced their resignation from CHIKARA that same day.

** Race Jaxon post-N_R_G, reinventing himself twice over (first as the narcissistic "That Young and Handsome", then as the egocentric artiste BLANK) to escape the CreatorsPet label the team had been tarred with. The latter persona in particular quickly became highly regarded, especially after the introduction of his "creations", the Nouveau Aesthetic.

** Wrestling/DieBruderschaftDesKreuzes, excluding Claudio, Ares and Donst, came down with a pretty severe case of it. Wrestling/PinkieSanchez and Death Haze got the worst of it, although Sara Del Rey recovered after [[HeelFaceTurn turning face]].

** The Torneo Cibernetico between Team CHIKARA ([=UltraMantis=] Black[=/=]Eddie Kingston[=/=]Icarus[=/=]Larry Sweeney[=/=]Jigsaw[=/=]Wrestling/MikeQuackenbush[=/=][[Wrestling/ShaneStorm STIGMA]][=/=]Hallowicked) and the BDK (Ares[=/=]Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli[=/=]Tursas[=/=]Wrestling/SaraDelRey[=/=]Tim Donst[=/=]Delirious[=/=]Daizee Haze[=/=]Pinkie Sanchez) at ''The Dark Cibernetico'', October 23, 2010. Whereas previous Ciberneticos had run an hour or longer, this one manages to pack in ''years'' of storylines into a, by comparison, mere ''35:45''.

* ReplacementScrappy: Wrestling/JohnnyGargano for Wrestling/GranAkuma, after Akuma was kicked out of FIST and legitimately left Chikara. Made worse by the absolute lack of anyone talking about Akuma's reason for leaving, and Akuma's apparent good health in his appearances for [[Wrestling/DragonGate Dragon Gate USA]] and other indies. Fortunately, Gargano rescued himself fairly quickly - being charismatic, good in the ring and devoted to the wrestling business makes it hard for someone to stay a Scrappy.

* HarsherInHindsight: Titling the July 22, 2006 event ''The Crushing Weight of Mainstream Ignorance'', since that was why the [[Wrestling/KimberLee Princess Kimberlee]] as [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/pa/e/chikara/chikara-g.html CHIKARA Grand Champion]] story never received the attention it deserved.

** Much like the firing of Joey Styles, the decision to trademark Jervis Cottonbelly and attempt to prevent the performer from using the gimmick outside CHIKARA resulted in a minor case of this, as Jervis had departed CHIKARA some time before the trademark was even filed and had become a very popular performer on the independent scene. It was also seen as a very petty move on Mike Quackenbush's part, as there exists a well-documented animosity between him and Kevin Condron. It quickly died down after a name change and slight mask modifications turned Jervis Cottonbelly into Gentleman Jervis. As of this writing (mid-March 2019), nothing was ever done with the trademark and it has since quietly disappeared, with a similar trademark for video game usage outright rejected.