CHIKARA Pro Wrestling Presents Aniversarioma
Friday, May 23, 7:00pm
Framingham Civic League
214 Concord St., Framingham
More information.

CHIKARA Pro is an independent wrestling league based in Philadelphia. Like Boston's Kaiju Big Battel, which has hosted CHIKARA wrestlers in the past, the league offers the high-flying athleticism, complicated grappling, and outlandish storylines common to small-circuit wrestling in Mexico, Europe, and Japan.

This Friday, CHIKARA comes to Framingham for its Massachusetts debut: an 8 bout card, with a 6-man tag team match as the main event. Bostonist got a chance to interview "Lightning" Mike Quackenbush, the founder of CHIKARA, who will wrestle Friday as "Quack."

Bostonist: Tell us a little about Chikara. When was it founded?

"Lightning" Mike Quackenbush: Well, our training facility, Chikara Wrestle Factory, started in January of 2002 in Allentown, PA. Once we had trained the first crop of wrestlers, we started CHIKARA, which is the promotion that features our trainees, guests, etc. Our first CHIKARA live show was on May 25, 2002.

You describe yourself as "assorted luchadores and ninjas." What's the difference between the average Chikara wrestler and the guys we are used to seeing on television?

Stylistically, we are very different from American pro-wrestling as you might know it from television. We blend together the international wrestling styles - Mexican lucha libre, British lancashire, Japanese puroresu - into something totally fresh and new. And we do it with colorful, fun characters and a unique sense of humor. A lot of the mainstream pro-wrestling you'll see on TV these days really isn't for kids, and most of it insults my intelligence, so the last thing we want to be is that.

Where do members of your league learn their skills? It's not like there are high school programs for professional wrestling.

I'd say the vast majority of our roster has come directly out of Chikara Wrestle Factory (now based in Philadelphia), where they train anywhere from 6 months to a year.

How did you get a league like Chikara together?

It seemed like a natural extension of the business we had started by training wrestlers. Where do they go once the training is complete? We wanted to make sure they had opportunities to perform awaiting them as soon as they were prepared. It's self-perpetuating, so long as we have young people in the school learning the craft, and then coming up to the shows as performers.

What keeps the fans coming out?

The characters, first and foremost. There is no cast of characters in wrestling quite like ours. We definitely appeal to those fans that have tired of the WWE's stale products or other outdated interpretations of the wrestling performance genre.

How do CHIKARA wrestlers come up with their characters?

Most of them are an extension of their natural personalities. Although, that does make you wonder about guys like Los Ice Creams (2 creepy Ice Cream creatures) or UltraMantis Black (an crazed insect-like grappler).

This is your first trip up to Massachusetts. What should we expect to see?

This will be a great show for first-time fans. Everything you need to know will be served up hot and fresh on the spot. There's a great mix of performers joining us - a handful of luchadores from Mexico (some with 20 years in-ring experience,) some space monsters from Boston's Kaiju Big Battel, and a whole cast of fun characters.

So you sort of mix it up. Would you say that there is an independent wrestling community across North America?

Absolutely. It is a completely realized sub(pop)-culture unto itself.

Finally, do you have any advice for the first-time lucha libre fan to help him or her appreciate what's going on in the ring?

Expect to see more acrobatic, fast-paced daredevil moves than you would with American wrestling. There are a lot of masked characters - the element of anonymity is prominent in our wrestling culture. It's a lot like a comic book come to life.