This is more easily said then done, but everything I am about to inform you readers of this blog, will be as honest as I could be.

CHIKARA Professional Wrestling Factory in the Arena of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is a fraud of a wrestling school, a cheat, and a hoax.  This is not a conspiracy, I am not immature or impulsive.  This is more of a forewarning for prospective professional wrestling students, coming from a student myself at the CHIKARA Professional Wrestling Factory.  Now, I’m here to tell you why with explicative reasoning:

Free labor: I could not stress this enough.  One day, particularly being Saturday, October 29th, 2011 and Sunday, October 30th, 2011 which was last weekend, Michael Quackenbush (the head trainer of CHIKARA Professional Wrestling Factory) explained to the students, being the newer students and the more advanced and experienced ones, that it was mandatory to attend two shows as apart of the “Ring Crew.”  Seemingly that was exhilarating for everyone, don’t ask me why, but were we to receive any sort of payment or reward for this laborious activity, attending both shows of CHIKARA in Reading, Pennsylvania and Williamsport, Pennsylvania?  Not one bit.  As it appeared to be, most professional wrestling schools (being independent promotions) had to serve as an excellent representation for the name of CHIKARA Professional Wrestling.  This is not ranked in the top three of WWE, TNA Wrestling, and Ring of Honor, now is it?  Absolutely nowhere near.  When I attended class session on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 (yes, they have only one class per week for both beginners and intermediates, which I will explain later), after the warmups that we were doing inside of the ring, Mr. Spillane (Quackenbush) wouldn’t take no for an answer for being absent at both shows.  With that being said, he forced us to do 500 squats for not being present at one show, and a total of 1,000 squats for not being present at two shows.  Please enlighten me, how is exercising our quadriceps until they tear supposed to teach us anything about professional wrestling?  As far as I’m concerned, this is not freestyle high school wrestling where all they care about is physical conditioning and strenuous activity without the wrestling maneuvering.  As I talked to one of the students there named Harper keeping count of our total squats, I spoke to him saying, “I’m sure almost all of the students have something else to do over the weekends besides travel 140 miles for CHIKARA’s sake.”  Harper responded, “This is apart of being a professional wrestler.”  I talked back stating, “I consider this free labor.  I never knew doing free labor for somebody was apart of being a simple prospective student,” as he said, “Maybe if you were an NFL player, then sure, you could go straight to being a professional wrestler.”  Is being a National Football League player hold any relevance what-so-ever to becoming a professional wrestler?  Yeah, didn’t quite think so.  Sorry Charlie, but Ryan Christopher Gately scores one, CHIKARA zero.

One class session per week for Beginners-Intermediates: Somebody who has common sense about professional wrestling and has been a fan for all of their life should definitely understand this, and not even deem CHIKARA necessary as a school choice.  Some of you may click the large red X at the top of your browser and either ignore everything that I am admonishing, or regard this clearly comprehensible advice.  Some of you go completely out of your way to more then one wrestling class per week, and are unable to come to more then one.  Although their website claims that they have three class sessions per week, the truth of the matter is Tuesday is a “Reserved Class.”  A reserved class is a class for advanced students, students prepared to step in the ring for their first match (which CHIKARA honestly compels the students to work too hard for then they have to), and students capable of a flawless, perfect Luchadore and Puroresu-infused match.  Sunday is stated on the website to be an afternoon class for all students enrolled, but I’ve found out that that class session no longer exists due to the season and the college semester in progress.  Professional wrestlers that literally have a strong desire to become a professional wrestler first and foremost (including myself), would practically give two sh**s about college education.  With all of this being said now, Wednesday is the only class session for all students enrolled.  Enlighten me once more, is one class session per week really adequate and appropriate for learning and proceeding in your valuable professional wrestling career?  Exactly, the answer is no.  All’s fair in love and war, ladies and gents!  Ryan Christopher Gately scores two, CHIKARA remains an unfortunate, overweight zero.

Overconfidence/tactlessly overbearing, inconsiderate, disgraceful attitudes: The first time I returned to this wrestling school which was only a few weeks back, I have never seen as much average men acting like such tough little sh**s, and there wasn’t one day that I didn’t want to kick their a** until they were unconscious.  This is what makes CHIKARA appear very corrupt and immature lowering their reputation, especially the adults attending the school.  I, for one, am mature, considerate, amicable, and a heartfelt optimist, but seeing this is flat out disgracing to the wonderful name of the professional wrestling industry.  Why I say this, is self-explanatory.  There are students there named Harper, Drew, Slade, and Jordan who have no potential of being a mature adult.

Harper: Harper is a tall slim male, approximately 6 feet 2 inches, and should weigh more then I do, which is 175 pounds.  His jaw is square and vertically large.  His hair is dark brown, and usually his bangs are spiked up, doesn’t appear to have any gel or hair product in it.  He was the man who spoke to me with quite the lame comebacks on being a successful professional wrestler.  He has also been rushing me on doing the total 1,000 squats for his personal gain, so he can get back to training.  What I wondered was, why didn’t Quackenbush keep watch over us, or let us keep count until we were finished?  Harper apparently was responsible for this, but he didn’t serve as a reasonable superior to us doing the squats.  He also wasn’t reasonable with the students starting out at the school, since he didn’t direct us on what to do exactly when practice maneuvers were being done.

(To Be Continued)