9/1/2009: Hi CHIKARA fans! The Director of Fun here with some important news stemming from recent events. As you know, here at CHIKARA, we generally stand by our referee's decisions. However, earlier this year, a ruling made by our official, Nicklaus Papagiorgio was called into question by members of both the roster and the administration. Upon reviewing the match from Easton that pitted The Colony against F.I.S.T., we found his ruling did not follow the established guidelines, and for the first time in our history, amended the decision after-the-fact.

On August 16th, a match contested between Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli was overseen by Referee Papagiorgio that was ruled a count-out victory for Castagnoli. Once again, a number of protests regarding this result were sent to me, and thanks to Smart Mark Video, I was able to obtain an advance copy of "Young Lions Cup VII: Night 3" to review personally. Again, it would seem that our official did not adhere to the guidelines put forth regarding the CHIKARA rule system.

While I am not amending the match result, I will sanction a rematch between Kingston and Castagnoli for an upcoming card for this reason: the referee's count on the floor began while Castagnoli was on the floor, and a new count should have began once Kingston left the ring. Instead, the official transferred the count outside the ring from Castagnoli to Kingston, which is not a valid call. To give him more time to familiarize himself with the CHIKARA rulebook, we will also give Referee Papagiorgio 30 days off to study up before returning to active duty.

I hope everyone enjoyed YLC weekend. Upon making matches between partners like Player Uno and Player Dos, and Ryan Cruz and Darin Corbin, I was uncertain how things would play out. However, in light of these stand-out matches (among many others,) I have decided to continue this theme at our 6th annual Torneo Cibernetico, coming in October. I trust you will enjoy this special match as well.

We'll see you in New England!



READ TIM DONST'S BLOG FROM 8/27/2009 HERE