By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
With a break in terms of marquee events and touring until the end of July, wXw has turned its focus more seriously to Shotgun. That is not to imply that it ever wasn’t good wrestling television; it was often one of the best half hour to an hour shows you could watch on any given week. However, the matches that occurred tonight were big, whilst the matches set up for next week’s show felt even bigger. wXw aren’t messing around.
The big main event this week was a non-title tag team match that saw Monster Consulting, RISE and JayFK face off after the tensions have continued to build over the past few shows. With the Shotgun tournament and this match, what wXw have done is to include promo videos that really make the matches feel important. JayFK had a chance to belittle their opponents and come across like they bathed in smug, RISE chastised JayFK for getting involved in the Shotgun tournament, before Monster Consulting made it clear that they felt RISE were the biggest possible contenders to their titles. Each segment – only perhaps thirty seconds or so in length – just added that little bit more interest in the main event.
The early exchanges between the three teams would see JayFK attempt to keep themselves out of the contest with tags to other participants after brief lock-ups or waistlocks. Eventually, both Skillet and Kaspin would be cornered trying to escape and get wiped out by dual big boots in the ring before getting chucked to ringside. The bulk of the contest would see Monster Consulting and RISE go back and forth: an Ivan Kiev second rope crossbody wasn’t enough to halt Julian Nero for long as a boot to the face, a double team shoulderblock and the kneedrop/Avalanche splash combination saw the champions begin to pick up momentum. Avalanche indeed was positioned as the real difference maker at this point, cutting off an attempt by Pete Bouncer to take control of the contest, though a Final Cut by the leader of RISE would score him a nearfall.
JayFK picked their spots to get involved with blind tags allowing them to get in a couple of cheapshots before escaping. One of the blind tags saw Kaspin send Nero into the ringpost shoulder first moments after Nero had dropped Kiev with a Wasteland. This allowed the upstarts to take complete control over Kiev, utilising quick tags, a chinlock and multiple corner stomps to keep him down. Kiev would finally fight his way out of the heel corner, hit a Pele kick on Kaspin and tag out to a furious Avalanche. Even Skillet didn’t want to get tagged in as the big man ran over Kaspin with two clotheslines and a huge Samoan drop. This sparked a sequence of everyone getting a chance to shine, including a Kiev top rope leg lariat and a Kaspin Death Valley Driver. It would be RISE who ended up getting the win after Skillet was hit with a superkick by Kiev and a DDT by Bouncer. For a team that has been floundering a little, this is a huge win, though JayFK would run off with the belts once more as they continue to be the annoying thorn in the tag team division’s side.
Another notable match opened the show as Dirty Dragan continued his Trial Series against an unnamed man. Having spent time talking to the audience about how his wins had made him happy, whilst he might have underestimated Veit Muller in his most recent loss, he sat down to wait for…Emil Sitoci. A visibly deflated Dragan would take an age to accept a handshake from Sitoci and would slap a second handshake away after some early trading of holds. The match was mostly Sitoci in command, taking Dragan out with a hard kick to the head and using that as an opening to work the arm, including a jumping double knee armbreaker.
What Dragan brings is heart, so a small package and a roll-up for two showed he wasn’t going to just roll over against his mentor, but arm work and a dropkick would respectively halt any further offense each time. Sitoci would show a little too much compassion for Dragan as he took his time over a Snapmare driver, allowing Dragan to fight back and hit the Sheer Heart Attack elbowdrop as well as the Another One Bites The Dust DDT. However, a charge into a superkick was the beginning of the end as Sitoci then landed a split legged moonsault and a top rope elbowdrop, choosing to finish things with a kimura. Sitoci would pull Dragan to his feet after the contest in order to console him, though Dragan would choose to walk out. A match driven by storyline more so than anything; you have to feel a win over Sitoci is the ultimate end goal of this series in the long run.
As aforementioned, huge matches were announced for the following week. The first – Ilja Dragunov and WALTER versus Alexander James and Absolute Andy. Few can match Dragunov on the microphone in terms of raw passion as an interview this week had him comparing himself to Atlas due to the pressure of being champion. However, with Absolute Andy in the picture, Dragunov feels nothing but peace as Andy lacks the stamina to follow the path of a 16 Carat Gold winner. With the current champion and a record breaking champion teaming up, they together are UNBESIEGBAR.
Another big tag match that got announced was Melanie Gray teaming with LuFisto to take on Toni Storm and Killer Kelly. LuFisto’s interview on the matter would come first, with her focus being a show eventually at Storm’s wXw Women’s Title. Killer Kelly would also have an interview, but as they focused on her involvement in the WWE UK event, Gray would interrupt to remind her of the pressing business at hand closer to home. Kelly finished the interview by saying she would return from the UK ready to take care of business.
Lastly, the show had a brief Veit Muller promo as he spoke about his upcoming match with Marius Al-Ani, a match that should be old school versus old school, only Al-Ani turned his back on that and became a ninja.
A good show that sets up what looks like an even better show on paper. What could have been a lull in wXw’s programming, a case of phoning it in until July, has instead provided us with some intriguing matches and has the potential to provide even more entertainment over the next few weeks.
