By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
With the Shotgun season opener only a week away, we get another episode of Unreleased Shotgun footage to enjoy this week.
The show opened with a triple threat match between Jaxon Stone, Alexander James and Marius Al-Ani. With James and Stone pushing each other, it is Al-Ani who took initial control with a dropkick that hit both men, before a stepup spinkick in the corner on Stone and a roll through into his step up elbowdrop on James. Stone is someone I haven’t seen in wXw, but he showed off his strength early on by catching Al-Ani and dumping him with a suplex, only for a play on the People’s Elbow to be cut short by a James flapjack. After a sequence of flash pins is ended by Stone hitting a pop up knee to the face on Al-Ani, we have the odd sound of James getting cheered as he traded punches with Stone in the center of the ring. It is short lived as Al-Ani landed a top rope crossbody that hit both men, alongside locking them both in single leg Boston crabs that require a rope break.
There is a brief alliance as Stone and James try to double team Al-Ani, but the ninja managed to hit an enziguri on Stone and put James in a jacknife pin for a nearfall. James does land his Regards spinning back elbow, though an attempt at Rains of Castamere gets him nowhere. Al-Ani was impressively caught on a subsequent dive by Stone, who threw him down with a modified fallaway slam that required James to break the pin. James managed to apply the King’s Landing on Stone, but it was broken by Al-Ani, who fired up with his sunset flip/exploder combination on James and a DVD on Stone. Just as it looked like Al-Ani was firing up, he ended up getting pushed off of the top rope by James, yet nothing could stop him as he landed his frogsplash on an unaware Stone, with Stone fresh from nailing a TKO stunner on James. A quick match that never let up in terms of action and had a pretty cool finish as Al-Ani came out of nowhere to steal the win.
The second match saw a chance to showcase what TKO was capable of as he will continue in the Shotgun Number #1 Contender tournament. This match was against Julian Pace and the two men were evenly matched early on, even hitting simultaneous dropkicks following some grappling exchanges. TKO would hit a European uppercut on what should have been a clean break, before a quick legsweep, stepover, springboard into armdrag and dropkick showed he was more than a match for Pace in terms of speed. However, Pace quickly responded by using the ropes to turn a hiptoss by TKO into an armdrag and Voll Gas to confuse TKO and nail a dropkick. TKO regained control following a blocked monkey flip, following up with a rolling Samoan drop and a second rope moonsault for two.
TKO would continue to work over Pace, using an armbar and kicks to the chest, whilst then blocking a Code Red attempt and absolutely taking Pace’s face off with a kick. A senton after a snapmare earned him another nearfall, and a leaping kick halted Pace once again as he tried to fire up. Pace’s strikes would eventually allow him a route back into the contest as he hurt TKO and then used the ropes to avoid some onrushing charges before landing a roll into a neckbreaker. Pace landed his tiltawhirl DDT, though messed up his first Code Red attempt. Pace would land it moments later, yet TKO would kick out and then rock him with a rolling European uppercut and running forearms in the corner. However, an attempt at a TKO by TKO was reversed into a victory roll for the three count. Whilst TKO looked good in this contest, it does feel a little odd to show him losing to Pace considering you’d want to make him look strong before the continuation of the tournament.
An interesting choice was in the effective ‘main event’ slot – a match involving ‘Bad Bones’ John Klinger. In terms of star names, this was a loaded four man match: Ilja Dragunov, WALTER and Jurn Simmons comprised the opponents on this evening. At the time of the Fight Forever Tour, Klinger was still the wXw Unified Heavyweight Champion, though his decision to headbutt Dragunov as the bell rings is not the best one. With the three men in the ring against him, it is unsurprising that Klinger gets the brunt of the early offense, a Dragunov sunset flip attempt being turned into a headbutt to the balls by a Simmons slingshot, before all four men – the referee included – slammed Klinger one after the other. This prompted an attempt to walk out by Klinger, but all three of the challengers would run backstage…only for Klinger to return to ring via a different entrance. His respite is brief as Simmons, Dragunov and WALTER head back to the ring, though a suicide dive wipes out all three men.
Klinger ended up with Dragunov in the ring, though he is soon on the backfoot once more as a corner roll through is turned into a full nelson backbreaker by the Russian. Almost immediately, Klinger fired back with a release dragon suplex of his own, leaving Simmons and WALTER in the ring ready to collide, pretty much literally as they match shoulderblocks to begin. WALTER missed a dropkick and was nailed by one from Simmons, only to spend too long celebrating and get dumped by a German suplex. Walter and Dragunov’s initial exchange unsurprisingly starts with a WALTER chop but Dragunov is quick to fire back with a clothesline of his own.
This match becomes all about how Klinger might steal a victory as he lands a quick kick combination on Dragunov for two. The champion also turns a top rope move into a codebreaker for two, whilst also hitting a slingshot spear for two on Simmons. After a pin from a huge gutwrench powerbomb by Simmons needed to be broken up by WALTER, a stacked superplex/powerbomb had Klinger come off by far the worst. This would leave Klinger laying for a while, with WALTER taking control after a clothesline and big boot to Dragunov and Simmons respectively allowed him to use multiple German suplexes and a butterfly suplex for good measure. The other two would also have their chance to shine as Simmons landed a sick kick on WALTER and suplex throws on both men, before Dragunov hit a Saito suplex on Simmons and running clotheslines on both men.
Unfortunately, Klinger was always going to have a plan. After coming to and wiping Dragunov out with wrecking ball knees, before sending Simmons into Ilja in the corner with a sunset flip, Klinger would be wiped out with a shotgun dropkick by WALTER. It would be Dragunov who ended up coming out on top of that exchange as he landed a top rope senton on Klinger, but the set up for the Torpedo Moscow would be halted by Pete Bouncer. A Klinger low blow only scored a two count, yet as Dragunov blocked a title shot that followed, Bouncer stepped into the ring and hit a chop block to the knee. With RISE swarming the ring, the ref effectively waved the contest off. Luckily for Dragunov, Timothy Thatcher and Marius Al-Ani hit the ring to run RISE out of the ring.
Another solid mix of Unreleased footage, with a particularly high profile main event. However, this is all just a starter, an amuse bouche for the main event that is the return of Shotgun next week in its true form. I look forward to some more wXw action.
