By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
By the end of the two night stand in Hamburg and Oberhausen, wXw had once again delivered in terms of in-ring action and storyline. Like all good media, the promotion left the fans wanting more as key storylines continued to twist and turn as ongoing rivalries continued to bubble as new stars looked to rise to the top. In particular, Jurn Simmons and David Starr delivered in their Last Man Standing match, whilst the main event saw Absolute Andy and Ilja Dragunov’s feud become that bit more personal.
Having came up short in an attempt to earn a shot at the wXw Women’s Title, Kris Wolf opened the show against Millie McKenzie. After a test of strength that is won by McKenzie, Wolf would take her opponent down with a backwards roll into a headscissors. Wolf would capitalise with a knee to the … ahem, vaginal area of McKenzie, but the ref had had the wolf mask placed on his head as a means of distraction, so no count was forthcoming. McKenzie would also get the mask placed on her head, and a Wolf bum in her face, but those shenanigans were abruptly finished with a boot of the wolf’s head and a spear for two. After fighting off an attempted German, Wolf would score a nearfall with a second rope crossbody, before the two women traded nearfalls after a McKenzie double underhook lifted Facebuster and a Wolf Northern Lights suplex. Just as it looked like McKenzie was building momentum with multiple German suplexes, Wolf would grab the win with a flip into a roll-up for a victory. Decent enough opener, though Wolf has felt like an odd fit over the two days in wXw, if I’m being honest.
The second contest of the evening would see RISE, JayFK and the team of Emil Sitoci and Dirty Dragan compete for a spot in the World Tag League tournament. JayFk would be their usual selves and try to avoid getting involved early on, only to eat a Sitoci suicide dive to the outside, as well as a Dragan chop off of the apron. JayFK would stay out of the match for as long as they could, watching Pete Bouncer and Ivan Kiev hit a sidewalk slam/legdrop combination, before Sitoci fired back by slamming his own partner on top of Kiev. An illegal knee by Francis Kaspin would be adjudged a tag, allowing JayFK to cheapshot everyone in short order, cutting off Dragan in particular. He would eventually escape to tag in Kiev, so Sitoci would then need to break a pinfall after a resulting neckbreaker almost gave RISE the win.
Sitoci would land his trademark split legged moonsault, only to pop up straight into a vicious full nelson slam by Bouncer as the moves began to come thick and fast. Sitoci in particular was on fire as he hit a spinning tombstone on Bouncer and a single Spanish fly on Kiev, but JayFK would be the ones to take advantage – a collision of Sitoci and Dragan allowed them to nail the uranage/backstabber combo, before a low blow on Dragan and a superkick by Jay Skillet gave them the win that sends them to World Tag League. A competent offering with some good exchanges; JayFK was the obvious choice to qualify and should be good fun over that weekend.
Doug Williams, coming off of a win over Veit Mullet would meet Fred Yehi, who lost to Chris Brookes, in the next contest. Yehi turned down a handshake offer early on, and it would be Yehi in control early on as he began to work the arm after slapping it in the corner and stomping on the wrist. Williams would turn the tide with a headbutt to the stomach, before a sequence had him land a shoulderblock, a kick to the thigh, an atomic drop and a shoulder tackle. He’d even stamp on Yehi’s arm to gain some measure of revenge. It would take a strong arm twists that had Williams land hard on the mat face first for Yehi to begin to come back, but Williams would block a Yehi charge in the corner to hit a middle rope Euro uppercut and an exploder suplex. Yehi would score a nearfall with a Fisherman suplex, whilst also aiming multiple kicks to Williams’ chest moments later that turned into a series of pin reversals. The reversals would eventually see Williams grab Yehi and dump him with the Chaos Theory, thus making him 2 for 2 over this sequence of shows. Yehi accepted the handshake offered after the contest, one which was always going to be at least tidy giving the men involved.
One of the more intriguing bouts of the evening was due to come next as Bobby Gunns and Lucky Kid met Tarkan Aslan and Marius Al-Ani. The righteously indignant Kid would take the match to both Al-Ani and Aslan, taking down Aslan with a tackle and landing on his feet following an Al-Ani German suplex. His handspring back elbow nailed both of his opponents, whilst Gunns’ eventual involvement to help his team mate allowed Kid to land a springboard moonsault to the outside. As Kid went for a second dive, Aslan would cut him off with a forearm to the face, before revealing an illegal object. Al-Ani, having pulled Gunns off of the apron, nailed a frog splash to win the match within the first five minutes! Aslan and Al-Ani would slink off into the night, but Gunns was having none of it. Grabbing the microphone, he would verbally tear down the behaviour of Aslan and Al-Ani, whilst also pushing the referee and several crew members around. Finally, Kid and Gunns would head backstage to seek out the men who had cheated them. A brave finish, one that becomes wholly dependent on the payoff.
Jurn Simmons and David Starr would need to go all out considering the time that people have been waiting for them to do battle in a Last Man Standing match, so beginning with a kendo stick duel wasn’t a bad way to begin. The early going saw both men brawling in and around the fans, including Starr and Simmons both using a mannequin as a weapon, whilst Starr would also dive off of the ramp after reversing a powerbomb attempt into a back body drop. As the fight returned to the ring, both men would try to take the turnbuckle pad off, with Starr being the eventual recipient of a throw into the exposed steel and a draped DDT onto a chair that he had unfortunately grabbed himself earlier in the contest. Simmons began to take part over bits of the ring, starting with the bottom turnbuckle (though both would fight over this after chair shots had halted each other’s progress), before the metal from the turnbuckle would be used as a weapon that almost scored Starr the win: Simmons only getting to his feet at eight.
Starr grabbed the kendo stick to attack Simmons, yet a brief moment of sympathy in which he hesitated as Simmons begged off allowed Jurn to fight back. No quarter was given as Simmons smashed Starr on the neck with the kendo stick, but Starr rolled to the outside at nine, forcing him effectively onto his feet. Using similarly ingenious ways of beating the count, Starr used a fan to prop himself up after Simmons had absolutely launched him into the chairs at ringside. This also prompted Simmons to begin tearing the ring apart, revealing the wooden floor boards underneath the canvas. However, this would almost cost him as Starr fought back and nailed a piledriver, with Simmons just about rising at nine and catching Starr on the top rope. From there, he would pitch Starr to the wooden surface with almost a top rope spinebuster, leaving both men down and unable to beat the ten count. The match would be considered a draw, which could have been adjudged a weak finish, but the two men had absolutely destroyed each other and it felt that it made sense in the moment for sure.
With the ring now fixed, Monster Consulting would defend the wXw World Tag Team titles against RINGKAMPF and Aussie Open in a real test of the champion’s mettle. In the early going, Julian Nero would make the mistake of offering five minutes to Mark Davis, getting himself several big Aussie high fives for his troubles, though Consulting would soon be in control as a double shoulderblock followed by a kneedrop/splash combination had Dunkzilla down on the mat. A shuffling of opponents led to WALTER and Davis go blow for blow, before Kyle Fletcher would take advantage of a David leg lariat to catch WALTER with a top rope crossbody. Unfortunately for Fletcher, a sambo suplex by WALTER left him isolated and vulnerable to a Thatcher gutwrench suplex and a WALTER Boston crab. Just as it looked like Fletcher had escaped by avoiding a powerbomb/Euro uppercut double team, he mistakenly knocked WALTER into Avalanche, so now he was getting double teamed by the tag team champions instead.
Fletcher would eventually manage to fight his way out of the corner for a hot tag to Davis, though Avalanche would halt his fire with an impressive Samoan drop. The next person to get cut off from his partner would be Thatcher, with Monster Consulting keeping him in their corner with shoulder charges and strikes. This would lead to WALTER going on a rampage when he got tagged in, dealing out a clothesline and German suplex to take out the champs, before Davis would eventually drop him with a clothesline to halt his onslaught. The tide would turn several more times before Thatcher would be hit with the Final Consultation by Monster Consulting; coupled with suicide dives, this would effectively take RINGKAMPF out of the reckoning. An assisted ace crusher on Avalanche almost scored Aussie Open the big upset, only for the Final Consultation and a Ripcord Lariat ending Open’s night and seeing Monster Consulting retain their titles in a hard fought, entertaining contest. In particular, it is good to see Monster Consulting continuing their momentum head into World Tag League.
Having not been pinned in the #1 Contender’s Match the previous evening, Melanie Gray would interrupt a Killer Kelly interview to effectively weasel her way into the wXw Women’s Title match set the tone for a triple threat including Alpha Female. Gray would use the rules to her advantage, escaping to the outside and allowing Kelly and Female to beat each other up, entering only to break pins. Gray’s interference initially saved Kelly, as Gray would break pins following hair tosses, a slam, a sideslam and a choke bomb, but she would also get in when Kelly managed to take the giant down with a bicycle kick. By this time, Kelly and Female had had enough and would bring Gray into the match, taking her down with a Female clothesline in the corner and Kelly’s basement dropkick for good measure.
Gray would save Kelly once more by hitting a chop block to stop Female’s attempt at the Dominator, even hitting running double knees to score a nearfall on Female. A suplex by Kelly on Female also saw Gray land a top rope senton that hit Female, Kelly moving away from the pin at the last moment to avoid contact. Still, Female was the most dangerous person in the match, and she would use an arm triangle choke on Kelly to incapacitate her long enough to hit the Dominator. However, Gray would bundle Female out of the ring and score the upset victory to become the new wXw Women’s Champion! As someone who really enjoys Gray’s character work, I was very happy to see her ascend to the top of the division, whilst the match was booked in a way that allowed wXw to circumvent what felt like an inevitable Female victory.
Absolute Andy would attempt to mimic the opening to his match with Zack Sabre Jr. by hitting Ilja Dragunov with a superkick as the wXw Unified World Title match begun, but Dragunov would be wise to this attack. Andy would – after using the official to escape Dragunov – land an F5 for a one count, before getting absolutely destroyed for the majority of the early exchanges. Dragunov was singularly focused on taking back the title, hitting multiple clotheslines and launching himself with a suicide dive as Andy tried to head to ringside to escape. Two running sentons on the chairs were followed by a dropkick, an enziguri and a spinning back fist for two as the match returned to the ring. Every time Andy tried to fight back, Dragunov would power through it with ease, whilst he even landed an F5 of his own for a nearfall to almost rub salt in the wounds of the champion. After getting crotched on the top rope by Andy pushing the ref, Dragunov slipped out of the corner and dumped Andy with a sitout liger bomb for another nearfall.
It is Dragunov’s own wild ways that sometimes catch him out, as it was when a coast to coast attempt saw him jump into a superkick. However, he was able to – on shaky legs – hit a Torpedo Moscow that sent both men to ringside, only to then get waffled with a chair after the referee was out of position due to taking the title belt away from Dragunov as tensions threatened to boil over. Dragunov was busted wide open at this point and Andy would methodically take aim at the wound with punches and kicks, as well as sending Dragunov head first into the ring post. A spinebuster set up for the Avalanche F5, yet Dragunov would manage to kick out at two. Having grabbed a microphone, Andy would then unwisely spend some moments badmouthing Dragunov’s family, suggesting he would be a better father alongside comments I can only assume were made about Dragunov’s wife considering the wink and hip thrust that accompanied them. This was a big mistake initially by Andy, with Dragunov landing on his feet after an attempted F5 and unloading with knees, punches and clotheslines. A desperation boot by Andy gave him a chance to grab a chair, only for the referee to take it back. Dragunov would then take the chair from the referee and break it over Andy’s head, causing a disqualification.
Dragunov was not finished. Andy would be choked with the frame of the chair, whilst Dragunov would also throw the referee and wipe out a security team with a dive off of the top rope. It was only the arrival of Bobby Gunns that managed to stop the assault: Gunns would hit Dragunov with a low blow, before doing the same to Andy as he made it clear that he takes no sides. Grabbing the microphone, he proclaimed he was going to be the next champion before the show finished with him celebrating with the belt in the ring. The match was good, whilst the finish allows them to start to transition away from Andy/Dragunov.
When you dub shows ‘Fan Appreciation’, you have to deliver, and wXw delivered in spades once more. By the end, not only was the in-ring action from good to great, you are left wanting to where things are going with a whole raft of superstars, from Lucky Kid to Bobby Gunns. It is that desire to see what the next step brings that makes wXw’s 2018 continue to be an incredibly strong year for the company.
