By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
In some ways, the ending to the wXw World Tag Team Title Match at Broken Rules was foreshadowed by the booking of Arrows of Hungary to get the next one on one shot against JayFK, meaning Coast 2 Coast were always liable to take the fall. It is this match that opens up Shotgun Live Tour: Hamburg as a second Marquee Event follows in quick succession to the aforementioned Broken Rules.
The initial exchanges nicely showcased the Arrows’ tag team offense as Jay Skillet would end up the victim of an assisted cannonball, before cheating (naturally) by Francis Kaspin turned the tide as he shoulder charged Icarus whilst standing on the ring apron. After some control for the champs, a neat sequence had Icarus hit a second rope dropkick that ended up with Skillet also DDT’ing Kaspin in the process. We still had a chance to see Dover use his impressive power, hitting a backdrop on Skillet as he prepared a fallaway slam for Kaspin, as well as his double powerslam. The Arrows did for once hit crossfire, Kaspin the unlucky recipient of the double kneestrike, but after the pin was broken, JayFK picked up the win as a chop block on Dover during a slam saw Skillet hold the Hungarian’s leg down for the dubious three count. A fun opener with the Arrows of Hungary hopefully a longer term addition to the roster.
Having avoided a lot of Twitter in the week leading up to this event so as not to spoil Broken Rules, I had no idea that PCO was taking on David Starr on this card. From the outset, the task that Starr had to defeat PCO was clear as the monster threw him around with relative ease and shrugged off Starr’s strikes. Starr would need to hit hard and fast, landing a second rope splash after getting kicked out of a roll-up in a unique sequence. A suicide dive and a top rope shoulderblock had Starr down once more, though a full nelson suplex moments later by PCO looked more than a little ropey.
Bomb were being thrown next as PCO landed a Canadian destroyer, buckle bomb, pop up powerbomb and running knee in quick succession, only for Starr to grab the ropes before the three. A Cherrymint DDT stopped another suicide dive attempt, yet Starr would leap almost immediately into a chokeslam. High risk from PCO followed as he missed a moonsault. Some more back and forth led to Starr almost scoring the win with a Han Stansen, before two superkicks, a Han Stansen and a capture German suplex finished the contest off just as it looked like PCO was starting to fire up again. Like all PCO matches, there is an element of sloppiness, but you watch them for the punishment and the offensive moves. Not his best, but perfectly watchable.
A match with little really on the line outside of getting two teams on the card, RISE took on Coast 2 Coast in the next contest. Like Arrows of Hungary, Coast to Coast have done themselves justice in this tour, and they would begin the match on the front foot as Shaheem Alli used a flapjack and a kick for two on Pete Bouncer before they used a double snapmare into superkick for another near fall. The transition to RISE being in control didn’t look great as Bouncer dropped Leon St. Geovanni in a slam attempt, but Ivan Kiev turned up the pace with a headscissors and a high knee, followed by a leaping kick and his characteristic nip-up. C2C would take a lot of the contest, including hitting Bouncer with a modified facebuster and Alli even teasing the Three Amigos, though Bouncer would cut off the last suplex with a back suplex of his own. Geovanni would make the poor choice to mock the RISE taunt late in the match, earning himself a full nelson slam for his troubles. However, a gutwrench powerbomb almost earned Alli the pinfall over Kiev, before a blind tag caught C2C vulnerable to a superkick and a double arm DDT for a RISE victory. Like the last match, sloppy in places, but Coast 2 Coast again looked good in defeat.
A potentially hard hitting encounter was to follow as Wesna took on Alpha Female. The early going was all about making it clear that they were pretty much equal in strength, both women bouncing off each other in three consecutive shoulderblocks. Female would use a spinning back elbow to take control and utilise strikes to keep Wesna down, only for a Samoan drop to highlight Wesna’s impressive power. That battle would spill outside and lead to Female choking Wesna with a chair before Female was introduced to a wall. Back in the ring, a lariat allowed Female to get the mount position and strike away, as well as use a variation of a clutch that forced Wesna to get the ropes. Female seemed on top after a spear gained a nearfall, but several big kicks, including one to the head, ended Female’s night as Wesna picked up the big victory. There are some limitations for both women, but as a quick bomb throwing session, it served its purpose.
A huge match followed as Lucky Kid challenged for Marius Al-Ani’s Shotgun Title after some backstage footage showed the two, alongside Ivan Kiev and Pete Bouncer, having words backstage. To even the score, Tarkan Aslan would be sent away from the ring, and both men would tease early both of their submission finishers, whilst Kid would also feint on his own dive feint taunt, launching himself over the top with a tope con hilo. Unfortunately for Kid, Al-Ani would catch him coming into the ring with a kick to the knee, further targeting the limb with a dragon screw legwhip and modified figure four.
Kid would try and avoid offense to the leg as he worked his way back into the contest, landing on a German suplex and using the bottom rope to gain momentum into an asai DDT. A beautiful dropkick briefly halted Kid’s momentum, but he avoided the pop-up elbow to hit an Alabama slam for a nearfall. Al-Ani managed to catch Kid across the top rope, hitting his nip-up exploder and frog splash for nearfalls rather than for a three count, consequently bringing Aslan back out to the ring. Bouncer and Kiev would drag Aslan away from the ring, but knuckledusters that Aslan so often uses.
Some more trading of moves saw Kid get a nearfall off of a Ligerbomb, before the ref needed to get out of the ring in order to deal with the extra-curricular activities. This allowed Kid to grab the knuckledusters, debate giving them to the ring announce, before clobbering Al-Ani with them instead. A crossface looked like it was about to lead to a title change…but the lights went out. As they came back on, Da Mack was standing in the ring! A shocked Kid was rolled up by Al-Ani for a three count, before all three members of RISE were taken out by a combination of Aslan knuckleduster punches and an unprettier by Mack on Bouncer. The best match on the card, and a huge return relative to this stable and storyline. Mack, Al-Ani and Aslan would all do the RISE salute before leaving the ring.
Timothy Thatcher was in no mood to mess around as he refuse to give Veit Muller a handshake before their match. The fans were incredibly vocal throughout the contest, whilst the first few sequences showcased Muller’s ability to work Thatcher to the mat, but Thatcher’s ability to use this to manoeuvre Muller into difficult positions. This gave way to some European uppercut trades before a big slap and a back suplex sent Muller to the canvas. It was Muller’s size that allowed him to fight back, reversing a back suplex in midair to get a nearfall, as well as reversing Thatcher’s belly to belly suplex. Thatcher wasn’t happy with that and soon made amends with a suplex of his own, whilst a cross armbreaker battle had Muller heading for the ropes.
Rather than just uppercuts, open handed slaps were introduces as Muller showed he could give as good as he was getting. Thatcher managed to apply the goijira clutch, but an attempted butterfly suplex led to the impressive sight of Muller carrying Thatcher around the ring before depositing him hard onto the canvas. Muller would utilise a classic RINGKAMPF move in a deadlift gutwrench suplex and use his cravat suplex, but Thatcher not only kicked out, he turned it into an armbar for the tap. A hard hitting affair that told a good story, Thatcher would then shake hands with Muller after the match, as well as announcing RINGKAMPF, with Axel Dieter Jr., versus British Strong Style at the 18th Anniversary Show.
The next match was hurt by Jurn Simmons being ill, leading to Allan Pain wrestling alongside Alexander James to take on Avalanche and Emil Sitoci, with Laurence Roman having decided he was not cut out for the task of being a member of Monster Consulting. The contest didn’t go for too long as we saw Sitoci and Avalanche team up well in the initial exchanges – a back suplex into a splash followed by a big splash a nice combination move. Avalanche would be tripped and have his leg wrapped around the ringpost, but the heel beatdown on the knee wasn’t for long, leading to James effectively walking out after avoiding a snapmare driver by Sitoci. Pain had no such luck, getting hit with a snapmare driver and a Blue Thunder Bomb by Avalanche for the three count.
The main event – Absolute Andy versus Ilja Dragunov for the wXw Unified Heavyweight Championship – started with both main referees getting knocked out before the bell had rung: one via Andy superkick; the second via Torpedo Moscow. The main event therefore proceeded without a referee for a prolonged period of time, leading to brawling in and around the fans at the beginning. Andy was his usual cowardly self, rolling back outside the moment Dragunov threatened to go for a top rope senton. A back body drop on the stage had Dragunov screaming in pain, but he was soon launching himself onto Andy with a suicide dive. It would be a quick scaling of the turnbuckles and a belly to belly superplex by Andy that turned the tide in his favour.
Boots and legdrops became the order of the day, up until Dragunov managed to lay Andy out with a back suplex after a fair bit of struggling. Dragunov’s wild offense managed to cost him shortly afterwards as a suplex from the ring into the chairs failed, and Dragunov would instead get punched off into them himself. A chair would be broken over Dragunov’s head as the match returned to the ring, only there was no official to count. When Andy did finally wake one up, he refused to count as the match couldn’t officially start until both men were standing!
An immediate F5 as Dragunov returned to his feet only got the nearest of nearfalls, whilst Dragunov was then able to fire back with a lariat after getting kicked into the ropes. They would continue to trade as a Dragunov DDT was followed by an Andy spinebuster, but it was Dragunov pushing the pace as he hit a DVD bomb into the corner and utilised two Van Terminators to add further damage. The decision to try to go diagonally across the ring almost cost him, jumping into a superkick as he did, but Dragunov would hold the referee’s hand after the two in order to keep the match going.
Both refs would be knocked down once more – a back body drop on Andy taking out one, an Irish whip knocking the other one off of the apron. This meant a Torpedo Moscow was meaningless, whilst an avalanche F5 only earned a two count. With confusion continuing to reign, Andy attempted to lie, cheat and steal his way to the title with the old Eddie Guerrero chair trick, yet as the referees and Dragunov argued over what had happened, Andy just hit a low blow and the A-Klasse for the victory. This was so overbooked due to the two men having met several times in recent memory, but still enjoyable in the process.
It is hard not to suggest that wXw hasn’t lost a bit of momentum from where it was earlier in the year. However, a resolution in the title picture, the return of Da Mack for the RISE versus Aslan and Al-Ani feud, and a tag division that has seen some new blood brought in with some success at least points towards a hopeful resurgence within the promotion.
