wXw 16 Carat Gold Night 2
Night One always feels like the appetiser that prepares you for the main meal that is Night Two and Three. With a strong opening, things were only to get more heated on the Saturday as Bobby Gunns challenged for Absolute Andy’s wXw Unified World Heavyweight Championship, whilst we also would learn the four semi-finalists of this year’s 16 Carat Gold.
Toni Storm and Wesna versus Killer Kelly and Yuu
An interesting partnership on paper as Storm has gone full heel in recent weeks and is joined in this taster for the wXw Women’s Title Match on Sunday by Wesna. It is great psychology to have the new heel use the monster Wesna to take the fight to Kelly, which she does, though Kelly showed her ability to fight from underneath with cravat knees and a pump kick for 2. Yuu became the de facto face in peril as Wesna and Storm each took turns to work her over, isolating Kelly for the most part. A hot tag after a cool corner dropkick/senton by Yuu took out both opponents saw Kelly drill Storm immediately with Shades of Shibata. Storm and Kelly still didn’t really go at it until some slaps were traded near the end, but an errant Storm headbutt on Wesna allowed Kelly to hit the Carnation Revolution (after collapsing on the first attempt) on Wesna for the win. Decent tease, though could have done with a bit more interaction between the two title competitors.
Before the first Quarter Final of the 16 Carat Gold Tournament, David Starr came down to the ring to address last night. Apologising for his conduct in the interview, he made it clear he wasn’t going to wrestle the rest of the weekend as there was no point as he hadn’t achieved what he set out to. His focus soon switched to Big Daddy Sellout (his words), who he still believed tapped, with Starr claiming he won’t get away with it.
Pentagon Jr. versus Ilja Dragunov
Pentagon Jr. was looking to make up for a lacklustre opening round match against Mark Davis as he took on Dragunov and the opening exchanges already hinted that things were going in the right direction. As often feels the way, Dragunov was required to work his way back into a contest against a hard hitting opponent, even requiring a kickout of the Pentagon Driver as the import threatened what could be considered an upset. With that ineffective, Pentagon raised the bar with a package piledriver on the apron that had me visibly cringing, but it still wasn’t enough. Fighting out of the Sacrifice armbreaker led to some hard-hitting exchanges of strikes in particular, yet when the dust settled it was a Konstantin Special and the Torpedo Moscow that downed Pentagon Jr. A huge step up for Pentagon in terms of quality; a big win for Dragunov as he goes through to the semis.
Shigehiro Irie versus Avalanche
Another big lad battle for Avalanche in the Quarter Final, though at least he wasn’t legitimately hurt seriously last night. Though presented as somewhat equal in power in the early exchanges, Avalanche nearly launched Irie out of the ring with a belly to belly suplex part way though the contest. This matching up continued into other parts of the match as they traded corner charges which ended up with Irie landing a cannonball and getting the crowd hyped. It took Irie making a huge mistake – coming off the top with a cannonball and missing – for Avalanche to put him away with a corner splash, fallaway slam and a Dreissker bomb (having missed one earlier). Perhaps could be seen as an upset following how Irie has been positioned, but a decent enough big man match.
Chris Brookes versus Rey Horus versus Daisuke Sekimoto versus Julian Pace
Already entering the stack of interesting, if not outright wacky, matches that can be run this weekend, we see three wrestlers eliminated from Carat mixed with Pace, who lost in the Alternate four way himself. A misguided triple team on Sekimoto saw him take out all three of his opponents, hilariously spinning Horus through the air on a simple shoulderblock. Pace, as always, looked good as the…ahem…pace quickened, yet his attempt to ‘Voll Gas’ his way past Sekimoto earned him a press slam to the floor (on top of Brookes and Horus, thankfully). Poor Pace was the fall guy for a chop merry-go-round as he received from Sekimoto, before Daisuke ploughed through Horus and Brookes with a double spear in another nice sequence. Top moment had to go to the triple decker German superplex trigger by Sekimoto, yet it was Pace who picked up the huge victory when he small packaged Horus whilst reversing a suplex attempt. Fun match with a great piece of booking to put over Pace.
Unfortunately for Pace, he didn’t have long to enjoy things as a returning Emil Sitoci, replete with bad attitude, attacked the winner as he walked back up the ramp. Oddly enough, two spinning tombstones earned a ‘one more time’ chant from the crowd, but Sitoci had made his point.
WALTER versus Fenix
A big clash of styles in the next Quarter Final as Fenix needed to hit and move quickly to have any chance of taking out WALTER. Signs of this came as he dodged a chop with a nip up and landed a dropkick, yet a rope-assisted armdrag received short shrift and a trademark chop instead. Highlighting his more heelish tendencies recently, WALTER went for the mask to mass boos from the crowd. Fenix’s high flying offense was sporadically effective; WALTER catching one attempt but getting drilled with a moonsault press moments later. A top rope huracanrana was turned into a superbomb to further highlight the discrepancy between the two men, though a ramp run into a diving cutter almost won Fenix the match as he subsequently lost his mask in the process. WALTER managed to swat a re-masked Fenix out of mid-air once more and took the second mask off mid-choke to force the tapout. If Starr last night was the appetiser, this was the heel turn for WALTER. Great big man, little man fight with a compelling narrative.
Lucky Kid versus Axel Dieter Jr.
Kid looked to pull off another upset in the last Quarter Final of the tournament, but it looked again like it wouldn’t be plain sailing. Dieter Jr. quickly got used to the unorthodox tactics of Kid and methodically worked him over with precision strikes that sometimes skirted the boundaries of legality. Dieter Jr. at times seemed to be fighting for a countout, yet Kid managed to avoid that most unceremonious of exits before kicking out of the Super Landungsbrucken and sparking into high gear. No matter what Dieter tried to do, he couldn’t get distance from Kid at this point, including a whip to the ropes turning into a handspring back elbow for a double down. Dieter Jr. broke La Mistica by getting his foot on the rope, but a sequence of reversals moments later had Kid on top for the three count! It took a little bit to get going, yet the underestimating of Kid by Dieter Jr. throughout cost him big.
RISE © versus JayFK versus Aussie Open (wXw World Tag Team Championship Match)
It is convenient that Mark Davis was eliminated from 16 Carat as he found himself in a wXw World Tag Team Championship match on Night Two. JayFK’s initial attempt to jump both teams failed, but a divide and conquer strategy after RISE and Open had traded offense worked much better and saw JayFK work over Pete Bouncer in particular. With all the passion of a hot tag, it was Ivan Kiev who managed to break his partner out of that bind, coming close to victory with a top rope leg lariat on Jay Skilet. This opened up a window for a Kyle Fletcher and Davis rampage, which they duly obliged to, including a double JayFK slam by Dunkzilla that had the crowd back on his side after last night. Just as it looked like nefarious tactics from JayFK would work again – a title shot to Kiev, a low blow on Bouncer – Chris Brooked pulled the referee out to stop the pin. Aussie Open took advantage, hitting a fidget spinner on Skillet for the win and the gold!
Post-match, Brookes revealed the ‘Schadenfreude’ banner as Fight Club Pro’s premier heel stable turned up in wXw, though with a slightly more positive slant on it. It took Lucky Kid to get in between RISE and Schadenfreude to stop a fight beginning, whilst it also appeared that Kid, at least for now, was siding with his RISE brothers.
Having lost in the first round the night before, the Shotgun Champion, Marius Al-Ani, came out and gave a promo in German, probably about him being the greatest champion in wXw. Karsten Beck came out to say he had a challenger, at which point we got the wXw return of Alexander Wolfe/Axel Tischer to a rapturous reception!
Marius Al-Ani versus Axel Tischer
The support of the fans carried Tischer through a lightning few minutes as he had Al-Ani very much on the back foot, though an axe-kick caught Tischer off guard coming into the ring thus giving Al-Ani a chance to slow things down. Al-Ani’s simple mix of strikes and weardown tactics worked to neutralise Tischer, only for the returning superstar to get a second wind and grind down Al-Ani with multiple German suplexes at intermittent times. The second control segment by Al-Ani lacked heat until the two men went for the obligatory strike exchange, ending in a very close nearfall off of a Tischer Ligerbomb. The most heated act was probably the eye rake that halted Tischer hitting a top rope move, giving Al-Ani the opening to attack and hit the frogsplash for the win. The match was sound, but it didn’t really live up to the reception for Tischer in the first instance.
Absolute Andy © versus Bobby Gunns (wXw Unified Word Wrestling Championship Match)
This was the one that the majority of fans seemed to have been waiting for and chants rang out from bell to bell. Andy tried to hit a belt shot before the match even started, setting the tone for a match where he tried to take every conceivable shortcut. Andy’s desperation became the narrative of the match as he hit a low blow, landed a desperation F5 after ending up in a prolonged sleeper hold, and even got into a shoving match with the referee over another attempted title shot. Considering the story coming in, Vinnie Vortex getting involved wasn’t surprising as he stopped Andy walking out near the end in order to save his championship. This almost backfired as a collision between the two brothers saw Andy hit the A-Klasse for a very close fall, but Gunns was not to be denied. Some may query the spot that saw the ref purposely ignore a low blow on Andy, yet the reaction to Andy tapping out to the switch armbar was huge. Bobby Gunns is the new wXw Unified World Heavyweight Champion!
The show was another good one, particularly when you look at what it delivered in terms of the tournament and the title. Two shows down, one to go. Who will win wXw 16 Carat 2019? Who will come out of the weekend as wXw Women’s Champion? Still many questions to be answered – join me for the conclusion.
