wXw 16 Carat Gold Night Three
With the 16 Carat Gold Tournament and the wXw Women’s Title still to be resolved, things were far from finished as the weekender drew to a close. Four names had a chance of winning the trophy, whilst friends turned bitter rivals in Killer Kelly and Toni Storm were finally going to get their hands on each other. That, alongside a bevy of other surprises in terms of matches, promised that Night Three would be well worth watching.
Lucky Kid versus Ilja Dragunov
After what had probably been two heavy nights for the fans, the third night was kicked off wisely with two very popular wrestlers as Lucky Kid and Ilja Dragunov met for a chance to contest the 16 Carat Gold final. The match begun fast with a Saito suplex by Dragunov and the trading of dives, before it settled down into a contest dominated by Dragunov’s chops. After a crazy sequence saw Kid pop up from a superplex straight into a Ligerbomb of his own, Kid unsurprisingly lost out overall on a series of strike exchanges. A flash pin was teased as Kid turned a Torpedo Moscow into a small package for a 2.9 count, whilst Dragunov did land it eventually to stop a handspring back elbow by Kid. The fans popped huge for the kickout, as they did when another Torpedo Moscow saw Dragunov hit the turnbuckle instead and Kid landed a 450 splash for the victory! Another good match for Kid as the perennial underdog made his way into the final.
Avalanche versus WALTER
The crowd were firmly behind Avalanche after WALTER’s actions over the past two days in this battle of two ex-partners. Avalanche almost grabbed the victory within the first minute, but WALTER grabbed the rope on a pinfall following a Dreissker bomb. WALTER cruelly targeted the shoulder that had been injured before, sending Avalanche into a metal railing before working it over with holds and strikes. That didn’t stop Avalanche from displaying immense power in a one arm slam on WALTER. However, every move WALTER used seemed to work over the joint to the point that it did eventually cost him as a second Dreissker bomb impacted upon the injury further, allowing WALTER to lock on a Kimura-style submission for the tapout win. Lucky Kid versus WALTER Kid was now going to be the final in a true David versus Goliath clash. This match told a good story alongside some decent power spots.
Axel Tischer, Veit Muller and Timothy Thatcher versus Daisuke Sekimoto, Shigehiro Irie and Yuki Ishikawa
A strong looking six man on paper started with Ishikawa giving Muller a bit of a lesson on the mat, before each man was given their chance to shine on offense in the opening exchanges. It was Irie who ended up isolated in the opponent’s corner, though a Muller sunset flip then saw Irie piledrive Thatcher on to Muller to break the hold and make the tag to a fresher man. At this point, things mainly broke down as people came in to hit moves, go for pins, and make saves. Tischer saved both of his teammates from submissions, whilst Muller used an airplane spin on Sekimoto in an impressive show of strength that led to a huge double clothesline by the dizzy pairing. Thatcher locked the sleeper on Irie, but Sekimoto made the save with a German and Irie finished Thatcher off with the Beast Bomber. Fun six man action, but a bad weekend for Thatcher.
With Tischer and Thatcher in the ring, WALTER and Axel Dieter Jr. came out to the ring. For a moment it looked as if WALTER had jumped Muller, but it was all a ruse to give him a RINGKAMPF shirt to show he had finally been accepted. Tischer left, but as the remaining four went to do the RINGKAMPF pose, Thatcher walked out. Having had a bad few months, it’ll be interesting to see what the next step is for Thatcher in wXw.
Toni Storm © versus Killer Kelly (wXw Women’s Title Match)
A fast paced start perfectly fit an increasingly hostile relationship between the two women and it wasn’t long before they were throwing themselves (Storm) or getting thrown into (Kelly) chairs at ringside. Storm made it clear early on how she was happy with a countout, whilst her offense was of the playground bully variety – derisory kicks, pulling hair, stamping on fingers. A countout was once more teased later on as Storm hit her Strong Zero on the rampway, yet Kelly beat the count. Storm’s heeling continued to work to add heat as she stole Kelly’s mouthguard to imitate her trademark offense; naturally this caught her out when Kelly fired back with an enziguri. Finisher kick outs came as standard, yet it was a schoolboy roll-up by Storm as Kelly went for Shades of Shibata that earned her the cheap victory. This felt forced at the start, but really built up to some great late exchanges.
JayFK versus Hot&Spicy
The fun with having numerous returning faces are some of the nostalgic moments you can create. A perfect example of this was Karsten Beck interrupting a JayFK promo, leading to Axel Dieter Jr. and Da Mack reuniting as Hot&Spicy for the evening. This did somewhat undermine the gimmick change Da Mack had undergone in the time since they first teamed, but the reaction for their return was huge.
That reaction was also levelled at JayFK for jumping their opponents, though Dieter Jr. and Mack were soon double teaming Skillet and Kaspin as if they had never been away. It took Kaspin grabbing a handful of Mack’s hair from the apron to allow JayFK to cut the ring in half with heel 101 referee manipulation and make use of illegal double teaming in an abdominal stretch. A neat top rope enziguri by Mack gave him a window to make a tag; Dieter Jr. blasted through JayFK with a double blockbuster before pinning Kaspin after dual gamengiris dropped both members of JayFK. Whilst the match was good, the nostalgia pushed it over the top in terms of quality.
Schadenfreude versus Lucha Bros and Rey Horus
Schadenfreude get a black and white filter for their entrance as Fletcher and Davis are also attired differently than the previous nights. The crowd are very much up for this as duelling chants echo around the Turbinenhalle. A match fought under lucha rules, the wild opening meant Davis had to kick out of a Canadian Destroyer within the first couple of minutes. With no tags, the action was wild from the get go, whilst Schadenfreude highlighted their new heelish tendencies with an Aussie Open double low blow on Pentagon early on in the action. Davis again needed to be resilient after a double foot stomp, swanton and 450 splash combination, kicking out at two. The Mexican triumvirate in particular had some nifty team moves, including Pentagon sending Horus over the top rope onto Schadenfreude to spark off a dive fest. However, a miscommunication saw Pentagon hit the Canadian Destroyer on Fenix, triggering a sequence that saw Fenix get dropped with Close Your Eyes and Count To Fuck as well as a Praying Mantis Bomb for the loss. A wild match that lived up to expectations.
Post-match, Fenix got on the microphone on behalf of the Mexican trio to say thanks to the fans for a great weekend of action and support.
16 Carat Gold Final: WALTER versus Lucky Kid
This is what the weekend all boiled down to as the underdog, Lucky Kid, took on a man with an increasingly bad attitude, WALTER, in the final of the 16 Carat Gold tournament. The whole narrative was the ever-present danger WALTER represented to Kid; every time Kid landed a quick flurry of offense, it was only a moment away from WALTER reversing things or landing a hard strike. Worse, WALTER took off Kid’s bandage around his arm to begin to target a previous injury, echoes of his treatment of Avalanche earlier. Spots from throughout the weekend came back to be played upon – Kid grabbed a two count on a small package, before reversing a superbomb into a super-rana. WALTER tried his ‘end boss’ offense and dumped Kid hard with a tombstone as well as a top rope splash, though his arm trap sleeper almost saw him give Kid a chance to grab a flash pin. To beat a monster, you need to bring out your biggest moves and following a standing double foot stomp, Kid launched himself onto WALTER with two 450 splashes. WALTER managed to kick out of that, but Kid transitioned smoothly into the crossface and forced the tap for the victory!
The main event neatly crowned what had been a strong weekend in terms of the storylines that had been told throughout the tournament. My expectation had been that David Starr might have turned up to cost WALTER, but seemingly that wasn’t necessary. Having seen the response Kid received on the phantom title change at the tail end of 2018 at the Anniversary Show, wXw must have felt it was the right time to strike whilst the iron was hot. They got the run right as well – revenge for last year in the first round, before taking on several wXw/ex-wXw stalwarts. Though he was often fighting from underneath, he raised his game to take on and take out the best.
16 Carat Gold as a whole was an entertaining three nights of wrestling with enough overarching storylines and narratives that leave threads open to build upon going forward. Most interestingly, the positioning of Thatcher, Starr and WALTER going forward is one to keep an eye on over the next few weeks for sure.
