We’ve got a whole-lotta Chris Brookes as he looked to force his way into becoming a double champion as wXw felt the fall-out from the 16th Anniversary show.
As ever, Rico’s in the studio as we’re dealing with the fall-out from a hectic tour finale at the 16th Anniversary Show. He’s even got the t-shirt for it, as he pitches to a trailer of the anniversary show – featuring the return of Avalanche, and the surprise title change at the end. Clips follow from Alpha Kevin vs. Marius van Beethoven at the anniversary show, complete with all the gold confetti for Marius. Marius tried to walk out on the match, telling Kevin he’d never be able to catch him… but in the end, Kevin got the W anyway, only to get laid out with chairshots afterwards. Melanie Gray makes the save, evoking what happened at FAN earlier in the year, only for Marius to punch her out again as he proceeded to Pillmanize Alpha Kevin.
wXw Shotgun Championship: Dave Crist vs. Chris Brookes (c)
This one’s from the tour stop in Magdeburg, and we’ve got Alan Counihan back on commentary.
Crist starts off by taking Brookes down in a wristlock, but the champion’s out to reverse the hold, only for Crist to flip free. Brookes takes over as he chops Crist into the corner, but Crist chopped back before he took down Brookes with a dropkick. Heading up top, Crist rolls through into a lucha roll-up before a standing moonsault/headbutt almost put Brookes away as the pace proceeded to slow down momentarily. Brookes then gets hurled outside, where he kicks away a dive from Crist, which led to a count-out tease, as Brookes continued to kick Crist to the outside, resetting the counts as he went. When Crist did return, he was met with a back senton as Brookes continued to push on, tying up Crist’s leg on the mat, before his challenger came back with some chops.
A spinebuster from Brookes quickly stops that momentum though, as Brookes proceeded to hold Crist for a wet willie. Crist rebounds with a springboard enziguiri out of the corner, before he took Brookes into the corner for a hell of a kick. Repeated kicks follow as the swinging reverse STO almost led to yet another new champion. Crist heads up top and hits a flying Meteora for a near-fall, but Brookes is able to come right back as he blocked a flying cutter and hit a rope-hanging neckbreaker on Crist as the tide turned. Brookes gets distracted with the ref and almost loses to a roll-up, before an enziguiri had the champion all loopy, allowing Crist to go up top… but Brookes gets up and shoves referee Felix Schulz into the corner to mask a low blow before a Michinoku driver put away Crist. A solid first defence for Brookes, especially given the weird circumstances of his title win having occured before wXw had any chance to televise it! ***¼
They replay Chris Brookes talking himself into a tag match on the 16th Anniversary pre-show…
Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate) vs. Chris Brookes & Pete Dunne
So, Pete Dunne would be Brookes’ mystery partner here for the warm-up match, and he started by charging into Trent Seven, who was more than happy to slam everyone in sight.
Referee Markus Weiss is teased for a slam, but Brookes and Dunne attack before they could do anything, as the makeshift team began to go after Tyler Bate. Tyler’s in with a kick to the head of Brookes, before Trent and Tyler played pass-the-parcel with the Shotgun champion. Albeit a brief one… Brookes tags in Dunne, but Pete runs into a half crab as Trent struck first… while Tyler similarly neutralised Brookes’ attempt to intervene. After getting free, Dunne lays into Trent with forearms as the Oberhausen crowd seemed to mock the “loserweight” Dunne. Must be GWF fans. Clearly, Moustache Mountain were the big favourites, and were cheered on when Trent was able to reverse a suplex on Brookes.
Dunne’s back in to stop Trent from tagging out, and proceeded to nibble on Trent’s fingers while he was applying an armbar. Brookes returns to give Trent a wet willie… but it wasn’t long before Trent found a way in, ducking an enziguiri from Dunne that knocke ddown Brookes before he doves across the ring to tag in Bate. Tyler’s right in there with an airplane spin/giant swing combo, before he caught out Dunne with Bop and Bang. Trent returns with a Falcon arrow, but Brookes breaks up the cover before it can get going as he proceeded to hit a trapped-leg German suplex on Trent. A boot for Bate merely propels him into the ropes for a Koppo kick, before Moustache Mountain hit a double chokeslam on Dunne. Tyler follows up as he leaps onto Trent’s back, but ends up getting powerbombed onto him as a regular Magic Killer nearly got Dunne and Brookes the win.
Trent gets a kicking, but fired back as he set up an “accidental slingshot” to turn things around, as piledrivers and German suplexes got a dual near-fall. With Bate and Brookes headed outside, Trent goes for a cricket chop… but Dunne bites it away before he got caught with a clothesline on the top rope, allowing Trent to hit an avalanche Dragon suplex… which Dunne flipped out of. More back and forth leads to Trent and Tyler landing lariats, before a piledriver and a Tenzan-esque tombstone put Brookes away. This was absolutely fantastic – a glimpse of the British Strong Style lads just before the WWE UK project got underway, which indirectly made some of their indie work a little too shticky. Of course, that same said project somewhat tied up Tyler and Pete, which meant that Moustache Mountain never would cash in their title shot… ***¾
We’re quickly taken to clips of the Shotgun title match, which saw Chris Brookes lose the title back to David Starr, as it was a really bad night at the office for Brookes. The post-match promo from Starr airs as well, as he vows to return to the Turbinenhalle to win 16 Carat Gold. Starr joined Cody Rhodes, Paul London and Matt Riddle in the 2017 16 Carat Gold line-up with that announcement…
Clips of John Klinger vs. Ilja Dragunov from the anniversary show follow – it was an insane war with plenty of plunder. Ilja didn’t leave with the win though, but he won Klinger’s respect… and shared a fist bump with him afterwards. Which seemed to anger Adam Polak and Dirty Dragan, which led to Ilja finally excommunciating himself from Cerberus after the return of the Avalanche… who returned to Cerberus after almost a year out with injury.
My GOD, the kick Dragan took before Ilja was wrecked…
Backstage, Adam Polak is delirious because he has his Avalanche back…
Karsten Beck is next, as he has an address having retained his spot as the Director of Sports with wXw. He’s got an announcement for the final Shotgun of the year: they’ve got two main events for Back to the Roots. First up: the Käfigschlacht is back as Julian Nero, Dirty Dragan and Avalanche take on John Klinger, Chris Colen & Ilja Dragunov. The cage is staying up for two matches though, as Alpha Female takes on Melanie Gray in a rather unusual spectacle.
Nico Schmidt in the Event Center should be having a quiet one, but he recaps the two cage matches just announced. We also hear that Axel Dieter Jr. defends his newly-won wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship against Jurn Simmons… before we get the trailer for 2017’s We Love Wrestling tour, featuring “Andreas” at a self-help group. He’s absolutely joined by others who “look” like Jurn Simmons, Da Mack and Ilja Dragunov, among others. A hell of a concept for this trailer.
Wesna vs. Rosemary
This was Wesna’s debut in wXw, having recently returned to wrestling after several years out…
We open with Rosemary spraying something in Wesna’s face, as the then-Knockouts champion dominated the veteran with kicks early on. Referee Tassilo Jung has to dive between the ropes for a break, as Rosemary tried to intimidate him, before she went back on Wesna with some choking in the ropes. Wash, rinse, repeat as Rosemary’s told to stop choking, so she changes her tactics with a reverse triangle choke, hanging over the ropes instead. Ground and pound keeps Wesna laying as Berlin continued to call for her to “take the ref.” Forearms keep Wesna in the corner, but she fights back with forearms of her own before a running boot dropped Rosemary ahead of a spinebuster that got countered into a guillotine choke.
Rosemary tries to get a submission, but Wesna makes it to the ropes as someone’s phone goes off… a Northern Lights from Wesna turns it around for a near-fall. She keeps going with kicks to the back of Rosemary for a near-fall, before Wesna continued to stretch her. A spear from Rosemary gets her back in it for another two-count, before some back-and-forth striked ended with Wesna catching Rosemary with a Tiger Driver for another near-fall. Wesna tries to stay on top of Rosemary, but gets caught with some mist… and there’s the obvious DQ. Decent enough for what it was, but this came at a time when women’s wrestling in Berlin wasn’t exactly the “norm”… **¾
We’re back with Rico in the studio as he tells us this is the final “regular” Shotgun of the year – next week’ll be a year-in-review special instead, before a blooper show properly wraps up the year. He also tells us that in February 2017, Shotgun/Shotgun Plus will be retired, in favour of a new format that lives only on wXw NOW as wXw cycled through Shotgun formats.
From there, Rico pitches to videos from the 16th Anniversary show, with Marty Scurll winning the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship, only to lose it moments later after he was coerced into a title defence against Axel Dieter Jr. Backstage, CMJ and RINGKAMPF are celebrating their win – something that completed Junior’s “family collection.” Jakobi justifies what he did as he said they “couldn’t leave wrestling” with Cole or Scurll, while he told WALTER to “smooth out” the situation with the tag team titles. WALTER tries to make Junior focus, telling him everyone’s coming for him, as a crazed Jakobi steeled his troops for a “war” in 2017…
Karsten Beck congratulates A4 for their title win – and a win that keeps him in a job… Absolute Andy declared what Jakobi’s doing as a “shame”, as he promised to put together a unit to fight RINGKAMPF in 2017. Elsewhere, Marty Scurll leaves the Turbinenhalle without saying a word, as he left Germany for the final time. One last thing: Rico signs off for the year, but threw to video of WALTER backstage being stopped by a crew member as we saw Axel Dieter Jr. heading to the ring – for what’d end up being his title win. A cliffhanger!
wXw ended the year of regular Shotguns on a heck of a cliffhanger – something they were getting good at doing, but the news of the reformatting of the show would be a sign of things to come as the workload that creating Shotguns involved would cause further, and bigger changes…