This week on Shotgun, we find out if Avalanche or Metehan makes it to the title tournament final…
You can catch this show over on wXwNOW.de – the subscription is $11 a month, and includes a lot of the wXw back catalog, along with shows from other promotions. By the way, wXw are looking at a second season of Shotgun – you too can help out by buying a “virtual ticket” (and getting your name in the credits, along with posters)…
Quick Results:
wXw Shotgun Championship Tournament Semi-Final: Metehan pins Avalanche in 4:55 (***)
No Disqualification: Mike Schwarz & Alpha Kevin pin Aytac & Abdul in: 5:40 (**½)
We open with a recap of Mike Schwarz throttling Abdul and Aytac of EZEL last week, before we cue titles… and Sebastian Hollmichel again runs down the card. Metehan’s backstage with Aytac and Abdul, asking them how they can best provide for the family. He wants to win the Shotgun championship so he can never lose the trust of his wife or mum… all while Norman Harras lurked on in the background.
Avalanche is backstage with Vincent Heizenberg, Fast Time Moodo and Marik Anil… Vincent’s still sore from last week. He’ll be even more sore after that tape review. Avalanche praises the trio for turning up despite not being booked, before Moodo wished him luck ahead of the match with Metehan. Speaking of, it’s promo time with Metehan. He tells us that we failed Lucky Kid, and we were all responsible for what he did. He’s suddenly become religious, and tells the story of a man who got mugged, only to be left in the road, beaten and bloodied by various people… only for a samaritan to help him. Metehan says he’s like the mugger in the story, and I guess that’ll get him the Shotgun title…
Backstage again, Killer Kelly’s on a Skype call with Stephanie Maze. She’s still agonising over the fact that the wXw women’s title is on ice, especially given that Alexander James’ advice goes against her. Kelly reminds us how she was fobbed off with Andy’s “secret plan”, and asks Stephanie for some advice… which is “stay true to yourself.” And so we wait.
Promo time with Avalanche. He tells us how he recently moved from Austria to Germany to become the new head trainer of the wXw academy. He expects full effort from trainees and himself – as they recap his achievements in wXw, up to losing the Shotgun title at Carat in a match he wasn’t fully prepared for. They’re going full-on to build this match up… and we don’t have to wait any longer!
wXw Shotgun Championship Tournament Semi-Final: Metehan vs. Avalanche
At Carat, Metehan took aim at the then-newly-crownd champion Alexander Wolfe… so of course he was going to be in this thing. Abdul and Aytac were out with Metehan, while Avalanche was flying solo here…
The pair lock up to start, with Metehan getting shoved into the ropes as Avalanche wasn’t in the mood for any games here. Heading into the corner allows Metehan to sneak in an uppercut on the break, before he laid into Avalanche with forearms… but a switcheroo sees Avalanche use his power before Metehan snuck out, avoiding a charge into the corner as he trapped Avalanche’s leg in the ropes.
Punching at the left knee, Metehan tries to keep Avalanche at bay, before a springboard stomp top the knee gets a near-fall. Metehan goes for a crossface, but Avalanche powers up and hits a fallaway slam, before trapping Metehan in the corner with some shoulder charges. A Fireman’s carry follows, but Metehan pulls at Avalanche’s beard… and earns himself a clothesline. Avalanche tries again, this time landing a Samoan drop for a near-fall, before a Beele throw chucks the former 16 Carat Gold winner across the ring. Metehan gets thrown outside, but he skins the cat using the bottom rope, then comes back with a cutter for a near-fall, before Avalanche struck back with another clothesline to swat down Metehan… but a Dreissker bomb misses!
It aggravates Avalanche’s knee, which Metehan quickly hits with a dropkick before landing the Evil Eye – a snappier version of the flip stunner/standing Diamond Dust that Naito and Darby Allin use – gets the win. A good, albeit compact match, with Metehan booking his ticket to the final… all on his own as well! ***
Backstage, Anil, Moodo and Heisenberg are chatting, only to be interrupted by Marius al-Ani. Marius is annoyed they’re wasting time rather than working out, taking a shot at Avalanche for that attitude. Anil steps up to Marius, who walks off… after suggesting he’d be a better fit as a coach. Hmm…
We’re reminded of Absolute Andy’s Boris Johnson-like plan (as in, it’s unconvincing) for the women’s division, and the various segments around that.
Das Himmelsschloß
Yes, it did take me to week seven to realise there’s two double s’ in “Himmellsschloß”… Levaniel’s out having sobered up from his last appearance here, and at first tells us how he’s keeping the long-distance thing with Amale going.
Killer Kelly is his guest this week, who he already puts down as “a part of the division… (just) not important”. She seems very non-plussed at that introduction, and at Levaniel in general, especially as he decided to ask her about Alexander James, rather than the women’s championship. Levaniel tries to busy Kelly by having her “work on her relationship,” before working on “bigger projects”. They bring up the secret plan, which seems to be the cue to bring out Absolute Andy, sweet leather jacket and all, who confesses his secret plan. There wasn’t one. I knew he was Boris Johnson’ing it!
That upsets his former bowling buddy, as Levaniel gloated because of how Kelly “gave up” her chance. She slaps Levaniel for taking one cheap shot too many, before Andy had to split the pair of them up… then told Kelly she had to fight to get back into contention. Her opponent? “Miss Levaniel,” and she’ll get the title shot if she wins.
They recap EZEL beating up Alpha Kevin a few weeks ago, and Mike Schwarz’s challenge… which takes us to our main event.
No Disqualification: EZEL (Aytac & Abdul) vs. Die Prügelbrüder (Mike Schwarz & Alpha Kevin)
Can EZEL make it a clean sweep on this episode? Don’t put Prügelbrüder into Google translate, and instead, trust me when I say the PG version of the name is “Bash Brothers”. Absolute Andy (off-screen) makes this a no-DQ match before the bell, and we start with Kevin and Mike jumping EZEL at the bell.
They head into the opposite corners as Kevin and Mike throw chops, before Aytac got thrown into Abdul in the corner. Kevin’s thrown in too, before Schwarz completed the set, following up with a legdrop on the apron to Aytac. In the ring, some Dusty punches catch out Abdul, who then eats a John Cena-ish side suplex, while Schwarz chopped away at Aytac around the ring. A clothesline from Kevin drops Abdul, who then rolls outside to keep up on Abdul… who rakes the eyes before throwing Kevin into a dividing wall.
That frees up Abdul to double-team Schwarz, choking him as Aytac joined in, helping to post Schwarz before going back to finish off Kevin. Heading back to the ring, they sandwich Kevin with PKs for a near-fall, before they stomp repeatedly on his arms, ahead of a strait-jacket double-team STO for yet another two-count. Mike Schwarz returns to force his way back into the match, but has a struggle before landing a double suplex! A double chokeslam looks to follow, but Aytac and Abdul escape before heading to the outside for some chairs… which were handily under the ring. They set them up, but take so long that Schwarz and Kevin fought free, before Kevin broke the seat out of a chair on Abdul’s back.
A chokeslam from Schwarz drops Aytac through two chairs… and that’s all folks. Another brief match with little downtime, as the EZEL “goons” take their first loss. **½
After the match, Metehan rushes to ringside and lashes out at Abdul and Aytac for their loss. I think he told them to piss off…
We’re backstage with Bobby Gunns and the Bastards, but Norman Harras isn’t there. It seems the Bastards will only accept Norman if he gets the Shotgun title… and on cue, here comes Norman. They need to talk about EZEL, and we fade to black.
Next week: Nothing was directly announced, but we’ve Hektor Invictus vs. Metehan for the Shotgun title and Levaniel vs. Killer Kelly for the remaining episodes. We’re still dealing with short matches, but as this season of Shotgun hurtles towards its conclusion, we’re at least getting pay-offs to the stories that wXw have built. While “Miss Levaniel” vs. Killer Kelly seems like a step into intergender territory that wXw almost never takes, it’ll be interesting to see how that pays off – and what, if anything, comes of Bobby Gunns getting a title challenger…