It’s the last-but-one episode of Shotgun 2020, we find out who leaves with the Shotgun title…
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.
Quick Results
Killer Kelly submitted Levaniel in 4:45 (**¾)
Metehan pinned Hektor Invictus to win the wXw Shotgun Championship in 10:30 (***½)
Sebastian Hollmichel is our commentator, and we open with a recap of the situation around the women’s championship – from Absolute Andy lying about a secret plan, to Alexander James pushing Killer Kelly to be, erm, more pushy, to Levaniel being put up as a roadblock for Killer Kelly. Needless to say, Amale was far from thrilled.
Levaniel vs. Killer Kelly
I think this is only the second “true” intergender match in wXw’s history… this one’s hopefully going to be far less bloody than the first. I mean, there’s no barbed wire or cages in sight!
Levaniel’s vowing to “dissolve” Amale’s problems… but stopped at the bell to give a message to Amale. He’s just met with a Shibata-ish dropkick to the back of the head, sending him outside for a pair of Cristiano PK’s on the apron. She continues to beat on Levaniel on the outside, setting up for a third Cristiano that got caught, with Levaniel sweeping the leg back instead. Back inside, Kelly’s adjusting her mouthpiece, which had me worried about blood… Levaniel’s back in with a spinning heel kick, but his cover’s very lackadaisical and gets a one-count. Kelly returns fire with cravat knees, but Levaniel’s back with a clothesline, then a low dropkick for a two-count.
Levaniel looks for a death valley driver, but Kelly gets free and hits a cross-chop to the throat, before a German suplex drew her a near-fall. Another PK follows, but Levaniel slips out of Vale de Morte and hits Amale’s Champion’s Maker for a near-fall. A second one was teased, but Kelly hauls up Levaniel for a Vale de Morte, before she slid in on the mat with a Dragon sleeper for the submission… to become the new top contender for the women’s title. Take out our concerns over the general length of matches in this season, this was a perfectly fine match that got Kelly back to the title shot… and will surely lead to some more fallout with Levaniel down the line. **¾
We then jump to a recap of Marius al-Ani’s winning streak on this show… beating Mike Schwarz, Vincent Heisenberg and Anil Mari… before we jump to the wXw wrestling academy with Avalanche. Nico Schmidt poses questions, which led to Avalanche putting over the trainees Marius has beaten… but then said he’d be a different proposition entirely. Avalanche is prepared to fight – but isn’t giving too much away.
Nico asks about Avalanche’s leg injury – apparently it’s a ligament strain of his ankle, caused by Metehan’s sliding tackle in their Shotgun title match. That match is “next week”…
wXw Shotgun Championship Tournament Final: Metehan vs. Hektor Invictus
It’s time… and we’re halfway through this show, which gives me hope for a long match. We’ve got the main event introductions.
We get underway with a lock-up, with the pair rolling around in the ropes until we had a clean break in the corner. Metehan looked somewhat nonplussed, before he countered out of a takedown attempt by trapping Hektor in headscissors. There’s quick counters out of and back into the head scissors, but things end up in the ropes.
Invictus comes back with an armbar, which Metehan eventually escaped as he locked on one of his own. Two low dropkicks keep Hektor down, but Invictus gets back up, powering out of a Dragon sleeper tease before he charged through Metehan. An attempted trip to the top rope comes up short in his search for a superplex, as Metehan slipped out and dropped him arm-first across the rope.
From there, Metehan invokes the spirit of Ronnie Garvin with a series of stomps, before dragging Invictus into the corner to stretch him around the ring post. Back inside, the pair trade shots, before Hektor was taken into the ropes for some more stomps… but he gets back in with a rebound German suplex, using Metehan’s momentum against him.
Another superplex attempt from Invictus eventually comes off, as he dumped Metehan in the middle of the ring. Metehan tries to come back with a handspring elbow, but gets caught with a gutwrench powerbomb and a running neckbreaker instead for a near-fall, before a TKO gets countered into a crossface from Metehan… Hektor powers out, but Metehan’s right back with a skinned-cat into a cutter for another near-fall!
Hektor hits a scoop slam, but misses on a springboard moonsault as Metehan comes right back in with a slingshot DDT from the apron… again for a near-fall, before faking out for a chop to the throat ahead of the Evil Eye – the flip stunner from behind – for the win. Metehan wins the vacated Shotgun title – the first singles title he’s held in any guise in wXw. A really good finale under the circumstances, but I feel if Hektor had been positioned as more of a “good guy”, this dynamic would have worked even better in front of a crowd. ***½
The show closes up with Metehan celebrating with his new hardware, and we crash out to titles. “Next week” (it’s already up – watch out for the review later) is the finale featuring Avalanche vs. Marius al-Ani…
Again cut short by prevailing events, this penultimate episode of the season was perhaps the best in terms of an in-ring product. This was an episode of Shotgun that you could dip into without having seen any of the prior episodes, and you’d have been brought up to speed on the storyline around Killer Kelly – and it’s always nice to have some finality to championship scenes!