We’re back on a Saturday for a post-Dead End episode of Shotgun.
The pre-show warning notes that this takes place after wXw Dead End – and as such, contains spoilers. We’ll get round to reviewing Dead End soon!
Straight out of the gate there’s spoilers, as we see the Alpha Lovers – Alpha Kevin and Melanie Gray – celebrating their victory in the intergender streetfight at Dead End. Kevin looks conflicted, despite Melanie making out with him. He’s going to see Karsten Beck to sort things out, leaving Melanie dejected.
A video package from Dead End XVI features, showing highlights including a Japanese chairshot from Gray to Alpha Female, but little in the way of results.
Next: Verena Fischer with Karsten Beck, and they’re address the whole Alpha Kevin/Marius van Beethoven situation. Beck reckons that the only way for Kevin to clear his head of the whole situation is to pin Marius… and so he books them in Oberhausen on the third day of 16 Carat Gold weekender. It’ll be a no-ropes match too, which sounds dangerous – just ask Timothy Thatcher!
Robert Dreissker vs. Mike Schwarz
We’re going back to February 11 in Cologne here, and judging from the entrance clips, Schwarz looks to be inspired by ICP and the Sandman. It’s Jeremy Graves on commentary here this week, and he talks us through Schwarz cornering Dreissker with forearms.
An Irish whip into the corner leads to Avalanche taking an, erm, avalanche from Schwarz, who then hits an Undertaker-like rope walk axehandle chop. They spill to the outside, trading blows, before Schwarz issues some mounted punches as Dreissker was placed into the front row.
They continue to brawl around the crowd, where Dreissker takes over by throwing Schwarz into a guard rail, only to get dropped with the Snake Eyes on the railing. The Avalanche comes back with a back body drop over the guard railings, before they end up coming back into the ring for a missed Vader bomb.
Schwarz comes back with forearms, then hits the Bossman Slam for a two-count as Dreissker is in the most danger yet since his comeback. A chokeslam is attempted by Schwarz, but Dreissker elbows out and comes back with a massive Samoan drop. An avalanche follows that sends Schwarz to the outside, so he gets another avalanche against the ring post, before he’s thrown back in for a Vader bomb that gets the win. A fun match between two fairly big lads – Dreissker rolls on, and I’d not mind seeing these two again. ***
Another backstage segment reunited Robert Dreissker and Ilja Dragunov. Ilja says he’s back, before Dreissker notes that he destroyed Dragunov twice… and won’t have any issue doing it again at 16 Carat Gold.
Bobby Gunns is up next for another Smoking Break. He tells a story about a girl who always used to text him when he was in town, but he gets iffy when she started to post picutres with him online. Gunns snapped when she asked him to help get her into a WWE show, saying she wanted the fame, not fun.A lesson to learn, perhaps?
Sebastian Hollmichel is next with John Klinger. They talk about how “Bad Bones” beat Dreissker at Dead End, but his beef was with Cerberus. “You have to move back a square or two to achieve great things” says Klinger (via translation), who then vows to become the first German to win 16 Carat Gold twice.
After a rundown of the 16 Carat Gold card, we get a video package from the Munich Road to 16 Carat Gold event, which bleeds into a backstage segment with WALTER and Christian Michael Jakobi. David Starr (or, as WALTER dubs him in this week’s translation of the week: “shrunken American with your toy belt”) interrupts as they trash talk ahead of their 16 Carat Gold match.
RINGKAMPF (Axel Dieter Jr, WALTER & Timothy Thatcher) vs. A4 (Absolute Andy & Marius Al-Ani) & Jurn Simmons
Also taken from Cologne, this is our main event, and we’ve got over half an hour left in the show… so this’ll be a long one!
Jeremy Graves on commentary mentions – without highlighting it – that Absolute Andy is the only one without a match over 16 Carat Gold, and that seems to be the the cue for Andy to come in and batter WALTER with shoulder tackles, finally knocking the Austrian off his feet. The ring fills up briefly, as Jurn takes Axel into the corner before biel’ing him into the other corner, but neither man could maintain an advantage as Dieter tried for the Landungsbrücke, only to get a clothesline from Jurn.
Andy whips Axel into the corner, then grabs a running pendulum backbreaker before going all Stone Cold on us with a Thesz press and punches. Al-Ani tags in and drops Dieter with an Exploder, before a series of clotheslines leads to a powerbomb attempt, but the wXw champion fights out then corners Al-Ani as WALTER tags in. Jurn quickly comes in as the two behemoths battle in a test of strength, which WALTER got the better of, before missing a dropkick.
Simmons came back with a dropkick of his own, taking WALTER into the corner, but again the tables turned as WALTER brought Andy into the RINGKAMPF corner, as Thatcher came back into the fray. A4 tag in and out as they look to keep Thatcher at bay, succeeding as Andy hit a diving leg lariat to the face of Thatcher. RINGKAMPF manage to cheat to clear the ring, as Al-Ani is sent to the outside as WALTER dumps him on the apron.
When they recovered, WALTER came in to throw Al-Ani across the ring with a gutwrench suplex, as did Thatcher, before Dieter came in and kicks away at Marius for a near-fall. Al-Ani’s left isolated for a spell as Jurn and Andy were left laying, and after a few clotheslines from Marius, WALTER came back with a German suplex, then a butterfly suplex for another two-count.
A counter to a tornado DDT almost led with Al-Ani getting spiked on his head, before WALTER hits a big boot to get a two-count. Finally, Marius hits the DDT, but he’s got nobody to tag out to… so he just clears the RINGKAMPF apron before turning into a WALTER clothesline. After taking a kick to the face, Al-Ani takes down WALTER with a clothesline as he finally makes the hot tag to Andy, who squashes Thatcher with an avalanche clothesline, only to watch WALTER save Thatcher from a suplex. That just gets WALTER that suplex instead, before Thatcher takes a knee-curb stomp.
Thatcher gets dropped with a superkick, but Dieter rushes the ring before anything can be done. Axel and Jurn windmill punches on each other, before Jurn knocks down Axel with a slap, then a uranage. Dieter cuts off a top rope attack from Jurn, then hits a draping DDT out of the corner, before Andy picks up Axel for an F5. That comes to nought as RINGKAMPF make the save, ending with a sit-down splash from WALTER to Andy for a near-fall.
Andy counters a WALTER powerbomb with a superkick, before dishing out that F5 to Dieter… but this time it’s Thatcher who breaks up the cover. A4 target Axel with some double-teaming, hitting a leap-over sit-down senton onto Dieter, then a spinebuster. The babyfaces are left standing tall, but A4 hit a pair of dives as we’re left with Jurn and Axel in the ring, but a small package out of nowhere shocks Jurn as Axel gets the win! A hell of a fun six-man tag here – but I was surprised that it was Jurn taking the fall here… ***¾
After the match, we’ve got more backstage stuff – first, ring announcer Thomas Giesen with Axel Dieter Jr and Jurn Simmons. Jurn immediately corrects Giesen when he said he lost the belt. Dieter’s retort is that he beat Marty Scurll for the title and that he is the “chosen wXw champion… not by the fans, colleagues, or even Christian Michael Jakobi. I am the chosen champion for this promotion… I am the one who will represent wrestling, my sport and wXw in the future”.
Jurn replies by calling RINGKAMPF a load of garbage, which he explains is because he thinks its just an act. Simmons says he’s dishonest, but at least he admits it, unlike the phoneys at RINGKAMPF, who he keeps saying is just an act. Dieter finally breaks out into English, but Jurn talks over him by saying that he’ll dominate the champion at 16 Carat Gold. Back in German, Dieter doesn’t have an answer for that, saying that he expected Jurn to do a lot of talking and play mind games, before calling Jurn insecure, “hiding behind an almost ten minute entrance”. At the end, Axel (and his stained collar… wet tan anyone?) promised that Jurn would just be a footnote in his hall of fame career, before standing up to the Dutchman. Jurn promised he’d leave Axel feeling like his dad (kinda harsh), before Dieter slapped him as the show came to an end.
Another decent show this week, particularly the in-ring aspect. Two good matches as we build to 16 Carat Gold next weekend! A massive thumbs down to my Roku which continually skipped ahead in the audio though!