The final Shotgun before wXw’s summer break left us with a big bombshell for when the promotion’s next tour kicks off in August…
The show opens with Christian Michael Jakobi blowing off Rico Bushido’s questions about WALTER. Jakobi’s bothered by everything it seems, and we get a tease for his “big announcement” for the Fight Forever tour opener later tonight.
Next up, Thomas Giesen is with Pete Bouncer – the “unknown variable” from RISE. Bouncer takes offence, before delighting in his status as an unknown – especially when wXw knows about everyone else. Pete’s a virus without an antidote, and tonight he’s facing Da Mack!
Pete Bouncer vs. Da Mack
We’re back in Münster for this outing, which starts with Bouncer taking Mack into the ropes for some early cheapshots. Mack quickly turned it around with some double chops, lighting up Bouncer in the corner as we had some aggression out of the Urban German for once!
A dropkick takes down Bouncer, as does a Slingblade, but things turn around for the RISE member as he clotheslined Mack off the top turnbuckle, before delivering a rope-hung neckbreaker for a two-count. Another Slingblade follows after Mack’s whipped into the corners, but Bouncer again takes over as Jeremy Graves rattles off all of the show dates until the end of September on commentary.
Mack drops Bouncer with a running knee, before a springboard roundhouse kick put the “unknown variable” down again, but the Young Lions appeared on the stage to cause a distraction. Of course Mack and the referee fall for it as Ivan Kiev slides into the ring and nails a death valley driver, leaving Mack prey for a double-arm DDT for the win. A nice, underhanded finish, with Mack showing a little more fire than we’ve been used to in recent weeks. ***
David Starr promo time again! He has a lot of nicknames, and this week he goes over his “Your Favourite Wrestler’s Favourite Wrestler” nickname… along with a plug for his merch. Apparently that name came from Dan Barry, and this series has a LOT more entries to cover! This segued into Starr addressing his attack by RISE, and he’s not forgetting what happened in Cologne…
A4 are next with a promo, calling themselves the best, most-modern tag team… and a whole lot more. I laugh out loud when Andy calls themselves “the hairiest tag team”, as Marius corrects him, “that’s just you”. They’re rivalling David Starr for nicknames, and this is a pretty good segment as they warn the Young Lions that what they’re doing is a shame, and they’re taking the belts back.
Next up is Verena Fischer interrupting Melanie Gray. She’s fed up of everyone asking what’s going on with her and Bobby Gunns, and the lady doth protest too much. That segues into a World Tag Team League plug, and we already know that Massive Product (Jurn Simmons & David Starr), the Young Lions and the Spirit Squad (Mikey & Kenny) will be there… as will we. Except not in the ring. Also on that weekend is the 2017 Femmes Fatales tournament, which is not going to be a part of the wXw Women’s Title Tournament, as Toni Storm, Alpha Female, Viper and Jinny have been named so far.
Backstage again, Alpha Kevin’s smoking with Sebastian Hollmichel again. That pusher! Kevin’s conflicted over what’s going on with Melanie and Bobby, Kevin’s mad that Melanie won’t talk to him about it, and of course Bobby Gunns comes in to stir the pot… this leads to a challenge at the wXw tour opener next month.
Next, Francis Kaspin and Jay Skillet are talking about what ring music they’re going to use. So they’re going to be a tag team? They can’t agree, but in comes Emil Sitoci to brag about being above the pair of them…
Die Keiler (Veit Müller & Jan Dietrich) & WALTER vs. A4 (Absolute Andy & Marius al-Ani) & Francis Kaspin
A random trio’s match for us this week on Shotgun, as WALTER’s having to team with two familiar-ish faces… with Jan Dietrich being the rebranded Scotty Saxon.
There’s a jump start from WALTER and friends, with WALTER missing a sit-out splash on Marius early on as der Ringgeneral succeeded on the second attempt in his bid to end things early. Al-Ani tries to come back with a tornado DDT, but WALTER shoves him off before falling to a regular DDT.
Dietrich comes in as one half of die Keiler (or “The Boar”) went to work on Marius with a headlock. Jan likes folding his arms, and that time taken costs him as he misses a blind tag and gets battered by some shoulder blocks from Absolute Andy… yet Dietrich stays on his feet as the crowd roared! Finally Andy knocks him down with a shoulder block, before Müller came in and threw Andy with a back body drop into the corner.
WALTER returns to batter Andy as the ring filled up with the good guys clearing house… but it wasn’t long before WALTER switched things around, lifting up Kaspin as die Keiler battered Francis with a pair of uppercuts. Poor Kaspin kept on taking a beating as the opposition exchanged frequent tags, allowing the huge WALTER to try and kick off Kaspin’s face.
Dietrich and Müller try to double-team, but Kaspin fights back… and quickly gets cut off, before leaping over the pair of them to bring Andy back into play! Jan escapes the F5, but runs into a spinebuster, as does WALTER, who recovers with a big boot that almost got him the win.
A press slam from Dietrich’s turned into a gutbuster as he dropped Andy onto Müller’s knees for a two-count, before WALTER returned and dropped Andy with a butterfly suplex for another near-fall. Andy fires back with kicks to Müller and Dietrich as he tried to get free, and he finally brings al-Ani back in to batter WALTER with clotheslines.
WALTER sidesteps a dropkick and gets a Gojira clutch but the pair counter, counter and counter until Marius clocks him with a roundhouse kick. Kaspin comes back in with a springboard bulldog to Jan… but WALTER makes the save and throws him outside. Andy returns as he attempts to suplex WALTER, finally succeeding as the big guy fell into position for an Absolute Knee Drop! A superkick’s then teased, and delivered after a delay from Kaspin as A4 ran wild on die Keiler, dropping Müller with the elevated twisting neckbreaker and that’s enough for A4 to get the win! A really enjoyable six-man tag – and I’m all for wXw throwing more of these on Shotgun! ***¾
From there, we go backstage to the lazy Dirty Dragan and Young Money Chong. They’re slouching on a sofa, bemoaning how Marius van Beethoven’s away because his dad’s made him do an MBA course. Dragan’s phone goes and it’s “their guy”, making Chong get all excited… so much so his chain rattles like crazy!
There’s another plug for the wXw 2012 shows that are being added to their VOD this month, featuring some wacky hardcore stuff, like a death valley driver through the ring. That is NOT an exaggeration.
Then we have our “main event”: the interview with Christian Michael Jakobi, who shrugs off talk of what happened with him at Shortcut to the Top and drops a big bombshell ahead of the start of the Fight Forever tour. Instead of Jurn Simmons defending the title against Ilja Dragunov in Oberhausen on August 5, we’re going to get a bigger match… as Bad Bones John Klinger’s being made to cash in his Shortcut to the Top prize and we’re getting a three-way!
I may be reading a little too much into this, but I’m getting the feeling that Jakobi may well be behind RISE. He’s been acting a little unhinged since Axel Dieter Jr. left (and RINGKAMPF fell apart), and he’s been a little too welcoming of a group that’s come to invade his promotion.
So the card for the wXw Fight Forever tour opener on August 5 is now: Jurn Simmons defending the wXw Unified World Wrestling title against John Klinger and Ilja Dragunov, the Young Lions defending their wXw tag titles against A4, WALTER vs. Chris Colen, and Bobby Gunns vs. Alpha Kevin.
Finally we finish with John Klinger holding a RISE team meeting. Apparently their plan was successful as nobody saw their plan come together… Klinger says that RISE want the gold, before moaning about how he never was the face of wXw. That’ll change on August 5 when he wins the wXw title…
That’s all for this week – and that’s all for Shotgun for now! Next week will be a blooper reel special which we’re not likely to cover, so that’s it for wXw for the rest of the month. Our Shotgun coverage will resume when the show returns to the airwaves!