The last Shotgun before Dead End saw RISE have their big meeting… with rather surprising consequences!
Last week, we’re reminded that WALTER demanded that he receive his title shot at 16 Carat Gold, before he was made to tap out in last week’s main event.
Jeremy Graves is on the call this week as we’re still in Cologne, as he hypes up Veda Scott taking on this week, and something with Tarkan Aslan… who we go to now as they tease he’s having to retire. We cut to a playground where Lucky Kid is still apologising, as it seems his accident is what’s forcing Aslan into concussion-induced retirement. Kid feels he can’t go on his own, but Aslan’s going to stay around as his manager… which is a start, even if Kid wants Aslan wrestling again.
After recaps of Veda Scott and Killer Kelly from the last two weeks, we’ve got their first ever meeting…
Veda Scott vs. Killer Kelly
Veda jumped Kelly at the bell with a shot to the midsection, but the first wXw women’s champion comes back with a forearm in the corner and some knees, only for a rake to the eyes to put a stop to things.
Scott keeps up with some rakes to the back as she rained down blows on Kelly as the flash cards of upcoming tour dates has now been replaced with a ticker tape. Something tells me Alan’s not going to miss some of these town names…
Veda actually busted out the old Axel Dieter Special, which got a few boos, before Kelly rolled back to nearly snatch a pin and turn back around into a release Northern Lights suplex. A German suplex plants Veda for a near-fall, but the American’s back with a clothesline out of the corner before an attempted Snapmare Driver’s shoved away.
Instead, Veda makes do with an Ace Crusher for a two-count, then rolls Kelly into the Billy Goat’s Curse, with the reverse figure four almost drawing a submission, only for the Portugal native to make it to the ropes. Veda stays on top with a spear though, but a Shining Wizard misses as Kelly instead rolls her up for a two-count before Scott returned the favour, winning with a schoolboy. Short enough, but now you have to wonder, if Veda’s beaten the first champion, surely she’s in title contention? **¼
Sure enough, she’s been added to the women’s title match at Dead End – it’s now a four-way with Kelly, Martina and Veda challenging for Toni Storm’s strap. A video follows to build up that match, and how everyone got added to that match…
Oli Court in the F4W newsletter this week wrote about how cool the match graphics for Dead End look. They’re very reminiscent of the Metal Gear Solid. And speaking of Snakes, here’s a recap of Absolute Andy attacking Bobby Gunns last week after Bobby’s Shotgun title defence over Dirty Dragan. They’re facing off on Friday (tomorrow, as this goes up), but first, we have a Smoking Break!
Gunns recognises he has an “eagle” waiting for him in Hamburg… he also recognises Andy’s going bald. Brief, but vicious! We get the video for this match too, complete with stuff from their confrontation at Back to the Roots and subsequent match.
They recap Timothy Thatcher’s offer of a tag title match for Jay FK from last week… and then we cut to the wXw Academy as Jay FK’s watching footage. On a phone. In walks RINGKAMPF, and once WALTER’s done wiping his feet, he expresses his confusion as to why Jay FK thinks they’re an easy target. There’s some backpedalling from Jay, who said that they took offence at the way the news was broken.
That raised WALTER’s ire, as he asked if Thatcher “wasn’t dressed to fit the occasion”. For a brief second there, WALTER was fired up and like the WALTER of old… just in time for Francis Kaspin to diffuse things. There’s a more-than-playful slap from Timmy, as Skillet flat out accuses WALTER of not working out. WALTER accuses Skillet of blowing off shows with injury, and… oh God… WALTER’s got a new name to add to the list of “folks whose chests I’m going to cave in”. Skillet reckons it’s all a game. We’ll see…
Another flashback shows Mike Schwarz passing on some advice to Julian Pace… this week, the rookie’s got Jurn Simmon in a match. Uh-oh.
Julian Pace vs. Jurn Simmons
Good luck, Julian…
He tries to schoolboy Jurn at the start as early pinning attempts was his best shot… but Jurn’s quickly back in with a spin-out slam as he drilled Pace into the mat. A short-arm clothesline keeps Pace down, as do some hard Irish whips into the turnbuckles as the crowd encouraged Pace with chants of “Jurn is gonna kill you”.
Simmons keeps up on Pace with a submission attempt, followed by clubbing forearms and a stomp, before Pace landed on his feet from Simmons’ release suplex. Pace tries to fire back with a shotgun dropkick, and “Mr Vollgas” even gets off a satellite DDT, but it’s nowhere near enough to put away the Dutchman.
More wacky rope running confuses Jurn, but he finally gets off a back elbow to drop Pace hard, and all that’s left is the massive piledriver… but he does for a Rings of Saturn rather than the pin, and the ref stops the match as Pace was out cold. A swift win for Jurn, but a good showing for Pace despite being outclassed. ***
After the match, Jurn heads under the ring for the Singapore cane… you know what’s coming. Pace spits at him, which perhaps wasn’t the best idea, and that cane gets cracked over Pace’s back for good measure. The crowd chant “one more time”, which underscores how harsh Cologne is as a crowd!
During Shotgun, wXw’s throwing in adverts for some of their extra programming on wXw NOW. Their Spieleabend show is shockingly good for a throwaway gameshow… and WALTER is surprisingly nonchalant when it comes to the moments they use to promote his WALTER 10 JAHRE special.
We’re backstage with Jurn Simmons for an old-school segment with Thommy Giesen, who talks about how he destroyed Julian Pace. Jurn really doesn’t care about it at all, nor about Mike Schwarz, who took offence to it all. Schwarz turns up and bets into a fight with Jurn, and waffles him with a bottle of water. That leads to a match for Dead End… a hardcore match between Schwarz and Jurn. That’s going to be messy!
Before the main event segment, we’ve got a vignette of Mike Bailey ahead of his title shot with John Klinger. Bailey notes that he beat Klinger at World Tag Team League in 2016, and hopes that Bad Bones isn’t too distracted with RINGKAMPF for their match.
They run through the Dead End card:
wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship: Mike Bailey vs. John Klinger (c)
16 Carat Gold Qualifier: Lucky Kid vs. Ivan Kiev
wXw Shotgun Championship: Absolute Andy vs. Bobby Gunns (c)
wXw Women’s Championship: Killer Kelly vs. Martina vs. Veda Scott vs. Toni Storm (c)
wXw World Tag Team Championships: RINGKAMPF (WALTER & Timothy Thatcher) (c) vs. Jay FK (Jay Skillet & Francis Kaspin)
Hardcore Match: Jurn Simmons vs. Mike Schwarz
Warm-Up: Veit Müller vs. Julian Pace
Now it’s time for the main event… RISE in a conference room! This reminds me of some really bad job interviews…
Ivan Kiev opens the meeting, since he wanted it, saying that RISE was the perfect way for him to return to wXw… but over time the group’s lost their way. Tarkan Aslan says that it’s out of their hands because of injuries and others’ decisions… decisions to not communicate, perhaps? Throughout this Bad Bones is sitting there, stone-faced… Pete Bouncer speaks up, and is really blunt about all of the titles they’ve lost… and how there’s favouritism being shown. He blames Klinger for still pulling the strings without asking the rest of the team. Instead of a plan, Klinger just says that they have to get back to winning ways at Dead End. That’s not enough for Bouncer, who calls out that Klinger’s lost to Mike Bailey before…
Kiev puts pressure on John Klinger – if he loses the title, RISE will elect a new leader… and that’s where the show ends for this week. A short, but good episode to finish off the build for Dead End, without a single mention of 16 Carat (which is good, as it didn’t dilute any of the focus for Hamburg this weekend).