We’re a little over a week out from World Tag Team League – and this week’s Shotgun continues the build for a weekend of tag team goodness!
Our opening recap is of Ilja Dragunov being attacked last week… and we’re in Fulda with Jeremy Graves back on the call after his holiday. But first, Absolute Andy and Christian Bischof, who asks about the attack on Ilja. Andy plays dumb, at least until they show the footage with a guy in an Absolute Andy jacket walking away. He still denies it, claiming he has a doppelgänger, before covering Christian in a towel. Available now from sl-wrestling.de (cheap plug)
Andy has a bit of a nervous breakdown, ranting about anything and everything, including Bobby Gunns’ jibe at him being a “dinosaur.” It’s a thing of beauty this promo, as Andy perhaps senses his days as champion are numbered.
From there, there’s a backstage promo with Bobby Gunns who repeats his mantra – he’s going to be wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion. Gunns cites that he elevated the Shotgun title, and now he’s going to beat the emotional Ilja and the dinosaur Andy to take the title… and turn it into a retirement party for Absolute Andy. Oof.
Fred Yehi’s backstage with Julian Pace, playing magic tricks and shooting the breeze about Tarkan Aslan’s attempts to tap them up. Yehi remembers his pee more than Tarkan, but Julian Pace remembers: Tarkan wants them to take out Lucky Kid so he doesn’t have to face his brother. Yehi goes off to find someone… and Julian goes on Twitter (I guess).
Marius al-Ani’s warming up, when he’s stopped by Yehi, who tells Marius about Tarkan’s plot, and reminds him that he wants no part of any plot to put away Lucky Kid… who turns up halfway through Fred’s speech and gets the wrong end of the stick. Hands up if it took you a while to recognise Lucky outside of his gear…
Fred Yehi vs. Lucky Kid
They were tag team partners last week… this week they’re on opposite sides. Christian Bischof is your ring announcer this week, which feels odd. Not bad, just… odd.
After being delighted by Yehi doing the finger touch last week. Lucky’s left soured by Fred’s mind games as they start with a lock-up, and Yehi going after the arm of Lucky in the early stages. An attempt at a drop toe hold from Lucky’s thwarted, as they take it to the mat anyway, but it’s Yehi who edges ahead… only for Lucky to get to the ropes. From the restart, Yehi slams and grounds Lucky with a chinlock, before a leapfrog from Lucky confuses Yehi, who’s caught with a dropkick before Lucky goes… BLAAAH! Except Yehi’d snuck around and caught Lucky from behind as the mind games continued. Lucky seemed to have tweaked his knee, and Yehi instantly goes for that body part… despite Lucky keeping himself in the ropes.
Some elbows have Yehi rocked, as does a low dropkick… but Lucky going for the move out of habit meant that he couldn’t follow-up as the knee remained troublesome. Yehi’s distracted by the RISE finger, and Lucky gets free before he clings onto Yehi’s leg. A trip brings Yehi down, but he catches Lucky unawares with the bicycle kicks and the Koji clutch, throwing in some rapid-fire fists as Lucky had to go for the ropes to stay alive in the match.
Not to worry – Yehi’s right back in with chops, before an Irish whip coupled with Lucky’s knee buckling saw him crash head-first into the bottom turnbuckle as he slid out of the ring. Lucky returns, but he’s still on the defensive as Yehi slams him into the turnbuckles for a near-fall. An attempted comeback from Lucky sees his sunset flip stuffed and met with some stomps as Yehi continued to break down every body part, right as Jeremy snuck in a cheeky plug for the wXw app…
More clubbing blows follow, but Lucky starts to return the favours, only to get stomped onto the back… he’s thrown outside, but Lucky skins the cat and segued that into an Asai DDT in a really nice chain of events. Lucky tries to throw some lariats, but Yehi shrugs them off and lands a flurry of body blows ahead of a snapmare and a low dropkick to the head, before Lucky surprises him with a sit-out powerbomb for barely a two-count.
That seemed to frustrate Lucky, whose handspring back elbow is clubbed away, before Yehi hits a backback rush into the corner, only to run into a small package as Lucky literally got the win out of nowhere. This was a sight to behold; yeah, a little rough in spots, and an out-of-nowhere finish, but these two put on a great competitive match. Well worth going back to re-watch! ***¾
We get recaps from FAN weekend, with Killer Kelly winning a shot at the wXw Women’s title… before she gave Melanie Gray a spot in the title match. A shot that Melanie made the most of in Oberhausen. From there, Killer Kelly’s backstage with Sebastian Hollmichel, as they address what happened at FAN…Kelly admits to being tricked into the situation – and she’s so annoyed she brought out the dreaded Twitter block. Aside from that, she harbours no grudges, and vows to show Melanie why she’s called Killer.
Jeremy reminds us of the card for Femmes Fatales on Saturday October 6 – before night two of the World Tag Team League.
wXw Women’s Championship: Martina vs. Melanie Gray (c)
Femmes Fatales – First Round Matches
Toni Storm vs. LuFisto
Audrey Bride vs. Millie McKenzie
Kris Wolf vs. Killer Kelly
Meiko Satomura vs. Wesna
We’ve a recap from FAN in Hamburg – as Bobby Gunns vs. Marius al-Ani is our main event tonight. From there, Marius is backstage in his gear, when he’s stopped by Absolute Andy… who tells him of what Bobby Gunns said about the Shotgun title. The former tag team champions trade barbs at each other, with Marius vowing to beat Bobby – something he doesn’t think “Darth Andy” can do.
Ilja Dragunov’s got a sit-down promo as he tries to convince us that he’ll be wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion. It’s more like a political advert than a promo, especially with that stirring music underneath. Even without reading the subtitles, it’s your usual passionate promo… and was excellent, excellent viewing. wXw are proving to be masters at turning a simple, sit-down promo into a work of art, and something that grabs you by the scruff of your neck, demanding your attention. The weird thing is, this promo made me want to be able to vote for him… for anything!
Time to run through the World Tag Team League cards. Welcome back that jaunty music!
Friday:
Warm-Up Match: RISE (Ivan Kiev & Pete Bouncer) vs. Coast 2 Coast (Shaheem Ali & Leo St. Giovanni)
Hair vs. Hair: David Starr vs. Jurn Simmons
Shotgun Championship Number One Contender’s Match: Julian Pace vs. Fred Yehi vs. Emil Sitoci vs. Lucky Kid
Meiko Satomura vs. Toni Storm
Group A: RINGKAMPF vs. CCK
Group A: Okami vs. Lucha Bros
Group B: Jay-FK vs. Monster Consulting
Group B: Aussie Open vs. Team SPLX
Saturday:
wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship: Bobby Gunns vs. Ilja Dragunov vs. Absolute Andy (c)
wXw Shotgun Championship: Marius al-Ani (c) vs. winner-of-four-way
Wesna vs. Toni Storm
Group A: Lucha Bros vs. RINGKAMPF
Group A: CCK vs. Okami
Group B: Monster Consulting vs. Aussie Open
Group B: Team SPLX vs. Jay-FK
Sunday:
Lucky Kid vs. Tarkan Aslan
Wesna vs. LuFisto
Group A: CCK vs. Lucha Bros
Group A: RINGKAMPF vs. Okami
Group B: Aussie Open vs. Jay-FK
Group B: Monster Consulting vs. Team SPLX
World Tag Team League Final
Our preview of the entire weekend’ll be up on Friday evening!
We’re backstage next as Thommy Giesen is with Emil Sitoci – building up to the four-way on Friday. Emil wants to regain the Shotgun title, especially because the tag title thing with Dirty Dragan went sour because he’s gone back into therapy. Enter Tarkan Aslan, who wants to tap up Emil… but the Dutchman wants no part of it.
Absolute Andy’s “campaign video” is next, complete with all of the self-righteousness you’re used to from him. He tells a story about a duck hunt (not the video game), with the moral being that you might have the courage and spirit… but you don’t know the tricks. All of these videos have been really good, and paint the picture of a champion that’s rattled… but two challengers that are overly emotional or perhaps a little too sure of themselves.
Marius al-Ani vs. Bobby Gunns
Tarkan Aslan cuts a promo before the match, claiming that they’ve killed RISE and Bobby Gunns… then gives Bobby a chance to right the wrongs that happened at FAN.
They start with a tie-up, but Gunns manages to go for the arm of the champion early on, wringing it as it’s used to throw Marius to the mat. Marius returns fire with a headlock takedown, before we got a not-too-clean break as al-Ani took Gunns into the corner. They remain at close quarters with uppercuts and elbows, as Gunns tried to choke Marius in the corner – only for the referee to force the break.
Gunns keeps on Marius with a hiptoss and a kick to the back, before another headlock takedown led to a suplex as Gunns seemed to be trying for a guillotine. An attempted armbar quickly ends in the ropes… and when Marius lifts Gunns onto the apron, he’s able to take a more abstract route back into things as he catches Bobby returning to the ring with a Dragon screw in the ropes. al-Ani tries to drag Gunns back into the ring with an ankle lock, but instead hits a running knee that sends Gunns to the outside – right into Tarkan Aslan’s domain, as the former tag champion throws Gunns into the ring steps as the referee was distracted. Meanwhile, the Gunns, Bobby Gunns chant breaks out as he tries to fight back back in the ring, only for a scoop slam to get a near-fall, before Gunns fought back by stomping on Marius’ arm.
Gunns tries to capitalise, but a low dropkick and a step-up elbow drop has him back on the mat for a near-fall, as al-Ani keeps chipping away at the man he beat for the Shotgun title. A flapjack from Marius dumps Gunns for another two-count, before Gunns tried to fight back in with European uppercuts. They trade strikes for a while longer, until a dropkick from Marius sent Gunns into the ropes… from where he rebounded with a big clothesline! The crowd will Bobby Gunns on as he charges into Marius with a forearm in the corner, before he starts tweaking Marius’ fingers… before a flying uppercut decked Marius for a near-fall. A Swish armbar’s next, but Tarkan Aslan’s in to distract the referee… prompting Gunns to release the hold. Lucky Kid runs out to confront Tarkan, and those two get into fisticuffs, brawling through the crowd and to the back.
Bobby perhaps watches that a little too long and gets caught with a sunset flip kip-up and an Exploder for a near-fall. Another ankle lock follows, but Gunns tries to roll him up… only for Marius to go back to the hold. Gunns kicks out of it, then sidesteps a Stinger splash and dishes out a German suplex as the match looked to be in its final stretch… but despite going for a Randy Orton-style head punt, Gunns misses as al-Ani powders out of the ring, then grabs his title belt and leaves.
Except Bobby refuses to have a repeat of the Hamburg match, and vows that it’ll not happen in Oberhausen, and he’ll leave as champion. That brings out Absolute Andy… and the distraction allows Marius to schoolboy Gunns for the win! The distraction finish and shenanigans aside, this was a pretty fun match, but short of a non-finish this was about the only result that’d keep both participants looking good going into Tag League weekend. ***½
Gunns is besides himself in the ring – and Shotgun goes off the air. Another excellent episode, as is the norm for wXw. Distraction finish aside in the main event, you had two great matches on tap this week, each of which played their part into the World Tag Team League card and felt important – rather than something that was vaguely related to the road ahead. We’re eight days removed from World Tag Team League… and if this episode gives you anything to take away it’s this: even on a weekend when the focus is on a wider competition, wXw really knows how to make an individual match feel special. The three promos, for Andy, Ilja and Bobby, take less than five minutes… and if that’s the only thing you watch to get you hyped for their title match on October 6, then make it that!