BRM Reviews wXw Drive of Champions Tour: Steinheim

[Big Red Machine]

wXw Drive of Champions Tour: Steinheim (2/1/2014)- Steinheim, Germany


And we’re back! BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series can strike at any time of the month, even if we just covered a show yesterday! Today we’re making our first foray into Germany’s biggest promotion, wXw, for a show I mostly picked just so I could post “This Day in Wrestling History” reviews on consecutive days, so hopefully this show doesn’t suck. The fact that WALTER and Tommy End are on opposite sides of the main event has me optimistic that it won’t, so let’s dive into wXw Drive of Champions Tour: Steinheim.

ROAD TO 16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Da Mack vs. CorVus- 2.5/10
This was very short, but they did at least try to tell a story with body parts getting worked over.

ZACK SABRE JR. vs. TOBY BLUNT- 6.75/10
Solid clean mat wrestling.

ROAD TO 16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Aexl Dieter Jr. vs. Sasa Keel (Keel Holding)- 6.5/10
One of Sasa’s friends cut a promo before the match. Sasa’s buddies cheated to help him win.

KEEL HOLDING (Aaron Insane & Kim Ray) vs. YOUNG, STRONG, & HEALTHY (Maxi Schneider & Michael Shenkenberg)- 6.25/10
Solid babyface vs. heel stuff.

A TALKING SEGMENT HAPPENED- It was all in German, a language that I do not speak. The internet doesn’t seem to have any sort of comprehensive review for this show, either, so I’m not sure what anyone said. Other than WALTER, I’m barely even sure who was talking. I think it might have been Axel Tischer, and he and Tommy End are the only guys with singles titles right now and Tommy End would have spoken English (he did in his later promo), but I’m not 100% sure. I assume that the guy who came out with WLATER is Freddy Stahl. I guess I deserve this for picking a show to review purely based on the date.

KARSTEN BECK PROMO- I have not learned any German since the end of the last paragraph.

KARSTEN BECK vs. MIKE SCHWARZ- 4.75/10
A meh brawl.

ROAD TO 16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT FINALS: Sasa Keel (w/Keel Holding) vs. Da Mack (w/Axel Dieter Jr.)- 6.5/10
More good babyface vs. heel stuff. Axel did his best to keep the heels from cheating, but ultimately he wound up costing his partner the match by hopping up on the apron to try to protest Keel grabbing brass knuckles, and a result distracting the referee first when Da Mack ducked the brass knuckles punch and rolled Sasa up, and then when Sasa kicked out and managed to hit Da Mack with the brass knuckles.

BIG VAN WALTER (& FREDDY STAHL) PROMO- At least this time I was able to glean from body language that the idea here was WALTER endorsing Stahl by picking him to be his partner.

SUMERIAN DEATH SQUAD PROMO- GREAT!
Tommy End did all of the talking, but Dante laughed cruelly in the background, so he at least gets some credit for the presentation.

BIG VAN WALTER & FREDDY STAHL vs. SUMERAIN DEATH SQUAD (Michael Dante & Tommy End)- 7/10
More solid babyface vs. heel stuff with Stahl as the babyface in peril. WALTER pinned Dante, then after the match grabbed Tommy End’s wXw Unified World Wrestling Title and held it up while stepping on Dante’s chest before throwing the belt to End.


This was a vaguely passable wrestling show from wXw. It gave us a Road to 16 Carat mini-tournament, an angle to set up dissension within Hot & Spicy, and built up WALTER vs. End, but pretty much all of the matches were just there. Nothing stood out at all. In some ways that’s fine for a show that clocked in at under two hours, but in other ways, I kind of wish I had spent these two hours watching something else. That’s what I get for choosing a show solely to put out BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series reviews on back to back days. Next month I will pick a show more carefully.