BRM Reviews wXw 20th Anniversary Show (great!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews wXw 20th Anniversary Show (great!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 2nd, '21, 17:29

wXw 20th Anniversary Show (8/7/2021)- Oberhausen, Germany

Even though this show was taped on and acknowledged as having happened on August 7th, it wasn’t released until the 20th, and the TV on the thirteenth was build for this show, not fallout from it, so if you want to watch things in their intended order, watch We Love Wrestling #20 first!

The show opened with a nice “in memoriam” video for Karsten Beck, followed by a ten-bell salute with the whole roster and crew coming out onto the stage. After that we had the usual opening video, followed by Absolute Andy appearing on the screen and having some fun with the crowd, getting them all to sing Happy Birthday to wXw. I found it a little weird that they did this with Andy backstage (possibly even as an impressively smooth pre-tape, considering the crowd interaction) instead of having Andy come out to the ring, considering that we had just seen him on stage for the ten-bell salute. After that we got a video about how great it was to have fans back and hyping up the show.


AXEL TISCHER vs. FAST TIME MOODO- 7/10
Tischer got a wonderful response here in his return “home,” as he put it. Moodo got a surprising amount of cheering going up against the returning hero. Unsurprisingly, there were a few “F*CK YOU, VINCE!” chants.
They a great story here with Moodo actually controlling most of the match and Tischer having to show that he could hold his own against the young guns of today. Tischer, of course, lasted through all of it and got the win, but taking so much of the match against a still-capable Axel Tischer elevated Moodo in defeat.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very good
Axel Tischer said he had been “in a dream that became a nightmare” and thanked the fans for welcoming him back. He put Fast Time Moodo over as well. Absolute Andy came out and put both guys over. He offered Tischer a spot in the upcoming Catch Grand Prix, which Tischer accepted. Andy then revealed another entrant into that tournament: the fully-healed Stephanie Maze, who came out. Moodo was thrilled to see his tag team partner back and gave her a big hug. Maze then cut a very good promo about not having not been able to wrestle for a year due to injury, and vowing to with the Catch Grand Prix.

ROTT & FLOTT vs. AIGLE BLANC & SENZA VOLTO- 7.25/10
Rott & Flott jumped Team France during their entrance. The vast majority of the first twelve minutes f this match was excellent babyface-in-peril stuff, from the selling, to the way the heels were not just cheating but asking in their ability to fool the referee. Eventually the referee caught them, and it resulted in one of my least favorite spots, which is that the heel yells at and shoves the ref and the ref shoves the heel back. Pushing the referee should be an immediate disqualification. If you even touch the umpire by accident in baseball you are ejected. In hockey, if you even accidentally touch an official while arguing with them, it’s an automatic suspension. Shoving the referee because the referee is trying to stop you from break the rules should at the very least be an immediate DQ, while the referee should never shove or strike a competitor. If it gets to that point, it is well past the point where the competitor should have been disqualified.
That led to the babyfaces making their comeback and we got lots of great action until they hit one of my other pet peeve spots, which is someone breaking up a pin by yanking the referee out of the ring. That, too, should be an automatic DQ.
From there they got a little too clever for their own good. While the referee was yelling at Nikita Charisma on the outside, Senza Volto decided that he was going to outsmart the heels by going over their turnbuckle, untying the tag rope, and throwing it away. Thus, when the heels tried to make a tag, the referee wouldn’t let them. I will admit that I don’t know what a referee should do if a tag rope disappears in the middle of the match, but I didn’t like him taking so much glee in not allowing Charisma into the ring. I get that they were building it up with those other spots that I didn’t like, but for similar reasons, I don’t like this, either, as the referee should never give the appearance of not being completely impartial. Yes, I’m sure this will be worked into Rott & Flott’s ongoing angle claiming that the company is biased against them, but that’s a dumb angle, too. The babyfaces hit a big sequence of stuff and won shortly thereafter. I’d rather have seen them just hit their stuff and win without any of this silliness. I’m sure we’ll get a rematch out of this which will hopefully have less silliness and thus be even better.

DAN INTERVIEWS ROTT & FLOTT- They’re furious and are going to sue wXw. This was a good performance, but like I said above, the angle is one I find tedious and arguably stupid.

ABSOLUTE ANDY VISITS THE WRESTLERS ENTERED IN THE wXw SHOTGUN TITLE LOTTERY- bad
In the room we have Bobby Gunns, Norman Harras, Ender Kara, and Dennis Dullnig. Andy said a lot of pointless nothing. Dullnig was being an annoying idiot, so Andy tricked him into going outside, then locked him out on the balcony. This did nothing for anyone, other than to make Dullnig look like an idiot.
We went to the ring, where Prince Ahura made his entrance. Then, instead of seeing the drawing, there was a graphic on the screen that revealed the winner to be Hektor Invictus, who was not one of the people in the room before. I don’t discount the possibility that Andy was just f*cking with those four guys before, but I really don’t want that to be the case because management shouldn’t be allowing Andy to f*ck with people just because (although management themselves has taken something of a heelish- or at least cowardly- bent lately, as in the Avalanche/Feyyaz/Heisenberg situation)… but at the same time, that feels like the only possibility that makes sense, so this is all quite frustrating.
Hektor has not been seen in months, with the most likely explanation being that after rejecting several attempts by Dennis Dullnig to recruit him as a tag team partner, Dennis finally snapped and attacked Hektor and left him for dead in a ditch somewhere… so the Andy segment (and the idea that Andy was just f*cking with the others and set it up all to create a situation where he could lock Dullnig out of the people so he couldn’t interfere actually does make sense. But that doesn’t mean that I like it.

wXw SHOTGUN TITLE MATCH: Prince Ahura(c) vs. Hektor Invictus- no rating, okay segment
The match went a few minutes, which were a little sloppy. Apparently someone let Dullnig back inside, because he ran in and attacked Hektor for the DQ. Wait… apparently he was trying to hug him and wound up tackling him while doing so. The referee was just as fooled as I was, though, which is why he called for the DQ. Hektor shoved Dullnig off of him. He didn’t attack him, so I guess my theory about Hektor’s whereabouts was wrong. It’s not impossible that Hektor simply started no-showing so that he wouldn’t have to deal with Dennis, but that doesn’t really fit into the Hektor Invictus character we’ve seen over the past two years or so.
I’m assuming at this point that the real reason for Hektor absence was pandemic-related. Not necessarily that he had COVID; it could just be that he couldn’t make it to the tapings, so wXw quickly came up with a way to write him out. Part of me feels like I should give wXw a bit of a break for that, but I’m not going to because whatever the circumstances of his absence were, they had months to figure out how to have him return in a way that made sense with the extremely vague details about his disappearance that they gave us, and they seem to have gone the lamest route on that (and that’s assuming that they give us an explanation at all, which they need to do).
Anyway, Dennis decided that he was going to make things up to Hektor by attacking Ahura. Hektor joined in, but then shoved Dennis, and when Dennis tried to put the boots to Ahura again, Hektor shoved him away again. The remnants of Die Raucherpause came out to save Ahura, and Mike Schwarz came out to even things up because… um… he’s Mike Schwarz and he just likes fighting (and, also, he was last seen feuding with Bobby Gunns). Andy came out and officially booked…

DIE RAUCHERPAUSE vs. MIKE SCHWARZ, DENNIS “CASH” DULLNIG, & HEKTOR INVICTUS- 6.75/10
This was a lot of crowd-pleasing stuff. They seemed to be highlighting Schwartz in particular on the babyface side. The finish saw the heels try to use the Shotgun Title and be foiled. Dennis Dullnig then got the belt and threw it to Hektor, but the referee caught Hektor with it (there was no indication that Hektor was planning on using it. He seemed to just catch it out of instinct). The referee yelling at Hektor distracted Hektor, allowing Norman to hit him with the big boot and then the Hostile Takeover for the win. Hopefully this win will lead to Norman getting his life and career back on track.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Norman posed with Ahura’s title while Ahura was taunting Dennis out the outside. Bobby Gunns tried to yank it away from him and told him to give it back to Ahura. Norman went over to Ahura and got in his face, so Bobby stepped in to play peacemaker. Bobby yanked the title away from Norman and shoved it at Ahura. Ahura grabbed Bobby’s hand and raised it in victory, but Norman, on the side of Bobby, did not join in.

MARIUS AL-ANI PROMO- great “cocky heel champion with a legitimate reason to be cocky” stuff.
Marius is the only person in the business who can touch Roman Reigns in terms of being
the world champion.”

DAN INTERVIEWS TRISTAN ARCHER- bad
Once again, Archer’s English is just plain not good enough to be cutting promos in it. He knows the words, but his inflections are all off. He insists that his leg is fully healed, and gets very defensive when Dan suggests it isn’t.

MICHAEL KNIGHT vs. TRISTAN ARCHER- 7.5/10
Archer kept getting upset that Knight went after the knee that he insists is fully healthy and not injured at all. They did a great job of getting me behind Knight, to the point where I was thrilled to see him survive all of Archer’s big stuff. Archer eventually hit a GTS but took too long to follow upon it because his knee is injured, and when he finally crawled over Knight into a pin, Knight hooked him into a Crucifix and got the flash pin.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- great
Archer refused and interview with Andy Jackson. The fans chanted for Andy because they hadn’t seen him live yet. That was nice.
Andy then went to interview Michael Knight. Knight wished Archer a quick recovery of his knee. He also thanked the fans for supporting him and said that he has now finally established himself in wXw after eleven years of trying. Knight is a great babyface.

LEVANIEL & DELIA SEGMENT- mostly good
I probably would have stayed away from the “Delia, I know you want me” kind of stuff altogether for babyface Levaniel, but doing that and having him follow it up with “we can’t do that because we must be professional because winning this match means more to me” was an acceptable way to do it while feeling like it maybe keeps a little truer to the Levaniel we have seen over the years before his recent babyface turn. The rest of this was just fun Levaniel stuff, like him playing with the crowd or wanting to check if Delia would be an acceptable tag partner for him by outright asking if she would show their opponents any mercy.

LEVANIEL & DELIA vs. MAGGOT & BABY ALLISON- 4.75/10
The babyfaces won clean in seven minutes.

JURN SIMMONS PROMO- great
He’s going to kick Marius’ ass, end his winning streak, and take his wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship.

TEAM wXw WRESTLING ACADEMY PROMO- very good
They’re looking to get their tag titles back.

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH FOR THE wXw WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: Arrows of Hungary(c) vs. Team wXw Wrestling Academy (“The Avalanche” Robert Dreissker & Anil Marik)- 7.5/10
These two teams continued their battles on the previous big shows, with hard-hitting stuff and Anil being the babyface in peril. We were tied at 1 when Baby Allison and Maggot came out to distract everyone, allowing Vincent Heisenberg to take Anil out so that Avalanche had no one to tag, and the Arrows beat Avalanche soon after, putting off an actual blow-off match and giving Team wXw Wrestling Academy a feud to have in the meantime to explain why they’re not going right after the tag titles again.

wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING TITLE MATCH: Marius Al-Ani(c) vs. Jurn Simmons- 7.5/10
Marius won an exciting match. Both guys seemed to be making an effort to do stuff they don’t usually do, which is always nice to see.

MARIUS AL-ANI PROMO- good
He calls out Cara Noir, who he is 1-1 against (and is the last person he lost to before starting his now 29-0 streak) and still has a title shout outstanding for winning the 2020 16 Carat Gold.


This was a great show from wXw. Yes, the Hektor stuff will likely be problematic and yes, it lacked a real blow-away match, but the wrestling was great all up and down the card, and it was so much darn fun to see the fans match and to see so many of the matches get so much time, unlike in other big shows during the pandemic, where it felt just another episode of We Love Wrestling. It feels like wXw is really back.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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