BRM wXw 16 Carat Gold 2022: Night 3 (great)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM wXw 16 Carat Gold 2022: Night 3 (great)

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 11th, '22, 14:58

wXw 16 Carat Gold 2022: Night 3 (3/6/2022)- Oberhausen, Germany


16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: “The Avalanche” Robert Dreissker vs. LuFisto- 5.5/10
They brawled on the outside for WAY too long before getting counted out. Avalanche was the big monster trying to be intimidating and LuFisto was the smaller but extremely tough babyface who wasn’t going to back down and was going to try to go blow for blow with the giant.


16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Shigehiro Irie vs. Jonathan Gresham- 7.25/10
Gresham worked the knee, Irie worked the back, and also they beat the sh*t out of each other. The finish was a crazy-awesome leverage pin that Gresham go while he also had Irie in a submission. I would LOVE to see these two have a rematch on a night where one of them won’t have to wrestle twice.

AVA EVERETT PROMO- This was good heel stuff… which makes having her now wrestle the very heel Baby Allison feel a little odd.

BABY ALLISON vs. AVA EVERETT- 3.5/10
Everett splashed a cup of some drink or another in Baby Allison’s face. Shouldn’t that be a DQ?
Baby Allison won a short match via submission, so we’re already undermining our new champion.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- a continuation of the questionable booking from the match
Baby Allison posed with the belt. Iva Kolasky came out from backstage to have a tug-of-war over it with her. Everett came back and yanked the belt away, falling on her butt in the process. Yes, this sets up a #1 contendership match, but shouldn’t Kolasky be entitled to a rematch anyway? Why not just let Everett win cleanly and have Iva come out to set up the match that all theoretically want to see (Iva vs. Ava) rather than adding in the possibility of getting a match we don’t really care about because it’s heel vs. heel (Ava vs. Allison)?

CARA NOIR vs. DENNIS “CASH” DULLNIG- 6/10
They did a pointless comedy spot with COVID masks. Dennis worked over Cara Noir’s bare feet. Cara Noir got the win with a clever possum-playing finish

FRANCIS KASPIN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT- uch
Earlier today, he announced that Fuminori Abe will be getting a shot at the wXw Unified World Wrestling Title because… um…
I mean really! The only person he has really beaten is Ender Kara. Yes, he made it to the finals of Ambition, but if you’re going to factor that in, then it’s utterly ridiculous that he will get a title shot but THE GUY WHO BEAT HIM WON’T.
His announcement is that we’re getting another random title match tonight for the Shotgun Title, with three more challengers who haven’t really done anything to earn a title shot.

FATAL FOUR-WAY MATCH FOR THE wXw SHOTGUN TITLE: Ninja Mack(c) vs. Maggot vs. Ender Kara vs. The Rotation- 7/10
There were one or two spots that looked painfully cooperative, and one weird spot where we got a dog-pile pin even though it was a one-fall match, but other than that this was fine action with a big, crazy balcony dive. Maggot gets the belt back, so at least it’s on a regular, but with the way this belt has been booked recently, it’d be better for it to just disappear.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
The fans treated Maggot like a babyface for the second night in a row, which is both weird and worry. Also weird was Director of Sport Francis Kaspin coming out and giving this heel a big hug before raising his hand. When Maggot made it to the top of the ramp, Ninja Mack was waiting for him and offered him a handshake, but Maggot flipped him off.

AXEL TISCHER vs. FUMINORI ABE- 7.75/10
This was an excellent match showcasing a whole bunch of different styles… but Abe losing again doesn’t make his title shot feel any more deserved.

AXEL TISCHER PROMO- The announcers summed this up as “I lost my title without being the one to get pinned, so I want a rematch.

LUCHA RULES MATCH: Ace Romero, Aigle Blanc, & Senza Volto vs. the Arrows of Hungary & Peter Tihanyi- 8/10
Ace Romero and the Frenchmen came out in goofy ski masks for some reason. An awesome athletic wrestling match started, but was then derailed by comedy and dancing breaking out. Once they were done with their comedy, they then wanted me to take the match seriously and pretend this is a competition again. Sorry. That’s not how it works. And even with that detour damaging the match, this was still awesome.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT FINAL: Jonathan Gresham vs. “The Avalanche” Robert Dreissker- 8.75/10
Avalanche immediately hits a corner splash, then a Fall-Away Slam and a Dreissker Bomb. Gresham was able to get his hand on the ropes, but he was fighting from underneath right from the get-go. And, unlike most people who have done this sort of big start where wrestler hits a finisher early, these two actually stuck to the idea of the other guy having to fight from behind the whole time.
In additional to getting into trouble early, the size disadvantage, having his back and midsection already injured coming into the match due his early battle with Irie, Gresham was also in the odd situation where for him he was facing a bigger guy who is also an accomplished technical wrestler and knows all of Gresham’s leverage tricks, and know how to avoid them. For this reason, Gresham realized that this best chance was trying to knock Avalanche out, and after much struggling and fighting through pain, that’s what happened. The only thing holding this match back from being even better was that it didn’t even reach thirteen minutes. If they had gone six or seven more, this would have probably wound up as my match of the year. A bunch of wrestlers came out to watch from ringside and be fans pounding on the ring, which is a cliché that I absolutely abhor, but even that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm during this match.
People can be unhappy about them putting an outsider over (while Gresham has history in wXw, it is quite far in the past, and I doubt he’ll be coming in regularly), I think it works here, because a loss like this is the sort of thing that will push Avalanche into full heeldom, as his story of turning heel is that he is frustrated that things aren’t working out for him rather than having any specific grudge or gripe with anyone.

JONATHAN GRESHAM PROMO- great
He gave a very long but heartfelt speech about what European wrestling has meant to him and how much the European wrestling community helped him in his formative years.

CLOSING SEGMENT- great!
Everyone went to the back, letting Gresham stay around on the stage to soak up one last bit of applause… and then Avalanche came out and attacked him from behind. He beat Gresham down the ramp and back into the ring, while the announcers talked about what a betrayal of principles this was. “He’s the head trainer of the wXw Wrestling Academy. He’s supposed to be a role model! He’s supposed to be our leader!”
Director of Sport Francis Kaspin came out to yell at Avalanche. Avalanche slugged Kaspin, then locked on a Camel Clutch on a man who was forced to retire from wrestling due to a back injury. It would have been nice if some of the other babyfaces who we just saw had come out to try to stop this, but other than that, this was a great heel turn, and quite frankly, a needed one now that Bobby Gunns has gone babyface and will be in the tag team division. Between this turn, the turn of Tristan Archer, and the possible turn of Axel Tischer, the top of the card on the babyface side is wide open (Jurn is really the only guy who is a real top babyface… well once Tischer turns, anyway), and it will be quite exciting to see who steps up, as there are quite a lot of candidates at the moment (Levaniel, Senza Volto, Aigle Blanc, Peter Tihanyi, Cara Noir if he sticks around, a turned Marius Al-Ani, etc).


This was a great show from wXw. The booking of a lot of the titles in this promotion have been quite suspect for a while, but the men’s top title picture always delivers, and that was the big focus tonight, and we also got the added bonus of some of the more suspect booking decisions at least giving us great matches.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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