BRM Reviews wXw Shotgun 2020, episode 6 (7/10/2020)

[Big Red Machine]

THE SMOKE SHOP WITH BOBBY GUNNNS & DIE RAUCHERPAUSE- meh
There is more peer pressure being applied to young Norman Harras to convince him to smoke, but he doesn’t give in. Also, they want to win the Shotgun Title so that they’ll have all the gold.

KILLER KELLY & ALEXANDER JAMES HAVE A SKYPE CALL- holy crap there was no yelling this time!
It’s good for us to see that AJ isn’t always yelling at Kelly. He encourages her to follow up with Andy about the women’s title and says that by beating Baby Allison she has beaten the only other woman around (Melanie is still injured, I guess), and therefore by default deserves to be the champion. He tells her that whenever the office says they “have something for you” or assure you they have some sort of idea, it’s bullsh*t. Kelly says she was told to wait by the person who is essentially her boss, so she’s going to wait and hear what he has to say. AJ says “fine” in an unhappy manner, and they hang up.
Kelly starts to mess around with her phone when she gets a Skype call from Levaniel. She dismisses it, but when he calls her right away again, she decides to hear what he has to say.

KILLER KELLY & LEVANIEL HAVE A SKYPE CALL- great!
Kelly started the conversation with a wonderfully annoyed, “what do you want, Levaniel?” He butters her up by telling her she looks great, then tells her that she should stop talking to Andy about the women’s title because Amale is the champion and can’t defend the title right now because she’s in France and… um… she’s “really busy” with “this France thing” that is happening over there. Levaniel is great sometimes, with his big smile trying to charm people into buying the stupidest sh*t. Kelly responded with an equally great “I don’t care.”
Levaniel then invites her to be his guest on his talk-show next week in a way that up until the last moment sounded like he was propositioning her. Kelly accepts the invitation, but explicitly tells him that she will not be discussing relationship issues like he tries to do with everyone else; she’s going to convince him to stop lobbying for Amele.

THE ROTATION VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- GREAT!
Some excellent babyface stuff. It has been a big year for him so far, and now he’s on his quest to win his first singles titles in wXw.

MARIUS AL-ANI vs. VINCENT HEISENBERG- no rating, FANTASTIC squash
Heisenberg has gained a first name between last week’s show and this week’s. Good for him… but that’s about where the good news for Mr. Heisenberg stops. This might be my favorite squash ever because it was the smaller guy using his speed and skill to squash the bigger guy. Poor Heisenberg tried his best to follow Avalanche’s advice from last week, but Al-Ani just countered every single thing he did and made him tap out with the ankle lock.

MARIUS AL-ANI PROMO- Marius’ promo was very good (it was about rookies needing to get beaten up because that’s what happens in wrestling). The problem with this was that the question he was asked was if the final move he performed during the match was “a bit unnecessary,” which makes no sense when said move was a submission. How could it not be necessary? The opponent wasn’t unconscious and hadn’t forfeited, and it didn’t look at all like Marius putting an unnecessary hurting on this guy.

KILLER KELLY CALLS ALEXANDER JAMES ON SKYPE- bad
She tells AJ that she is going on Levaniel’s show to see if he can use whatever pull he has with Amale to get her to come defend the title. Does Kelly not understand that the reason Amale can’t be here is because of the international pandemic and lockdown? AJ tells her that idea will obviously fail and that she should be going to Director of Sports Absolute Andy instead. I understand Kelly’s insistence on not politicking, and AJ and Kelly arguing over this was very good, but Kelly is coming off as ridiculously naïve here.

EZEL ARE SUMMONED TO ABSOLUTE ANDY’S OFFICE- odd
Andy tells them off for attacking Alpha Kevin. Metehan and Andy had a clam but threatening exchange. One of the minions took down the poster Andy has on his wall for 16 Carat Gold 2019, the year that Andy headlined night 2 as the wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion… but also the year that Lucky Kid won the tournament (and later lost his title shot to Andy after being betrayed by Pete Bouncer). I’m not sure exactly what symbolism they’re going for there.

HEKTOR INVICTUS VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- fine

MIKE SCHWARZ ACCOSTS EZEL- TERRIBLE!
Abdul and Aytac are making fun of Schwarz and Kevin. Schwarz happens to be walking by, grabs then both by the throat and shoves them against the fence. He then yells at them and tells them Alpha Kevin will be fine and he has just seen Absolute Andy we are getting a tag team match. Schwarz left, and Ezel brooded.
The acting here was fine, but doing this segment at all was a horrific idea. It completely neutered these previously threatening new heels.

wXw SHOTGUN TITLE TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Hektor Invictus vs. The Rotation- 4/10
This was shockingly short. Hektor overpowered The Rotation and won clean.


This episode of Shotgun 2020 was somewhere between meh and not good. Our big tournament is off to a disappointing start.