wXw 16 Carat Gold 2016: Day 3

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH:
Drew Galloway vs. Angelico - 4.5/10

This match is happening tonight because Drew Galloway- a last minute replacement in the tournament, was so last minute that he already had a booking elsewhere on night two. Consequently, the story was Drew trying to put Angelico away as quickly as he could, and he succeeded in doing so in six-and-a-half minutes.

DREW GALLOWAY PROMO - He reminds everyone of what I reminded you all about above. He says he doesn't feel like waiting for his semifinal match, so he calls Axel Dieter Jr. out right now. This seems like a poor decision on Drew's part, but he did say that he hadn't slept, so I'll give him a pass.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH:
Axel Dieter Jr. vs. Drew Galloway - 6.25/10

Drew tired to win this one quickly as well, coming out of the gate with a big boot. He also tried to cheat by having fans hold Axel for him while he chopped him, which should have been a DQ. He worked over Axel's head and hit a bunch of big moves but couldn't but Axel away. After several attempts, Axel finally managed to hit Landungsbrucken and get the pin.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH:
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Sami Callihan - 8/10

An OUTSTANDING match for the time it got (just over nine minutes), with hard strikes, big moves, and lightning-fast roll-ups all creating a stream of nail-biting nearfalls.

SILAS YOUNG & DIE SCHILDS (Bobby Gunns & Vincent The Beast) vs. MIKE SCHWARZ, TIMOTHY THATCHER & WALTER (w/Toby Blunt) - 6/10

Thatcher was the babyface in peril and got his arm worked over. Silas worked together with Die Schilds very well, but Gunns and Vincent kept screwing up or have their double-teams foiled when they tried to work together. One of these incidents allowed Thatcher to make the tag, and the babyfaces never looked back from there until the very end, when Schwarz inadvertently caught WALTER with a boot, and Gunns was able to get behind him and hit a bridging German Suplex for the pin.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Good. Thatcher shook WALTER's hand, then headed to the back. Schwarz's manager went to check on him, then gave him a beer. Schwarz tried to apologize to WALTER but WALTER wasn't having it, responding to his offer of a handshake by slapping the beer can out of his other hand, shoving his manager, and slapping Schwarz in the face before storming off.

KEVIN ROADSTER & MELANIE GRAY vs. AARON INSANE & TONI STORM - 3.5/10

Melanie was completely embarrassed by Kevin's goofiness during their entrance. To contrast this, Aaron and Toni Too Sweeted each other. When the gentlemen were in we got comedy, when the ladies were in we got serious action, and we finished with all four in for a little mix of both. This was perfectly entertaining for what it was.

wXw TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH:
Cerberus (Julian Nero & Ilja Dragunov) (w/Adam Polak) vs. David Starr & Shane Strickland - 7.5/10

An excellent effort from Starr & Strickland, but they came out on the losing end.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - AWESOME. The Sumerian Death Squad came out so the injured Tommy End could confront Adam Polak, and… well… let's just say that Polak really should have seen this coming, and that we're a title match at some point in the near future. The execution on all of this was BEAUTIFUL.

wXw SHOTGUN TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH:
Da Mack vs. Emil Sitoci vs. Kim Ray - 6.75/10

The Rotation was also supposed to be in this match but Sitoci attacked him during his entrance and took him out with a Tombstone Piledriver on the ramp. He grabbed a mic and said that was what happens when a young punk crosses a veteran, and that that was one down; two to go. Then he charged at Kim Ray with a running knee and we were off. They started at a fast pace and kept going at one. This was under eight minutes, but it was all action.

JURN SIMMONS PROMO - Awesome! He uses song to brag about betraying Karsten Beck last night and taking the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship for himself. He pointed out that he is the only person form that match left standing, as both Absolute Andy and John Klinger were injured during the match, and Karsten Beck went home because he was "too scared" to face Jurn again.

Jurn says that the one person he hasn't managed to take out- yet- is his former tag team partner Tyler Bate, who he literally kicked out of what was formerly Karsten Beck's group back in the fall for being a "weak link." Jurn is angry that Bate has come back, so he offers Bate a title shot if he'll come out and face him right now. Bate has slowly been gaining revenge on the former members of the group, having defeated Kevin Roadster and Marius van Beethoven in singles action and a mixed-tag win over Melanie Gray with Toni Storm, so he certainly wasn't going to pass up an offer for either a world title shot or for revenge on the only remaining member of the group- and the very man who betrayed him- so Bate answered the challenge and we got…

wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING TITLE MATCH:
Jurn Simmons(c) (w/Melanie Gray & Marius van Beethoven) vs. Tyler Bate - 4/10

This went a shockingly short four minutes and four seconds. And it's not like this was a squash, either. It was pretty even, with Jurn finally getting the win via his big kick and then the Piledriver. It was an excellent four minutes, but the fact that they only went four minutes with it was pretty weird.

MARTY SCURLL & TREVOR LEE vs. WILL OSPREAY "SPEEDBALL" MIKE BAILEY - 8.5/10

This was a very good match that was then elevated by an utterly INSANE last five minutes.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT FINALS:
Axel Dieter Jr. vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - 7.75/10

Zack wins a disappointingly short (about twelve minutes) match via referee stoppage. The match was awesome, but at the same time it fell short of what we expect for one of wXw's biggest matches of the year, and the finals of their signature event.

ZACK SABRE JR. PROMO - Great babyface stuff! He also announced that the next time wXw is in Oberhausen, he wants his title shot against "that big Dutch bastard."

Final Thoughts
A pretty great show from wXw, with some awesome wrestling and some very good storyline advancement, but the tournament itself fell a little short, which definitely hurts any tournament show. Throw in a disappointing world title match, and you've got something of a disappointing show even though it was pretty great in a vacuum.