BRM Reviews wXw Back to the Roots XV

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews wXw Back to the Roots XV

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 9th, '19, 00:48

wXw Back to the Roots XV (1/16/2016)- Oberhausen, Germany


REICH UND SCHON SEGMENT- hilarious!
DISCLAIMER: They’re speaking German and I don’t. Also, we saw Marius van Beethoven smash some plastic Green Power Ranger masks, so I’m not 100% certain why anything is happening. From what I can piece together, though, Kevin Roadster’s “Alpha Kevin” t-shirt has prompted the fans to start chanting “ALPHA BETO!” and Marius van Beethoven is upset about being referred to as the beta. He tries to get Kevin to take the shirt off under the guise of saying that having a shirt with English on it is disgraceful for a German wrestler, and Kevin eventually gives in and takes the shirt off… only to reveal a second t-shirt, which reads “Reich & Schon & Marius,” implying that Marius is neither reich (wealthy) nor schon (young). Marius understandably gets even more annoyed at this.
Kevin managed to snatch the microphone away from Marius, said something about his t-shirt, then said something else, prompting the appearance of his girlfriend Melanie Gray. Melanie does her entrance, then goes over to Kevin, who dips her and they kiss, and Kevin immediately does a celebratory “the hot chick kissed me” muscle pose… dropping Melanie in the process. I laughed my ass off. When Kevin realized what he’d done he scrambled to help Melanie up, but she already had her “I cannot believe this f*cking idiot just did that” face on. I love these two so much.
Melanie then cut a promo which prompted the appearance of their opponents this evening, Les Artistes, as well as their gal-pal Moxie. Words were exchanged between the teams and the referee, at which point it appeared that Marius got outvoted and this became a mixed trios match instead of the originally-scheduled tag team match. I do think Marius has a legitimate grievance about his match being changed by the other wrestlers in the match without his consent, but it’s hard to side with him when you realize that his motivation is likely that he doesn’t want Kevin & Melanie to be doing stuff that will strengthen their relationship, like wrestling as a tag team, because he’s unhappy about the whole thing. As would be proven as the year played out, while Kevin is being a bit of a jerk to Marius, Marius is ultimately the one who is the dick in this story.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Moxie & Les Artistes vs. Melanie Gray & Reich und Schon- 4.5/10
The story here was that Marius and Kevin are both putzes, so whenever they were in the match, the babyfaces were winning, while they were often made to look like goofs via comedic screw-ups and amusing bumps. Conversely, whenever the ladies were in, the heels were in control because Melanie is apparently just that much better than Moxie, no comedy needed. Melanie made Moxie tap out to the Cloverleaf to win a rather entertaining match that used comedy to gets its story over.

PROST PROMO- Again, I don’t speak German, so all I understood were the proper nouns. Toby Blunt said Emil SItoci’s name a lot. Mike Schwarz said something about the tag titles and the annual 16 Carat Gold tournament. Bobby Gunns then came out and said something about the Road to 16 Carat Gold (a tournament which gets you in to the main 16 Carat Gold tournament). He then said some things that I could tell by the crowd reaction were very insulting. The ring announcer suggested that a referee should come out here and one did, so we could have…

BOBBY GUNNS vs. TOBY BLUNT (w/Mike Schwarz)- 5/10
These guys had one hell of a match for six minutes. Gunns was the disrespectful young punk to the academy trainer Blunt. The finish saw Gunns goad Schwarz into trying to get into the ring and thus distracting the referee, then take advantage of this with a low blow. Gunns tried to hit Schwarz low when Schwarz got into the ring afterwards but wound up eating a chokeslam instead.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: London Riots vs. The Sumerian Death Squad (Michael Dante & Tommy End)- 5.75/10
The London Riots jumped the Sumerian Death Squad from behind to start things off, knocking Dante out of the ring and trying to isolate Tommy End. Ironically, it was Dante who wound up isolated as the babyface in peril. Tommy End eventually got the win for his team by busting out a new submission hold.

THE ADVERTISED wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH IS NOT HAPPENING TONIGHT- This was all in German so I’m mostly guessing here, but I do know that Karsten Beck was supposed to defend the title against Absolute Andy tonight. Karsten came out with Jurn Simmons and cut a very long-winded promo that got a mixed reaction from the crowd. wXw authority figure Christian Michael Jakobi came out and yelled at Karsten because he thinks Karsten is faking a shoulder injury, then said that the advertised title match would not be happening. Absolutely Andy then came out and yelled at Karsten, then snatched the championship belt off of Karsten’s shoulder. This prompted Jurn Simmons to attack Andy, so CMJ called for security to come out and separate them. They did, and when everything had calmed down, he decreed that we would now see…

JURN SIMMONS vs. ABSOLUTE ANDY- 3/10
This started off good, but by the end it had turned slow and very physically awkward.

TITLE VS. TITLE TAG TEAM MATCH: Kim Ray(DTU Alto Impacto Champion) & Ivanov vs. Sasa Keel(wXw Shotgun Champion) & The Rotation (w/Michael Isotov)- 6/10
The Rotation was a fine babyface in peril, and even picked up the win for his side as well. Kim Ray accidentally kicked Ivanov shortly before the finish, though that didn’t really play into the finish much. Announcer Alan Counihan told us that this was another in a series of wins for The Rotation as he moves his way up the card. Shockingly, Alan did not mention that The Rotation also won the DTYU Alto Impacto Championship with this pin on Kim Ray here.

DONOVAN DIJAK vs. “BAD BONES” JOHN KLINGER- 7.5/10
An excellent striking battle, resulting in an instantly-establishing victory for Dijak here in his wXw debut. They spent a very long time focusing on Klinger leaving the ring, really selling his disappointment and frustration at his loss.

CAGE BATTLE: Da Mack, WALTER, & Axel Dieter Jr. vs. CERBERUS (Ilja Dragunov, Julian Nero, & “The Avalanche” Robert Dreissker) (w/Adam Polak)- 8/10
This was your typical violent and brutal War Games-style match with blood and weapons and violence and all of that stuff.
I did not like Polak bullying the referee into unlocking the cage for him. Hopefully this referee is reprimanded by wXw for his actions. He also later gave WALTER a chair to make up for it. Apparently this referee being “conflicted” has been a running theme throughout this feud. If that’s the case when why was he assigned to be the referee for this match?
That being said, as much as I didn’t like that spot, it did serve a structural purpose, which was to allow Mack, Axel, Nero, and Ilja to leave the ring and brawl on the floor, leaving Avalanche, WALTER, and Polak in the ring so the two principal characters in this feud could go at it and so that WALTER could get some revenge on Polak without there being three heels around to stop him. Eventually every else got back into the cage for their big spots, but left again (all done in a very natural fashion, as opposed to them just leaving the cage so they could keep fighting elsewhere), and WALTER ordered Axel to lock the door so he would once again be alone with Avalanche. They did their stuff and had some good false finishes, with Avalanche eventually managing to make WALTER tap out clean, which felt like a MAJOR step up for him.


This was a fun little show from wXw, although replacing the advertised world title match with the Andy/Jurn stinker definitely dragged it down. I really admire that wXw is not afraid to have their top names lose in big situations in order to try to make new stars. Most other promotions are too conservative in that regard. Things certainly could have been better in the ring, but between the storyline advancement and the level of action we got tonight, I was quite satisfied. English subtitles for the video packages would be very much appreciated, though.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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