BRM Reviews wXw World Tag Team Festival 2022: Night 1 (very good)

[Big Red Machine]

wXw World Tag Team Festival 2022: Night 1 (10/1/2022)- Oberhausen, Germany


The tournament rules are three points for a win, one point for a draw, and none for a loss. The winners of each block face off on the final night, and the winner gets the wXw World Tag Team Titles. I really don’t like that last part. That can work for something like CHIKARA’s Young Lions’ Cup, where it’s supposed to be a career stepping-stone, but the wXw World Tag Team Titles are not supposed to be a stepping stone. They’re supposed to be the pinnacle of tag team achievement.

NORMAN HARRAS’ SPEECH IS INTERRUPTED BY LEVANIEL- GREAT!
After the ceremonial group photo from the teams in the tournament took place, Director of Sport Norman Harras came out. He is in a wheelchair, which is new. Also new are his two associates, Joe Keys and Dante Caballero (though he got Dante’s name wrong). He cited them as protégés of Jonathan Gresham, and as some of the best talent in the world which wXw has brought in for this weekend.
When he mentions the #1 contendership match (which has one of those international bring-ins, “Speedball” Mike Bailey), he is interrupted by Levaniel. Apparently Norman hasn’t booked Levaniel because he claims Levaniel isn’t medically cleared to compete after being attacked from behind by Tristan Archer… about six weeks ago. Levaniel says that this is BS, and that he has sent Norman multiple messages to this effect. Levaniel insists on receiving the wXw Unified World Wrestling Title shot that he earned as a result of winning Shortcut to the Top.
Norman says that Levaniel won via “questionable means,” and he’s not wrong. The “I didn’t technically touch the floor because I landed on top of someone” rule is idiotic. Levaniel insisting that he would have won whether he landed on Orsi or not was ridiculous (it was a battle royale, and he got thrown out!), but he did say that he would be willing to prove his worthiness by facing Robert Dreissker (the man who would have won Shortcut to the Top, if not for Levaniel getting lucky via an idiotic technicality).
Levaniel insisted that the winner of tonight’s #1 contendership match should then have to face him for tomorrow night’s title shot. Why put your #1 contendership on the line just to get a title shot at a particular show? Levaniel isn’t even from Oberhausen.
Anyway, Norman finally gives in and agree to give Levaniel a match this weekend… but in a spot more fitting for what Norman sees as Levaniel’s place on the card. He announces that later this weekend Levaniel will face… one of the men who wrestled in tonight’s dark match, Jacob Crane. And that is the only match Levaniel will get this weekend.
Levaniel was upset at this and moved towards Norman, Dante and Keys got between them. Levaniel was not intimidated, but he eventually declared that he will win that match… and then “take my title.” Levaniel left, and the announcers wondered what he meant by that (and also confirmed for us that Levaniel really is medically cleared to wrestle).
This was a GREAT segment. Both Norman and Levaniel are great on the mic in general, and particularly excellent with a live crowd to play off of (especially Norman). It also established an issue between the two of them while simultaneously establishing Keys and Caballero’s role in the company.

WORLD TAG TEAM FESTIVAL 2022 BLOCK A MATCH: SAnitY (Axel Tischer & Eric Young) vs. CDK (Chris Brookes & Masahiro Takanashi)- 6.75/10
SAnitY got to use their WWE video and music along with the name. There was some good action here, but they were very clearly not trying to go crazy. I hated the finish, simply because it involved both members of CDK in the ring and pinning Tischer. How does a referee possibly count that?

AMBOSS INTERVIEW- fine
The interviewer asked Dreissker and Icarus how they are feeling about their chances tonight. Dreissker dodged the question by getting annoyed at the interviewer for not asking Roman about his match, which is next. The interviewer complied and turned his attention to Roman, who said he would beat Peter Tihanyi tonight, and that Tihanyi would be “nothing but a footnote” in history.

PETER TIHANYI vs. LAURANCE ROMAN- 6.5/10
Tihanyi won cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Roman attacked Tihanyi. Orsi came out and made the save, but then Robert Dreiskker came out and attacked her.

WORLD TAG TEAM FESTIVAL 2022 BLOCK A MATCH: Pretty Bastards vs. Frenchadors (Aigle Blanc & Senza Volto)- 6.5/10
“Frenchadors” is a terrible name. Pretty Bastards reforming their team just for this tournament but both coming out with their version of the Shotgun Title is interesting. It feels like there is a Sword of Damocles hovering above the team (for the record, Maggot is the rightful champion. Ahura had gotten suspended last year while champion and the belt was vacated, and when he came back recently, he kept wearing his belt). Making it more interesting is the fact that both men have been treated like babyfaces, but very much feel like heels to me, so it’s conceivable that either of them could be the one to cause the friction (if not outright turn on the other).
Maggot has glued horns to his forehead. That can’t possibly be legal!
There was solid action here. The finish saw Ahura throw Maggot into Aigle Blanc for a spear and then Ahurah it the Paradise Waterfall for the win. Maggot didn’t realize he was being thrown for a reason until Ahura explained it to him afterwards, so there was a bit of friction there.

DAN INTERVIEWS THE PRETTY BASTARDS- good
This started off as your standard interview, with Dan congratulating them on their win and asking about their strategy for tomorrow’s match… and then Ahura revealed that he actually wouldn’t be able to be here tomorrow because it was his brother’s wedding. This took everyone by surprise, including Maggot, who was very upset with him and ended the interview right there. As he shepherded Ahura to the back, Ahura told Maggot that he would just have to wrestle on his own tomorrow. This was completely dickish and thus totally in-character behavior for Ahura. The plot thickens.

STREET FIGHT: Jurn Simmons vs. Vincent Heisenberg- 7.25/10
Good violence here, although if that security guard isn’t going to become a character, I wasn’t fond of them spending so much time on Heisenberg going after him. When that happened, I became worried that they were going to have Heisenberg lose and that forced spot was being done to protect him, but then they actually had him win. He choked Jurn out with a Kendo stick, and Jurn stayed down for a long time.

WORLD TAG TEAM FESTIVAL 2022 BLOCK B MATCH: Rott und Flott vs. Violence is Forever (Dominic Garrini & Kevin Ku)- 6.25/10
More solid action (minus one botch by Rott und Flott), but nothing particularly inspiring. VIF beat the tag champs cleanly, so they should wind up with a tag title shot at some point.

WORLD TAG TEAM FESTIVAL 2022 BLOCK B MATCH: Fuminori Abe & Shigehiro Irie vs. Amboss (Robert Driessker & Icarus)- 7.75/10
Great action. Amboss pick up the (relatively) clean win.

WINNER GETS A SHOT AT THE wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING TITLE TOMORROW NIGHT: Bobby Gunns vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey- 8/10
Gunns worked the leg while Speedball worked the head. Speedball’s selling is less suspect than I remember it being, but it still could have been a lot better. Despite that deficiency, the match was awesome.
Speedball picking up the win- or, more importantly, Gunns losing- allows them to have Gunns and Michael Knight reevaluate the idea (which was mostly Gunns’ idea) to break up their team after failing to win the titles and failing to qualify for the tournament. Speedball feels like a weak challenger for Archer, but they really didn’t have anyone who felt strong who wasn’t in the tournament other than Gunns (and maybe now the heel Heisenberg). That’s certainly a disappointing situation going into what is usually the second-biggest world title match of the year tomorrow night, but give the way wXw does these title matches in the middle of tournament weekends, I think they have a little more leeway, so long as the tournament matches and the title match deliver. I assume we’ll be getting some big moment with Levaniel after the match as well (like him stealing the belt to force the issue of him getting his title shot).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Gunns and Speedball had a nice show of mutual respect. Tristan Archer came out onto the ramp to stare at his next challenger.

This was a very good show from wXw. Maybe even a great one under most circumstances, but I was a little disappointed that the tournament matches mostly weren’t the ones delivering here in this supposed tournament of the best tag teams in the world. Hopefully that changes tomorrow night.