BRM Reviews wXw 16 Carat Gold 2023: Night 3

[Big Red Machine]

wXw 16 Carat Gold 2023: Night 3 (3/12/2023)- Oberhausen, Germany


16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Shigehiro Irie vs. Ahura- 7/10
Ahura jumped the bell on Irie. This was apparently not the first time he had jumped someone today, as during this match we were told that he has jumped Baby Allison in the locker room as well.
Ahura did some sneaky eye-poking, but Irie overcame it. The last two minutes or so were just plain awesome if you’re someone who likes smart reversals. These two put a lot of thought into coming up with the coolest ways to counter the other’s signature stuff.

POST-MATCH SEGEMENT- GREAT!
Ahura demanded that the fans cheer for him in defeat like they do with all of the babyfaces. Then he began to run down the fans and Maggot until Maggot came out and hit him with a cutter. I clearly missed a promo somewhere in which Maggot said he was going to “crucify” Ahura, because Ahura referenced it, and Maggot wound up getting Ahura stuck in the ropes in that position. Maggot then told Ahura that he would get his revenge on him, but not tonight. He would get his revenge in their home city of Frankfurt at the aptly-named 16 Carat Gold Revenge… in a Street Fight.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Peter Tihanyi vs. Axel Tischer- 7.5/10
Tischer worked over Tihanyi’s arm and eventually got the submission victory. This is a spot where I would have gone with the “passing out rather than tapping out” finish. Tihanyi was a great babyface.

EARLIER TODAY, DAN MALLMAN HAD TO TRACK DOWN ANIL MARIK FOR A SCHEDULED INTERVIEW BECAUSE ANIL DIDN’T SHOW UP- great
Dan finds Anil sitting alone in a room, depressed. He is depressed because he didn’t make it into his first 16 Carat Gold Tournament, and now that the weekend has started, he got pinned in the alternates match and has now been removed from a match at We Love Wrestling.
Roberg Dreissker walked through the background on his phone. When Dan asked him to go somewhere else, he instead started to taunt Anil about his losing streak. A shoving match started as Robert mocked Anil by telling him that as his trainer, he would do him a favor and get him his match at 16 Carat Gold weekend, telling him to get some friends. Dreissker won the shoving match by pushing Anil so hard that he fell.

MASSIMO PESCA, ANIL MARIK, & NICK SCHREIER vs. AMBOSS (Robert Dreissker & the Arrows of Hungary) (w/Laurance Roman)- no rating, excellent segment
The announcers were certain that Dreissker wasn’t cleared to compete in this match (he wasn’t cleared yesterday), but the referee let him wrestle anyway. Amboss squashed the young babyfaces. Anil never got the chance to tag in. Dreissker only came in to put the Camel Clutch on an already-unconscious Massimo for the win, staring a hole through Anil the whole time. Dreissker then got a mic and just ripped Anil a new one. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been more disappointed and validated by anyone in my life.” “I give you a chance on the biggest stage of your career… 16 Carat Gold… and you loser can’t even make it into the ring!”
He continued to excoriate Anil, using a comment Anil made while injured last year that “it hurt to watch everyone get their 16 Carat Gold moment” (except for him) as a shining example of what is wrong with this new generation: “You don’t GET 16 Carat Gold moments. You EARN them! You WORK for them! You FIGHT for them!!!”
But, Dreissker says, because he has always had a soft spot for Anil, he will give Anil the chance for his own 16 Carat Gold moment. Then he takes off his protective facemask and dares Anil to punch him right in his broken face. And despite all of Dreissker’s taunting, Anil just can’t do it, and he falls to his knees. Dreissker kicks him and tells him to get out of the ring while once again holding Anil up as an example of the weakness of his generation, and of why Amboss have embarked on their mission to “reclaim, reshape, and rebuild” professional wrestling.

ADAM PRIEST vs. ELIJAH BLUM- 5.25/10
I really liked that the announcers reminded us that Blum is the alternate in case someone in 16 Carat Gold gets injured, and thus this match is happening so that if he has to step in, he won’t be at an advantage because he will be fresh and his opponent will have already wrestled.
Priest was a great heel, bending rules and hiding things from the referee while working Blum’s midsection. Blum overcame it and got the win with the Parting Gift in about eight minutes.

wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Levaniel vs. Francesco Akira vs. Mike D. Vecchio vs. Tristan Archer- 7/10
We’re having this whole big tournament to find out who should be the world champion… and now we’re giving guys who lost fair and square a #1 contendership match? And with the fourth guy in the match being the guy who was unfairly stripped of the title? How the hell are the other three on the same level as Levaniel?
Akira’s big spot where he walks on his opponents’ shoulders to hurricanrana another opponent was too hokey for me. That was about the only spot in this spotty match that didn’t work for me. Levaniel seemed to be on the verge of winning when Norman Harras came out to distract him. They brawled in the aisle, ending with Harras suplexing Levaniel onto the ramp. Mike D. Vecchio got the win. The crowd was really into him. More than they were into Levaniel, even.

DAVEY RICHARDS & MASHA SLAMOVICH vs. ONLY FRIENDS (Bobby Gunns & Michael Kight)- 6.75/10
This was mostly good, aide from one odd refereeing miscue at the end (or maybe the wrestlers screwed up and a shoulder accidentally came up that shouldn’t have). I really didn’t like Davey and Masha suddenly becoming heels, seemingly just to make sure that Only Friends got cheered here. That sort of thing hurts the constitution of characters and damages the overall effectiveness of turns when you need them to count.

LUCHA RULES MATCH: Frenchadors & Komander vs. Fuminori Abe, Trey Miguel, & Arez- 8/10
This was a really cool spotfest with a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen before, but there were also chunks of it where the participants were so clearly cooperating with each other that I couldn’t enjoy the spot. Whenever a spot requires you to stand on an opponent’s shoulders, that’s a spot you shouldn’t be doing, because there is no way to make that look like a believable part of a fight. The crowd loved it, though, as they threw money into the ring. This seemed to mean a lot to Trey Miguel in particular, who was crying. It’s nice that he got a moment like that.

16 CARAT GOLD TOURNAMENT FINAL: Shigehiro Irie vs. Axel Tischer- 7.75/10
The story here was Tischer doing everything he could to break Irie down and Irie just never giving in, coming back, and giving it to Tischer just as intensely. They had a really great last few minutes, with Irie picking up the big win in the end. The crowd’s response was a demonstration of just how much Irie has made his name to the wXw fans over the fast four and a half years. I hope he’s sticking around for a while, because this belt really needs a long-term babyface champion right now.

This was a great show from wXw. Yes, the tournament final could have been better, but it had solid wrestling all up and down the card, a great angle with Anil and Dreissker, and great ending, and sometimes that’s all you need.