BRM Reviews wXw We Love Wrestling #13 (5/21/2021)

[Big Red Machine]

wXw We Love Wrestling #13 (5/21/2021)- Oberhausen, Germany


ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS DENNIS ZINNER- meh

DENNIS ZINNER vs. PETER TIHANYI- 5/10
Both of these men are looking for their first wins in wXw. Tihanyi has been much more impressive, both in the ring and on the mic, in my opinion, so I am rooting for him. The fact that Zinner got a pre-match interview and Tinhanyi didn’t telegraphed that things weren’t going to go how I wanted… which was pretty startling, actually, considering that wXw has done a lot of interviews on this show seemingly just to let both sides talk before the match to make things seem more balanced (rather than only doing an interview when there is something storyline relevant to be said). This was a disappointing time to depart from that modus operandi.
These two stopped wrestling so that they could lock up on the apron. That was weird and stupid. Other than that, this was an acceptable wrestling match for the time it got, but nothing that really makes me want to care about either guy.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS DENNIS ZINNER- fine

HEKTOR INVICTUS’S INTERVIEW IS INTERRUPTED BY DENNIS “CASH” DULLNIG- Hektor didn’t want Dennis here so he didn’t tell him about this interview. Dennis flat-out admits that he was watching Hektor in the shower. NOT OKAY! Hektor tries to get rid of Dennis by flat-out telling him “I know it was you when I eliminated you from the battle royale last week” but Dennis thinks he’s joking. This was good… assuming that Hektor is supposed to be the babyface here.

MICHAEL KNIGHT vs. HEKTOR INVICTUS (w/Dennis “Cash” Dullnig)- no rating, good segment
Dennis has repaired Hektor’s flagpole with tape. Hektor chases him away from ringside. Dennis came back to cheer Hektor on about two minutes later, and Hektor shooed him away again. Hektor won about a minute later… and there was Dennis, first poking his head out from behind the curtain, and then running to the ring to hug Hektor. Hektor pushed him off but Dennis kept coming at him and Hektor eventually gave him and let Dennis jump on him. Dennis followed Hektor to the back. The purpose of this match was to get the dynamic between these two over, and it succeeded in doing that while not taking up too much time on the show.

ANDY JACKSON HOSTS CONFERENCE CALL WITH EMIL SITOCI AND TRISTAN ARCHER TO HAMMER OUT THEIR DIFFERENCES- mostly good
Sitoci immediately pushes back against Andy’s framing that he “doesn’t not want to” face Archer, instead saying that he “doesn’t have to” right now because he just beat him. Archer insists that Sitoci cheated to beat him, but Sitoci insists that the knee injury was real. Archer points out that he’s still 2-1 against Sitoci and says that he is therefore on his way to being the #1 contender. Sitoci says that he beat Archer in their most recent match, so he should be ranked higher than Archer (“if that were like a title belt, I’d have it right now”). Archer tried to goad Sitoci into coming back, but Sitoci wouldn’t take the bait unless he was made #1 contender if he won. Andy Jackson piped in that the board of directors has agreed that the winner of a potential match between them would be the #1 contender… but the loser wouldn’t be able to challenge for the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship for the rest of 2021. Both verbally agreed to the match, but there was also a lot of talk about reading the contracts first. I’m not sure if that’s just a wXw logical touch, or it’s a carefully placed phrase because Sitoci is going to chicken out.
This was a pretty good segment. Archer was certainly the weak point again, but he is getting better. His presumption that he was the #1 contender when Levaniel just won a #1 contendership battle royale last week and there was no announcement of any sort that Archer was the #1 contender after Drive of Champions made him seem a little arrogant. It’s possible that this was a language issue and I am sympathetic to him because he’s trying to cut promos in a language that is not his native one, but that doesn’t change the fact that making the presumption made him seem quite arrogant.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS GULYAS JUNIOR- bad
His English isn’t good and he’s not likable at all. He said that Heisenberg was basically Maggot and Baby Allison’s slave, which is a fine point to make, as we don’t really understand what he is getting out of this alliance, but to have the point made by someone who follows it up with “I’m going to make you my slave and make you smell my armpit” takes away from the message quite a bit.

GULYAS JUNIOR vs. VINCENT HEISENBERG (w/Baby Allison)- 0.5/10
Gulyas Junior tried to rub Heisenberg’s t-shirt in stinky places. This was short and poorly booked. Heisenberg shouldn’t have needed help to beat this goof if you’re trying to build Heisenberg up as a force to be reconned with, and why would you have Baby Allison suffer the humiliation of having her face shoved into Gulyas Junior’s smelly armpit just a week before you’re putting her in a match where she could lose her hair, thus lessening the audience’s desire to see this heel get humiliated in the big match with the real stakes?
Heisenberg beat the smelly fat guy up after the match.

ANIL MARIK & AVALANCHE INTERVIEW- very good
Their imagine of their challengers at the PPV has been tarnished a bit by Icarus not releasing his submission hold after Anil tapped out last week, the way a fair sportsman would.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS THE ARROWS OF HUNGARY- great!
Icarus says that he left the hold on Anil not to injure him, but rather because he has seen it happen where someone taps so the other guy releases the hold, but then the guy who taps denies tapping out, so he kept the hold on until the referee ordered him to break it up. A perfectly reasonable explanation.
Dover says that Avalanche was just playing “papa bear” to his trainees. He says that they are a real team, as opposed to the tag champs who are Avalanche “and a guy.”

SENZA VOLTO & AIGLE BLANC INTERVIEW- very good
Good promos by the Frenchmen about the importance of winning their Hair vs. Mask match at Drive of Champions 2021, and a good little moment showing Senza being a mentor to Aigle Blanc early on.

DENNIS “CASH” DULLNIG INTERVIEW- meh
Dennis wants to wait for Hektor to show up but is told that they can’t wait. Instead of the match, he spends his time talking about getting a birthday present for Hektor. Props to the announcer at the end for actually reacting like this guy was an idiot who is focusing on the wrong things while being professional and not actually calling him out on it.
I can’t want to see Hektor kick Dennis’ ass all over the arena.

FAST TIME MOODO vs. DENNIS “CASH” DULLNIG- 6.75/10
Moodo won a solid match in fourteen and a half minutes.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS FAST TIME MOODO- good
Moodo is regaining his confidence with every win.

MAGGOT, BABY ALLISON, & VINCENT HEISENBERG PROMO- awesome!
The mask vs. hair match will only have the person who gets pinned lose his/her hair/mask. That’s a little disappointing, but I did love Heisenberg vowing that even though only one mask is on the line, “the second one won’t survive, either.”
In addition to that, this was also the mission-statement from these three that I have been looking for. All feel underappreciated. Maggot by his former Die Raucherpause comrades, Baby Allison by management, and Heisenberg by his trainer, Avalanche.

JOHNNY EVERS vs. RAMBO (w/Abdul)- 2/10
Rambo wins a short match after interference from Abdul. The ref clearly saw Abdul grabbing onto Evers’ leg at the end, so that should have been a DQ. Where are the other babyfaces who Evers saved from Ezel? They should be here to repay the favor.

WORLD TITLE MATCH GO-HOME SEGMENT- EXCELLENT!
Levaniel came out and cut his big babyface go-home promo. Marius Al-Ani came out and mocked Levaniel. They exchanged barbs, with Levaniel finding little ways to get into Marius’ head. Marius eventually snapped and tried to attack Levaniel but Levaniel laid him out and wound up wit the title. Marius was on the outside and demanded that a referee come get his title for him. What a great little touch.
Do I really think Levaniel is going to win the title? Hell, no. But this segment gave me just enough that I can talk myself into it being a possibility, and if you can get me to buy into the possibility during those split seconds between two and three, then it’s almost as if I’m buying into the idea for the whole match.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS EZEL AND RAMBO- very good
They’re going to punish Norman Harras for betraying them back when Ezel and Die Raucherpause had an alliance, and Aytac is going to take the wXw Shotgun Title to make more money for his family. I almost forgot that these guys were heels.

NORMAN HARRAS INTERVIEW- great

wXw SHOTGUN TITLE MATCH: Norman Harras(c) vs. Aytac (w/Abdul & Rambo)- 5.75/10
The story here was the interference. Norman managed to pull out the win with a roll-up.

ANDY JACKSON INTERVIEWS NORMAN HARRAS- a good hook
Andy had to run backstage to catch Norman, as Norman left ringside very quickly so that Ezel and Rambo wouldn’t attack him. For these same reasons, he left the interview before Andy could tell him who his opponent would be at Drive of Champions 2021, leaving us with a mystery opponent.


This was a great little go-home show from wXw. I can’t wait for Drive of Champions 2021!