BRM Reviews wXw We Love Wrestling #44 – Das 30. Mal Markethalle

[Big Red Machine]

wXw We Love Wrestling #44 – Das 30. Mal Markethalle (5/12/2023)- Oberhausen, Germany

The airdate on this is 5/16.



DAN INTERVIEWS SHIGEHIRO IRIE- meh
I did not appreciate the little gag in the beginning where they had Irie speak un-subtitled Japanese before Dan asked him to switch to English instead, revealing that Irie’s English is perfectly fine. All that did was annoy me for fifteen seconds. If this was live, that would be one thing, but these shows air on a delay of anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and a part of the reason for that is so they can subtitle the English for the German version and the German for the English version (and whatever French, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, or anything else that needs to be subtitled for both). I expect everything to be subtitled, and don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Anyway, Irie said he was a fighting champion, and thus he insisted that his non-title match against Peter Tihanyi tonight be made a title match.

AIGLE BLANC vs. LSG- 6.5/10
LSG scores the upset win in the opener.

EARLIER TODAY, DAN INTERVIEWS ANIL MARIK, ELIJAH BLUM, AND LSG- okay
The interview was supposed to be with just Anil and Blum to talk about their match, but LSG was there, too. He was helping them train. He said he believed in them and that they would get the big win and change their momentum. LSG’s words weren’t bad, but he’s such a nobody and still feels so young in the business (even though he debuted eleven years ago… which I guess is just a nicer way of saying he feels like a nobody) that he doesn’t come off as a credible endorser or a credible inspiration or coach.

ANIL MARIK & ELIJAH BLUM vs. NORMAN HARRAS & ZAFAR AMEEN- 6/10
LSG came out with the young babyfaces, then went to the back. The heels got the heat on Blum. He eventually made the hot tag to Anil, who ran wild… and then lost track of who the legal man was, ate a running European Uppercut from Norman, then got hit with a Sit-out Powerbomb and pinned cleanly. Anil’s slide continues.

CALYPSO vs. BABY ALLISON- 5.5/10
Calypso pins Allison in a non-title match to set her up as the next challenger. They are taking this shortcut far too often for my liking. They need to really build people up rather than just using the “just add water” version of setting up a challenger of the month for Allison.

LEVANIEL INTERVIEW- decent
He cut a promo about how Norman Harras took his wXw Unified World Wrestling Title away from him and he never even lost it in the ring. He says what when Norman attacked him in Frankfurt, he tore his meniscus, and he hasn’t been wrestling because he has been recovering from that injury.
Norman interrupted him, and they traded barbs and threats. Levaniel revealed that his meniscus was now fully healed. Norman begged off, but this was just to buy time for Zafar Ameen to come out and attack Levaniel from behind. Norman took off his belt and was going to whip Levaniel with it, but Jurn Simmons came out and made the save. Jurn wound up whipping Zafar Ameen.
This was a fine little segment to move towards a stipulation match, but it was nothing particularly special or interesting, either. I really didn’t like that Levaniel turned his back to Norman several times during their conversation.

wXw SHOTGUN TITLE MATCH: Laurance Roman(c) (w/Robert Dreissker) vs. Maggot- 6/10
Maggot pulled an Eddie Guerrero to get Dreissker ejected from ringside. I’m fine with that, but I would have liked it more if Maggot hadn’t cheated by biting Roman right before that. Is it really that hard for a babyface to not blatantly cheat?
After that point, they had a decent little match… and Roman won cleanly in just under eleven minutes. I did not see that coming, but I like it.

KOHEI KINOSHITA vs. TRISTAN ARCHER- 5.75/10
Archer won cleanly in eleven minutes.

AMBOSS PROMO- After several minutes of the fans not letting Dreissker speak (which, as a viewer, just gets annoying after a while), Dreissker had ring announcer Thommy Giessen announce that we won’t be getting the advertised Only Friends vs. Arrows of Hungary match because Dover could not be here tonight because he doesn’t want to be in this sh*tty city. I know that there was probably a legitimate reason and that was just said for heat, but I really don’t like it, because it makes it seem like the heels can just ignore bookings at their whim. We just finished a story where it took the owners of the company far too long to remove a heel who was clearly abusing his power. You’d think they’d be paying more attention to things right now.
Amboss declare that they have now fulfilled their contractual obligations and will now leave, but Thommy says that he just got work form the Championship Board of Directors that Amboss still have to wrestle tonight, but with Dover not here and Dreissker injured, the Amboss team will be Icarus and Laurance Roman, and that Dreissker is barred from ringside. This is decent stuff as far as hoisting the heels on their own petard goes, but I would still rather have things be done in a more straightforward manner rather segments like this that mess around with the card, if the specific way the card is messed around with doesn’t have greater consequences for stories going forward.

TAG TEAM MATCH WITH ROBERT DREISSKER BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Amboss (Laurance Roman & Icarus) vs. Only Friends (Bobby Gunns & Michael Knight)- 7/10
Only Friends win a great little babyface-in-peril match that managed to be exciting and heated without trying to do too much. The crowd was really into this. Icarus being the one to get pinned moves Only Friends closer to a tag title shot.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Robert Dreissker came out and attacked Only Friends. Amboss started to beat Only Friends down until LSG, Anil Marik, and Elijah Blum came out to chase them off.

wXw UNIFIED WORLD WRESTLING TITLE MATCH: Shigehiro Irie(c) vs. Peter Tihanyi- 7.75/10
This was the strong, larger, hard-hitting champion taking on the smaller, younger, up-and-comer, and while they told that story very well, I don’t think it clicked with the crowd the way they intended, as the crowd was 90% behind Irie from the get-go, and that didn’t change at all over the course of the match, no matter how tough Tihanyi looked. The crowd did cheer for the big show of mutual respect after the match, but I don’t think this did much to move Tihanyi up towards that top level that wXw seems to want to get him to.

After the match, we were told that Metehan has been added to Irie’s previously-announced title defense against Michael Oku later this month, using a title shot he was given via a deal with then-Director of Sport Norman Harras.


This was a pretty good show from wXw. The floundering of the women’s division is definitely a cause for concern, but other things are moving along nicely. They are putting care into rebuilding a roster that has been racked by years of injuries and departures, both to WWE and to what seem to be individual issues. The reinforcements they have gotten in the form of Metehan and Tischer leaving WWE have definitely helped things, too, but a lot of credit has to be given to the time and effort they have put into building up the likes of Levaniel Tihanyi, Knight, Tristan Archer, the Frenchadors, Maggot, Ahura, Heisenberg, Anil Marik, and others. Actually, it’s kind of amazing that they have done so well with this on the men’s side when on the women’s side they seem to be doing the opposite and constantly trying to take shortcuts to elevate people that don’t work because they feel like shortcuts.