The German wrestling scene wil be experiencing a wrestling festival this weekend. Eight international Teams will compete for Tag team gold in the wXw World Tag League 2017. Here’s a look at this weekend’s competitors.
Group A
The Young Lions
As already mentioned in my Article on RISE , these two are the current wXw Tag Team Champions and have to defend their gold in this tournament.
Tarkan Aslan and Lucky Kid are the two RISE members behind that team and they are looking to defend their titles with every bit of help they can get…
Massive Product
Jurn Simmons & David Starr are trying to combine their unique styles for the common goal. The former wXw World Heavyweight champion and the former wXw Shotgun champion have teamed together before in February of this year when they lost to RINGKAMPF in a 32 minute war in Hamburg. Over the course of this year they had the chance to team up 3-times.
Spirit Squad
Kenny & Mikey will be representing the former WWE Tag Team champions. Famous for their feuds with DX and Ric Flair & Roddy Piper they are now trying to capture the Tag belts in Germany.
A4
The team of the men with the 4 A´s in their names: Absolute Andy & Marius Al-Ani. Andy, the veteran, has been teaming with his younger and athletic partner regulary now since the end of 2015. They are the former Tag Team champions which were defeated by the Young Lions in May. They won the titles back in October at Broken Rulez 2016 in a great TLC match from David Starr & Lio Rush.
Group B
RINGKAMPF
“Die Matte ist heilig“ – The mat is sacred. The mantra that RINGKAMPF lives by: pure technical wrestling mixed with Strong Style elements. WALTER and Timothy Thatcher are the two competitiors for this faction. Former RINGKAMPF members were: Axel Dieter Jr. (now Marcel Barthel in NXT) and Axel Tischer (SaNiTy’s Alexander Wolfe). They were formerly managed by one of the executives in wXw: Christian Michael Jacobi (On Air character).
RINGKAMPF had been struggling since the departure of Axel Dieter Jr., will they be able to get back to old form ?
EYFBRO
The replacement for OI4K. Mike Draztik & Angel Ortiz have faced teams such as The Hardy Boyz , reDragon and the Dudley Boyz before, so they know what they are doing when it comes to Tag team Wrestling. They are also a part of LAX in GFW alongside names such as Hernandez, Homicide, Konnan etc.
The Rottweilers
LOW KI & Hernandez, another team inside of LAX who are in this tournament. They haven’t teamed together since 2007, so this might be something special to whitness. Hernandez and Low Ki are both regulars in GFW / TNA and Low Ki is a former WWE superstar where he competed under the name of KAVAL.
The Briscoes
This might be the most well known team in this tournament. Mark & Jay Briscoe are 8-time ROH World Tag team champions, the Wrestling Observer Tag team of the year 2007 and Jay is a 2-time ROH World Champion. They have worked as a team since 2001 and they are both still in their prime: Mark (32) and Jay (33).
Judging by the numbers they seem to be the favorites here, but everything is possible in a wrestling ring and maybe some team RISE´s to the occasion…
Non tournament matches
Julian Nero vs Da Mack
Classic opening match. Da Mack lost to Nero in Frankfurt last weekend and wants a rematch.
Melanie Grey vs Jinny
This womens match is part of a womens tournament that ends at the wXw 17th Anniversary show in December. On this day the first ever wXw womens champion will be crowned. Melanie Grey, Jinny, Pauline and Session Moth Martina are competing for that title.
(I´ll do another longer article on that in the future)
wXw Shotgun championship: Ivan Kiev (c) vs. “Avalanche” Robert Dreissker
“Avalanche” defeated Da Mack in a number 1 contenders match in Frankfurt on September 30th. Ivan Kiev is a member of RISE and won the title from David Starr in a 3-Way match with Flip Gordon. Avalanche is trying to avenge his loss against Ilja Dragunov from the Fans Appreciation Night 2017 in September where lost in a brutal Street Fight.
wXw World Heavyweight championship: “Bad Bones” John Klinger (c) vs Ilja Dragunov
Bad Bones won the Title back in August, this will be his second defense, after he defeated Jurn Simmons last month. His challenger is Ilja Dragunov who won the 16 Carat Gold tournament this year in an epic final against WALTER where both men had given everything to leave their handprint permanently on the others chest. So Ilja is cashing in his tilte shot that he won in 16 Carat. Will there be a new champion ? Is the Russian going to be able to hit Torpedo Moskau? Or will the experienced leader of RISE once again stand tall with the wXw World Heavyweight championship.
Femmes Fatales
On saturday afternoon, wXw holds a womens wrestling tournament with the following wrestlers: Toni Storm, Viper, Melanie Grey, Wesna, Jinny, Kelly, Laura Di Matteo and Pauline.
This weekend will be great weekend for wrestling in Germany. If you can´t be in Oberhausen for this you can watch it the following week on wXw’s streaming site.
