WXW World Tag Team League Night Two, Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen, Germany – Review
The WXW World Tag League continued before one of the hottest crowds you will ever encounter.
Indeed, during the match to crown WXW’s temporary world champion, the spectators were so into Bobby Gunns and Ija Dragoneuv that they came very close to destroying the performance, as for over 15 minutes they essentially ignored the action in the ring whilst chanting appreciation for the two competitors.
Moving onto the World Tag Team League, it was a mixed night for the West Midlands.
Wolverhampton residents Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis were the only team to record back-to-back wins, which puts Aussie Open in pole position to win Block B and compete in the tournament finale.
They defeated the WXW World Tag Team Champions in a highly competitive match which saw the Austrian super-heavyweight Avalanche repeatedly try to bully the Australians, only to ultimately be on the outside as Fletcher pinned his tag-partner with a sit-down piledriver.
Sadly, their fellow Schadenfreude colleagues in Fight Club: Pro lost to Japan’s Okami in a hard-hitting match.
While the size differential was less than in their previous match, Tipton’s Chris Brookes and his American mentor Jonathan Gresham still found themselves overpowered repeatedly.
They managed to stay in the fight through a combination of technique and risk-taking.
It looked like they had secured the victory when they put their opponents in an abdominal stretch but the Japanese competitors powered out and quickly finished them.
The implications of the loss were mitigated by Pentagon and Rey Fenix losing to Walter and Timothy Thatcher in an epic contest, which was a genuine match of the year contender as Mexican flair clashed with German steel.
If Brookes and Gresham defeat the “Lucha Brothers” then they will be in pole position to progress to the final. Still, with four elite teams tied on three points in Group A, nothing is for certain.
One thing to note about the WXW World Tag Team League is that it’s part of a wider festival of culture and wrestling, to encourage visitors to Oberhausen.
As part of the festival, WXW ran Femme Fatals, an eight-women tournament in which Coventry’s WWE UK superstar Millie Mckenzie exited in the quarter-final despite fighting valiantly against the founder of Sendai Girls and current Fight Club: Pro champion, Meiko Satomura.
Indeed, Satomura once again showed her championship pedigree by winning the tournament overall.
WXW World Tag Team League 2018 continues this weekend in Oberhausen, Germany. It and Femme Fatal are available to watch on Video on Demand within 72 hours of them occuring, complete with English-language commentary, on WXW NOW. For more information go to www.wxwnow.com/en
By Will Cooling
