wXw 16 Carat Gold N2 (3.9.24) 

 

March 9, 2024 

 

We’re in Oberhausen, once again, for a very, very long night two of 16 Carat Gold. We have the quarterfinals of the tournament, the big title match, a tag team gauntlet (groan) but also the Hall of Fame induction for Absolute Andy. In total we’re in the Turbinenhalle for 4h23m today.  

 

It’s nice to put a face to the voice of Ricky Slatter, who has been doing comms all weekend. He’s done a decent job, apparently on very short notice.  

 

16 Carat Gold QF 

Aigle Blanc vs. Mike D Vecchio  

In having so many babyfaces go over on N1 we end up with this face on face clash and Mike D is the clear favourite, which is harsh on Aigle Blanc.  

Mike D makes Aigle Blanc look so inferior in the opening few minutes too. His high spots look ineffectual compared to Mike D’s awesomeness. Mike D is just better. The best part is Aigle Blanc trying to hit a dive, getting caught and powerbombed onto the apron. WAR MACHINE! I’m watching Mike D get all fired up and I would have put him over here in 5:00 tops. No offence to Aigle Blanc, who I like, but Mike D is a clear star here. Strike while that iron is hot.  

 

Aigle Blanc is really fun here, in his defence, busting out cool looking counters and almost keeping pace with Mike’s intensity. Mike D is a special talent though. Even his most basic spots look awesome. The dropkick in the corner or the big lariat. They feel so impactful. Aigle Blanc has to do wacky stuff to even stay in the ballpark, although his knees to the back of the head look awesome. It’s very clear that his offence, although innovative, is clearly clunkier.  

 

I love the reactions in this too. Aigle Blanc’s whole “noooo” when Mike D kicks out of the 450 Splash is cool. Aigle Blanc ends up fluking the pin on a roll up and while I’m happy for his stupid little French face, I hope Mike D wins the whole thing next year. A wonderful talent. ***¾. Best match of the weekend so far. Fantastic effort from both guys.  

 

16 Carat Gold QF 

Stephanie Maze vs. One Called Manders 

Maze feels her best chance of winning is the big roundhouse kick, which took out Icarus. So, she spams it like Tommy End. Norman Harras calls Manders a “feminist” roughly 45 seconds after he called Maze a “bitch”. Manders gets caught and busted hardway over the eye (following in the bloody footsteps of Bobby Gunns earlier). The match gets ugly after this.  

 

Manders adopts a tactic of standing there and letting himself get hit. Maybe that’s his kink, who knows. Maze works the arm to remove the lariat but she’s a bit sloppy with it. The Cattle Mutilation set up is particularly bad. Manders left there with his arms held out by nothing. Maze gets the roundhouse, but Manders gets into the ropes. She goes for it again, but it is ducked and the lariat finishes. Tactically not a bad match but the execution was hit and miss. 

 

Video Control shows us the champ arriving. He gives the cameraman the side eye.  

 

Joseph Fenech Jr vs. Rotation vs. Gringo Loco vs. Lio Rush 

It’s a flippy lads four-way!  

Gringo Loco did a tremendous job on N1 and is over as shit. Joey FJ bails on the faces. He’s the obvious winner here having been knocked out of Carat on the back of a hot heel turn. Everyone else is just fucking around. Lio especially. His selling for the big overhand chop off Rotation is funny. This isn’t the kind of match for analysis. They’re just having a laugh. Not all the cool shit lands. Rotation falls off the ropes attempting the rope walk. It’s always been hard for European wrestlers to compete in high flying. Technical wrestlers have always been closer to their American counterparts, or superior, even.  

 

Some of the spots have too much cooperation for me. The Loco double Spanish Fly is too much. Three guys gently holding on to each other pre-spot. Anyway, Lio wins with a frogsplash after nailing Rush Hour on Rotation. I don’t get the booking here. Fenech Jr turned on his partner, joined an evil heel manager only to get knocked out in R1 and not even get the consolation win on N2? He needs a big recovery win ASAP imo. *** for the flipz and whatnot. 

 

16 Carat Gold QF 

Laurence Roman vs. Masato Tanaka 

Speaking of not using someone well; Tanaka has been booked in with two guys who don’t work a compatible style as him when there are bunch of guys on this weekend who could. Just to emphasise this Roman does a lot of rest holds, which is not what I want from a Tanaka match. They go from nothing to 100mph. From rest holds to finisher kick outs. It feels like Tanaka is building to a finish with his strikes and the kill shot elbow should finish, really. Roman’s weird looking secondary finish ends it. This was powerfully ok. I don’t buy into Roman getting this deep into the tournament. Solid worker but no more. **½  

 

wXw Tag Team Championship 

Dennis Dulnig & Hector Invictus (c) vs. Rott Und Flott vs. Tristan Archer & Anil Marik 

Fohrwerk’s wrestlers have all done abysmally this weekend, so Archer & Marik have no chance. This line up also shows that wXw doesn’t have a strong tag team division at the moment. The last time Rott Und Flott had the belts, they were deemed not good enough to defend them at Tag Fest and they’re arguably the best of these teams.  

 

Hector does a good job of playing the straight man to Dulnig’s comedy. The match is relatively inoffensive, apart from Archer doing an awful thigh slap. Archer tries really hard after this, willing me to rate him higher than I did in the last match. He’s clearly the standout in the match with frantic dives and high spots. The rest of the match is clunky by comparison. 3D gets rid of Rott Und Flott after a clusterfuckery of finishers.  

 

Dulnig gets picked off for a bit before a great hot tag. Dulnig is good at garnering sympathy and his last gasp kick outs are a delight. Fohrwerk saves it for his team after a botched 3D (Dulnig just completely missed the cutter part).  

It’s the first time he’s done something useful as a heel manager all weekend. It doesn’t matter though because the champs clear out Archer with an actual 3D for the win. The Fohrwerk Failure Effect in full effect. This got fun towards the end, albeit heavily booked. **½ 

 

Tag Team Gauntlet 

Is there a worse match type in wrestling than the tag team gauntlet? It seems wXw don’t agree with me because here we are. Big Bucks (Norman Harras & Alex Duke) kick us off. Harras was on commentary, so Slatter is going solo for this match. Team two is Anita Vaughan & Oskar. This is boring. Duke even resorts to a chinlock. The crowd seem invested in it, in all fairness. Big Bucks pin Anita after Norman nut shots Oskar. This felt like it went on for a long time, but it was only 6:00.  

 

Next team in is Maggot & Griffin McCoy. The latter is managed by Robin Fohrwerk turning them into an odd couple. Maggot is someone Fohrwerk is trying to recruit but based on Fohrwerk’s shitty results he should continue to refuse. Maggot rejects the offer and brings out Aaron Insane. The mismatched couple could have worked. Oh well. Insane pins Duke after 25 seconds when Shooter Schultz counts Duke down. Erm, that looked like a mistake Shooter!  

 

Next is El Hijo del Dr Wagner Jr & Galeno del Mal. I did not know the latter was even in the country! I fell in love with GdM on the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show last Mania weekend. He ruled. It’s a shame they’ve just chucked him into this match. Dream GdM matches didn’t include Aaron Insane. Anyway, 4:00 later the luchadores advance.  

 

Up next is Axel Tischer & Fast Time Moodo (or is it “Jittery” Dave Higgins?) Moodo starts out, which is also not what I want from lucha dream matches. Tischer does better, wanting to ground and embarrass Jr. The match has odd beats like Jr getting a hot tag when Galeno was on the floor selling and then tagging back out again to absorb heat, again. Like the whole thing was a mistake. Tischer then stands on the top rope for a while after turning up way too early for a spot. That said, this is the best part of the gauntlet, as it features big lucha dudes hitting dives. Galeno eats a superkick off Moodo for the L. I don’t agree with that. They were the most fun team in this whole thing. 

 

Final team is Luke Jacobs & YOICHI. Aww man, we could have had these boys versus the luchadores. YOICHI takes a man-sized beating here and eventually gets pinned by Tischer. I’m not convinced this was a good use of anyone’s time and the gauntlet ran 30:00 on a very long show.  

 

16 Carat Gold QF 

Peter Tihanyi vs. Michael Oku 

With Aigle Blanc, Manders and Roman awaiting, this is arguably the match to determine the favourite for the whole tournament. It’s probably the weakest semi-final line up in the entire history of 16 Carat. The only competitor for the title of weakest line up would be the first 16 Carat with Baron von Hagan vs. Murat Bospurus in the final. Doug Williams made the semis that year and I would argue he’s a stronger competitor than anyone here.  

 

This starts out a bit soft and dancey. Oku does a spot of thigh slapping too. The crowd seems nonplussed. I like Oku and always have done, but he’s struggling to switch up his junior heavyweight style to a main event style and he doesn’t have the size or moves to make it happen. The only main event aspect of his game is his bumping. Which to me, makes him a better chaser than a champion. He should be the perennial underdog.  

 

Oku really struggles to get into the pace of this. It feels like they’re moving in slow motion. Both guys will obviously be disappointed in this outing. They just didn’t click. Almost everything they do looks so low impact until something big does land and Oku is there slapping his thigh. The only time Oku looks good is when he’s using the ropes. They finally get in the Fosbury Flop (after missing it twice in awkward fashion already).  

 

When they head into the more exciting section of the match, they don’t do any better. Oku stopping in mid-frogsplash to grab the half crab is supposed to be some masterpiece, but it just makes his frogsplash look like it was never going to happen. Much like a jump into the ropes from Oku. What move was he even going for?  

 

I feel bad for both guys because wXw put them in a big spot here and it just didn’t work, for whatever reason. Tihanyi spends the match fighting from underneath, but this doesn’t get good until he’s fighting out of the half crab. The build to the finish includes a weird cutter out of the air but that doesn’t work either. 450 Splash finishes for Tihanyi and this was not a good match. Tihanyi is left needing a good performance on N3. Oku is unlikely to feature this high up a wXw card again.  

 

wXw World Championship 

Robert Dreissker (c) vs. Shigehiro Irie  

One of these two gentleman has purchased me a beer and let me tell you, they are both a FORCE AT THE BAR. This has the big match feel and they start slow and steady to feed off that, although it lacks the crowd reaction of other N2 title matches of years past. The ongoing Amboss issues play into it with Laurence Roman removing Icarus after Irie has kicked his ass.  

 

The match is a little plodding and lacks urgency. Neither Irie, desperate for the belt, nor Dreissker, desperate to retain, sell that in their actions. It feels like they want to build to big spots. The first of these is Irie taking a backdrop on the apron but its quickly surpassed by Dreissker taking one onto the chairs and smashing two in the process.  

The match needs something and its blood. Irie gets busted wide open during a brawl outside.  

Now they can do fatigue selling and big shots and duelling and it feels appropriate because the babyface is so badly hurt. Irie brings everything he has, battering Dreissker with shot after shot but the blood loss catches up to him. Dreissker kicks him a few times right in the wound and hits the Dreisskerbomb to retain. The blood loss changed the way the match was put together but it was built as a war so I can forgive some of the sluggish pacing. ***¼.  

 

Absolute Andy Hall of Fame Induction  

I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow assessment of this but I was heartbroken when I heard Andy had passed away. He was one of the most versatile professional wrestlers I’ve ever seen. He could play the role of a menacing heel, literally the scariest, most badass guy in the room. He could also play the fun uncle. He had the funniest comedy match I’ve ever seen. He committed the greatest heel turn I’ve ever seen. Truly, a man of contrasts. His promos were out of this world good. Even though I don’t speak German well enough to get the nuances, he was an elite storyteller. In the ring and on the microphone. He doesn’t get the respect he deserves. I’m glad he finally got his flowers. I know he got to see how many people he touched with his work. A tragedy we lost him so young.  

 

Andreas Ullman (1983-2023) RIP.