March 10th, 2018 – Steffy, Oberhausen, Germany

One of the lesser known events at this year’s 16 Carat Gold tournament was the unique collaborative show called #WrestlingDeutschland. The brainchild of wXw Owner Christian Jakobi and journalist Tim Petrowski – #WD offered every promotion in Germany an opportunity to put on one match at the biggest weekend in German wrestling.
Conspicuous by their absence, GWF, cOw and nEw were nowhere to be seen – but thankfully the reaction of the other promotions was incredibly favourable. In the end, six promotions accepted the offer – with the German Wrestling Promotion, Mad Wrestling Association, Next Step Wrestling, WrestlingKULT, wXw Wrestling Academy and Maximum Wrestling all showcasing their product to the Oberhausen crowd.

MATCH 1: Icarus vs. Tristan Archer

The first match of this celebration of German wrestling saw a Hungarian take on a Frenchman. How postmodern. This match comes courtesy of the imaginatively named German Wrestling Promotion e.V. – a company based in Roth in Northern Bavaria. GWP have come to recent prominence since #WD after announcing a match between actress and erotic model Micaela Schäfer and WWE Mae Young Classic competitor Jazzy “Alpha Female” Gabert. The jury is out on that one.

On to the match – if you’ve read anything else on this site, you’d know I’m a big fan of Icarus – and this show was my first opportunity to catch him in person. His opponent, the newly-crowned WrestlingKULT champion and former WWE Cruiserweight Classic competitor Tristan Archer (aka Clement Petoit) has carved out a bit of a niche in Germany – playing the foreign French heel and this match is more of the same, it’d be great to see him get a chance to do this in England as I reckon it’d really get over.

The match was a good showcase of both men – Archer worked heel throughout the whole match – with his clubbing elbows and headbutt being a good defence against Icarus’s fast paced kicks. Archer looked like he had it all done and dusted with a Fireman’s Carry into a Pelé Kick – but Icarus kicked out at two and a half. After trading headbutts and kicks, Icarus drops Archer with a knee to the head, which he follows with his trademark Swanton Bomb for the win.

GWP can be found on Twitter @gwpwrestlingev or on their site http://www.gwp-wrestling.de

MATCH 2:

Brüder des Nordens (Lukas Robinson & Matthias Bernstein) vs. Rock n Roll Radicalz (Fynn Freyhart & Tim Karstens)

Next up was the match from the Mad Wrestling Association based in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein in the North of Germany. Quite fittingly to their name, MWA’s match had some of the more left-field gimmicks and characters at this show – with the Brüder des Nordens proving incredibly popular. The Brüder consisted of Lukas Robinson – who worked a rambler gimmick, topped off by carrying a map with “wXw” circled on it – and Matthias Bernstein, who played a germaphobe complete with a bottle of disinfectant which he uses frequently throughout the match whenever he gets into contact with one of his opponents. The two came to the ring to The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be which immediately got the pair over with the travelling British and Irish fans – with the “da da da daaa” being chanted all evening.

Their opponents, Freyhart and Karstens are reminiscent of extras from the Rock of Ages film and act as great foils to the wholesome lads on the other side of the ring. This whole match was a blast with some really great comedy spots from all four men – the star being Matthias Bernstein whose gimmick had me in stitches at points. I don’t want to spoil too much of this match – but for me this was by far the most entertaining match of the show in terms of humour and worth checking out.

The Mad Wrestling Association can be found on Twitter @MWA_Germany or on their site http://www.mwa-wrestling.de

MATCH 3:

Der Schwinger Club (Brent Rogers, Garett Noah & Rick Baxxter) vs. Chris Rocke, Laurance Roman & Zeritus

Next up was Dresden’s Next Step Wrestling, whom were formed in 2012 initially as a training school for the German Wrestling Federation. Their match featured a number of interesting and unique characters, with the self-professed “Kings of Porn Style” Der Schwinger Club taking on three incredibly odd gentlemen – with racoon man and wXw AMBITION replacement Laurance Roman, probable axe murderer Zeritus and Chris Rocke (I can’t think of anything funny for him) on the other side. Rick Baxxter of Der Schwinger Club is probably best known for eliminating Jack Sexsmith at last year’s Shortcut to the Top by shooting a confetti cannon out of his cock.

This match was really rough in places and was the shortest match of the card – with lots of weirdness throughout. Roman looked on occasions like he’d be able to put the Porno boys away but in the end Rocke was spiked by a pedigree from Noah for the 1-2-3.

NEXT STEP WRESTLING can be found on Twitter @nswshow or on their website http://www.nextstepwrestling.com

MATCH 4:

International Kult Cup: The Italian Dream vs. Kris Jokic vs. Senza Volto

Next up was the hotly anticipated match from the local favourites WrestlingKULT. WrestlingKULT are a promotion based in nearby Dorsten and frequently run shows in Bochum and Oberhausen – and had held the excellent WK Goes Carat show on the Saturday morning before this show. This match was for the newly-vacated International Kult Cup – with the outgoing holder Josh Bodom having seemingly failed to even get on the plane to Germany for this weekend. It’s a mystery he isn’t everywhere. The big hoss known as The Italian Dream got into this match having no-sold his way past Julian Pace and Toby Blunt at the morning show – whilst EuroGraps.com favourite Kris Jokic squeezed a win against Mark Benjamin and the man with the heart of gold and the bones of biscuit – The Rotation. In the other corner was Senza Volto, whom had qualified a few weeks earlier.

As you’d expect, this match was 100mph from the start – with all three of these men known for their high flying ability. Volto and Jokic had great chemistry in this match, mainly because of their many bouts in the past for GWF – with Dream feeling a little left out of this match. Volto nearly had Jokic done late in the match, when Jokic took a vicious Spanish Fly from the top rope before the pinfall was broken by Dream’s shooting star press break. Dream tries to capitalise by hitting Volto with a back body drop followed by a failed attempt at a Frog Splash, but Volto rolls out of the way. Volto goes to the top rope and is set to hit his famous Shooting Star Press but Dream gets up and managed to convert this SSP into a codebreaker! Amazing stuff. Dream is about to get the cover when Jokic sends the Italian into the corner with a John Woo. Jokic quickly heads to the second rope and hits the stunned Volto with a smooth corkscrew for the win – Jokic is the new Kult Cup holder!

WrestlingKULT can be found on Twitter @WrestlingKULT or on their site http://www.wrestlingkult.net
As I understand it, there are plans for another WrestlingKULT show in Oberhausen during wXw’s World Tag Team League weekender in October – so keep your eyes peeled for that.

MATCH 5:

Marius van Beethoven, Timo Theiss & Timo Zimone vs. Julian Pace & Pretty Bastards (Prince Ahura & Maggot)

It’s now the turn of the hosts (or at least their academy) to put on their match. The wXw Wrestling Academy is based in Essen and is widely considered to be one of the finest wrestling training facilities in the world, with the likes of Tyler Bate, David Starr, Timothy Thatcher and Toni Storm crediting the academy for its professionalism and help in jumping them to the next level.

The academy’s match was the second six-man of the night and saw wXw Academy Cup Holder Julian Pace team with the Pretty Bastards. Pace was given plenty of running room during his entrance this time, having accidently ran into a staff member’s grandmother at the Inner Circle show two days previous. Their opponents; Theiss, Zimone and van Beethoven were an eclectic bunch – with van Beethoven having seemingly disappeared since his brutal no-ropes match with Alpha Kevin at last year’s 16 Carat Gold.
This was a fairly decent match, which seemingly served to establish Pace as the King of the Academy even if this wasn’t one of his best matches this weekend. Pace wins the match after clearing everyone at VOLLGAS before hitting Theiss with the Final Lap.

For further information on wXw’s Wrestling Academy, visit their site http://www.wrestling-academy.de

MATCH 6:

UEWA European Cruiserweight Championship: Michael Knight © vs. Ivan Kiev

And our main event for this show was courtesy of Maximum Wrestling out of Kiel, near the Danish border in the north of Germany. The main event of such an exciting show had some added prestige, with the UEWA European Cruiserweight title being on the line. Nope, me neither. I had high hopes for this match – as Knight and Kiev have a long history of putting on really highly rated matches with each other – in particular a ladder match the pair had together in 2016 was voted as one of the best matches to take place in Germany that year by German message board Moonsault.de.

If you’re used to Kiev in RISE garb, this match was somewhat of a shock – with him and Bouncer coming out looking more like Jimmy Havoc than anything else. The match is fairly standard with Bouncer occasionally pacing on the outside of the ring causing a slight distraction for Knight during the bout. I think the crowd was beginning to get a little anxious and didn’t really connect with either of these two – with several people leaving during this match to try and get a good spot in the Turbinenhalle next door for Night Two of 16 Carat Gold.

The pair trade two counts for much of the latter stages of the match – Kiev looked like he had Knight with the Pele Kick but this was no-sold and Knight drops Kiev with a pumphandle to beat his man clean as a sheet to retain. After the bell, Kiev and Bouncer begin to put the boots in on Knight – with Kiev about to smash a chair over his opponent’s head with a baseball bat but this is stopped by the numerous referees in the building.

Maximum Wrestling can be found on twitter @maxwrestling or on their site http://www.maxwrestling.de
All in all, #WrestlingDeutschland was a great opportunity to introduce less familiar fans to some of the more obscure aspects of German pro wrestling. The absences of some of the other bigger names was a slight distraction, but one can only hope that they see the light next year when this fantastic celebration takes place again.
https://twitter.com/cmjakobi/status/1000002617106452481
Tickets for next year’s #WrestlingDeutschland show are now available at https://bit.ly/2KqWSJs
✏️@MikeKilby