Along with the 16 Carat Gold tournament in March, wXw’s World Tag Team League is the second of the ‘Wrestling Festivals’ in Oberhausen’s famous Turbinenhalle. The main draw of this weekend (apart from the Oberhausen Open bowling evening!) is of course the eponymous tournament. This year marks the third time the tournament takes place in it’s current format of two separate blocks with the winner of each progressing to face each-other in a grand finale – which also has the wXw World Tag Team titles on the line, regardless of whether the incumbent champions make the final or not.

Julian Nero and Ilja Dragunov lost the belts in the first edition back in 2016 when the combination of David Starr and Shane Strickland ousted the short-lived return of the LDRS of The New School before the team disbanded for private reasons. Then last year, Ringkampf beat Massive Product in the final to take the belts from The Young Lions in a weekend that sent shockwaves throughout wXw for months to come – with the split of A4 indirectly leading both Absolute Andy and Marius Al-Ani on the path to singles gold this summer.

Anyway, to get you all in the mood for the weekend’s festivities – here’s the EuroGraps.com primer to all of the teams competing in this historic tournament:

BLOCK A:

Okami:

(Image courtesy of @mnmnstad1)

The combination of Daichi Hashimoto and Hideyoshi Kamitani caused much excitement around some corners of Wrestling Twitter once they were announced for World Tag League and (at least by my calculations) will become the first members of Big Japan Pro Wrestling to take part in a wXw tournament since (the unrelated) Kazuki Hashimoto took part in 2014’s World Triangle League event. A recent poll on the wXwFans group put Okami square at the bottom as complete no-hopers with zero votes – but this pairing does have tournament winning experience – having won Big Japan’s Saikyo Tag League tournament in October 2017. In a recent Shotgun episode, Ringkampf seemed honoured to be getting the opportunity to wrestle these two – particularly Hashimoto, being the son of iconic 90s NJPW star Shinya Hashimoto. Ringkampf and all other A Block teams will have to guard against complacency as I fully expect these two to get a shock victory at some point this weekend.

Lucha Brothers:

The Lucha Bros. of Pentagón Jr. and Rey Fénix were confirmed for the tournament early – perhaps as an apology of sorts for being pulled from 16 Carat Gold due to Lucha Underground filming commitments. The Brothers have reached new heights since going independent from Mexico’s AAA promotion early last year – claiming PWG and MLW’s Tag belts over in the United States. In Europe, the pair managed to edge over #CCK (the Brookes and Lykos version) in 2017’s Fight Club: Pro Dream Tag Team Invitational tournament. Success is in the blood for these two fine warriors – and much like Okami they must not be counted out.

 

#CCK:

At the risk of becoming the Trigger’s Broom of tag team wrestling, Chris Brookes brings along old friend Jonathan Gresham to wXw once again – harking back memories of 2015’s World Tag Team Tournament where the Calamari Catch Kings got all the way to the Semi Finals before losing to the combination of Big Daddy Walter and Zack Sabre Jr. Gresham replaces Kid Lykos in the “British team” and as such hasn’t managed to capture a belt alongside Brookes. Brookes however has shown aptitude at gelling well with different teammates – having formed strong alliances with the likes of Lucky Kid, WALTER, Kyle Fletcher and Timothy Thatcher as well as his usual #CCK teammates in Lykos and Travis Banks. The wXw Tag Team gold has evaded Brookes so far but he’s held the belts in PROGRESS, ATTACK, Revolution Pro, CZW and just about everywhere else he’s been – this has to be the Midlander’s best chance for glory in a long time.

Ringkampf:

At World Tag Team League, Ringkampf will be the team that set the performance benchmark for all others to beat. Last year’s champions have more wins in Tag League than any other team in history and would have likely been champions coming into this tournament if not for opportunist RISE meddling at this year’s 16 Carat Gold weekender. Ringkampf also managed a great win over Monster Consulting and Jay-FK on Shotgun a few weeks back – and I’d expect it would be one of those two teams in the final from Block B. Despite Jay-FK being the sole German representatives, Ringkampf will very much be the home favourites, with their calculated and respectful approach to the game winning over the Oberhausen faithful.

BLOCK B:

Aussie Open:

The popular Aussies became the first team to qualify for this year’s tournament when they defeated The Hunter Brothers in a brilliant match when the We Love Wrestling Tour pulled into The Dome in London. Since moving over in mid-2017, Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher have quickly established themselves as one of Europe’s best tag teams and have tasted gold in Defiant Wrestling, ATTACK! as well as taking home the PROGRESS gold at the Hello Wembley! show just this past weekend. In terms of wXw – Davis went on somewhat of a power run in late Spring when he unsuccessfully challenged Bobby Gunns for the wXw Shotgun title – pushing The King of Smoke Style close at the Marquee Event in Frankfurt. A scintillating bout for European supremacy between them and wXw Tag Team Champions Monster Consulting beckons on Saturday in what will likely be the most exciting tie of the weekend.

Team SPLX:

The final team to be announced publicly, Team SPLX consists of Jeff Cobb and former wXw Shotgun champion Angélico. Angélico has experience of the World Tag Team League tournament having taken part in the inaugural edition in 2016 alongside Jack Evans as part of Los Gueros Del Cielo whereas Cobb is making his wXw tournament debut (barring AMBITION). Much like the Lucha Brothers, Cobb was pulled from March’s 16 Carat Gold tournament due to filming commitments at The Temple whereas Angélico hasn’t been seen in wXw since July of last year. The pair have both managed to taste success in tournaments this year – albeit as singles competitors – with Cobb winning the 2018 Battle of Los Angeles last month and Angélico taking home the inaugural GWF Light Heavyweight World Cup in April. Unfortunately, I see this team finishing stone dead last in this group simply due to having less experience as a pairing than the other teams, but there’s always room for a surprise package in World Tag Team League.

Jay-FK:

Jay-FK were the last team to book their place in 2018’s World Tag Team League after defeating RISE’s Ivan Kiev and Pete Bouncer and the popular combination of Dirty Dragan and Emil Sitoci at the Oberhausen Fan Appreciation Night in early September. Jay-FK’s new “Fresher Than You” persona has completely changed their outlook from the wholesome babyfaces to – let’s be honest – unruly brats. However, this change has paid dividends – having unofficially held the wXw World Tag Team belts for the better part of the summer when they stole them from Monster Consulting. Whilst their record against Monster Consulting isn’t the best – their scheming nature may end up catching out the other two teams in the group – and last year Ringkampf managed to squeeze their way into the final on just two wins, and we all know how that went for them.

Monster Consulting:

Monster Consulting go into this tournament aiming to be the first team to enter and leave Tag League as champions and it would be a brave man who would bet against them. Avalanche and Nero’s record against other teams in the tournament has been exemplary – with their only defeats coming in triangle tag matches rather than regular two on two bouts. Despite this impressive run of form, neither man have particularly great history in recent wXw tournaments – Avalanche has crashed out of 16 Carat Gold in the first round for the past two years whereas Nero only managed a single win in 2016’s World Tag Team League when teaming with Ilja Dragunov as Cerberus. On top of that, no defending teams have managed to escape their group in the previous two editions – but if any team can do it, you can be sure Monster Consulting and their mass of travelling supporters can.

✏️ @MikeKilby

All photographs courtesy of @GDPhotographyDE – unless stated otherwise.