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Happy Together

Not only am I quoting a song by the Turtles, but I am also congratulating a new couple.

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That couple I’m talking about is Keith Lee and Mia Yim, two wrestlers best known for their time on NXT (and appearances in other WWE shows such as Raw) as well as other companies…Keith Lee—nowadays on AEW after seeing him debut on AEW Dynamite this past Wednesday—also best known in Ring of Honor for being together with Shane Taylor as PBK or “Pretty Boy Killers” before he headed to other companies such as Evolve and PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla), and Mia Yim also known for her time in Combat Zone Wrestling, Shine Wrestling, Shimmer Women Athletes, and—back when she competed as “Jade”—Impact Wrestling.

Congratulations Keith Lee and Mia Yim! I wish the two of you the very best. Also, good luck to Keith Lee in AEW!

Okay then! I’m still happy as a clam, it’s time to check out the shows that I mentioned in the newsletter!

ICW Fight Club

Our first stop is the still empty GPWA in Glasgow, Scotland for an episode of ICW Fight Club.

Not only are the fans and employees playing it safe when it comes to COVID, but so are the wrestlers, especially Krieger who was scheduled to team with Lou King Sharp against Thatcher’s Cabinet members Mr. Charles Vyce and Ian Skinner; instead, Jimmy Pierce would substitute for Krieger in that episode. Pierce really needs to pick up wins, even if he has been closing in on them time and time again.

The current ICW World heavyweight champion still makes not just a good champion but a good heel as well. I mention this after he was interviewed by one of ICW’s commentators Billy Kirkwood about Square Go! In that interview, Evans attempted to coerce anyone participating in the Square Go! battle royal to choose a different title instead of his title until Scott Reid came out and stopped him from doing so, as well as put him in a match at Square Go!—for the title—against a wrestler best known for his time on Impact Wrestling (during the TNA era), Ring of Honor and Progress, Mark Haskins. Afterwards, Evans put Reid in the Blood Clot Clutch and attempted to attack him even more until BT Gunn—returning from his neck injury caused by Evans—ran in and made the save. It looks like that we might see Gunn go after Evans either before or after Evans vs. Haskins.

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My favorite match of the episode was the main event match between Andy Wild and Martin Kirby. Both men would compete against one another for the first time ever in their ICW careers, and would give their all…Wild looking for more wins even after going toe-to-toe with Big Damo a couple months ago, and Kirby looking for more wins ever since returning to ICW before Fear & Loathing XIII. In the end, it was Andy Wild that emerged victorious.

Here are the match results from Glasgow…

Match #1: The Kings of the North defeated the Greedy Souls in a non-title match by disqualification

…due to interference by the Nine9; all three teams brawled afterwards until Damian Corbin knocked out Jack Morris before leaving. My score: 1/5

Match #2: Levi defeated Martin MacAlistair with a double stomp;

Levi showed the same mannerisms as Sweeney, who tutored him months ago to get rid of his losing streak, which led to MacAlistair refusing to show sportsmanship to him afterwards. My score: 2.25/5

Match #3: Ian Skinner & Mr. Charles Vyce (w/ Thatcher Wright) defeated Lou King Sharp & Jimmy Pierce.

Towards the end, Thatcher threw the Margaret Thatcher book into the ring until Pierce got rid of it; unbeknownst to Pierce, Skinner gave Vyce a second copy of the book and hit Pierce with it before pinning him for the win. My score: 1/5

Main event: Andy Wild defeated Martin Kirby with the Dad Bomb (Vader Bomb).

My score: 4.25/5

wXw Back to the Roots part 1

We then head to the Turbinenhalle in Oberhausen, Germany—on January 15, 2022—for part 1 of wXw Back to the Roots.

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The reason why this show was divided into two separate episodes is because of how many matches were added, as well as dealing with events that were either cancelled or rescheduled after bringing fans back to shows in mid-to-late 2021.

In one of the matches we saw in the first half of Back to the Roots, we saw an undefeated streak come to an end as Jurn Simmons defeated the then undefeated Oskar in a match that lasted for a little bit over five minutes. It was still a good match between two tough competitors regardless of how long it lasted. Simmons is doing very well ever since returning to wXw at Shortcut to the Top last year, as is Oskar who has competed in a few wXw matches including this one.

The first half also gave us a good match—for the wXw Shotgun Championship—between Absolute Andy and Dennis “Ca$h” Dullnig. Andy still has what it takes to compete after stepping down as the Director of Sports in wXw (and handing it to Francis Caspin), especially as the champion. Dullnig on the other hand does do a good job portraying as a delusional knucklehead heel, with and without Hektor Invictus; he proves it as usual in each wXw special and each We Love Wrestling episode, including in this title matchup. In the end, it was Andy retaining the title. The match was good, regardless of how one-sided it was most of the time.

The main event was a great way of ending the rivalry between Bobby Gunns and Michael Knight, even with the stipulation that there was no time limit and no count outs. Both wXw veterans gave their all, not only inside the ring but also outside it. If I had to choose which of the five matches that occurred in part 1 of Back to the Roots, it would have to be the main event.

Before I get to the match results, I would like to say that I am definitely ready for the 16 Carat Gold tournament, mainly because of how many competitors such as Oskar, Rott und Flott, and Bobby Gunns are heading to the tournament in a couple months.

Plus, as a fan of nostalgia, I loved how the artwork for each promoted match looked like Super Nintendo videogame boxes!

Okay, I’m done acting like a kid in a candy store, here are the match results from Oberhausen…

Match #1 (warm-up match): Michael Schenkenberg (w/ Nikita Charisma) defeated Gulyás Junior with a Michinoku driver;

Charisma used a can of spray deodorant, due to Gulyás’ odor, during the match. After the match, both members of Rott und Flott not only criticized what went on after Absolute Andy stepped down as Director of Sports, but announced that they were stepping into the 16 Carat Gold tournament. My score: 2.5/5

Match #2: Tristan Archer defeated Carlos Romo after discus clothesline followed by the Coup d’état (double knee facebuster from a powerslam position).

After the match, Archer coerced Dan Mallman to interview him before announcing that—after blaming Levaniel for stealing the wXw Unified World Championship contract from him at Anniversary XXI—he was skipping the 16 Carat Gold tournament to go after the title his way; Jurn Simmons came in afterwards and told Archer to stop being jealous and bitter of Levaniel before telling him to leave. My score: 2.5/5

Match #3: Jurn Simmons defeated Oskar in a little over five minutes with a spear.

Post-match, Rott und Flott mocked Oskar from a stairway in the audience until Oskar chased them to the balcony and then to the backstage area. My score: 2.5/5

Match #4: Absolute Andy defeated Dennis “Ca$h” Dullnig to retain the wXw Shotgun Championship with an F-5;

Andy used an F-5 early in the match less than 30 seconds or so after the bell rang. My score: 3.25/5

Main event: Bobby Gunns defeated Michael Knight in a match with no time limit, no count out, and “There must be a winner.”

Both men got busted open, with Gunns getting the worst of it, after Knight hit him with a tope suicida during the match. Near the end, Gunns hit Knight with a running punt to the chest, followed by a backdrop driver and then a second running punt to the chest for the win. After the match, Gunns told Mallman that he’s entering the 16 Carat Gold tournament for the first time ever. My score: 4.25/5

NXT

Now, not only do we return to the month of February 2022, but we also head to Orlando, Florida for NXT.

Not only was this match a buildup for next week’s special episode of NXT entitled “NXT Vengeance Day”, but it was also a buildup for the women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic that will occur in two weeks now that we’re seeing female teams entering the tournament including those that are newly formed.

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Speaking of tournaments, we finally have the final round match of the DRTTC come next week; it will be between the Creed Brothers and defending tournament winners MSK. I predict that the Creed Brothers will win this tournament next week; to me, winning the tournament means that they’ll be one step closer to going after Imperium’s Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel for the NXT Tag Team championship. I got nothing against MSK whatsoever, even though they had a spectacular semi-final round matchup against Malik Blade and Edris Enofé this week; regardless of how much time they had to refocus after losing the tag team championship before getting help from a shaman in the form of former NXT competitor Riddle, I doubt that we’ll see a repeat tournament winner this year.

Last week, Pete Dunne challenged Tony D’Angelo to a steel cage match for NXT Vengeance Day, a week after he surprised him with a cricket bat. However, after Dunne defeated Draco Anthony, he upped the ante by—after throwing weapons such as chairs, kendo sticks and a toolbox—making the cage match weaponized! Unless you’re not big on weaponized matches, a weaponized cage match will be pretty interesting to watch with both Dunne’s cricket bat and D’Angelo’s crowbar coming into play. It looks like something that two former NXT competitors Adam Cole—nowadays in AEW—and Johnny Gargano may approve. (Remember when they competed in one back in August of 2019?)

NXT had another surprise from a competitor that has never competed in this brand, and this time, it was Dolph Ziggler who had a Twitter war with Bron Breakker the night before this episode aired. Ziggler came into the ring during the NXT Championship submit—hosted by Wade Barrett—between Breakker and Santos Escobar, and said that the only title he has never won was the NXT Championship. What happened next would lead to fans changing their chants from “Triple threat” to “Fatal four way” as Tommaso Ciampa came into the ring and claimed to be “next in line” once Breakker was done with Escobar unless Ziggler said otherwise. Ziggler then got into a brawl with Ciampa after mocking him for staying on NXT for a while, then Escobar’s teammates Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza attacked Breakker before putting him through the table. I’m curious to see where this will go after Breakker defends the title against Escobar.

From one title to another, I wasn’t a big fan of the main event for the NXT Women’s Championship. Even though NXT goes overtime nowadays, it appears that everything was rushed to wrap up the match as soon as Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne—who were originally banned from the match after brawling with Vengeance Day opponents Indi Hartwell and Persia Pirotta (picture of Indi together with Duke Hudson and all)—interfered, leading to Mandy Rose defeating Kay Lee Ray to retain the title. However, it appears that we may have another team heading into the women’s DRTTC, and that being Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray; this team came together after Io saved KLR from being beaten down by all three members of Toxic Attraction. I would love to see whether or not Io and KLR works together like a well-oiled machine.

Onto the match results from Orlando…

Match #1: The Creed Brothers (w/ Roderick Strong, Ivy Nile and Malcolm Bivens) defeated Grizzled Young Veterans in the semi-final round of the DRTTC.

Brutus’ throat was worked on during the match after Zack Gibson and James Drake hit him with a decavitator into the ring apron’s frame. Near the end, while Brutus rammed Gibson in a corner, Julius used his brother as a springboard before hitting Drake with a snap superplex; after some double teaming by the Creed Brothers, Brutus hit Gibson with a basement clothesline for the win. My score: 2.5/5

Match #2: Tiffany Stratton defeated Wendy Choo with a corkscrew Vader Bomb;

This match was made after Wendy stole Tiffany’s credit card last week before it got cancelled after Wendy and Amari Miller’s shopping spree this week. My score: 1/5

Match #3: Pete Dunne defeated Draco Anthony.

Joe Gacy and Harland watch from a stage during the match after they encountered him last week. Near the end, Tony D’Angelo appeared and attempted to attack Dunne with a crowbar until Dunne foiled that attempt. Seconds later, Dunne defeated Anthony with the Bitter End. Post-match, Dunne challenged D’Angelo to a weaponized cage match for NXT Vengeance Day. 8My score: 2.25/5*

Match #4: LA Knight defeated Sanga (w/ Grayson Waller) in a little over three minutes with a jumping neckbreaker; if Knight won, Waller would have to lift the restraining order.

After the match, Waller attempted to blindside Knight until Knight stopped him and hit him with a headlock driver. Moments later, Waller vowed to have Knight arrested next week. My score: 1/5

Match #5: Sarray defeated Dakota Kai with the Sun Ray running basement dropkick followed by a capture suplex from a Rock Bottom position.

My score: 2.5/5

Match #6: MSK defeated Malik Blade & Edris Enofé in the semi-final round of the DRTTC after Wes Lee and Nash Carter hit Enofé with a spinebuster/top rope corkscrew blockbuster combo.

My score: 4/5

Main event: Mandy Rose defeated Kay Lee Ray to retain the NXT Women’s Championship; near the end, Jacy Jayne distracted the referee, allowing Gigi Dolin to knock KLR off the top rope and Mandy win with a pump knee.

Post-match, Toxic Attraction had KLR surrounded until Io Shirai ran in and she and KLR fought all three members of Toxic Attraction. My score: 1.5/5

NXT UK

We now head back to the United Kingdom, but this time to the—still empty for some reason—BT Sports Studios in London, England.

Gallus has been busting the guts of Noam Dar and Sha Samuels lately, as they hijacked what would have been the first 2022 episode of Noam Dar’s Supernova Sessions. The reason why Wolfgang & Mark and Joe Coffey converted that episode into “Gallus Boys On Talk” is because Joe Coffey wants to fight Noam Dar for the NXT UK Heritage Cup championship. Jordan Devlin was also added to the mix because—besides that he supposed to be a guest on Supernova Sessions—he wanted his sunglasses back from Gallus member Wolfgang. (The sunglasses were stolen from Devlin’s locker room a couple months ago on NXT UK.) Devlin blindsiding Wolfgang in the hallway with a steel chair would then lead to a matchup between the two for next week. I would love to see Joe Coffey become Dar’s next challenger for the Heritage Cup to be honest, even after having a good match that ended in a draw with A-Kid weeks ago.

Speaking of A-Kid, him teaching Saxon Huxley proper etiquette—from how to eat, to how to play chess, to how to enjoy classical music, to how to speak properly, and so forth—gave me a good laugh even before the two competed in a one-on-one match. I’m curious to see if they’ll also become a tag team, even whether or not A-Kid teaching him manners continues for a few more weeks or so.

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Making “teams” the keyword in this next paragraph (regardless of how short this paragraph will be before talking about the main event), we learned that Moustache Mountain will defend the NXT UK Tag Team Championship against Ashton Smith & Oliver Carter in two weeks. It will definitely be interesting to watch a match between a veteran tag team and an underdog tag team for gold. After all, it’s good to see Smith and Carter picking up more wins, even after they did so in a four-team tournament that occurred as soon as 2022 began. Last but not least, I enjoyed the main event match between Nathan Frazer and Die Familie member Teoman. It was good to see Frazer on a roll after giving Walter (or Gunther as we nowadays call him) a run for his money weeks ago; his momentum continued after picking up a win over Teoman, as well as shooing away interference by the rest of Die Familie. I would love to see Frazer continue to build his momentum, even if it leads to closing in on gold in NXT UK. Plus, I’m also curious to see what other plans Die Familie has when it comes to being a heel stable wreaking havoc on this brand.

Here are the match results from London…

Match #1: Amale defeated Nina Samuels with the Hope Breaker; this match was made after, last week, Nina mocked Amale by calling her “hopeless” in an “interview.”

My score: 2/5

Match #2: A-Kid defeated Saxon Huxley with a springboard moonsault into a DDT; both men showed sportsmanship afterwards.

My score: 2/5

Main event: Nathan Frazer defeated Teoman (w/ Rohan Raja and Charlie Dempsey).

Towards the end, Dempsey attempted to interfere while Raja distracted the referee until Frazer knocked him off the apron. Then, after knocking Teoman off the top rope, Frazer defeated him with a corkscrew 450 splash. My score: 3/5

205 Live

Last but not least, we return to Orlando for 205 Live.

Unlike the past episodes or so, we were able to have 16 minutes of action in three minutes for a show that’s nowadays 30 minutes long, and has been ever since 205 Live got together with NXT, back when it was still the black-and-gold brand, and back when the roster had cruiserweight in the double digits as well as the then active NXT Cruiserweight Championship. (That, as well as 205 originally meant for the weight limit for those that wanted to compete as cruiserweights and fight for that title until it became a run-in-the-mill three-digit number as soon as multiple cruiserweights were wished the best of luck in their future endeavors.)

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Out of the three matches that occurred this week, the opening match between Ikemen Jiro and Trick Williams was my favorite of the three. Even though the opener looked like a match that you would normally see on NXT nowadays ever since the conversion from black-and-gold to multicolored, it was still a very good back-and-forth match that occurred on this episode. Plus, it was good to see Trick Williams in singles action after seeing him managing his friend—and current NXT North American champion—Carmelo Hayes, as well as tagging with Hayes on occasion.

Onto the results of the three matches that occurred in Orlando…

Match #1: Trick Williams (w/ Carmelo Hayes) defeated Ikemen Jiro (w/ Kushida) with a running swinging neckbreaker.

My score: 2.5/5

Match #2: Lash Legend defeated Erica Yan;

Towards the end, Erica went for a back elbow from the middle rope until Lash caught her and put her in a curved torture rack which then led to Lash winning by submission. My score: 1.5/5

Main event: Joe Gacy (w/ Harland) defeated Xyon Quinn. Before the match started, Gacy took credit for making 205 Live “more inclusive.”

Towards the end, Gacy attempted to get out of the ring, and Quinn tried to stop him until Harland grabbed Gacy by the arm; as soon as Harland pulled Gacy away from Quinn, Quinn ended up throat first into the top rope, leading to Gacy defeating him with a handspring clothesline. My score: 2/5

Next time…

If you guessed that I’m taking a look back at part 2 of wXw Back To the Roots, you are correct. That, as well as recapping the four shows ICW Fight Club, NXT, NXT UK, and 205 Live.

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next time!

(Photos shown in the newsletter are from WWE, ICW and wXw.)