Oberhausen.
Wrestling fans from all over Europe visit the Turbinenhalle Oberhausen on the second weekend in March for the “wXw 16 Carat Gold” festival.
A villain in the square of ropes, a lifesaver outside the ring: In the past few weeks, TV station Sport1 has reported about Norman Harras, wrestler and since April also in the role of “sports director” in the German show fight league wXw (Westside Xtreme Wrestling). The 26-year-old from Rüthen in the Soest district helped a person suffering from blood cancer with a bone marrow donation. Harras does not yet know whether the patient has beaten the leukemia, but in an interview with the DKMS (German Bone Marrow Donor File) he has already announced that if he is successful, “he wants to take him to one of our shows”.
On the second weekend in March, Harras, mostly an obnoxious opportunist and bully in the current program, will entertain several thousand fans again. Europe’s largest wrestling festival “16 Carat Gold” is entering a new round. Six events between March 10th and 12th. are coming up, the particularly intimate “Inner Circle” show in the in-house Gelsenkirchen training academy on the evening before (9.3.) is already sold out.
“wXw 16 Carat Gold”: Biggest title at stake
With all other individual events, where Catch newcomers and veterans from all over the world compete against each other, wXw will again be present in the Oberhausen turbine hall. At the three evening events between Friday and Sunday, 15 wrestlers and the Russian Masha Slamovich will fight for the “16 Carat Gold” trophy and the associated win of the “wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship” belt.
The squad includes US indie veteran Davey Richards, the Italian Francesco Akira, otherwise currently working for the Japanese top league New Japan Pro Wrestling, and Trey Miguel, who can currently be seen in the shows of the third largest US promotion Impact is. According to wXw COO Tassilo Jung, the fans can be particularly excited about the Mexican Komander: “I don’t think many people in Europe are familiar with his work. In any case, there are not many who can move like that in the ring.”
New seating plan with seats on the stage
The seating plan has been changed compared to previous editions of the festival. Standing places are history, the league relies on a fully seated hall, which can accommodate a maximum of 1025 fans. Tassilo Jung explains another change: “For the first time, we are building a grandstand on the stage where you can see our athletes coming in very closely. We had originally thought of that for 2020, and everything has been clarified and approved with the architects and the fire brigade.”
wXw is “completely satisfied” with the pre-sale, reveals Jung. At the time of going to press, only a single-digit number of combination tickets for the three evening events for the big title and a small double-digit number of tickets for the entire weekend with all six events in the Turbinenhalle were still available. The evening event on Saturday is already sold out, but single tickets for the afternoon events as well as Friday and Sunday evenings are still available. Traditionally, large numbers of international visitors will also travel to Oberhausen. “For example, we sold double-digit tickets to Great Britain, Ireland and France, and a total of 13 percent of all tickets went abroad,” says Jung.
Action on the Internet now via YouTube instead of Vimeo
If you can’t make it to the turbine hall, you can watch “16 Carat Gold” with a few days delay on the “wXw Now” streaming service – since mid-January this has no longer been possible via the “Vimeo” video platform, but via YouTube. The move came after “Vimeo broke numerous contractual commitments and broke every single committed deadline,” wXw announced on the league’s website. The full program, including a large archive with events from previous years, is now available youtube.com/wXwGERas usual at the price of 9.99 euros per month.
“16 Carat Gold”: 10.-12.3. Fri from 8 p.m., Sat+Sun from 12 p.m., Turbinenhalle Oberhausen. Tickets for the individual events from around €24, tournament pass for the three evening events (Fri-Sun) around €103, festival pass for all six events (Fri-Sun) around €246. Maps and information here.
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