The 2025 16 Carat Gold Tournament was a professional wrestling tournament produced by Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw). It was a three-night event held on March 7–9, 2025 at the Turbinenhalle Oberhausen in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was the nineteenth edition of the 16 Carat Gold Tournament. The event was streamed live on TrillerTV.
1 Called Manders won the 2025 tournament by defeating Ahura in the final. Apart from the tournament, various championship matches were contested throughout the three-night event. Mike D Vecchio retained the wXw European Championship against Levaniel on night two and Leon Slater on night three. The wXw World Tag Team Championship changed hands as Big Bucks (Alex Duke and Norman Harras) defeated the defending champions Young Blood (Oskar Leube and Yuto Nakashima), High Performer Ltd. (Anil Marik and Icarus) and Planet Gojirah (Marc Empire and Robert Dreissker) in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match on night two.
Production Background 16 Carat Gold Tournament is an annual knockout tournament produced by wXw, first held in 2006. The tournament features a total of sixteen wrestlers (an exception being the 2010 edition where seventeen competitors participated) and a winner receives a title shot at the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship at any place and time of their choosing.
Storylines The event included matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by wXw's writers, while storylines were produced on wXw's streaming television show We Love Wrestling.
Tournament matches wXw began announcing participants for the 2025 16 Carat Gold Tournament in late 2024. Some of the participants originally announced were: Masha Slamovich, Michael Oku, Joseph Fenech Jr., Dragon Kid, Ahura, 1 Called Manders, Adam Priest, Psycho Clown, Leon Slater, and Daisuke Sekimoto. However, Dragon Kid suffered an injury and was replaced by Masaaki Mochizuki in the tournament.
On the February 8 episode of We Love Wrestling, Bobby Gunns won a Road to 16 Carat Gold Tournament to qualify for the tournament as the final participant.
On March 1, wXw announced that a Four Way Dance would determine an alternate participant to fill in for injured competitors in the 16 Carat Gold Tournament. Competitors announced for the match were Hektor Invictus, Nick Schreier, Ryan Clancy, and Stephanie Maze.
Other matches Miyu Yamashita from Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling was announced for a match on the night three of 16 Carat Gold Tournament. Anita Vaughan was confirmed as Yamashita's opponent on the March 9 episode of We Love Wrestling.
At Dead End, Levaniel attacked Mike D Vecchio after the latter won a match against Ahura. This led to a match between Vecchio and Levaniel for the former's wXw European Championship on the night two of 16 Carat Gold Tournament.
After months of feuding between the four teams, including a backstage brawl at the Dead End pre-show, it was announced that Young Blood (Oskar Leube and Yuto Nakashima) would defend the wXw World Tag Team Championship against Big Bucks (Alex Duke and Norman Harras), High Performer Ltd. (Anil Marik and Icarus), and Planet Gojirah (Marc Empire and Robert Dreissker) in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match on the night two of 16 Carat Gold Tournament.
Cancelled match Peter Tihanyi and Elijah Blum feuded with each other over the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship since late 2024 after Tihanyi won the title. Blum failed to win the title on several occasions, but defeated Tihanyi in a non-title Cage Fighting match at Back to the Roots. As a result of the win, Tihanyi was scheduled to defend the title against Blum in the main event of night two of the 16 Carat Gold Tournament. However, Tihanyi suffered a shoulder injury in February, forcing him to vacate the title.
Results
Tournament brackets
References
External links Westside Xtreme Wrestling official website