David Starr is currently defending a German championship on the American independents.
Starr is approaching his fifth anniversary of his first match. He is coming off of a 2016 which saw him going around the world and wrestling for American promotions like Ring of Honor, Evolve, and TNA. One of the European companies he wrestled for was Westside Xtreme Wrestling (WxW) in Germany. He held the tag-team titles with Shane Strickland and now holds the WxW Shotgun Championship. Starr returned to United States with the championship and has been defending it at promotions like Combat Zone Wrestling. He explained the WxW Shotgun Championship is connected to the weekly show with the same name.
“It’s essentially their TV title. So they have a show called ‘Shotgun’, which essentially their summary show. They will have match announcement. They will show stories that are happening within in their company. They will show full matches. They’ll show highlights of matches. They’ll show promos or vignettes that help progress their show from one point to another,” said Starr.
The free episodes of WxW Shotgun are on Youtube and full episodes can be seen on WxWNow.de. Starr would continue to say WxW thought of him taking the title back to the United States as being beneficial for them.
“I was the first American to win it. They had the faith in me to bring it over here. They are looking to partner up with other companies and do more business. So, they told me they wanted me to be their ambassador to the United States,” said Starr.
Fightful.com Podcast co-host, former UFC fighter, and professional wrestler Matt Riddle also recently won a championship from a European promotion. Starr wrestled Riddle in December of 2015, and he believes right now is an optimal time for a rematch.
“Matt is awesome, he’s great. He has always had charisma about him. You knew being around him that he was going be something. Before he got into wrestling he achieved notoriety. So there was no way to take that away from him. Now, he works his ass to become a great professional wrestler and that’s what he’s doing. He is only getting better. I wrestled Matt pretty early on. He was just starting to really put himself together as who he wants to be and what he wants to do and how he wanted to carry himself as professional wrestler. Since that match, I think he’s got significantly better. I’ve got significantly better. I think we both have had our name value increase significantly. We both have prestigious European titles in two companies that are currently working together. I think it would an awesome match-up to have right now to have the PROGRESS Atlas champion versus the WxW Shotgun Champion,” said Starr
A current WWE wrestler Starr met while touring Europe was the new WWE United Kingdom Champion Tyler Bate. He had strong feelings about Bate winning the championship.
“When I heard Tyler won the tournament, I nearly cried. Tyler has become a good friend of mine. The first of my tours in Germany he was my roommate. We have a lot of experience together. I have also wrestled him a bunch of times. I think I wrestled Tyler like five times and I tagged with him too at that Japan show,” said Starr. “Tyler is a WWE champion, and I can’t help but have a smile on my face because he’s such a good dude," added Starr.
Overall, Starr is happy about the WWE United Kingdom tournament. He said he was excited to see wrestlers get an opportunity.
“There were so many good dudes. So many guys that are good in the ring as well getting to showcase their stuff on that big stage, it’s great. Some people want to think negatively about it. They think WWE is going to kill the Indies. You got to take it for what it is right now. They are being put on a platform to showcase their talents,” said Starr
Starr is set to return to Europe for wrestling in 2017. He also will be making his return to Ring of Honor on February 12th in Columbus Ohio and is making his AAW debut on February 4th.
Wrestling fans can follow Starr on Twitter and Instagram. His official website is TheProductDS.com.
Update: Combat Zone Wrestling has booked Matt Riddle versus David Starr for their anniversary show on February 11th.
