Wednesday 27 December 2017

WWE Clash of Champions 2017 Review

The match on the Kick Off Show was Mojo Rawley taking on Zack Ryder. Ryder goes right at Rawley at the beginning before Rawley gets the advantage. Ryder does make a comeback but Rawley hits a brutal elbow to the head to get the win. This was a pretty decent match between the two.
Winner: Mojo Rawley  (1 for 1)

The first match of the show was a triple threat match for the United States Championship as Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler challenge Baron Corbin. Ziggler and Roode team up to take out Corbin before fighting each other. Corbin recovers and focuses on Roode while keeping Ziggler down. The match goes at at fast pace and Ziggler comes close after hitting a fameasser on Roode. Roode covers Ziggler after hitting him with a Glorious DDT but Corbin pulls him off. In the end, Corbin is about to hit The End of Days on Roode when Ziggler hits Corbin with the Zig Zag to get the win. Thisu was a realyl good match and I enjoyed the match. The only problem is what happened on the following Smackdown. Ziggler basically vacates the Championship and walks away. It does beg the question of why he wanted to be added to the match if he was going to vacate the Title. Anyway, let's see who our new Champion will be in the new year.
Winner: Dolph Ziggler (1 for 2)

The second is a fatal 4-way match for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship as The Usos deal with the challenges of Aiden English and Rusev, The New Day and Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin. Highlights of the match include: Jey Uso and Big E briefly working together; English hitting a Samoa drop into a spine buster on Gable and Rusev putting Big E in the Accolade. After Gable goes through a tonne of German suplexes, The Usos proceed to superkick him to death then hit an Uso Splash to get the win. The match was hard to follow at the beginning with 4 wrestlers in the ring at the same tine. However, as the match went on, it got better.
Winners: The Usos (2 for 3)

We now get our 3rd Championship match as Natalya challenges Charlotte Flair in a lumberjack match for the Smackdown Women's Championship. Natalya gets the advantage and keeps throwing Charlotte out of the ring so that she can get beaten up by the lumberjacks. Eventually, thanks to the lumberjacks, it degenerates into a clusterfuck. Natalya dithers putting on the sharpshooter and Charlotte reverses it into a Figure 8 to get the win. The match was pretty decent although I felt that the match was more about the lumberjacks than the actual competitors.
Winner: Charlotte Flair (3 for 4)

Next is Breezango taking on The Bludgeon Brothers. After about 2 minutes, Harper and Rowan hit Fandango with the double crucifix powerbomb to get the win. This match was shorter than the time they took to show the international announcers during Breezango's entrance. I feel that this didn't mean to be a squash match, especially as The Fashion Files have led up to this point.
Winners: The Bludgeon Brothers (4 for 5)

The penultimate match is Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens taking on Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan as Special Guest Referees. After a while, Owens and Zayn get the advantage, wearing down Orton. Orton manages to hit a back suplex on Zayn, giving him the chance to tag in Nakamura. Owens frog splashes Nakamura through the announce table and Orton RKOs Zayn but Owens pushes Bryan onto Shane to stop the count. Zayn rolls up Orton but Shane doesn't finish the count. Bryan and Shane argue and Orton tries to RKO Zayn. However, Zayn rolls up Orton and they get the win after Bryan does the count at lightning speed.

I struggled to enjoy the match to be honest and it shows that Shane is the absolute worst right now. Owens and Zayn have got their comeuppance a couple of times but Shane proceeds to stack the deck against them and then try to fuck them over during the match, giving Bryan the reason to do the fast count. don't forget, Shane is technically the face here but if you're a face in the WWE, that somehow gives you permission to be a bigger dick than the heels. Anyway, I expect that this will lead to a Shane/Bryan feud in the near future.
Winners: Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens (5 for 6)

The main event is Jinder Mahal challenging AJ Styles for the WWE Championship. Styles attacks Mahal's left leg before he gets bounced off the ropes, injuring the ribs. Mahal continues the advatnage by suplexing Styles onto the announce table and applying a body scissors. Eventually, Styles manages to recover and start a comeback after hitting a electric chair drop. After some back and forth, Styles hits a 450 splash but The Singhs try to pull Mahal out of the ring (which is not a disqualification apparently). In the end, Mahal goes for the Styles Clash but Styles gets out of it and gets Mahal to submit to the Calf Killer to retain the Championship. The match was a pretty decent way to end the show.
Winner: AJ Styles (6 for 7)

Like a lot of the WWE events this year, I felt that Clash of Champions was a mixed bag. Some matches were pretty good but some weren't great. Hopefully, with the Rumble coming up, it will improve.

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