WWE Clash of the Champions 2017
Boston, MA - December 2017
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: AJ Styles is the WWE World Champion, Charlotte holds the SmackDown Women's Championship, the United States Title is held by Baron Corbin, and the SmackDown Tag Team Championships are held by the Usos coming into tonight's show.
COMMENTATORS: Byron Saxton, Corey Graves, and Tom Phillips
In a questionable decision, one multi-man was followed by another - this one for the WWE World Tag Team Championships held by The Usos. Their opponents tonight in a fatal fourway (with new enhanced rules that guaranteed pandemonium from the very start) were The New Day, Benjamin and Gable, and Rusev and Aiden English. Rusev was very over with the live crowd - which isn't surprising considering his batting average of taking shit sandwiches and turning them into delectable dishes is almost 1000. Remember that League of Nations stuff? Or the feud with Ziggler? Or the two feuds with John Cena? The fact that any of those things were as bearable as they were was routinely thanks to Rusev. Anyway, I found this match to be too muddled and "spotty," but it did have its moments - especially the spotlight moments given to the aforementioned and Chad Gable, who stole this match entirely with his sick displays of unexpected stretch. The Usos and The New Day need new dance partners, for sure, but especially after the pace of the opening match, I wasn't ready for another wild, structure-less match with multiple saves and cut-offs. Had they put this match later on the card I think the audience would've reacted even stronger to it. With this match talent in the ring it'd be almost impossible for it to fail, but this one just too all over the place for me. (2/5)
The SmackDown Women's Championship Match was up next - Charlotte defending the strap against longtime rival Natalya. This was a lumberjack match (not a "lumberjill" match, mind you) featuring all heels on the outside save for Naomi (Becky is selling an injury so she wasn't on hand). I've actually enjoyed some of the Charlotte/Natalya matches from the past, but this was an off night for everyone involved and the stipulation was probably the key reason why. Lumberjack matches are tough to get over, but it certainly help when the combatants have tremendous heat - like Rollins and Ambrose in 2015 (I think?) or if Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart had worked one in 96' or 97. Charlotte and Natalya are rivals, but their feud peaked what feels like months if not years ago in NXT and when they were on RAW. Meanwhile, aside from Naomi, the majority of the lumberjacks are either wholly unproven (the Riot Squad) or basically just jobbers that serve no purpose beyond filling out the division (the Lana-As-A-Wrestler experiment sure petered out quick, huh?). There were spots here and there that were good - but the best one of the match was delivered by Naomi (her crossbody to the floor from the top looked great and got a huge pop). Natalya's post-match promo made little to no sense, either, as she whined about the fans turning on her as if this was some sort of new statement. Didn't she cut the same promo when she turned months ago? I expect she'll be off TV for a little while to sell the idea that she "stormed out" of the company, but I also expect that when she comes back, she'll probably be a babyface and this whole last run will be forgotten. I put more blame on the writing staff than the performers here as there was almost no way, even on paper, this would ever have worked to produce good TV. (1/5)
Cramming your first three title matches into the first half of the show meant that we would be treated to some serious filler before the bigger matches of the night and that's exactly what we got next - The Bludgeon Brothers squashing Breezango in under 5. Earlier in 2017, I wrote about how Luke Harper getting in the best shape of his WWE career should've earned him a serious reconsideration as a singles guy and I stand by that - but I do have moderate hopes for the Bludgeon Bros. Unlike The Good Brothers over on RAW, Rowan and Harper actually have a good track record when paired up with the likes of the Usos and The New Day. There's no reason to believe they won't mesh well with the American Alphas Redux or even Rusev and English, who may be headed to a face turn sooner than later based on the crowd responses they've been getting. Whereas the Good Brothers were almost immediately lost in the shuffle upon their arrival and had to dance with the dinosaurs of Team 3D, the Bludgeon Brothers are actually in a division rife with young, over talent. Still, once the Authors of Pain get the call-up from NXT, they could just as easily get overshadowed by the Next Big Things. Regardless, this was a good showcase for them and Breezango bumped like hell to make them look great, but this was TV fodder, not a PPV worthy match. (1.5/5)
The next match was a big one - Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura teaming up to take on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a match where both Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were serving as guest referees. If that wasn't enough of a stip for you, Owens and Zayn were fighting for their careers. This one isn't going to make anyone's 2017 Best Of list, but it told the story it needed to...or at least it almost did. I'm not sure if they're leaning into the popularity of Owens and Zayn, but it definitely felt like Bryan's involvement was more justified than Shane McMahon deliberately not counting a clear 3-count. Before we got there, though, the action was solid and I liked seeing Bryan back in the ring - even wearing stripes. The crowd was fully into the match and even the commentators did a decent job of highlighting D-Bry's history with Orton and Shane's penchant for inserting himself where he doesn't belong. Again, this may have put a bit too much sympathy on the ostensible heels, but they certainly weren't fibbing or adding any emotion into the match that the crowd wasn't already putting there. The biggest spot of the match saw Nakamura get put through a table after being somewhat protected in the rest of the contest. I'm thinking that Nakamura will be cycled out of this storyline sooner rather than later and maybe even end up on RAW in 2018 so they can see if those waters better serve his character. Orton, meanwhile, wouldn't surprise me as AJ Styles' next challenger, though, I wouldn't be surprised if they held off that match until WrestleMania. Whatever direction they go, this match didn't offer enough in the way of great chemistry for me to be too eager to see these four paired off repeatedly over the next 4 months. Only slightly above average thanks to a hot crowd and an interesting ending. (3/5)
Main event time - AJ Styles defending his WWE World Championship against former champion Jinder Mahal. This was another feather in the cap for Styles, as pure a carry job as I've seen since the days of Cena and Michaels making the Great Khali look like a threat. Honestly, it blows my mind to read and hear reports about how far Mahal has come when his improvement can only be objectively described as "slight." Does he work hard? Sure, I mean, it must be challenging to skirt the WWE's Wellness Policy. All kidding aside, I respect Mahal's drive and obvious passion - but before he joins the ranks of guys like Mark Henry and The Miz, who started off as maybe the worst workers on the roster in their early years and became, years later, dependable, solid performers, Mahal is going to have to actually do what The Miz and Mark Henry did: have good matches. This was AJ Styles fearlessly bumping all over the ring, over the top rope and onto the arena floor, and through a wall at one point just to get reactions that Mahal had little to no role in generating. At this point, it is nearly impossible for Styles to have a truly bad match - his work ethic and athletic skills mean that you will always get something worth seeing in his matches, but this match was not in the same league as the magic he delivered against his true main event peers like Lesnar, Cena, and Reigns. Hell, even his not-so-hot series against Owens, which may have failed just because they were too ambitious in trying to deliver constant thrills and spills, were more entertaining than this. (3/5)
Some of the WWE's best shows of the year out-performed the card presented. Unfortunately, this was not one of them. Though the main events were good, they weren't great, and neither was anything else on the show. The Womens' Title Match was actually actively bad, somewhat surprising considering Flair and Neidhart have shown they have chemistry in the past. With a Kwang Score of 2.16-out-of-5, this was easily the WWE's least must-watch show of the year - and the card going in was the first hint. Recommended only to completists and those that need video evidence of how much Rusev and Gable have been underserved in 2017.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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