mobile app bar

Five major takeaways from Clash of Champions

Gokul Nair
Published

source : stillrealtous.com

WWE ended the year with the SmackDown exclusive pay-per-view, Clash of Champions. The event hosted by TD Gardens, Boston saw all championships getting retained except one.

The pre-show consisted of a single match between the recently turned heel Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder, where Rawley emerged victorious. The main card involved 5 matches with high action. Here are the 5 takeaways from this show.

Element of surprise

The show started off with the United States title match which was unexpected. As previously reported, there were rumours of the title changing hands at the show, and naturally, most people expected Roode to capture his first main roster title.

But, the WWE had something else planned as they decided to hand over the title to “The Show-off” Dolph Ziggler which stunned the crowd.

Could this be the sign of a late resurgence for Ziggler? We have to wait to find that answer.

Overbooking

The Women’s lumberjack match involved a lot of shenanigans until Charlotte retained her SmackDown Women’s championship.

Even the involvement of 2 referees restricted the talent to perform in the tag team match which saw the team of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeat the duo of Shinsuke Nakamura and Randy Orton.

The match was essentially a waste of time due to it’s slow pace and too much of extra stuff. Speaking of extra stuff,

Referee oriented “clash”

SmackDown officials took over the referee duties for the tag team match which had Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn’s career on the line. The match hurt from the fact that the focus was entirely on the referees throughout the match.

The match spiralled out of control anyway despite the presence of the two referees.

The only positive was the slow build which was planned throughout the match to ignite the friction between Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan until Bryan finally snapped to secure Owens’ and Zayn’s jobs through a fast count.

But unless this involves any major change in the storyline in the next few weeks of SmackDown, this will be considered a major disappointment considering the talent and potential this match had.

Lack of a big match

The pay-per-view’s card was underwhelming and many considered this as an unimportant pay-per-view, and they were proved right.

The card hurt from the fact that there was no big match to boost it up and there was no “must-watch” feel to it. The event was average from top to bottom and a presence of a big match could have improved it.

End of Jinder Mahal’s push

Let’s all take a moment to mourn Jinder Mahal’s push which can be said as dead given the way he has been booked the past few weeks. If a loss to “The Game” Triple H in his home country was the beginning, then a submission defeat to AJ Styles is the defining end.

Jinder improved a great deal with his exposure at the top level but it is not enough to keep him there. It would be great to see fresh faces battling it out for SmackDown’s top title in the coming few months.

How would you rate WWE’s year end show? Do let us know in the comments section!

    About the author

    Share this article