2 Clash 2 Champions! Are you ready for WWE's final PPV event of the 2017? Ready to go out with, hopefully, a bang and not a whimper? Strap yourselves in for some Blue Brand action.
First off, if you didn't get the chance to already, check out the final Wrestling Wrap Up on IGN. That's right, the times they are a' changing. Nature bats last. That doesn't mean you won't see me writing about wrestling, but the weekly column is gone. If you find yourself missing me more than you can bear, follow me at @TheMattFowler. I'll be live-tweeting the PPV there all night along with doing up the live blog here.
Finder Mahal is getting his WWE World Championship rematch against AJ Styles, Natalya is getting her SmackDown Women's Championship rematch against Charlotte, and Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens are getting, um, their rematch against Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura (this time with dueling special guest refs Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan). It's kind of a rematch-apalooza. Let's grab the first slice!
Zack Ryder vs. Mojo Rawley
The sad thing about this match is that it involves, once again, the fizzle of something that managed to catch fire down in NXT only to come up to the main roster to die a slow, festering death. The Hype Bros never got off the blocks and then their inevitable split seemed to take forever. Once it did happen, it felt like a shout into the uncaring void.
Fortunately, it appears that Mojo's attempting to take full advantage of this new singles push. He may not have settled on an acceptable amount of hype for his new heel persona but this was a decent match that helped push him up and out of the unfortunate failure of this pairing with Ryder - and maybe up into U.S. title territory. If he continues to emit aggro ruthlessness ("ruthless aggression" if you will) and takes this moment seriously, maybe we will too. On the upside for Ryder, he got his old "Oh Radio" theme back.
Winner: Mojo Rawley
United States Champion Baron Corbin vs. Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler
Well whadya know? Good for ol' Ziggler! The guy who now only plays a teensy bit of his entrance theme (before interrupting it with a record scratch) to remind himself that he used to be what he now hates.
OH BUT THAT ENTRANCE THEME SURE PLAYED IN ITS ENTIRELY AFTER HE WON THE UNITED STATES CHAMPIONSHIP. I guess he's cool being a "gimmick" after he wins.
Firstly, I'm glad this match went first on the card. There was little interest in it, story-wise, so it could have found itself in the mid-Clash dead zone. Secondly, good for them not keeping the belt on Corbin. Usually when there's a triple threat for a title and both of the challengers have more of a beef with one another than they do with the champ, and the champ's kind of an afterthought, the champ retains. And they teased that here a little bit by having Corbin almost steal a pin. But it came down to a well-timed Zig Zag from Dolph and now he's got a big "W" under his belt.
Winner, and new United States Champion: Dolph Ziggler
SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos vs. The New Day vs. Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable vs. Rusev & Aiden English
Now that felt more in line with what I expected tonight. A championship match with too many people in it where the champions were going to withstand/survive because of the chaos and the zero-sum element of the challengers. Still, it was a nice showing for "Rusev Day" (which seems to be the official tag team name as well as the every day holiday) and they teased an upset win more than a few times. If anyone could have truly shock-popped the crowd with a title win tonight, it was them.
It's not the right time for the Usos to lose and it would have made even less sense for them to drop the titles in a wonky match like this (where the announcers even questioned the story/rules at certain points). This was a Four Corners match where a member of each team could be in the ring at once. There was, apparently, no DQ but there were...tags? I mean, I was never fan of the old style because you'd constantly have to come up with ways for people to accidentally get to close to someone who wasn't their partner so that a "tag" could happen, but this was not an improvement. So good spots here and there, but a mess overall.
Winners, and still SmackDown Tag Team Champions: The Usos
SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair vs. Natalya (Lumberjack Match)
Yes, just like the last match, this bout was the failed combination of too many stories. No focus. Was it about Nattie's rematch? Or the Riott Squad's invasion? Or Carmella's cash-in? Too many cooks, man. At one point, all the Lumberjacks just started brawling, regardless of alignment and...for no real reason.
So just like the last match, the champ retained because no one story element was more important than the other. Nattie's post-match tirade would have held more weight if she hadn't already been heel. Also she should have screamed "And MEOW I'm turning my back on all of MEW!"
These last two matches make me appreciate the finish of the first bout even more. There was a rumor going around that, backstage, there were no plans for any title changes tonight. I'm glad they've at least made one exception.
Winner, and still SmackDown Women's Champion: Charlotte Flair
Breezango vs. The Bludgeon Brothers
Hi, Breezango!
Bye, Breezango!
No one thought Breezango would win but - I at least thought they were a bit more valuable than a squash match. Like, a total squash match. Huh. We all figured the Ascension were getting a rub from Breezango on those Fashion Files episodes, but now it seems like it was the other way around and both teams just wound up on the bottom of the heap. I think our hope was that they could do their comedy thing but not somehow wind up like a complete Santino. You know, where their value was only in their comedy.
Winners: The Bludgeon Brothers
Randy Orton & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan as special guest referees)
The idea of two referees in the ring sounds okay. Especially if the refs are Shane and Daniel and you're wondering if something big's going to come out of the story. Some huge conflict. Something that might even get D-Bryan back in the ring.
But man, actually watching two refs in the ring for the majority of this match was boring as hell. So much yelling and scolding. First the wrestler would yell at the ref. Then the second ref would yell at the ref. Then there'd be a pause before counts because they couldn't decide who'd slap the mat. I went from "How are they going to finish this match?" to "Can they please just finish this match?" For the most part, Shane took the left side of the ring and Daniel took the right but...this was just so odd. It was the only bout where I didn't mind the over-crowdedness going in, but it still was a drag.
During the final moments, things finally took hold when Daniel accidentally broke up a count, Shane refused to count to three, and then Bryan fast-counted Randy to the mat. One bias begat another bias and no one's really to blame for anything because it was all a swirl of misunderstandings. I guess except for Shane's refusal to count that one time. That was the one big telling moment. No one came out the other side of this any different though. Sami and Kevin just kept their jobs.
Winners: Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
WWE Champion AJ Styles vs. Jinder Mahal
There was a slight split here because for the most part the crowd wasn't into this one but also...it was a good match. I think most people's lack of interest basically stems from their lack of interest in Jinder and the belief that WWE/Vince could easily, at any point, decide to put the belt back on him. Hell, AJ lost clean to Baron Corbin just a few months back during a US title rematch so why couldn't/wouldn't Jinder topple AJ - clean even, if they wanted to - here tonight? In fact, the story was that Jinder didn't want Singh Bro help anymore so this could have been his defining moment: A non-dirty win.
What we got instead though was a nice, hard-fought AJ Styles title defense. I wouldn't say Jinder's on his way to the mid-card (though he could very well be) because AJ made him look like a trillion bucks tonight, but he didn't recapture the gold like so many predicted. This close to the Rumble, that feels like a last gasp for the Jinder Mahal experiment. Plus, AJ managed to take him and his two stooges out in one match - again. Jinder tapped to the Calf Crusher.
Winner, and still WWE World Champion: AJ Styles
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.