WWE Clash of Champions 2017 Final Rating: Inconsistency Rules Show
WWE Clash of Champions 2017 is in the books and so is the WWE’s pay-per-view schedule for 2017 as the SmackDown brand showcased its top angles and storylines.
Lacking hype coming in, WWE Clash of Champions 2017 saw a few surprising twists that are bound to shake up Tuesday nights as well as a few standout matches. However, not everything was perfect by a long shot and several matches could have been a lot better than they ended up being.
The opening match on the main card was a Triple Threat Match for the United States Championship that saw Baron Corbin defending his title against Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler in what would undoubtedly end up the match of the night. It was a very stellar bout with great chemistry and work done by each participant before Ziggler shockingly won the title, the least likely individual the common fan would have predicted to walk out victorious in this match.
The next match saw The Usos defending the SmackDown Tag Team Championship against The New Day, Rusev and Aiden English, and Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable in what would turn out to be another stellar match. It started out a bit slow and the rules of the match made things more confusing than they should have been, but the match ended very strongly as The Usos retained their titles despite Rusev and English arguably stealing the spotlight in the match.
The women of SmackDown would take center stage next as Charlotte Flair defended her SmackDown Women’s Championship against Natalya in a Lumberjack Match. And the lumberjack stipulation hurt this match in the long run and despite it not being a bad match, it just lacked what it could have been before Charlotte retained her title and Natalya cut a solid promo after the match.
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The card wouldn’t improve much with the next bout pitting The Bludgeon Brothers against Breezango in what turned out to be another squash match win for Harper and Rowan. They seem destined to join the SmackDown Tag Team Championship picture sooner rather than later.
The most hyped match of the night followed with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn competing for their jobs against Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan as special guest referees. But it was clear that the storytelling part of this match took center stage over the actual in-ring aspect and the match seemed all over the place at times.
But the ending was stellar enough as the storyline heated up with both Shane O’Mac and Bryan using underhanded tactics. However, Bryan’s fast count following Shane not counting the three for Zayn led to Zayn getting the win for his team with a lot of fallout certainly coming on Tuesday night.
The main event of the night saw WWE Champion AJ Styles defending his title against Jinder Mahal, and the match was stellar enough given how slow it started with Mahal dominating much of the first 10-15 minutes of the match. But things began to pick up and Styles made Mahal tap out to the calf crusher after a 20-25 minute bout to retain his championship.
Photo by WWE’s Twitter
All in all, the show was very up and down. For every good match or moment, there were confusing moments as well. The WWE Championship picture is about to take a much different turn with Mahal now seemingly out of the equation. Not to mention, the fallout of Shane O’Mac and Bryan’s actions in the tag team match will change things on SmackDown.
The pay-per-view ended approximately 15 minutes before 11 p.m. ET, so clearly there was room for the match that ended up on the kickoff show between Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder, which turned out to be a pretty good match.
But for a pay-per-view that didn’t have much attention or hype heading into it, the event did enough to not be considered a failure despite having shortcomings as well. Where does the blue brand go from here? It won’t be long now until we find out.
Next: WWE Clash of Champions 2017 Results