Preview by Joseph Currier
Raw presents its first brand-exclusive pay-per-view since the WWE Draft on Sunday night as Clash of Champions hails from Indianapolis, IN.
We’re looking for your thoughts on these three shows, New Japan Destruiction in Hiroshima, Destruction in Kobe and this show with thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
In the show’s main event, Kevin Owens will defend his WWE Universal Championship for the first time since winning the the title on Raw a few weeks ago. Owens will defend against Seth Rollins, who he pinned to win the title after Triple H returned and turned on Rollins.
Every other Raw title will also be on the line as Brian Kendrick challenges TJ Perkins for the Cruiserweight Championship, Charlotte defends her Women’s Championship against Sasha Banks and Bayley in a triple threat match, Rusev defends his U.S. title against Roman Reigns, and The New Day put their tag titles on the line against Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows.
The card for the show is:
- WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens defending against Seth Rollins
- Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte defending against Sasha Banks and Bayley in a triple threat match
- United States Champion Rusev defending against Roman Reigns
- WWE Cruiserweight Champion TJ Perkins defending against Brian Kendrick
- Raw Tag Team Champions The New Day defending against Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
- Cesaro vs. Sheamus in the final match of their best-of-seven series
- Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho
- Nia Jax vs. Alicia Fox on the Clash of Champions kickoff show
By Dave Meltzer
NIA JAX VS. ALICIA FOX
Short match with Jax mostly ragdolling her. Fox did get two near falls including with a scissors kick. Jax came back and ran her over, a running hip attack that missed but was sold like it hit and a Samoan drop for the pin. Weak match.
NEW DAY VS. LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON FOR TAG TITLES
The New Day did a monologue about how Gallows & Anderson wear tube sox with their flip flops and fart in crowded elevators. They said Steiners and Dudleys are the only teams to have held both the IWGP and WWE tag titles.
Short match, fast paced though. Kingston did a dive on Gallows. Xavier Woods hit Anderson with the trombone and then E & Kingston did the double-team big ending on Anderson for the pin. They pushed this as 400 days as tg team champions. E had had used the big ending on Anderson after Kingston did trouble in paradise on him, but Gallows pulled E out of the ring for the save earlier.
T.J. PERKINS VS. BRIAN KENDRICK FOR THE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE
They did a lot of cool things and missed a few spots. Perkins retained via submission. Kendrick went for the bully choke but Perkins escaped, used a kick to the head and a kneebar for the submission. After the match, the two hugged but Kendrick then head-butted Perkins to turn himself heel and keep the program going. The crowd was decently into it, not really the match but they did the dueling chants. It was far from the spectacular cruiserweight you’d want to make a statement, but it was a good match.
They did a video game commercial using the old Petula Clark song “Downtown.” Commercial was really good, and there was an appearance of Alberto in there.
Cesaro was in a white suit. He said he was going to prove he’s the most physically dominant and have the biggest comeback in sports entertainment history.
SHEAMUS VS. CESARO
The two had an excellent match which ended when they were on the floor and Cesaro threw Sheamus into the post and then clotheslined him over the barricade into the ringside area. then both were selling injuries and the match ended with the referee ruling neither man couild continue. Sheamus had kicked out of the neutrlizer and Cesaro had kicked out of the Brogue kick. There were a lot of big spots and they did far more high flying than the cruiswerweights. At one point Cesaro did a tope but had a bad trajectory and landed on the side of his head. He seemed to come close to an injury. Everyone acted concerned but they worked several more minutes of big moves before their finish.
Charlotte and Bayley were backstage. Charlotte said you got in this match because of a dunce of a referee and an accidental pin. Charlotte said you’re not going to win. Bayley said I beat you before and I can beat you agian. Charlotte told her that she can’t even beat Sasha.
CHRIS JERICHO VS. SAMI ZAYN
Another excellent match. Zayn kept going for the Helluva kick but never got it. After Zayn got a near fall with the blue thunder bomb, Jericho used the codebreaker for the clean pin. Just a great well-built match and the one spot that wasn’t smooth, when Zayn did the dive from the floor through the ropes into and out of the ring into a DDT on the floor, which looked clumsy, Corey Graves did a great job of covering for by saying Jericho went to block the move.
Mick Foley & Stephanie McMahon are backstage with Kevin Owens. Foley said he was proud of Owens. Owens started acting sarcastic to Foley. Owens said he’s going to show why HHH picked him over Seth Rollins and why they should have picked him and not Seth Rollins as the first draft pick. He said Seth Rollins is no longer the man, he’s the mistake, and then told Foley, he’s your mistake. Foley said all the grseat ones have a chip on their shoulder
CHARLOTTE VS. SASHA BANKS VS. BAYLEY FOR WOMEN’S TITLE
Another good match. It was the typical three-way with everyone using their finishing move with the third person making the save. The show was built around Charlotte, who retained her title using a high kick to Bayley, knocking her into Sasha Banks which knocked Banks off the apron. Charlotte used another high kick on Bayley for the pin. Dana Brooke saved Banks once when she was the in bank statement. Banks used the back stabber and bank statement several times. Once Charlotte did a moonsault on both and went to pin Banks but Bayley saved.
RUSEV VS. ROMAN REIGNS FOR U.S. TITLE
Good match ending with Reigns winning the title clean with a spear out of nowhere. Reigns had powerd out of the Accolade. Earlier Reigns hit the spear but Lana pulled the ref out of the ring and he threw Lana out. Rusev did a great job here, a solid physical match but not the level of the Jericho or the Cesaro match. So the idea looks to be to use the U.S. title to keep Reigns out of the Universal title situation for a while. The crowd booed Reigns at times, like when he made comebacks, but there were an early loud dueling chant like with John Cena.
Mick & Stephanie told Rollins how proud they were of him. Rollins told Stephanie everything that comes out of her mouth is a bold faced lie and told her to tell her husband he bet against the wrong guy. They are clearly building Rollins vs. HHH that they wanted to do before Rollins was hurt last year.
KEVIN OWENS VS. SETH ROLLINS FOR THE UNIVERSAL TITLE
Good match, never reached the heat level of some of the other matches. Owens retained due to inteference of Chris Jericho and hitting a power bomb after a ref bump when Stephanie McMahon sent out a second ref. So the idea is the second ref was sent by Stephanie but it wasn’t overt in the sense it wasn’t as if she was blatantly favoring Owens. But she didn’t send the second ref out when Rollins had hit a pedigree and Owens was down for 20 seconds. Among the match highlights were Owens missing a senton and going through the Spanish table. Rollins kicked out of a package power bomb. Rollins hit his first pedigree and Jericho put Owens foot on the ropes to stop the count. Then we had the ref bump, leading to the Rollins second pedigree but no ref to count. Jericho then blatantly attacked, but Rollins backdropped Jericho over the top and hit a tope on Jericho and another on Owens on the other side of he ring. Remember that Jericho was originally to be in a three-way main event at Hell in a Cell with Owens and Finn Balor, and Rollins has been subbing for Balor.
