Not the Night of Champions, not a Clash of the Champions. This is Clash of Champions, where we’ll see The US Title, the Women’s Title, the Cruiserweight Title, the Tag Team Titles, and the Universal Title on the line.
The first match of the night was The New Day vs Gallows & Anderson (The Club) for the Tag Team Titles, A very entertaining start to the pay-per-view with a lot of back and forth between the two teams. However, a questionable ending left a bittersweet taste with a weapon being used and wondering what the heck are The Club mean to do now? A few downsides but otherwise a decent way to kick off the show.
TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick for the Cruiserweight Title follows on from this to also be very entertaining as well. The match highlighted how different the cruiserweights can be from the main roster and performed really well. Even the aftermath of the show gave us some more heat between these two, which doesn’t hurt really.
Next up was the final match between Cesaro and Sheamus in a best of 7 fight. These guys in the ring together just work, and it shows considering their recent tag team run. They put everything into what they did that night just to make this final battle seem really important and they achieved that perfectly. A downside to this was the controversial ending, It’s understandable to see what the booking team was going for in order to make the two seem evenly matched. On the other hand, it seemed to the audience that this was just a feud where they didn’t want to commit to a winner and just left it.
Sami Zayn vs Chris Jericho was a weird build up, It almost seemed like they wanted to build the match as who was a better friend to Kevin Owens. Which is an unorthodox way to get people in the ring together, even though it’s probably one of the lamest reason for their to be a fight. The match was pretty good anyways despite this setback and the crowd was fully onboard for it.
One of the highlights of the show was the triple threat match for the Women’s Championship with Sasha Banks vs Bayley vs Charlotte. Much like before with Cesaro & Sheamus these people give it their all, and yes there may have been a few co-ordinated moments gone wrong but they put a lot of effort into making this match feel big and they succeeded so well, another noteworthy highlight of Charlotte’s championship reign.
Now we come to the US Title match with Roman Reigns VS Rusev. The crowd could not care less about this match as the familiar “CM Punk” chants start circling the ring. Given that the heat between these two revolved around Lana covered in cake and penis jokes, is it really a surprise that people weren’t going to care that much? The crowd did liven up as the match went on but it’s a shame it took so long to get to that point.
Last up is Seth Rollins vs Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship. Add this match on top of the pile of controversial endings for the night because this was the cherry on the cake. The match progressed so well and was sadly ruined by a decision to make the champion look like he can’t fight his own battles. Which doesn’t help when the new belt has just so far been won by dirty tactics instead of being won clean.
This was certainly a mixed bag of a PPV. The good parts are sadly tainted by the negative aspects which weren’t a good start to the newly formed brand split. The blu-ray extras are worth a watch though.
Rating: 5/10
WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens vs Seth Rollins
Match 7 of Best of 7 Series with Cesaro vs Sheamus
WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte vs Sasha Banks vs Bayley
WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day vs Gallows & Anderson
Sami Zayn vs Chris Jericho
WWE United States Champion Rusev vs Roman Reigns
WWE Cruiserweight Champion TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick
Blu-ray Extras:
Nia Jax vs Alicia Fox (Clash of Champions Kick-off show)
Kevin Owens Universal Title Celebration on Monday Night Raw 5th September 2016
Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel with Sami Zayn on Monday Night Raw 12th September 2016
Tag match of Sasha Banks & Bayley vs Charlotte & Dana Brooke on Monday Night Raw 19th September 2016
Match 6 of Best of 7 series with Cesaro vs Sheamus