I’m sucking on a Popsicle and writing about Clash of Champions: Gold Rush.
0. SmackDown Tag Team Title: Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura [c] vs. Kalisto & Lince Dorado w/ Gran Metalik
Like all their singles matches on SmackDown, this had some cool action but nothing really holding it together like characters or energy. Those things are usually good to have. They did do something COMPLETELY new here when Cesaro caught a Kalisto dive on the floor and Dorado hit a tope that caused Kalisto to do a tornado DDT on Cesaro. Otherwise… how is a Lucha House Party power struggle NOT the worst route to take when you have these five guys signed? **3/4
1. Triple Threat Ladder Match – WWE Intercontinental Title: Jeff Hardy [c] vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn
WWE will definitely over-sell this as a classic in the future, but I can’t deny it – Hardy, Styles and Zayn simply have too much pride to take this silly concept and not do everything they could with it, even in 2020. On the one hand I want to send cheers to these grizzled veterans for adding another crazy Ladder Match to their resumes, on the other a part of me wonders if it was THAT necessary. I wrote a stupid line about Hardy working as careful as Minoru Suzuki in the G1 and then the guy takes like twelve wild bumps and does a super tall ladder Swanton Bomb as insane as any of the others. These guys just wrecked each other, with Zayn taking the punishment early but everybody eventually punching the bump card.
The finish astoundingly came together perfectly, one of those clever WWE finishes that rarely does come together well enough to excuse it being so complicated. There was a dramatic race for the ladder spot involving no less than Jeff Hardy dragging a ladder to the ring by a hole in his ear lobe and Sami Zayn handcuffing himself to AJ Styles, eventually concluding with Zayn hilariously retrieving a key from his mouth like a deranged criminal and escaping AJ to grab the title.
This was not only a better than usual WWE Ladder Match; it didn’t feel as empty as a lot of recent ones have. It was filled with spots and really no actual thread to follow, but they delivered ALL the things: something crazy, something fun, something new, something memorable. ****
Drew Gulak was the 24/7 Champion for an hour or so.
2. RAW Women’s Title: Asuka [c] vs. Zelina Vega
That this was as good as it was speaks to not only the roll Asuka is on but how Vega has just been ready for a spot since she showed up. They had way too much working against them for it to COMPLETELY work, as Vega just wasn’t established enough as a character or even threat prior to buy this as a good competitive match. Maybe needed an actual crowd to read if what they did was hitting or not too. Solid stuff deserving of better creative to really hit, you know? **3/4
3. WWE U.S. Title: Bobby Lashley [c] w/ MVP and Shelton Benjamin vs. Apollo Crews w/ Ricochet
I hope MVP keeps wearing glasses permanently, and I wish I had anything more to say about this match. It was just a dang MATCH. They hit everything well enough but it was one of those COVID WWE matches where they are doing their usual big spots but are also kind of working a cool down match. Weird vibe. **1/4
4. RAW Tag Team Title: Street Profits [c] vs. Andrade & Angel Garza
It would’ve been nice to see these teams break out against each other over the summer with live crowds discovering who they are, but this is the Thunderdome and this feud as well as the Andrade/Garza team itself seems very one week on, one week off. It cools off tag matches that still manage to deliver on PPV, and just like at SummerSlam they ripped it up here with a good old-fashioned tag plus a few extra crazy things by Ford and Garza. I thought Dawkins just steamrolling through Andrade when the referee finally accepted his hot tag was very cool, though they had to close things up early as I think somebody got hurt. Bummer. ***1/4
5. SmackDown Women’s Title: Bayley [c] vs. Asuka
Asuka went from the Kickoff Show to another PPV where she wrestles two matches, what a legend. She replaced Nikki Cross in a match designed to both get a quick pop and mask the fact that despite a roster of 700 people WWE still has a lot of work to do developing acts that would be compelling as title challengers. They bumped around for 5 minutes before Bayley got DQ’d, then Sasha Banks whooped some ass. **3/4
6. Ambulance Match – WWE Title: Drew McIntyre [c] vs. Randy Orton
Sometimes WWE lines everything up for something to not work and it ends up just working. What can I say? An Ambulance Match in 2020? Drew McIntyre’s title reign? Slow-it-Down Randy Orton? A gimmick match in the Thunderdome? This gimmick match? Yep. They went ahead and used all the tricks they could, including cameos from Orton’s rivals and chairs to the teeth and, well, an ambulance. In between that all they brought the physicality too, giving some aura of seriousness to this match where the point is to successfully lift your opponent into the back of an ambulance. ***1/2
7. WWE Universal Title: Roman Reigns [c] w/ Paul Heyman vs. Jey Uso
Sometimes WWE doesn’t really line things up to work, but stumbles into moments in time where everything does line up and work despite all their previous efforts. We at Happy Wrestling Land have been big fans of Roman Reigns and The Usos for a long time, and seeing freshly turned bad guy Roman vs. one of the Usos in a championship match with a serious main event program behind it actually deliver was just a great wrestling fan moment. It may have taken no less than a Jimmy Uso injury and catastrophically mismanaged pandemic to get us here, but we are here.
The Roman Reigns heel turn and Jey Uso getting the first title shot was a great story told well, but more impressive to me was the match delivered on every level the story asked. On its’ face this was a good, maybe even great champion vs. underdog match. WWE doesn’t do that kind of thing often so just for that it stood out. But this also had all the extra touches a Roman or Uso is going to provide. There was a lot of looming camera shots on facial expressions, a lot of vocalization from Roman Reigns… but in some odd twist it actually added to the match rather than distracted from it. This wasn’t WWE making movies, this was two actual professional wrestlers with a story to tell.
The beatdown, the comeback, and the finish delivered on that story, eventually leading to a few near falls out of a classic Usos tag and concluding with Jimmy Uso coming to the ring ready to throw in the towel. The delivery by everyone here was uncomfortably good, the most compelling acting and wrestling storytelling I’ve seen in WWE since… well probably something else The Usos did. Roman is evil, Jey has pride, Jimmy loves his brother – I mean I’m not sure I can overstate how good of a match and wrestling angle this was. Things are good sometimes. *****
Happy Thoughts: The main event makes this a keeper, and if that didn’t then the Ladder Match opener might. The rest of the card was a lot of rematches that didn’t feel so exciting going in, but all of them at a minimum over-delivered. Very good show. 8/10
