Clash of Champions 2017: Jinder All the Way?

Clash of Champions 2017 Review
December 17, 2017
TD Gardens, Boston, MA
Announcers Tom Phillips, Corey Graves, Byron Saxton

US championship 3-way: Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin (c)

The build: This match was set up two weeks ago on SmackDown when Ziggler interfered in a match between Corbin and Roode. Roode returned the favor last week on SmackDown, interfering in a Corbin/Ziggler match. The announcers question whether Ziggler deserves to be in the match, foreshadowing a potential back-door win for Ziggler.

Roode and Ziggler have ignoble history here, as they had a bad match at Hell in the Cell in October in Roode’s PPV debut in which Ziggler got entirely too much offense. Ziggler also had a bad match in which he got entirely too much offense in the debut of another former NXT champion, Shinsuke Nakamura. Nakamura had a remarkably bad match against Corbin at Battleground, meaning that two out of three combatants here have tremendous talent for snuffing out ascendant talent. Not a good omen for Roode or the show to follow.

The match: Roode is the clear face here, relishing in a full-crowd rendition of “Glorious Domination.” Though it was odd to import Roode onto SmackDown as a face, he’s making it work by trading in his heelish arrogance for a more or less straightforward plucky babyface persona. Ziggler’s doing his record-scratch anti-entrance again. Corbin gets a smattering of applause as he enters, menacing an adorable blond moppet on his way.

As they stare each other down, we get our first inanity from the booth as Saxton reminds us: “For a long time that United States championship was seen as a beacon of hope here in WWE.… But the minute Corbin won that championship, it all came to an end.” I think he was alluding to John Cena’s open challenge as a beacon of joy, but good grief. Incidentally, New Years Day will mark the 43^rd anniversary of Harley Race’s inaugural U.S. championship victory in Mid-Atlantic.

Ziggler and Roode gang up on Corbin and dispose of the champ outside. They return to the ring and tease finishers. The announcers argue again whether Ziggler deserves to be in the match, leading to Corey Graves asserting: “Dolph may be the greatest in-ring performer of all time.”

Roode turns the tables on Corbin and hits a blockbuster; Roode and Ziggler take over. Roode’s middle-rope attempt at something is aborted, and Ziggler hits the fameasser. All three are finally in the ring in a rare occurrence. Roode takes out Ziggler with a uranage but walks into deep six. The crowd remains hot for Roode.

We get our first high spot of the match when they do the three-person powerbomb/superplex, with Roode eating the superplex and Corbin powerbombing Ziggler. Corbin gets near falls on both, though it would take a sports scientist to know how much additional damage the person delivering the superplex would suffer with the addition of the powerbomb. Ziggler escapes a chokeslam from Corbin, who charges into the post and takes himself out. Ziggler tunes up the band, but Roode dodges sweet hip music and gets the spinebuster. Roode goes for the glorious DDT, but Ziggler slips out and hits his own leaping DDT. Corbin returns, unsuccessfully tosses Ziggler, then charges out of the ring on a low bridge again.

Roode dodges the superkick, catapults Ziggler into the post, and hits the glorious DDT. Corbin returns, charges Roode, and gets disposed of once again (Dick Hallorann tips his hat to Corbin’s ability to intervene and immediately fail), but manages to save from outside and chokeslam Roode onto his knee, though the floor was right there. The finish comes when Corbin sets up Roode for end of days but Ziggler hits the zig zag, scoring the pin at 12:05.

What does it mean? Ziggler wins his second US championship and gets a surprising pop from the crowd. Roode would seem like the most likely contender for the belt, perhaps setting up something for Royal Rumble. Later on, Corbin vows to recapture his title and throws a tantrum backstage as the interviewer grills him about his tendency for squandering things since the failed cash-in.

Rating: *3/4. The finish was quite good and the stuff between Roode and Ziggler was fine, but once I noticed that the recurring theme of Corbin being taken out of the match, only to return and impotently be disposed of again, it became silly.

Backstage, Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon foreshadow a potential conflict that’s bound to factor into their dual-refereed match later. I find the dynamics of the whole thing interesting: the video packages are framing Shane as the virtuous babyface and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn as the dastardly villains, but Shane’s overt vendetta against them is veering into heelish territory. Bryan, on the other hand, is teasing an alliance with Owens and Zayn, and his motives are reasonable — he claims to be protecting SmackDown’s interests by preventing Owens and Zayn from being fired by Shane in retaliation — and there’s no foreseeable way audiences are going to boo Bryan should the whole thing culminate in the rumored Shane vs. Bryan feud.

SmackDown tag team championship four-way: Aiden English & Rusev v. Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable vs. The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) vs. The Usos (c)

The build: There’s not much to this one. The Usos have been doing impressive work as champs, and here are three teams to challenge them. The match rules — four men in the ring at all times, partners can only tag partners — suggests that we’re headed to planet spotfest and the Usos are unlikely to give up their titles in such an environment where chaos is prevalent but little is meaningful. We’ll see.

The match: We start by trading rollups, and everybody tags everybody, leading to some spots to the outside. Kofi falls onto Gable and Rusev; Jey planchas onto English and Big E. Jimmy goes up to follow, but Benjamin leaps up and collar suplexes him off into a near fall. New Day takes over with the unicorn stampede. Big E slings Kofi into Benjamin and Jey before Kofi eats a big kick from Rusev, who cleans house to a big “Rusev Day” chant.

From here, we settle into Benjamin and Gable working over Kofi in one half of the ring while Rusev and English control Jimmy in the other. This leads to a terminally stupid spot in which English gets Benjamin’s attention, then covers Jimmy, forcing Benjamin to kick English to break up the pin. Why in creation would one wrestler announce to another that he’s going into a prone position? Then, of course, Gable straps on the exact same invisible kick me sign and receives a stomp from Rusev because he deserves it.

Nothing of note happens until Gable heats things up with a rolling kick on Kofi, which is followed by Kofi spiking English with his sweet standing double stomp. Jey returns to the apron after conspicuously disappearing, and he and Big E tag in and clean house. The Usos start throwing superkicks.

*Moment of reviewer subjectivity* My stance: superkicks melt snowflakes because a superkick is a kick right in the face and should never not end a match. All jokes about thigh-slapping aside, a superkick is not only the finishing move of GOAT Shawn Michaels, but it looks (and, thanks to thigh slapping, sounds) like the most impactful thing you’ll see in a standard wrestling match. If we’re suspending our disbelief and viewing the match as simulacra of athletic combat, can someone explain to me how the Usos superkick the entire tag team division multiple times on a weekly basis with little impact, but Randy Orton can make people disappear from months with one kick to the head? I do not look forward to the ensuing superkick party of hostile messages from Young Bucks fans.

Anyway, the Uso superkick party ends when Gable and Benjamin cut them off, leading to some meaningful drama as Gable locks Jey in the Texas cloverleaf as Benjamin stands guard. That doesn’t last as English drops Gable with a fireman’s carry-into-two-handed chokeslam. Rusev locks in the accolade, but Big E saves and preps the midnight hour, but English saves. Rusev drops Big E with the machka kick and sinks in the accolade deep.

In comes Gable with the best sequence of the match, lifting Rusev dead weight out of a seated position and German suplexing him onto his head. Gable then gets rolling Germans on English and Big E before going after Jey. But as he bounces Jey into the Uso corner, Jimmy tags in, saves and superkicks Gable. Another superkick puts Gable down, and a big splash finishes at 12:54.

What does it mean? Despite eating the pin, Gable proved that he deserves more spotlight once again with an inspired rush to bring the match to its endgame. The Usos retain, but there wasn’t much here in terms of character, rivalry, or storyline development.

Rating: ** All four teams looked fine, and the crowd was hot for Rusev, but nobody comes out of the match better or worse in any way that will translate to anything meaningful. Those viewers who value workrate over story will like it more, but I doubt anyone will remember this match a month from now.

SmackDown women’s championship lumberjack match: Natalya vs. Charlotte Flair (c)

The build: Charlotte defeated then-champion Nattie at Hell in the Cell by DQ, then tapped out Nattie with the figure 8 for the belt on the Nov. 14 episode of SmackDown in her hometown of Charlotte. That victory made Charlotte a triple-crown winner (Raw, Smackdown, NXT) and culminated in an emotional embrace with her father Ric Flair in a rare appearance since his very public brush with death. I like Nattie and am a fan of her old-school heel shtick, but I can’t imagine she has a chance here.

Running concurrent to their feud is the introduction of the Riott Squad — Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan — which has been doing a hostile invasion angle parallel to that of Absolution on Raw. The Riott Squad has been beating up everyone, injuring Naomi and Becky Lynch, but Nattie has been wooing the rest of the roster over to curry favor and improve her odds.

The match: The lumberjacks are Naomi (back from kayfabe injury), Carmella (Money in the Bank briefcase in tow), Tamina and Lana, and the Riott Squad. Natalya and Charlotte lock up and trade elbows before Nattie is deposited outside the ring before being stomped by Naomi, as it becomes evident that the theme of the match will be the lumberjacks rather than the competitors. The announcers initiate an ongoing existential debate about the role of lumberjacks as the heels swarm Charlotte.

Nattie works over Charlotte, taunting her opponent and the audience with little reaction from a flatlining crowd. Each time Charlotte begins to get the upper hand, Natalya cuts her off and feeds her to the heels lumberjacks (i.e., everybody but Naomi — yes, there are only two virtuous women currently on SmackDown). Graves does some solid heeling from the booth, defending the heels’ aggression with Charlotte and praising their professionalism for sparing Nattie.

Shenanigans with lumberjacks continue to dominate the story of the match as in the midst of further interference Carmella teases cashing in before Riott and the other lumberjacks spill into the ring and out the other side. Charlotte moonsaults onto the pile, neutralizing the lumberjacks before Natalya sneak attacks and rolls her back into the ring. Natalya goes for the sharpshooter before Charlotte powers out and taps her out quickly to the figure 8 at 10:34.

What does it mean? Charlotte ends the feud in decisive fashion as it was clear throughout that the lumberjacks were the only thing keeping her from dominating Natalya. Nattie attempts to recoup some of her heat in a post-match interview, accusing Charlotte of using her family’s name to cut corners (hypocrisy: that’s good heeling!) and lashing out at the fans for turning their backs on her and claiming to have carried the division for ten years. She teases a Batista 2010 quitting tantrum but stops short, claiming she will “turn [her] back” on the fans and sobbing on the way out of the ring. What does it look like when an openly antagonistic heel turns her back on the audience? It’s hard to see where she goes from here, though, with no faces but Naomi left.

Rating: ** I’ll admit to being a mark for Natalya’s vintage heel machinations, and I thought the match told a good story in the ring: manipulative but inferior heel bends the rules to torment champion before virtue wins out. The ending was a foregone conclusion, though, and the action was totally sublimated to the ongoing lumberjack miasma.

Backstage, the Singh brothers stress that Jinder Mahal is “so so so confident” that he will win. We get yet another insinuation that the Singhs will not interfere, of which I’m less than optimistic. They are good in their roles, though, and one presume they’ll be meeting a terrible fate by the end of the night.

Breezango vs. The Bludgeon Brothers (c)

The build: And what a build it was. This is the long-delayed blow-off match after months of Fashion Files comedy skits that got Breezango over to a fair degree, as well as The Ascension, as comedy figures. The culprits of the Who-Trashed-the-Fashion-Police-office investigation turned out to the re-debuting Luke Harper and Erick Rowan. Breezango challenged Harper and Rowan on the go-home SmackDown, but the announcers aren’t giving the Fashion Police much of a chance, and one assumes this will be a quick dispatching.

The match: Harper smacks Breeze down as Rowan stalks Fandango. Breezango attempts to double-team Rowan to an advantage, but Harper intervenes, and he and Rowan brutalize their opponents, including a brutal double-team face smash to Breeze on the apron and a double sit-out power bomb and double crucifix slam to finish Fandango at 1:58.

What does it mean? RIP Fashion Files. Harper and Rowan promise more bludgeoning to come: “The end of the beginning”; “the beginning of the end.” The Bludgeon Brothers would appear to be ascendant in the SmackDown tag team ranks, but beyond rare cameos, it’s been over three years since Harper and Rowan were allowed anywhere near the top of the card with any consistency.

Rating: * This was a pure squash match intended to get the Bludgeon Brothers over with little regard for Breezango. I’m not sure if anyone else is enthusiastic about another Harper and Rowan push, but I’m willing to ride along. Harper is pretty great in the ring, and they’ve got a good entrance even if the giant hammers are a cartoony throwback to the Berzerker (huss!) and his ax. The journey of Braun Strowman began with squashes, too.

Backstage, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn imply that Daniel Bryan is on their side. Owens is supposed to be a smarmy heel, and he is, but he also raises several valid points that give him moral ground over Shane. Owens and Zayn remain excellent in their condescending smartass roles.

Shinsuke Nakamura & Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (c) w/ guest referees Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan

The build: Count me as being fairly intrigued by this one, as Owens and Zayn have been the best thing about SmackDown for months (apologies to AJ Styles). Nakamura remains excellent in the role he’s allowed, and WWE continues to string us along on the silent possibility that this could lead to a Bryan match at WrestleMania (a poor, deluded, mark, this one).

Shane and Owens have been feuding for months (Shane’s refereeing cost Owens his US championship to Styles; Owens retaliated by assaulting Vince McMahon), and their blood feud only crested at their Hell in the Cell match which Zayn turned delightfully heelish and rescued KO from Shane’s death plunge off the top of the cell. Owens and Zayn interfered in the Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown main event at Survivor Series, though the hype package strategically edits out the fact that Super Shane easily fended them off before falling to Triple H. Shane was about to fire Owens and Zayn before Bryan intervened, proposing a match between Zayn and Orton. Shane continues to wear his grudge like a crown in making this match, making the stipulation that if Owens and Zayn lose, they’ll be fired from WWE.

The match: There’s a lot of star power in this match, and all six participants get decent, if underwhelming, receptions from the audience. The singalong to Nakamura’s entrance seems to perk up after the music ends. Zayn and Orton begin as Zayn heels it up by running his mouth to Orton and Shane. With the first few nearfalls it becomes clear that the referees will be the story of the match. After some awkward covers, Shane and Bryan eventually settle for cutting the ring in half, which presents an intriguing storytelling possibility: that Owens and Zayn might cut the ring in half with the goal of staying on Bryan’s side.

Finally able to proceed with the match, Zayn and Owens take over on Orton. Owens jaws at both referees, and Zayn does some trash talking but gets uppercut in the mouth for his trouble. Owens and Zayn control with quick tags and restholds before Orton gets free with a belly-to-back suplex and tags in Nakamura. Nakamura brings it with a barrage of kicks and knees on Owens. Immediately, though, the announcers siphon Nakamura’s heat by drawing attention back to the referees. Owens attempts a powerbomb out of the corner but falls prey to a triangle choke. Nakamura releases and gets distracted by the quarreling referees, walking into an Owens superkick. Zayn tags in goes for the helluva kick, charging into Nakamura’s boot but regaining control with a blue thunder bomb.

Owens sentons into Nakamura’s knees, allowing Zayn and Orton to tag in. Orton takes out Zayn with a picture-perfect top-rope superplex, but Owens pulls him out and all the action spills onto the floor where Owens drives Nakamura throw a table with a frog splash. Zayn holding Nakamura on the table by the hair was a nice touch. Back inside, Orton takes control with a snap powerslam and draping DDT on Zayn, then dropping Zayn with an RKO as Shane cheerleads. KO saves his partner by pushing Bryan onto Shane, interrupting the count. Shane berates Bryan as Orton stalks the latter in predator stance before dropping Owens with an RKO.

Zayn and Orton trade rollups before Shane refuses to count three. Shane and Bryan get into a shouting match that ends when Zayn rolls up Orton out of an RKO attempt and Bryan fast counts the pin at 21:33. Shane dives at Bryan to attempt to stop the count but is unsuccessful.

What does it mean? The feud must continue and the shades of gray get grayer. Owens and Zayn keep their jobs and gain more ammunition for their legitimate conflict with Shane as Zayn scored a clear visual pinfall that Shane blatantly refused to count. Meanwhile, the conflict between Shane and Bryan should intensify as they were at each other’s throats throughout the match. Where this goes remains to be seen, of course: will it culminate in Bryan’s return to the ring, or will we get Shane vs. Bryan’s avatar or avatar vs. avatar?

It will be interesting to see what direction they go, as something is clearly amiss in the characterizations. Shane is presumably playing face, and the packages back that up, but Shane’s behaviors are heelish in that he’s actively rooting for the demise of two employees who have clear grievances against management, whose jobs are being threatened gleefully. This all begs the question: is this another instance of WWE overestimating our capacity to identify with the McMahons (Exhibit A: WrestleMania’s Shane vs. Styles match), or is this part of a greater swerve that will turn Shane heel? What would that mean for Bryan? I get cold sweats at the possibility of another season in hell of McMahons as heel authority figures, and I’m not sure I’d live that again even if it guaranteed a return to the ring for Bryan.

As for Orton and Nakamura, this did very little. They were nothing more than avatars for Shane McMahon, and they didn’t look particularly good here.

Rating: *3/4. This was all angle, and though the match would appear to move the storyline forward in its escalation of the conflict between Shane and Bryan, the match itself didn’t help any of the wrestlers and all the in-ring storytelling was hamstrung by the inevitable refereeing shenanigans that would bring on the finish. Outside of one flourish from Nakamura, everything that happened before the finish was meaningless and heatless. The split-ring refereeing premise was potentially intriguing but didn’t factor into the finish.

WWE championship: Jinder Mahal w/ the Singh Brothers vs. AJ Styles (c)

The build: OK, we’ve got to talk about this Jinder Mahal thing. In many ways, the Jinder experiment is the story of the year in WWE, as his instant elevation was at once bold — we’ve been begging WWE for new stars, which they’ve struggled to do since the days of Batista and Cena — and an utter slog on the program. Jinder’s 170-day foreign heel revival reign was part nostalgia, part retrograde. It raised questions about whether the days of bulging muscles over in-ring talent were back, whether globalization and international-market capitalism mattered over in-ring storytelling — and just where in the heck this was all leading?

It seemed assured that Jinder’s reign would lead through the fabled India tour (which ended up being a single show), but Jinder dropped the championship to Styles on Nov. 7 in Manchester in an ultra-rare overseas title switch. In a rare last-minute change of direction, the title switch canceled the advertised Mahal vs. Brock Lesnar champion-versus-champion match at Survivor Series, resulting in (one would imagine) a much, much better Lesnar vs. Styles match that ended up being the best world championship match in WWE of the year. Mahal jobbed to Triple H in India, sending up signals that the Jinder experiment could end with a loss in his rematch with Styles. But the specter of Mahal reclaiming the title from Styles at Clash and holding it until a rumored match with John Cena at WrestleMania persisted.

Which is all to say that the possibility of another Jinder title reign was a seriously agonizing thought to me as I prepared to watch this show. I’ll declare here two subjective viewpoints: (1) I thought Jinder was showing progress as a character from the start of the experiment, and (2) Styles should have never dropped the championship in the first place. Everything with the WWE championship since Styles dropped the belt to Cena at Royal Rumble — Cena’s useless one-month reign before dropping it to Bray Wyatt in a multi-man match that easily could have been accomplished with Styles as champ, Wyatt’s embarrassing feud with Orton that gave us the House of Horrors match, Orton’s repetitive feud with Mahal (Punjabi prison match!), and Mahal’s demoralizing feud with Nakamura — has been negative for SmackDown and a degradation of the promotion’s most prestigious championship.

Those who read Wrestlecrap handed the Gooker — Wrestlecrap’s award for worst thing of the year — to House of Horrors, but to me the worst thing in wrestling this year was Jinder’s overtly racist promos against Nakamura (https://deadspin.com/fans-chant-that-s-too-far-during-racist-wwe-promo-1818579727). Check that: the promos weren’t the worst thing; the worst thing was Jinder being proven right in his racism by beating Nakamura clean.

For the record, I think racism can work in wrestling because, to me, wrestling storylines are most potent when they capture real-life concerns and anxieties. Throughout wrestling history, we’ve had racist characters — e.g., Colonel DeBeers, Ted DiBiase in his Mid-South feud with Junkyard Dog, the Fabulous Freebirds — and wrestling fans booed them and cheered the characters of color, which crafts the message that racism is bad. But there are times when racist characters win: Triple H’s notorious win over Booker T at WrestleMania 19; JBL’s championship with over Eddie Guerrero, and when the character goes over the other, it justifies that character’s motivations.

Thus, WWE could have told a powerful story by establishing Jinder’s heel credentials by resorting to the racism he previously decried, then having Nakamura kinshasa his head off (ideally with an exaggerated bow) in the name of justice. Instead, WWE not only put Mahal over, utterly kneecapping Nakamura, but put him over clean by having the alleged “artist” slip on a proverbial banana peel, stumbling like a klutz into a khallas. And that was the moment I was off the Jinder train forever. The storyline wasn’t his fault, but the bad, repetitive matches are anti-justification for such putrid storytelling.

All that said, the pre-match hype package, featuring sit-down interviews with Styles and Mahal cut together, did a great job setting the stage for a big-fight feel.

The match: The crowd is into Styles, but Jinder has a significant contingent of vocal supporters out there, too. Mahal establishes his size advantage early, but Styles takes him down and begins working the left leg in preparation for the calf crusher. Jinder cuts him off and begins to work on Styles’ ribs, dropping him across the top rope; slamming him into, then over, the barricade; and dropping him onto a table. Working the body is classic in-ring psychology, and I like two things about this part of the match: (1) Jinder’s offense isn’t exciting, but everything he does looks like it hurts; (2) Jinder frequently sells the left leg even on offense. Styles bumps like a pinball and sells like a champ for Mahal. Ten minutes in and Jinder is in control and heeling it up.

Mahal goes to the middle rope and eats a dropkick to give Styles breathing room, but the Singh brothers are jawing and Styles goes for the phenomenal forearm too early, allowing Mahal to go back to the ribs with a fireman’s carry into a gutbuster. Mahal’s hubris gets the best of him again, as Styles slips out of a superplex and drops him in the electric chair. They go back and forth with Styles selling his ribs but persevering, unable to deadlift Mahal for the Ushigoroshi neckbreaker but succeeding with the help of Mahal’s momentum off the ropes.

Mahal fights out of the Styles clash by forcing him into the corner and then dropping him straight down on the ribs. Styles gets a northern lights suplex for a nearfall, but Mahal takes control again with a Samoan drop. “You can’t not be impressed by Jinder Mahal tonight,” Graves says earnestly, and I’m inclined to agree. Heels don’t have to be exciting on offense when they’re putting the faces in peril. Mahal sets up Styles for the khallas but eats the Pele kick; Styles goes against for the clash but ends up eating a big boot in the exchange. Mahal sets up a khallas off the middle rope, but Styles counters with the Pele and dumps Mahal to set up the Superman 450 splash; he hits but the Singhs pull Mahal out for their first direct interference 20 minutes in. In the grand tradition of destroying the Singh brothers with impunity, Styles disposes of them with the forearm to Sanil and a Styles clash on the floor to Samir.

We move to our endgame as Styles overshoots the forearm and takes a knee to the back of the head, which Mahal follows with the khallas. But before the sun extinguishes and our dark night of the soul returns, Styles kicks out at the last moment. That wakes the crowd up, and Jinder’s out of ideas. Mahal then teases a Styles clash of his own, but AJ rolls him into the calf crusher. Mahal struggles to the ropes, but Styles rolls him back to the middle, and Mahal taps at 22:57 to send the fans home happy and end our long national nightmare.

What does it mean? This presumably ends the Jinder Mahal experiment at the top of the card, and though he’ll remain in the upper midcard for the foreseeable future, it’s hard to know what to expect from him. Guys who had similar trolling reigns — Honkey Tonk Man, JBL — stuck around for years. One avenue might be the US title: perhaps Ziggler drops to Roode at the Rumble to set up Roode/Mahal at WrestleMania? The US title is logically where Mahal should have begun anyway.

As for Styles, everything seems fresh and new again, as this is Styles’ first world title reign as a face. They could go Owens, perhaps backed by Bryan with Shane in Styles’ corner — though we really don’t need any incarnation of WrestleMania 2000. They could go with the Rumble winner from either brand. Or, if Vince really checks out to focus on bringing back the XFL (there’s a sentence for our times), we can fantasize about the Styles/Nakamura clash they teased at Money in the Bank. They could re-import Chris Jericho after Wrestle Kingdom 12 to try out his vicious heel act that’s been tearing it up with Kenny Omega: we just saw it two years ago at WrestleMania, but why not as a challenger along the way given the exemplary heel work Jericho’s doing in Japan? A sleeper short-term option could be Corbin: the announcers framed Corbin’s taking the US title from AJ Styles as redemption for his failed Money in the Bank cash-in, so they could try to recreate that magic.

Rating: ***1/4. This was the best Mahal match I’ve seen thanks to good psychology from both wrestlers. AJ remains the best in-ring performer in the company. The right man went over cleanly, and it finally feels safe to breathe easy about the main event of SmackDown pay per views.

Final grade: C-. Traditionally December pay per views are among the worst on the calendar, and this one lived down to that overall with only one above-average match and yet another episode of McMahon inanity eclipsing the in-ring talent. I think the Jinder dragon is finally slain after months of bad matches, repetitive tropes, and occasionally racism, and I would have gladly sat through Heroes of Wrestling 2017 if that’s the pot of gold at the end.

EDITOR’S NOTE: All images are courtesy of http://www.wwe.com/shows/wweclashofchampions/2017/gallery.