WWE Clash of Champions 2019
September 15, 2019
Spectrum Center
Charlotte, North Carolina

Watch: WWE Network

Meet our reviewers

Kelly Harrass: In case you forgot or didn’t know, Bob Kane sucks. Find Kelly on Twitter at @comicgeekelly and watch him make a funny at the expense of the original IT movie here. 

Steve Case: When I signed up for this I was all about it. Now, I really wanted to go to bed early tonight until I remembered this. When I make a commitment, I stick to it. Just give me something to make it worthwhile. Follow me @Coachcase44

WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Drew Gulak © def. Humberto Carrillo and Lince Dorado

Kelly: Barring the brief rest spot in the middle, this match was pretty much everything that I wanted it to be. These three worked together well and still managed to make a good portion of the match feel organic. At their worst, triple threat matches feel overly choreographed and this avoided that for sure. The opening segment of the match felt awkward, as it should. Lince and Humberto were the stars here with Gulak playing the crafty veteran champion. This opener had some cool spots that got the crowd into it and didn’t overstay its welcome. It was the ideal preshow match. ***½ 

Steve: This was pretty fast paced and pretty fun. Lince and Humberto did some well spread out high spots while Drew held it all together and kept things progressing. Not everything was landing perfectly but they were progressing to a pretty hot pre-show match. The ending got a bit clunky when Lince and Humberto were going at it with Drew seemingly out of the picture. The two traded some ambitious but somewhat sloppy offense back and forth. Humberto “hit” his finisher on Lince, but the camera angle sort highlighted how little Lince was hit. Drew then pulled the smart vet move and stole the pin to retain. A sort of funny moment occurred there when Lince had to put his own shoulders down to get a delayed three count. I get why they do it, but when its obviously the finish, just count three. They made the finish look worse than it had to. Nothing memorable or near the top of the 205 Live PPV matches, but a fun little pre-show match nonetheless. ***1/4

WWE United States Championship
AJ Styles © def. Cedric Alexander 

Kelly: What started as a lightning fast sprint quickly turned into a squash. Cedric’s initial burst of offense made it seem like tonight might really be his night, but before long AJ took control and maintained it until he put Cedric away with the Styles Clash. AJ gets a strong looking dominant win. Cedric got to hang out with Steve Austin on Raw, that was cool, I guess. **¾ 

Steve: That was a fun sprint. Cedric went all shock and awe to start and got a real quick nearfall in the first 10 seconds of the match. The crowd was way behind Cedric throughout his flurry which ended with a brainbuster from Styles on the apron and a Styles Clash to the floor. AJ was in control from here and pinned Cedric clean in the middle after a second Styles Clash. My guess is this will continue with an OC beatdown after the pinfall. If they can work that pace in double the amount of time they could have a great one in them. ***1/4

WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler def. Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman (c)

Kelly: Not a tag team vs. not a tag team. Great. Just what I want out of my tag title match. My feed died for a good chunk of this match so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but from what I saw, this was pretty bad. Braun was pounding on the ring ropes instead of the turnbuckle and looked like a moron. My feed came back when Braun was cutting his post match promo to inform me that Seth lost their titles. I feel nothing but despair as I realize that the Network didn’t actually die. I’m not yet free from the clutches of Lord Titan and his meat machine. *½ 

Steve: I enjoyed what I was watching. The work was solid, the crowd was into it (much more for Braun than Seth), Roode and Dolph were working fine together as a team, but I was just waiting until the strange bedfellows moment was going to go down to cost the champs. When it did, it came across like a fart in the wind. Braun shoulder tackles Dolph who flies into Rollins, incapacitating him. Glorious DDT, 1..2..3. This was a match that happened that really did nothing to build the title match later. Maybe this will breathe life into Roode and Dolph, but I’m not holding my breath. **¼

WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship
Bayley © def. Charlotte Flair 

Kelly: Did anybody else get confused for a second when they say someone dressed like a mad scientist in the front row, but it just turned out to be a woman in a white shirt with some kind of feathery headdress on? No, just me? Rad. Actually (you’re getting this stream of consciousness style) it’s a dude with a big ass white cowboy hat on. It’s been a goddamn rollercoaster folks. Anyways, this match sucked. Charlotte took Bayley to the woodshed for the entire match. Then Bayley pulled a Yano and smashed Charlotte’s face into the unprotected turnbuckle and won the match. Bayley ran away following the match and is officially the only kind of heel that WWE knows how to book. * 

Steve: What did I just watch? Bayley gets booed like a heel. Charlotte is a heel but the crowd is behind her being in her hometown. Charlotte still works heel and Bayley is underneath, but the crowd is…..confused? Then Bayley gets a flash win from an exposed bottom turnbuckle and just sprints out of the arena. Umm…okay? I guess this helps Bayley creeps even more to the dark side, but I this wasn’t any good. *

WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship
The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder) def. The New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods) (c)

Kelly: Hey cool, a solid match. These are two very good teams, so I really shouldn’t be surprised, but with how this show was trending, you never know. The hot second half of the match kept this from being a bore, to be totally honest. The finish felt a bit awkward with the execution, but I liked the idea of what they were doing. *** 

Steve: This was finally a noteworthy match on this show! It wasn’t anything that’ll be remembered a week from now, but it was well worked with two teams that have good chemistry together. The leg work on Woods made sense, even if I’m not sure why ripping his pants to put him in a hold hurts it more. Hey, at least it led to a definitive finish where the dastardly heels won! The post match promo has me nervous about later on though. ***1/4

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross © def. Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville

Kelly: Look, I’m as shocked as anyone when I say that I actually really liked this match. The opening portion of the match was slow and now we know it was because they were waiting for the parade of geeks to run through for the 24/7 title segment. After that was done, I thought the pacing and the storytelling were very good. Cross and Bliss retained their titles and Cross got her revenge against Mandy after she said a mean thing about her. I shouldn’t be this happy to see simple storytelling done well in WWE, but here we are. *** 

Steve: This was existing until the 24/7 goon squad ran to the ring in the middle of the match. We should care about these women and these titles though. #women’srevolution. Once the nonsense left though, I’ll give these girls credit  they actually got the crowd back. Nikki worked her ass off here to get the crowd going on the apron while Fire and Desire looked pretty good giving Bliss a solid beating. Nikki was able to get the shine with a definitive neck breaker on the mean girl Mandy as she draped off the ropes. The crowd was solidly behind Nikki the whole way and gave a nice pop at the finish. They told a good nice little simple story and paid it off to the crowd’s approval. CRAZY. ***

WWE Intercontinental Championship
Shinsuke Nakamura © def. The Miz 

Kelly: Imagine having someone tell you in 2015 that Nakamura would have a match with the Miz where he would lose two strike exchanges to him and would need Sami Zayn’s help to win. This match exists and that’s really the only opinion I can muster. **

Steve: The Sami live commentating the match stuff at the beginning made me laugh, so that was something. He was great as Nakamura’s manager in this match, but the fact that I typed that sentence is a problem in itself. This match was aggressively fine. Nakamura actually looked to not be on autopilot and the Miz worked hard. Some of the knee strikes and kicks Nak laid in looked very good and Miz sold them well. It’s just sad to see three talents so underutilized. Sami and Nakamura for obvious reasons, buut Miz wearing a pandering shirt for the crowd to cheer him is not the Miz I want to watch either. **3/4

WWE Raw Women’s Championship
Sasha Banks def Becky Lynch (c) via Disqualification

Kelly: Going into this match, I assumed that we weren’t getting a clean finish, so I was really happy with the match that we got. This was one hell of a fight. Both women worked stiff and once again proved that the women are the best part of this company right now. The post match brawl was pretty fun. I appreciate Becky’s shout out to Austin/Booker T by dumping mustard on Sasha. Just gotta actually get them in a supermarket now. We all know that this feud will continue into Hell in a Cell and has the potential to be awesome if the plunder is used appropriately. While it was certainly just a chapter in a longer feud, this was a very good chapter. Far and away the best match on the show up to this point. ***¾ 

Steve: Well this is certainly not what I was hoping for. This was pretty paint by numbers in the ring for the first half, but since it had actual heat and a story people cared about, it felt miles better than anything on the card to this point. Then we got the chairs introduced leading to the ref going down. This then resembled an Austin Attitude Era brawl through the crowd and arena. This feud will continue to a No DQ, No Holds Barred, or HIAC match that should end up being really good. It’ll be interesting to see who the crowd gets behind moving forward. It felt towards the end they were teasing a double turn, whether that was the intention or not. ***1/2

WWE Championship
Kofi Kingston (c) def. Randy Orton 

Kelly: Boring matches are the worst thing for a critic. Most often, the work in the match is solid, as it is in this case, but there’s just no fire to the match. It was slow and plodding. Matches like this just wear you down and will oftentimes affect my opinion of the matches that follow. I’m sleepy now and I wasn’t sleepy before. These are two fine wrestlers and the match wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good…

Ya know what, screw it. This sucked. It was terrible! It was awful! Get it away! BOOOOO! BOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOO! ½*

Steve: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. There was nothing wrong with this technically, but what was right? I want to hear from people that were thoroughly entertained by what we just saw. Not, “I appreciated the professionalism of the work,” actually entertained. This was a lifeless, heatless, boring, nothing match. Also, I’m starting to hear a lot more boos hurled at Kofi. And he deserves them. This reign has sucked. It needs to end. Needed to end about a month after it happened. But probably not to Orton. Moving on. *3/4

No Disqualification
Erick Rowan def. Roman Reigns

Kelly: Man, I love watching big dudes smash into each other and bludgeon one another with objects. This was the bad version of that. People who say that there isn’t such a thing as bad pizza are wrong. This was bad pizza. It was soggy and tasted like trash. Free Luke Harper! *½ 

Steve: Oh my. Weird how no one cares about a match with two large, plodding men fighting over an incoherent and stupid story. In another era Erick Rowan would be a monster heel. This is not that era. Poor Harper. They are only doing this so he doesn’t sign anywhere else. What are they doing with Roman? Isn’t he supposed to be the face of the company or something. He just lost in the middle to Erick Rowan. I don’t care and you probably shouldn’t either at this point. **

WWE Universal Championship
Seth Rollins © def. Braun Strowman 

Kelly: Compared to the previous two matches, this was like watching a Dragon Gate Triangle Gate Title match in fast motion. While this wasn’t Seth’s best match, it was still a pretty solid man vs. monster story. Braun took everything that Rollins had and legitimately came off as unbeatable at times. I give Strowman a ton of credit for doing the splash off the top rope because that was scary as hell watching him up there. Both guys put in the effort, but the crowd just wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing light and breezy about Clash of the Champions so the fact that I was as engaged as I was in this match says a lot to me. You had a big guy doing cool stuff and table spots and pretty much non-stop action. This could have been better, but it was about as good as it needed to be in this position. *** 

Steve: The best wrestler in the world vs the monster among men. In front of a crowd that couldn’t care less. Braun kicked out of the curb stomp at 1 and there was no reaction. The crowd is audibly booing your top babyface champion, and then cheering wildly when he gets brutalized after the match by the new sadistic heel. The match was worlds better than the two before it, but that’s a very low bar. Seth isn’t interesting, they’ve killed Braun dead. Strap Wyatt up and make him a top monster. **1/2