6 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (Dec 22)
4. A 2017 WWE Pay-Per-View WORSE Than Battleground
Clash Of Champions was abysmal - a borderline parody of the worst of the authority figure trope, and a really strange brew of match layouts the likes of which make you wonder if Pat Patterson is even still there.
Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were cast as inherently good people with conflicting ideas on how to be good people - while, just half an hour earlier, they essentially threw Charlotte into the coliseum. The constant lumberjack shenanigans both ruined the match and indirectly ruined the perception of McMahon and Bryan as good guys, if you think about it. Putting their babyface Women's Championship in harm's way by way of a school of heels was an abject lesson in how deep the WWE plot holes run.
A section of WWE fans: "Don't think about it, it's just a bit of fun. You ruin it when you overanalyse it."
The same section of WWE fans: "Indy wrestling is all spotfests with no psychology."
You can't expect hermetic storytelling from WWE, even though you should be able to, what with their resources and their own arrogant mythology-building. But this was a vehicle to prolong a programme that can only end in disappointment - and was a disappointment as it unfolded, given Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn may as well have been in there with Breezango. Either Daniel Bryan doesn't wrestle, and there's no payoff, or Bryan returns to face Shane McMahon at WrestleMania. Great.
When Dolph Ziggler actually steals the show, you know it was a long night.