4 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Clash Of Champions 2017

3. Strong In Defeat

Rusev Big E
WWE.com

Funky format aside, the SmackDown Tag Team Championship fatal four-way match provided some good action in the latter half of the bout. And the two less-decorated teams got some opportunities to shine.

Rusev and Aiden English, who seemed like a throwaway duo a couple months ago, looked sharp with Rusev kicking everything in sight and slapping the Accolade on multiple wrestlers. And Gable got to show off some raw strength by German suplexing half of his opponents.

And while they lost, it’s hard to consider losing to what has to be the best tag team going in WWE right now – the Usos – a huge downer. Jimmy and Jey have been resurgent during the past year, and they have become a complete team.

If nothing else, casual fans got to see the two teams not named New Day (another top-flight tag team) hang in there and look pretty decent for most of the match. And sometimes that’s the best you’re gonna get.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.