9 WWE Clash Of Champions 2020: Gold Rush Impulse Reactions
6. Bobby Lashley (c) Vs. Apollo Crews
Like their decent effort at Payback, this was fundamentally fine without ever really extracting electricity from a pairing that ultimately looked a little more dynamic on paper.
There was something refreshing about the whole presentation in fact, even if nothing felt engineered to dazzle in the way one might expect on pay-per-view. Better than the first match, the heel/babyface alignments were as clear and clean as the Full Lashley finish that put the Challenger away. He lost to the better man, and that couldn't have been made any clearer by the layout.
Apollo Crews moved quickly and with excessive force to try and sell the idea that Bobby Lashley was absolutely the bigger man, taking some bumps that threatened the roof of the ThunderDome in an expressive but unsuccessful showing.
Was this all to convince Crews to join up with The Hurt Business and leave Ricochet as the last man standing from the old catering gang MVP has carefully targeted? If not, WWE deserves a sliver of credit to simply committing to the heels. If it was, they at least did the work to justify it.