WWE Clash Of Champions 2017: Star Ratings For All 7 Matches
2. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Randy Orton
Even with the tempered expectations of sports entertainment chicanery, this was fetid.
We knew the in-ring action would be incidental to the squabbling authority figures - but we didn't know the extent. Shinsuke Nakamura et al. didn't take a backseat; they were flung into the boot, essentially invisible.
The Special Guest Referee trope is perhaps the most rancid of all the sports entertainment shortcuts, in that it guarantees shenanigans and thus should not exist. The very foundation is a gigantic plot hole: if every Special Guest Referee is invariably incompetent, why are they installed to oversee the action? At least there is some action in other matches of this type; the double Special Guest Referee gimmick here entirely prohibited anything in the way of exciting drama. Every move, until the final stretch, was incidental to the Daniel Bryan Vs. Shane McMahon plot - and the moves themselves seemed intentionally basic, purely to ensure the real story was not overshadowed. A mess of flailing roll-up attempts, four genuine big match workers worked a horror show crippled by abysmal, illogical storytelling.
The two refs purportedly held a private parlay backstage - shouldn't they have decided who was going to count the falls, to avoid the total embarrassment that was nine tenths of the match? The plot itself was performed by two boobs. It was comically bad. Both men, ostensibly babyfaces, came off as unbearable pricks - one of whom was Daniel Bryan - and the four wrestlers were utterly interchangeable.
Even when the match built to something approaching excitement, Kevin Owens may as well have flung himself off the announce desk and into another plot hole: if Shane was intent on blocking victory for the heel team, why didn't he throw the match out upon seeing an intentional use of weaponry? What does any of that matter - what does anything matter - when the rules are made up as we go along?
Really, this match had no reason to exist - Owens and Zayn really didn't affect the outcome of the Survivor Series headliner, as we were insulting told in the build - and if only it didn't.
A potentially excellent wrestling match ruined by sports entertainment, this was a deadening omnishambles.
Star Rating: 1/4*