WWE Clash Of Champions 2017: Star Ratings For All 7 Matches
1. AJ Styles Vs. Jinder Mahal - WWE Championship Match
Not a patch on AJ Styles' uplifting, surprising, and immaculately-paced WWE Heavyweight Title win on SmackDown last month, this suffered from a disenchanted crowd, and a layout at once simplistic and optimistic.
Jinder attacked AJ's ribs with a methodical control, which the Phenomenal One sold with his usual, consummate quality - but the rote psychology was a misjudgement of the wider crowd sentiment. That opening stretch wasn't all bad - Mahal looked dangerous as he flung Styles onto the announce table and into the exposed barricade, in a neat touch - but the match would have succeeded far more, had WWE tapped into the anxiety of the crowd and structured the match with a sense of urgency. Few took Mahal seriously in the ring general role - people loathe him precisely because he is not a ring general - and, consequently, the protracted rib-focused onslaught developed a sort of tedious irony about it.
Styles being Styles elevated this into above average territory - his comebacks were fiery, his Singh Brothers shutdown sequence a welcome antidote to the interference-laden summer months - but the relief only just compensated for a match predicated on lurching dread.
It beat the usual Mahal curve - but that curve should not exist.
Star Rating: **3/4