This show was a three match show that was supposed to harken back to the days of the Clash of Champions from WCW/NWA. It only lasted one hour and felt more like a house show than something where I would consider it a parallel in quality with the old Clash of Champions. None of the matches really were interesting nor were they all that great. But I will review them and put my final thoughts down since this show was relatively short.
Sammy Guevara vs. Dustin Rhodes
So this was a last minute match set up poorly with no logic. First, this was for the “interim TNT title” as a result of Cody Rhodes not being medically cleared after testing for COVID-19 and now being quarantined. I suppose the obvious positive is that as part of that situation, we won’t be subjected to Brandi’s presence, the idea of having an “interim” champion makes no sense. Either strip him of the title or just extend the time of another match. Or perhaps have a mini tournament or a number one contender based on the top ranked people. But how did Dustin Rhodes even deserve this shot when he’s not been on TV for weeks? Sammy Guevara I can sort of understand because he was the last TNT champion and probably deserved the re-match despite how AEW is horribly inconsistent about the title losers not receiving re-matches. So this obviously was a small degree of nepotism, even though I do like Dustin.
The match itself was weird. Dustin sold a lot in this match, maybe too much when it came to fatigue. In a few instances, it looked as though he was in bad cardio condition. None of that really came to play in terms of the match and it made no sense for him to sell fatigue early on. Like it looked as though he was going to have a stroke and I was genuinely concerned for him.
They did a spot where Sammy would hit his knee against the stairs and they tried to play it so that Sammy would sell it. But Sammy’s selling is very inconsistent. More importantly, it again never really came much into play for the match nor finish. So I have no idea why they even bothered having that spot.
At one point, Idiot Del Sol came out from under the ring to setup a table. Arn Anderson used the “Glock Anderson” trigger move to chase the wannabe luchadore out of the area. Was Sammy supposed to be working heel here? But what that ended up being used for was so that Dustin Rhodes could do a Code Red from the apron and put Sammy through the table. That was amazing on behalf of Dustin but a stupid spot because as usual it was irrelevant. You can’t convince me that a spot like that is meant to put Sammy over as being “extra tough”. It just looks meaningless and stupid when you see the total picture.
Sammy somehow won after all that and while he isn’t a bad kid, I still think he’s a bad wrestler. This match looked more like another training match where Dustin tried to lead Sammy around so that he wouldn’t just have a spot-spot-spot type of match. But the real problem is that matches like this still fall flat for me since they never really build towards anything. There’s not enough drama and way too much recklessness that don’t feel as though there’s a meaningful payoff. I see the same damn thing all the time and it gets old fast.
Ricky Starks vs. Matt Sydal
So in another meaningless, dead bout where nothing was on the line except a theoretical belt that was created as a joke, we have this. AEW Brad Armstrong for no good reason received a shot against Starks. The justification was that Sydal had a link to Dante Martin so they gave Sydal a title shot to show up Dante. What?
Sydal just has been buried so deep in AEW that nothing he does will make a difference. I suppose he’s just happy to have signed a while back and probably serves more as an in ring trainer for younger talent to help put them over. The problem is that at this point, no one can take Sydal seriously because Tony Khan seems to only put belts on under 30 or so people and Sydal’s days are numbering.
Regardless, this match had no heat and was boring. Not because the moves weren’t crisp or whatever but the audience simply didn’t care. Also, there’s no build and Sydal wrestles like most indy talent do in pulling out flashy moves that get no reactions because the audience has become de-sensitized and rather than building a match where you layer things to create bigger and bigger expectations, you simply just drop moves out with no rhythm. Honestly, between Jack Evans and Matt Sydal, if you toss them both in the ring at the same time, I wouldn’t know how to tell them apart.
I don’t mind Starks but he doesn’t wrestle enough where people are seeing him and think he’s important. At this point, they might just look at Starks as just a bland commentator on Rampage. So Starks won and I didn’t care. Neither did the audience.
Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Riho
This was the main event for the women’s title. But when Riho pinned Jamie Hayter, it became painfully obvious who would win this match. The purpose of this match was to close the gap on Britt’s title reign where she beats virtually every women wrestler on the AEW roster so that they can claim she is a “star”. But she really hasn’t beaten anyone and the only thing over about her is the “DMD” part.
This match also had a secondary, subtle purpose in allowing AEW to brag that they make their women’s division important by giving it the main event status. Because Cody was originally supposed to open the show, that was supposed to be the real main event, given AEW’s current TV method of booking the actual main event first. But they still want bragging rights to claim to the world that they are a diverse and equal opportunity company, despite knowing full well that this strategy is bullshit.
I don’t know what I can say about this match. It did little for me. The usual story. People can’t build up a dramatic match. Same spots, outside interference and at one time another table was brought in. Didn’t anyone watch the first match?
The only thing worth mentioning here was the slow tease of the Jamie Hayter turn. It’s pretty obvious, just like Wardlow in another storyline that’s the same fucking thing, that Jamie is going to eventually turn on Britt. And that has to happen because Jamie is one of the few people in AEW that Britt has not beaten. However, Jamie has a small chance of winning based on her age. The only thing is that she’s not a completely homegrown star and they keep giving her stupid losses even though she’s a lot better than other rotten people they push. Also, Jamie looked hot in those leather pants. That’s the nicest thing I could say about this show.
Final Thoughts
Complete waste of time and this show left me with a bad impression about future Battle of the Belts type of shows. This was nothing more than another edition of Rampage, except on Saturdays and it looked to be used as an excuse to do yet even more of those awful Dark matches.
While not all Clash of Champions were great, many still had something meaningful to them. Like Sting vs Flair for 45 minutes, Dean Malenko vs Ultimo Dragon for the cruiserweight title, Flair vs Terry Funk. Nothing about this show felt big. Why would anyone besides the hardcore AEW fans want to tune in for this?
At any rate, watching this show was like scrapping near the end of the barrel of those DVD bins at Best Buy. Maybe you might find a $5 bargain title that actually is good (Britt Baker) but the rest are these oddball, weird sci-fi movies with no name actors or something that got shelved pretty quickly that probably are better off on the sci-fi channel at 3am in the morning on Sunday where stoners can toke out while eating their 2am, cold Jack-in-the-Box Midnight Munchie Meals trying to find the meaning of life.
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