Gunter retained!
Liv Morgan retained!
Surely it’s all setting up for the Tribal Chief to finally lo-no, ok, Roman Reigns retained
too.
And then we started singing why, why, is Tyson Fury here?
I’m Oli Davis, and this is my review of WWE Clash at the Castle… in about 10 minutes.
Before I jump into that, though, if this is your first time watching us here on WrestleTalk
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First, a quick disclaimer: me and the whole WrestleTalk team watched Clash at the Castle
with 200 raucous fans at our watchalong party at the Joiner on Worship pub in London.
Here’s a clip.
Everyone was having so much fun… again, apart from the Tyson Fury karaoke singalong,
I’m still-what was that?
…that I’m probably going to add an extra star to every match
It also meant, weirdly, we totally got the start time wrong for the stream and missed
the pre-show.
So I’ve just caught up on the randomly added six man tag of Madcap Moss and the Street
Profits beating Austin Theory and Alpha Academy, and I can safely say we actually missed nothing.
Free from storyline restraints, and, in Madcap’s case, even being on the right brand, this
was a match purely designed to hype up the crowd with six and a half minutes of fun.
Moss showed great fire and strength throughout, but it was Montez Ford who excelled most again,
hitting a crazy Blockbuster over the top rope outside, then pinning Gable with a Frog Splash.
Yet another loss for Theory, but don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll look great by the end of
the show.
The main card opened on another six person tag, only this time, it’s women: with the
culmination of the month-long Damage Control vs Random Raw Babyfaces feud.
This could’ve started far hotter than it did, which unfortunately is the fault of Monday’s
episode of Raw.
I’m still flummoxed by Raquel and Aliyah winning the tag belts, meaning Kai and SKY
went into this match being very recently beaten, hardly a great piece of momentum, and this
story would’ve felt significantly more big time with the women’s tag championships
in Damage Control - in turn helping elevate the belts themselves.
Instead, this match just felt like filler until we get to the proper final: a Bayley
vs Belair singles match for the title.
And that’s what we got here - Damage Control ultimately functioning as a far better unit,
taking out Asuka and Bliss, letting all three heels pick Belair apart, with Bayley ultimately
getting the win.
It’s a huge detail.
She’s had a countout loss here and there, but I think the last time Belair got pinned
in a match was last November on Raw to Becky Lynch.
As great as the Bayley and Belair build was, Asuka and IYO are incredible to watch in the
ring.
Asuka vs IYO has got to be one of the best singles matches WWE can possibly put on from
their whole roster.
Especially because they’ve just done Gunther vs Sheamus.
I have three favourite matches on this show.
Not bad for a main card with only six.
50% of this pay-per-view was my favourite matches, and that spells disaster for Samoa
Joe at Sacrifice.
While the main event has twists and turns, Rollins vs Riddle was full of fantastic character
work, Sheamus vs Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship was my favourite because of the
slaps.
For the chops and the elbows and the boots.
For the red raw chest meat.
Red Raw Chest Meat, title of your comedy Japanese wrestling show.
The opening was incredible - from IMPERIUM becoming full force again, with Ludwig Kaiser
suddenly introducing the former Fabian Aichner, now Giovanni Vinci during Gunther’s entrance.
To the Peaky Blinders Autobahn Boys brawl while Sheamus and Gunther stood staring at
each other, refusing to interact until the bell rang, as is the sanctity of the mat.
The middle was fiercely intense, with Sheamus and Gunther doing one of three things: hitting
each other with their fists.
Hitting each other with their boots.
And hitting each other with various suplexes.
And the ending captured the fighting spirit I love so much about pro wrestling.
Gunter had delivered two horrid powerbombs, targeting Sheamus’ lower back.
In a great piece of selling, Sheamus could’ve won it with a Brogue Kick, but his back gave
out.
He still got to his feet though, ready to face his fate fighting, which was Gunther
decapitating him with a sick stiff clothesline.
Not quite as good as Dominic Mysterio’s clothesline, but you’ll get there big guy.
I would say Liv Morgan and Shayna Baszler had the most difficult job of the night.
Liv has been booked as a weak champion since she won, and it was hard not to see this as
just a stepping stone to get to whatever WWE have in mind for Ronda Rousey.
But thanks to Triple H’s great booking idea of: well, let’s just do what worked in NXT
- Shayna and Liv put on a highly dramatic match thanks to Baszler just getting to be
the Queen of Spades again, dismantling Morgan’s limbs.
Liv refused to give up, though, and won.
Hopefully Morgan can start getting booked more strongly now.
Speaking of feuds we can all move on from now…
Edge and Rey Mysterio had a really fun tag match against Judgement Day’s Finn Balor
and Damien Priest.
Edge got a huge reaction from the hot all night UK crowd, but this was only ever about
one thing: Dominic Mysterio finally, after over two years, finally turning on his dad.
He got involved near the end of the match, helping his dad Rey and Edge get the win,
which was more of an invitation to dom me, Rhea, I’m being naughty, teach me a lesson.
Then came honestly one of the loudest babyfaces pops of the whole night at our watchalong
party.
Edge, Rey and Dom stood victorious in the ring afterwards.
We could all sense something was going to happen.
And Dom kicked Edge right in the balls - with a great shocked betrayal sell from Edge - and
then he clotheslined the head off his dad, in the spirit of Eddie and Batista turning
heel on Rey before him.
Rey, you should have learned to duck by now.
Sucks for Judgement Day, as you could’ve easily booked this angle in the match to give
them a win, but I presume WWE did want to have more than one babyface victory on the
show.
Matt Riddle’s match with Seth ‘Elton John’ Rollins was also my favourite match of the
night, an excellent semi-main event which at times felt like a four way with each man’s
respective ghosts: Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton.
I feel like Seth, in his kayfabe head, is still feuding with Cody.
He’s now trying to prove he’s the best in Rhodes’ absence to be able to defeat
him on his return.
It’s kind of the same with Riddle and Randy, although in a positive bro-lationship way.
It made the final third of the match all the more impactful, because when Seth had run
out of his own moveset, he started using Orton’s to mega heat.
It got in Riddle’s head, he got angry, almost used a chair, but got hit with a Stomp and
a Super Stomp on getting back in the ring to lose.
This was a terrific match heightened even more by their blood feud build.
I would be totally fine with them having a rematch with a stipulation at Extreme Rules.
But while those matches were my favourite, the main event of Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre
was my most favourite.
Going a full half an hour, which is almost as long as Roman’s entrance, both men encapsulated
the big time feel of this match, rising spectacularly to the massive crowd occasion.
Drew coming out to his old Broken Dreams music, and a montage of his career, was a great Triple
H entrance touch.
The first two thirds of one upmanship played out perfectly.
And then the final third had some of the best match booking and near falls of the year.
In a frantic, almost delirious few minutes, Austin Theory ran down to cash in his Money
in the Bank contract, boxer Tyson Fury legitimately seemed to knock him out from the front row,
Drew hit a Claymore - then 1, 2, and I’m not kidding, every single person in our bar
celebrated.
That’s how good this near fall was.
But a mystery man had pulled referee Charles Robinson out at the last moment - who was
revealed to be Solo Sikoa, Jimmy and Jey’s younger brother, and thus Roman’s cousin.
The third Uso!
The prophecy has been fulfilled.
Surely that’s it, though.
There’s not like Roman’s niece or his great aunt left right?
With the Usos, Sami Zayn and Paul Heyman all being taken out, this was a great, albeit
heartbreaking surprise.
Roman hit a spear to win.
I thought it was time for Reigns to lose, but with a match so good, and an intriguing
angle, I’m looking forward to where this enhanced Bloodline goes next.
And that’s it.
Then the show went off-air.
An amazing night of wrestling.
Ok, you want to talk about the karaoke.
I’m not sure why this happened either.
The camera should have cut on Roman and Sikoa standing at the top of the ramp, championships
held aloft.
Weirdly, they continued to broadcast what usually would just be for the live crowd to
send them home happy.
Tyson Fury got in the ring, started to sing American Pie, as is his way, and Drew joined
him, kind of undermining the absolute war he’d just waged.
I presume this was WWE’s rather embarrassing attempt to go viral, hoping the whole Cardiff
stadium would sing along more, to get picked up and replayed by more mainstream sports
networks throughout the world.
Unfortunately, it came off as hokey and desperate.
The only way this would have worked is Drew Claymores Fury out of frustration, setting
up the inevitable match in Saudi Arabia.
Also the camera inexplicably cut to a man wearing a t-shirt that read ‘better dad
than Chris Benoit’.
How the hell did that get through?
What did you think of Clash at the Castle?
Let me know in the comments.
Weird karaoke segment aside, this was an absolutely incredible show.
The crowd were nuclear all night, every wrestler brought their A-game, and we got one of the
best main events of the year.
It’s a slight shame no titles changed hands, but in the end, this appears to be the UK’s
version of Australia’s Super Showdown event - a pay-per-view house show hybrid.
I thought we were special!
But even with all that, it was a special night for me and all the WrestleTalk crew, having
so many of you wonderful people come watch it live with us.
Clash at the Castle is my show of the year at 96%.
Go watch our live reactions from the Joiner on Worship by watching on…