Wrestling for dummies: A review of WWE RAW’s Clash of Champions
“Wrestling is dumb, but I love it.”
By Colin Macgillivray, Contributor
I’ll be the first to admit it; Professional wrestling is ridiculous. The idea of big, sweaty men hitting each other with maneuvers such as “The Attitude Adjustment,” or the infamous “People’s Elbow” sounds ludicrous to most. But to me, it’s absolutely magical.
For those who don’t know, WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment, and that’s exactly what it is: entertainment at it’s finest. It’s a guilty pleasure, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s the same reason why my mom can’t get enough of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
Even though it is scripted, watching a WWE pay-per-view is an absolutely invigorating experience. Clash of Champions, WWE’s first RAW-Brand PPV is a perfect example of why WWE is so incredibly entertaining. So, bear with me folks, as I try and review and explain a professional wrestling event for people who may have never seen a wrestling match in their lives.
First off, we have the Tag Team Championships, which is where big sweaty men team up with one another to fight other teams of big sweaty men. The current champions are known as The New Day, and they are silly. They love to gyrate their hips, wear unicorn horns on their heads, play trombones, and promote their cereal called “Booty-O’s.” The New Day defeated the evil, dastardly, team of bald men, known as The Club, after hitting one of them over the head with a trombone. Wrestling is dumb, I know.
Next up on our super fun list is the Cruiserweight Championship. In WWE, cruiserweight means you are under 205 pounds, so in their mind, you are a small sweaty man instead of a big one. These guys are known for their flippy maneuvers and highflying acrobatics.
It is actually incredible what some of these guys can do, and they really show how athletic professional wrestlers are. The champion of the “small, sweaty men” category is T.J Perkins, a Taylor Lautner look-alike who loves to dab and wear Air Jordans, because WWE is hip with the kids. T.J Perkins retained his championship by beating The Brian Kendrick, a man who insists on having “The” in front of his name, and for that, I guess he deserves to lose.
Moving on, we have the WWE Women’s Championship, where Charlotte reigns supreme. She is the real life daughter of the limousine riding, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’ n’ dealin’, son of a gun, Ric Flair, one of the greatest wrestlers to ever live. She’s the champion because she is “genetically superior” to all the other women due to her lineage. Charlotte also retained her title against Sasha Banks, who is Snoop Dogg’s cousin, and Bayley, who really likes to hug people. I think the best woman won.
The penultimate championship on our list is the United States Championship. Here’s the kicker, folks: the United States champion is not American! The champ’s name is Rusev, also known as the Bulgarian Brute. Rusev enrages the American populace by saying that the U.S title is beneath him, and that America sucks. This usually elicits “USA!” chants from the crowd and some not so PG language directed at Rusev, because in America, foreigners are always the bad guys. Long story short, a big Samoan man named Roman Reigns beat Rusev for the title, and the crowd went nuts.
Before we get to our final title and the main event, there were some other matches on the card that were not for championships. In one of them, I saw a large, milk-skinned Irishman named Seamus, and a yodelling, Swiss superman named Cesaro beat each other to a pulp. Wrestling may be scripted, but these two guys put their bodies through hell to entertain, something all professional wrestlers do, day in and day out.
In the other match, I watched good ol’ Canadian boy (as Don Cherry might say) Sami Zayn face his idol, the 45 year old wrestling legend from Winnipeg, Chris Jericho, in a great match. Jericho won the match, but a rematch down the road will definitely lead to a heart-warming passing of the torch moment between the two.
The final match, and our main event, was for the WWE Universal Championship. Not just the World Championship, but the Universal Championship, because WWE transcends our human world and stretches to the outer reaches of the Universe. This slobber knocker of a match between the champion, Kevin Owens, and the pesky challenger, Seth Rollins, was incredibly entertaining. It had everything a wrestling fan loves. It had a guy getting thrown through a table. It had crotch-chops. It had men yelling, “Suck it!” at each other. It was good old-fashioned family fun.
In the end, Kevin Owens managed to squeak out a win thanks to interference from his best friend, the aforementioned wrestling legend, Chris Jericho. The show ended as BFF’s Kevin and Chris embraced, and if you can’t get behind friendship, I don’t think wrestling is for you.
As a wrestling fanatic, I could have dissected each match using insider terms and wrestler lingo, but at the end of the day, what I truly judge a wrestling event on is its ability to entertain, and Clash of Champions managed to do that in some completely ridiculous ways.
