The final Pay-per-View for 2017, Smackdown Branded, Clash of Champions. Boston played home to this, as well as the team who ruffled the most feathers in the NFL. Someone needs to write a thesis on what constitutes how to catch a ball in Football nowadays, since this has become ridiculous. Anyway, back to the WWE show and no more NFL talk for now.

Clash Of Champions Kickoff Match: Mojo Rawley vs Zack Ryder

Ryder needs to go back to his original version of Radio, the current remix is lame and Mojo’s new music is…ok, it’s there. The match was fine, Mojo got over his heel gimmick and a lot of power moves. Ryder tried to fight back, had a small glimmer of hope but then Mojo takes his head off. Nothing special and basically what you expect from Kickoff matches.

Rating: * 1/2 (Bronze III)

United States Championship Match: Baron Corbin vs Dolph Ziggler vs Bobby Roode

Roode and Ziggler team up on Corbin early, but then it breaks down rather quickly to a normal triple threat. Nice sequence where Roode hits a big Uranagi on Ziggler but stumbles himself into a Deep Six from Corbin for a near fall. Yet, they decide to follow that up with the over used and predictable Tower of Doom spot. Do they work on commission over in WWE for needing to hit that stupid spot in multi-person matches? Match ends in a clever way, while Corbin was doing the End of Days on Roode, Ziggler hits the ZigZag on Corbin. NEW United States Champion, Dolph Ziggler. Not a bad match, solid opener, and maybe someone listened to his Talk is Jericho interview and decided to give him some legitimacy, if they want him to be the Gatekeeper.

Rating: ** 3/4 (Silver I)

Smackdown Live Tag Team Championship Match: Rusev Day vs New Day vs The Usos vs Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable

The match started off hectic with one man from each team legal at all times, and then quickly slowed to a crawl. A good portion of the match was an “Anything you can do, I can do better”, and saw the teams pair off on who they were beating down. The crowd literally died at this point until they teased quite a few near falls for Rusev Day. But sadly, today was not a celebratory day for the people of Bulgaria, the Usos retain in an alright but overall disappointing match.

Rating: ** (Silver V)

Smackdown Live Women’s Championship Lumberjack Match: Charlotte Flair vs Natalya

That was a match I suppose. Too many outside spots with the heels just ganging up on Charlotte and Naomi didn’t try to back her up until things broke down with all the heels. They teased Carmella cashing, then there was the big moonsault spot that apparently didn’t hit Natalya. But Charlotte counters a Sharpshooter attempt into a Figure 8 fairly randomly. So yay Charlotte wins, but the match was mostly a throw away.

Rating: 3/4 (Bronze V)

Breezango vs The Bludgeon Brothers

It was a squash match with theatrics. Bludgeon Brothers may have killed Tyler Breeze, or maybe he gets an excuse to wear a face shield like Dashing Cody Rhodes did.

Rating: N/A

Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs Randy Orton & Shinsuke Nakamura w/ Shane McMahon & Daniel Bryan as Special Guest Referees

The good thing about this match is during the slower portions, the dynamic between the two referees helped to entertain the scene. Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon try to cooperate until Kevin Owens pushes Daniel into Shane during a near fall. The real fun though was Shane refusing to count to 3 for Sami Zayn and Daniel Bryan enacted his own kind of justice by fast counting a Sami Zayn roll up to make sure Kevin and Sami win and still have jobs. Nice shades of grey being used in this story. Shane is slowly being painted as more of a heel even though he’s widely beloved, but it’s still a good story, alright match, but the story sells it.

Rating: *** 1/4 (Gold IV)

WWE Championship Match: AJ Styles vs Jinder Mahal

Early on we see Jinder trying to work over Styles’ribs by tossing him on top of the top rope and then sending him crashing into an exposed portion of the barricade. The rest of this match was a battle. Jinder worked over the ribs nicely while AJ got in some offense on Jinder’s legs when he could, a bunch of nice power spots, and Jinder even hits his Khallas but, Styles kicks out of it. Jinder attempts a Styles’ Clash for the ultimate rub ins, but AJ counters it into a Calf Crusher and gets the submission victory. AJ makes everyone look good and this cements him as being Top 3 if not, the best in the world.

Rating: **** 1/4 (Platinum IV)

Synopsis:

So Dolph Ziggler gets another US Title run, Natalya tries to play the part that Sting did in WCW before he did the crow gimmick…but her being a heel just made that promo whiny and stupid. The story that builds with Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon is a driving reason to turn on Smackdown this Tuesday. Overall the show was saved by the Main Event and the aforementioned storyline with KO and Sami. It’s not exactly a high note to end the year on, especially when the Women’s match and the squash match kinda made for 25 minutes wasted minutes on a PPV.