Clash at the Castle, Worlds Collide and ALL OUT Review

Last weekend was good for Pro Wrestling (until late Sunday night anyway) so I am going to go over some of the high points from WWE Clash at the Castle, NXT Worlds Collide and AEW ALL OUT. Do not worry I will cover the now infamous ALL OUT-post show media scrum (So over that word) fiasco that took a majority of the headlines afterwards.

WWE Clash at the Castle

For starters it was an absolute fun show having major event in UK (since Summerslam ’92) and the crowd did not disappoint with their energy and interaction from start to finish. Hopefully, they add this to the yearly PPV schedule and just change the locations in the UK (Dublin, London, Liverpool, etc.) each year and also BRING BACK AFTERNOON WRESTLING! Was refreshing to watch a show and still have evening planned if you wanted but now to the highlights from the card itself.

Sheamus vs. GUNTHER: We will start with the banger of the weekend with the IC title match where it was a hard hitting, physical hoss fight that absolutely delivered. Happy to see Imperium is back with the return of Giovanni Vinci hopefully it was not just for the show and crowd, also on the pre-show there was a little thread of hope when Pete Dunne (Butch) wore his old Bruiser weight gear which was hopeful but overall, the match was great and delivered in every way possible.

Matt Riddle vs. Seth Rollins:  The blood feud between Riddle and Rollins was a good match, Rollins in his Rocket man gear was impeciable and Riddle sort of was back to some of his silly form but in the match was hard hitting and intense. Seth Rollins played his mind games that eventually got Matt Riddle caught up which cost him the match leading to a Rollins victory and leads to a blow off match at Extreme Rules.

Dominik Mysterio:  The turn we’ve been waiting for happened as Dominik Mysterio finally took a step out of his father’s shadow as he kick edge in the man region and clotheslined Rey Mysterio while Judgement Day (After another loss) were laughing and cheering as Dominik walked off to chorus of boos, Dominik in Judgement Day happened on Monday and we’ll wait and see whats to come for him in this new group.

Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre:  The main event was absolutely great and felt like a big fight, Drew McIntyre was beloved by that Cardiff crowd the video package before his entrance was awesome especially using the old Broken Dreams song, Roman Reigns was great with being psyched out by the crowd and not being acknowledge was a common theme all match.

This was rollercoaster match for I felt numerous times McIntyre would do the impossible and defeat the Tribal Chief in his home country, until the end after another failed cash in by Austin Theory thanks to Tyson Fury and some shenanigans out came Solo Sikoa younger brother of the Usos pulled the referee out and then distracted McIntyre which lead to victory for Reigns as he retains his championship and a new member of the Bloodline emerges with Solo.

The end of the show was odd with Tyson Fury coming in to pick McIntyre up and sing American Pie for the crowd to at least send the people home happy but overall was good show continuing WWE’s current momentum they have at the moment.

NXT Worlds Collide

Now to Sunday afternoon which began that day of wrestling with NXT Worlds Collide which was short, solid show that ended up being a proper farewell/burial of NXT UK that is closing to be rebranded as NXT Europe, but the show was solid and underrated honestly.

Ricochet vs. Carmelo Hayes: This was the match I had pegged for match of the weekend as Ricochet and Carmelo Hayes opened the show with a simply incredible match. Of course, the match was athletic, and action packed from start to finish and hopefully leads to some sort of trilogy of matches but in the end the A Champ Carmelo Hayes came out victorious to start the show of right.

NXT/NXT UK Women’s Unification Match: This match on paper seemed like a clash of styles but actually ended up decent as Mandy Rose, Blair Davenport and Meiko Satomura had a solid match, which showed how much Mandy Rose has improved in the ring which shockingly led to her winning and unifying the titles clearly stating that her and Toxic Attraction are staying in NXT for the time being.

NXT/NXT UK Championship Unification Match: The main event was spectacular and honestly lost in the weekend sadly, as NXT UK champion Tyler Bate faced NXT champion breakout star Bron Breakker (Steiner) and this was amazing. Bate showed why he is one of the more promising young talents in professional wrestling that hopefully is retained with WWE and gets called up to main roster (Smackdown specifically) but a great match that possibly elevated Breakker to another level which in the end Breakker won and unified the titles saying farewell to the NXT UK brand that went winless for the night but hopefully with NXT Europe they can be revived. Now to the main event show of the weekend AEW ALL OUT.

AEW ALL OUT

Well I ended the day with ALL OUT including the Zero Hour kickoff show which was ok I guess not much to speak on besides the Hook match was his most challenging match against one of the JAS members (Parker) where Hook retain but was jumped post-match until rapper Action Bronson came in and threw the JAS off of him and stood tall expect some sort of tag match at AEW’s Grand Slam show in Queen in a couple of weeks.

Eddie Kingston vs. Tomohiro Ishii was clearly their answer to the Sheamus/GUNTHER match from Saturday and was pretty typical hard hitting Japanese style match that got that crowd going for eventual long night.

The Acclaimed vs. Swerve in our Glory: The AEW tag team title match was great as the crowd was hot for the Acclaimed, so much so that it made Swerve in our Glory turned mid match which is exciting for a potential heel Keith Lee. The match was amazing except for the end result where Swerve in our glory retained but would have been a bigger moment if the Acclaimed won the titles, regardless it was a great match for the weekend and tag team match of the year candidate potentially.

CM Punk vs. Jon Moxley: The Main event was another big fight feel match as champion Jon Moxley entered enemy territory to defend his AEW title against the hometown CM Punk. The crowd was into it and surprisingly mixed with “Let’s go Moxley” “Let’s go Punk” dueling chants, the match was good with a bit of surprise close finish to start the match but the end had the hometown Punk coming out victorious but the post-match stuff was and should have been the talked about as the return of MJF happened.

MJF Returns: The highlight and anticipation of the evening was the possible return of Maxwell Jacob Friedman! Which for those with keen eyes knew that the joker in the casino royale ladder match was MJF with some help Stokely Hathaway and his group that won the match and handed the chip that represents a future title shot anytime he wants.

But following the Punk/Moxley match the lights out and a voicemail plays of Tony Khan negotiating with MJF to return to ALL OUT after being on hiatus for the past few months which lead to a clip of a old ROH CM Punk promo referring to devil making people think he didn’t exist which lead to a dark room where the man in the devil mask from earlier removes the mask and puts on his famous Burberry scarf  then the music hit and crowd exploded as the devil returned and sent a message to Punk saying he’s coming for the AEW title.

But overall, those were the high points, exciting parts of the Labor Day weekend of pro wrestling which hopefully becomes a tradition to end the summer for pro wrestling fans, again do not worry there will be a piece coming about the explosive media scrum that followed ALL OUT and its fallout so stay tuned!