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The final WWE pay-per-view of 2017 is almost upon us. On 17 December, every SmackDown Live title will be on the line when the blue brand closes off the year with the Clash of Champions event in Boston, Massachusetts.
All four title matches for the event have been confirmed: WWE champion AJ Styles will defend against Jinder Mahal, United States champion Baron Corbin will face Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler, The Usos will defend their Tag Team gold in a Fatal-4-Way match, and Women’s champion Charlotte Flair will take on Natalya.
Another featured match on the card will see Shane McMahon act as special guest referee when Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura take on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, whose careers in WWE will be over if they lose.
With that stipulation in mind, plus the announcement that lumberjacks will surround the ring for the Women’s Championship match, we take a look at potential stipulations that can be added to the rest of the card.
#1 Dolph Ziggler loses future title opportunities
If you look at the wrestling world outside of WWE, you’ll see every so often that a championship match will carry the stipulation that the challenger will never be allowed to have a future title opportunity again if he or she is defeated.
Of course, that doesn’t count for much – they can always win another match to reverse the stipulation, as is the way with wrestling storylines – but it still adds an extra layer of intrigue heading into the title match.
WWE hasn’t used this stipulation much over the years, but if ever there was a time to do it, it’s during the United States title match between Baron Corbin, Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler at Clash of Champions.
Ziggler has become a high-profile serial loser over the last 12 months and, going by his recent storylines, the assumption is that he’s only been added to the match so he can take the pinfall loss from either Corbin or Roode.
To up the stakes and lessen the predictability, it would be nice if WWE stipulated that “The Show-Off” will never be allowed to challenge for a title again if he is pinned in the match. He could still lose and have title matches in the future, but only if Corbin or Roode get pinned or made to submit.
#2 AJ Styles vs. Jinder Mahal becomes a Street Fight
As phenomenal as AJ Styles is, the lack of hype surrounding his first pay-per-view defence of his new WWE Championship is anything but phenomenal.
It was advertised at Survivor Series in November that Jinder Mahal would invoke his rematch clause against “The Champ That Runs The Camp” on the 21 November episode of SmackDown Live – but that never happened.
Instead, plans changed and WWE decided to schedule the rematch for Clash of Champions, where Jinder is expected to lose to Styles again before inevitably falling back down the SmackDown card.
WWE needs to do something to make this rematch feel more exciting. A plain singles match for the title doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as a Street Fight, which is what these two were originally supposed to have when Styles defeated Jinder for the title in Manchester, England on 7 November.
Of course, a Street Fight means it would also be a No Disqualification match, opening up the possibility of the Singh Brothers (or, better still, The Great Khali!) returning to either help or hinder Jinder’s chances of winning.
#3 Add an elimination stipulation to the Tag Team match
Tag Team title pay-per-view matches in 2017 have stolen the show more times than any year in recent memory – and Clash of Champions is all set up for the eight men involved to do just that again.
The Usos will defend their titles against The New Day, Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin and Rusev & Aiden English in a Fatal-4-Way match where someone from all four teams will be in the ring at the same time.
When WWE has a Fatal-4-Way match involving four teams, you usually see two men in the ring, tagging various different opponents or partners in and out of the match, while the other six competitors stand on the apron and wait for their turn.
Credit to WWE for freshening up the rules of the match, but wouldn’t it be even better if they added an extra stipulation to make it an elimination contest? It’s something that we don't often see, at least with four people in the ring at once with tag partners on the apron, and it would make the match feel dramatic from start to finish.
Whatever happens, WWE has done a great job building this storyline and it’ll be a surprise if anything other than this four-team battle wins Match of the Night at Clash of Champions.
