WWE News: Chad Gable advances to King of the Ring Finals at Clash of Champions

After RAW's semifinals made history with a triple threat determining a winner, SmackDown was not to be outdone. It was announced earlier on Tuesday that Elias could not compete in his semifinals match with Chad Gable due to injury, so a replacement needed to be named.

Shane McMahon made his return to SmackDown and informed Gable of the shift in his semifinals match. He agreed that he would let Gable know who his new opponent would be once a new opponent was found. With McMahon involved, those who are hip to his tricks should have expected exactly what happened as the Best in the World chose himself to replace Elias.

That wasn't the only wrinkle thrown into the match, however, as McMahon basically forced Kevin Owens to be the special guest referee for the match. If Owens wanted his $100,000 fine rescinded, he had to play McMahon's dirty game.

With the deck stacked against him, it appeared that Gable's storybook run through the King of the Ring Tournament would be coming to an end at the hands of Shane McMahon. Before the match could really pick up any steam, however, Gable picked up a quick three-count on Shane-O-Mac in order to advance.

Just as he has done before, however, McMahon used his position of power in order to restart the match as a 2-out-of-3 Falls match. Owens reluctantly tried to slowly count when Gable pinned Shane, but it clearly bothered both Gable and Owens.

Even though McMahon tried everything in his book in order to pick up another cheap win in the WWE this year, Gable advanced to the finalsat Clash of Champions by tapping Shane out with an Angle lock. It made all of the insults and jokes about his height meaningless as Gable proved all of the doubters wrong with one win.

What started out as a strange year with a brief move to 205 Live has turned into the biggest opportunity in Gable's WWE career. Long thought of as nothing more than a tag team specialist, Gable has routinely proven that he is one of the best in-ring workers on the roster.

About the author

Matt Serocki is a sports journalist from outside of Boston, Massachusetts who has written about sports for a local newspaper, the MetroWest Daily News.

Matt has written about professional wrestling for the past year but has been writing lyrics, short stories and novels in his spare time. He writes around 30-50 articles per month.

During his time on writing for Sportskeeda, Matt has written about a variety of topics including the history of the business as well as about the current stars and product. He follows numerous promotions like the WWE, AEW, ROH, MLW, NJPW, Championship Wrestling from Hollywood and WOW.

Studied Communications with a focus on writing at Framingham State University from 2000-2004.

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