WWE Clash of Champions 2016 review: Grading every match

Review of WWE Clash of Champions 2016 pay-per-view by handing out grades for every match on the card.

Heading into the WWE Clash of Champions 2016 pay-per-view, the professional wrestling company was in need of a serious effort across the board to boost the Raw brand up. Ever since the WWE Draft back in July, fans have been raving about the Smackdown Live show as the better overall product. That meant in Raw’s first exclusive pay-per-view event it would have to overdeliver.

Among the hyped up match heading into the event were the Universal Championship match featuring Kevin Owens against Seth Rollins. Also, the Cruiserweight division would get its first pay-per-view bout, three of the women would get to compete over their title, and Reigns would finally get a shot at the United States title.

It would seem Raw had a shot at putting on a great show just based on the advertised matches. Unfortunately, the blue brand still seems to reign supreme. Raw’s first-ever event had a few memorable moments but nothing that truly stuck out. In a night where all of the championships were on the line, only one changed hands, and most fans saw it coming. That made this an average show for the Raw brand.

However, there were still some very good matches put on, one of which didn’t even involve a championship. At least three of the bouts had a good number of entertaining spots and intense action throughout.

Here are grades for each of the matches from Sunday night’s pro wrestling extravaganza.

Alicia Fox vs. Nia Jax

The WWE Universe knew exactly what they’d be getting with the Kickoff Show match at this pay-per-view. On the free match ahead of the main card, Nia Jax continued to show her dominant streak. This time, it was Jax taking on an actual member of the women’s division from the Raw roster. Alicia Fox hasn’t been involved in a whole lot of stories lately on Raw, so it made sense she would be the first one fed to Jax.

In this contest, Fox made a valiant effort in her attempt to take down Jax, but just didn’t have enough. She put together some offensive momentum but couldn’t get it done. Ultimately, Jax picked up yet another win, hitting a big leg drop on Fox to get the pinfall win. It wasn’t anything super special or exciting and continued to tell Nia’s story.

There won’t be any major highlights for this particular match as there were no huge spots or surprising feats accomplished. Fans won’t be talking about this one the next day, but then again they usually aren’t discussing pre-show filler. Basically, nothing special was presented here as WWE kept with the storytelling that Jax is just a dominant force in the women’s division.

It should be interesting to see which member of the roster will be the next to have to face Jax. There are already some fans predicting it will be Paige after she finally returns to the roster from her suspension and injury issues.

Grade: D+