WWE Clash at the Castle review: Drew McIntyre comes up short…again

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You can’t say Drew McIntyre didn’t have it coming.

The end of Saturday’s WWE Clash at the Castle saw CM Punk running to the ring wearing a referee t-shirt as McIntyre made a cover, counting to two, stopping, and blatantly interfering in the main event. The distraction led to McIntyre’s downfall, being pinned by Damian Priest quickly after to lose his second consecutive Clash at the Castle match.

It was a good main event, perhaps overshadowed by Priest’s knee injury after accidently wrapping his knee during an attempt to launch off with a dive to the outside. Priest worked the rest of the match anyway and it ended up being good.

Some were upset that McIntyre didn’t win on Saturday. But I am, to take a phrase right out of the WWE textbook, looking at the bigger picture. Much like Cody Rhodes taking two years to win the WWE Championship, McIntyre regaining the title in his home country is a slow build. The rivalry between he and Punk has been building ever since Punk got injured, so it only makes sense the two have their big match on one of the bigger WWE shows of the year. 

Priest defending the title against Gunther doesn’t sound like a big-time World title match at SummerSlam just yet, but they still have weeks of build to get there.

Like normal B-level WWE PLEs, it went by fast and while I don’t think there were any match of the year contenders, everything was good for the most part. Here’s my thoughts on the whole card:

• Cody Rhodes and AJ Styles opened the show with a very good I Quit match. These types of matches in WWE can go either way and, in this case, it worked well. You had good brawling, some blood (!), and Rhodes’ mother berating Styles throughout the match. I think the best part was actually the post-match where Styles quit right as Rhodes was about to attack him with the steel steps. After the bell rang, he hit Styles anyway in a final measure of revenge for what happened a few weeks ago. That was neat. As for what is next, the Bloodline has set Rhodes in their crosshairs, attacking him after the match only for him to be saved by Kevin Owens and Randy Orton. My best guess is a six-man tag at Money in the Bank.
• Sami Zayn retained the Intercontinental title in a good, dramatic match that saw Otis help Maxxine Dupri rather than help Chad Gable, enabling Zayn to hit the helluva kick for the win. The one thing to understand in this match was that people REALLY WANTED Otis to turn on Gable. The wrestling here was great, but the story of the match was strong between Gable and Otis. Based on the finish, we’re likely to see more between these two in the coming weeks.
• The WWE Women’s title match was good with Bayley retaining over Piper Niven. The Chelsea Green spot at the end with her wearing a lucha mask after being ejected was dumb, but there wasn’t anything wrong here…except everyone probably knew the finish beforehand. Next up for the champion? Nia Jax. Good luck with that.
• Isla Dawn & Alba Fyre, in a shock, won the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles. The match was okay and I am glad the two got their big moment in their home country, but this was a team that was hardly on television this year until a few weeks ago and they just lost in two minutes on last week’s Raw. They don’t exactly have the credibility as champions coming out of this and all it really does is make this title feel like it’s being passed around like a game of hot potato. Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair will very likely regain the titles. It’s just a matter of when.

Next up for WWE will be Money in the Bank next month, where we will crown the next two people to hold briefcases for the rest of the year. Qualifying matches begin Monday, so we’ll know quickly who will do crazy spots off a ladder, something that hasn’t been done to death in the year 2024.