WWE Clash in Paris has come and gone, so now what? Now we alternately gush and complain about it, that's what!
The final WWE PLE on Peacock delivered a mostly predictable but mostly enjoyable card. In addition to wrapping up its deal with the streaming platform, Clash in Paris was also the final WWE appearance of John Cena on the continent of Europe.
Three titles were on the line, with Nikki Bella challenging Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch, the Street Profits taking on SmackDown tag team champions the Wyatt Sicks, and LA Knight,Jey Uso, and CM Punk seeking to wrest the World Heavyweight Championship away from Seth Rollins.
In non-title action, LoganPaul sought to get a W off the GOAT, John Cena, who aimed to teach the cocky young star a lesson or two. Recently returned Rusev went to war with Sheamus in a Gool Ol' Fashioned Donnybrook. Plus members of the original Bloodline continued to tangle with the Vision, as Roman Reigns took on Bronson Reed.
If you're unspoiled and just want to know what happened and who won, maybe check out our WWE Clash in Paris results thread instead. If you know what's up and want to know what we thought, keep scrolling, because these are the three things we hated and three things we loved about WWE Clash in Paris.
Sometimes, ideas are better in theory than they are in execution. Everything that happened between Roman Reigns, Bronson Reed, and Bron Breakker was living proof of just that.
I think it's more than fair to say that there's definitely a lot to unpack with the match and what came afterwards between Reigns and Reed. Given that he's one of the biggest stars in WWE right now, it's no surprise at all that Reigns had a lot of time on Clash In Paris and his match against Reed had a significant amount of time allotted. While that normally wouldn't be too much of an issue, this was one example where giving a match a significant amount of time actually hurt it more than anything else.
Keeping the amount of time that everything received in mind, the ending of the match itself between Reigns and Reed felt incredibly underwhelming compared to everyone else. WWE has kept Reed looking very strong on "Raw" the past few weeks and continued to do so tonight by having him get in most of the offense during this match, and yet, he still ended up taking the loss with just a Samoan Drop off the middle rope followed by a spear from Reigns. It should've taken Reigns a lot more to put Reed away and didn't exactly fit in with the tone of the rest of the match. Moreover, if the point of all of this was to write Reigns off of television so he could film a project, then there was no reason to not have Reed go over him in the first place. It would've kept Reed looking much stronger, and negated the need for there to even be a 15-20 minute long post match angle that just dragged on and on and on.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
If you've been following along with our opinion pieces over the last few weeks, you'll know I've been in the camp of haters for John Cena's match against Logan Paul, mainly because it felt like a waste of one of Cena's final appearances. I started to come around to it after Paul had been bringing out a more old school Cena character in his promos, especially on Friday's episode of "SmackDown," and today's match surprised me even further. Cena had a good match, his best in years, against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam, and this match against "The Maverick" was also up there, possibly even better.
After how much I disliked the opening of tonight's show, I tried to open my mind a little bit more in hopes of actually enjoying something. And, surprisingly, that was this match, especially when things amped up toward the end. Cena started hitting moves on Paul that I don't think I've ever seen him hit before. Paul got a few interesting moves in there, too, like an uppercut a la Claudio Castagnoli, though commentary of course gave the props to Cesaro. I actually thought that one worked really well for him and he should keep it in his arsenal.
Cena hit a Styles Clash, hopefully alluding to the fact Styles will be one of his last opponents here on the retirement tour. He even hit an Angel's Wings, a Christopher Daniels' move. "The Never Seen 17" is showing up to these last few matches of his career in ways he hasn't for years and as someone who has loved Cena from his "Ruthless Aggression" beginnings, this retirement tour is finally starting to be fun for me.
I even loved the fact Cena no-sold Paul's Titanium Punch or whatever commentary calls it. Paul hit him, though it didn't look like it connected too well, then Cena got him right up on his shoulders for the Attitude Adjustment. It was Super Cena-ish in the best way, and I'm glad Iactually had fun with this one tonight.
Written byDaisy Ruth
Am I crazy or did the Street Profits used to be good?
The display from both the Street Profits and rhe Wyatt Sicks at Clash In Paris was an incompetent trainwreck on a fundamental level, with the wrestlers rushing through moves, barely connecting with each other or the fans, and just generally bringing nothing to a show where they took up a whole 1/6th of the card. If WWE PLEs are going to have so few matches, then these sub-Main Event TV matches should be on just that, TV.
The Wyatt Sicks seems to be very good therapy for a group of people who knew Bray Wyatt, but as an act in WWE, they are just nothing. I can't explain it. They appear, have their match, and then just vaporize. There is no imprint left on the show, other than 13 minutes that I can't really account for. It kinda felt how alien abduction survivors explain their abductions. There was lights and fog, and an odd unsettling feeling, and then I was just back on my couch. Except that at least alien encounters seem to change people. The match was a serviceable ad for the Wyatt Sicks haunted house at Universal Studios, but as a PLE WWE Tag Team Title match, it left me desperately wanting more. The fact that their opponents were one of the better tag teams of the last decade, and yet they weren't able to even manage a spark of anything "great" or even "good." It just "was."
Written by Ross Berman IV
Sheamus and Rusev gave themselves the single-hardest build that two wrestlers can give each other: "We've had a lot of great matches, and our next one will be just as good, if not better." It's a promise that sets performers up for failure.
Luckily, the Bulgaran and the Dubliner brought a bunch of props like whiskey barrels, wooden bars, shillelaghs, pictures of Sheamus in drag, and other staples of a true, blue Public House. The Donnybrook match was, to butcher a quote from the bard, the kind of "violent delights"one expects from Sheamus and Rusev. Despite the fact that both men are older than they've ever been, their ability to punch, kick, and throw each other with reckless abandon is timeless.
It really is as simple as promising to deliver a banger and delivering a banger. It's important for someone like Sheamus, who has been lingering around the company for nearly 20 years, and it was doubly as important for Rusev, who needed to remind WWE fans that he's still the vicious killer that made his name back in the 2010s.
Sheamus and Rusev put each other through tables, bars, and other forms of punishment. It was a gleefully unhinged 15-minute celebration of Sheamus and Rusev's willingness to, quite simply, hurt each other. None of the offense was pretty; all of it looked like it hurt, and it was a much-needed boost of adrenaline after the sleepy matches that preceded it. WWE PLEs are slow affairs in 2025, which makes it a necessity for matches like the Donnybrook to show out the way Rusev and Sheamus did.
Written by Max Everett
The pacing of this afternoon's show felt a little strange, probably because it was a Sunday afternoon during a holiday weekend, but the most egregious offense was the opening match, in which Roman Reigns defeated Bronson Reed, and the post-match angle going almost an hour. Of course, we had to start off with an entire video package recapping events that got us here to Clash in Paris, then Reed's and Reigns' entrances took forever. Both of those things were to be expected, but the post-match angle just took forever.
I realize WWE wanted to write Reigns off before he goes to film "Street Fighter" and they wanted the Vision's Bronson Reed and Bron Breakker to look strong, but they could have sped it up enough to add another match to the card. The fact this took so long when there was only one women's match on the PLE just seemed so unnecessary, though it likely felt worse due to the gaping hole that was the lack of a Women's World Championship match after poor Stephanie Vaquer won her opportunity to challenge for the title at Clash in Paris way back at Evolution in July. That was the entire point of the battle royal she won at that show.
Iexpressed my opinion after "WWE Raw" on Monday about on how ridiculous it was that WWE didn't figure anything out for the vacated championship, but after today, I feel like it needs reiterated. Things on the show, especially the opening match, and even the JohnCena and Logan Paul bout (even though I did really enjoy that) could have been tightened up to fit in another women's match. Getting Rhea Ripley on the card against someone to determine Vaquer's opponent for the title match would have been an excellent idea. It would have gotten Ripley on the card in front of a hot crowd, and it would have solved the problem of who Vaquer is facing.
Thankfully, the Women's Intercontinental Championship match pitting Becky Lynch against WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Bella got some time, and it was by no means a bad match. It just would have been nice to see some more women on this show, especially when you have a title sitting vacant. Because, of course Ihave to say it, WWE would never let this happen with either of the major men's titles. Hopefully Adam Pearce's big reveal for Vaquer and the match tomorrow on "Raw" is worth the wait, because it certainly didn't feel like it today.
Written by Daisy Ruth
Seth Rollins' World Heavyweight Championship reign is no doubt its safest when "The Visionary" is backed by the Vision Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, and Paul Heyman and as such, much had been made out of the fact he would be without them heading into the main event; Reed, beaten by Roman Reigns earlier in the night, and Breakker worked together to incapacitate the "OTC" after he had himself incapacitated Heyman, prompting them to be ejected from the venue.
That further stacked the odds against Rollins, who was already facing three challengers in the form of LA Knight, Jey Uso, and his arch-rival CM Punk though if we are being honest, it was unlikely he was going to drop the title so soon after stealing it from Punk. So the stage was set for Rollins to come close to losing his title, and it was yet to be seen what they would do to keep the belt on him. Would he somehow fight against the insurmountable odds? No, that's a babyface move. What he did instead was what you would expect from a man called the "The Architect": making the obvious into a surprise and bringing his wife Becky Lynch into the mix.
At the end of the action that saw table spots and steel chairs aplenty, Rollins had everyone beat with stomp after stomp after stomp, almost letting his obsessive hubris cost him as he sought to end Punk's career and snap his head in a steel chair. Punk let Rollins snap his own leg into the chair, hoisting him up for the GTS, and was mere seconds away from winning his title back. But Lynch appeared, masked and incognito, to deliver a shot below the belt and hand her husband the title retention. When Lynch and Rollins first teamed up it didn't really come off well because both were babyfaces and it felt forced; this time around it just makes sense. Both are in their villain arcs, both rely on contorting the rules beyond perception to keep the gold they stole in the first place. This time, it feels like the right choice. And it just adds another layer to the ongoing Rollins and Punk saga, and a reason for a certain former WWE women's veteran to return to the fold and help herhusband. Nothing wrong with that.
Written by Max Everett
