After an emotional Continental title match, AEW closed Oct. 17’s WrestleDream PPV with a celebration of pro wrestling devised by the man who would defend his World title in it — Will Ospreay’s Clockwork Carnage.
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The champion had the “bad luck” of drawing the first spot in Carnage’s first, staggered entry stage. Ospreay started with Konosuke Takeshita, who was followed by “Speedball” Mike Bailey, Ricochet, Darby Allin, and Kazuchika Okada. Any pinfall or submission at this point meant elimination,
and it was at this point that Takeshita took out Bailey:
Adam Copeland entered next, and as the crowd sung “Metalingus” the Rated R Superstar locked up with Takeshita. That opened the door for The Alpha’s old nemesis Okada to eliminate him.
Samoa Joe was the last man in, and the point-scoring portion of Clockwork Carnage started with six men. Joe wasted no time getting one with the first pinfall:
The action stayed at a fast pace, as guys worked in pairs or groups of three as in a standard multi-man match. As points racked up, the main event oddly seemed to lose some momentum. It was clear Cope’s lack of points was a story as the clock clicked down, but a comeback seemed unlikely after he put Ricochet through a table with a suicide spear.
The WWE Hall of Famer managed to pick up a pair of points, and seemed poised to grab the World title he started talking about after announcing his retirement plans this past Wednesday. But Ospreay swooped in at the last minute to make sure the belt stayed with him.
Afterwards, Copeland shook Ospreay’s hand. Then he pulled the champ in close to let him know he’s still gunning for him.
Personally, I enjoyed Clockwork Carnage for the most part. I’d call it a good first effort on a concept I’d like to see if they can pull off a better version of. Let us know your thoughts on the match, its outcome, or the Cope/Ospreay match it teased in the comments.
You can get a complete rundown of everything from WrestleDream in our live blog here. Comment along with the show there, too. And if you enjoy that, a faster version of the same conversation with less ads is available in the Game Chat on the new SBNation app!
