After months of taunting, sending threatening tweets, and dueling over social media, the time has finally arrived. Stephen Amell, the star of The CW’s hit show Arrow, got in a WWE ring tonight for a match with his arch rival Stardust, as part of a tag team match on WWE’s mid-summer spectacular, SummerSlam. This all started when Amell, a known wrestling geek who regularly exchanges WWE title belts in his fantasy football league, attended an episode of Monday Night Raw back in May. When Stardust (Cody Rhodes, son of the late-great Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes) got in his face, the feud was on. The two have been battling over social media ever since, and Stardust has been making cryptic comments on WWE programming about needing a “hero”. A few weeks ago, Amell had a front row seat again on Raw. After high flying wrestler Neville defeated King Wade Barrett, Stardust attacked, and got in the face of Amell, who charged the ring for a brawl, and later issued the challenge. Tonight… was the match!
Check out the coverage and the tweets (including video) below.
As per usual, the WWE intros its ppv matches with video packages. For this match it was comic book themed with panel graphics setting up the “Battle in Brooklyn,” as SummerSlam emanates from the Barclays Center. Pro-wrestling has long including celebrities in the ring. Wrestlemania debuted with Mr. T in the main event. Even Presidential hopeful Donald Trump feuded with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Few celebrities though have the physical prowess of Stephen Amell, who did not look out of place amongst WWE superstars. He got involved right away springboarding in off the top rope like his TV alter ego. He hit a number of quick moves and yes, took quite a beating. After several minutes of surviving strikes and suplexes, he hit a leaping kick to Stardust’s head, and made the “hot tag” to Neville. Amell then upped the cool factor by ascending the top rope for a dive onto Stardust, allowing Neville to finish Barrett with his aptly-named finisher, the Red Arrow.
The Battle of Brooklyn was won by the superheroes. The Red and Green Arrows were victorious. Stardust lived to fight another day and perhaps there will be a sequel. The announcers got into the celebrity nature of the match relating to Jerry “the King” Lawler about his infamous feud with comedian Andy Kaufman. When Amell and Neville scored the win, announcer JBL said “Stardust has failed this city”; a riff on Amell’s most popular line from Arrow. For those who think wrestling is totally fake, Amell posted to Twitter showing off a fairly serious looking bruise with the comment “worth it.” WWE’s SummerSlam is available on WWE Network, their monthly subscription service for $9.99 a month, as well as on replay pay per-view.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment