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Greg Wyshynski
Multiple Authors
As a service to fans who have a general interest in WWE but might not have watched a match since Backlash, we’re happy to provide this FAQ as a guide to Clash In Italy on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, streaming exclusively in the U.S. for fans with a subscription to the ESPN Unlimited plan.
Oba Femi appears to be wrestling Brock Lesnar, but that can’t be accurate because Brock Lesnar retired at WrestleMania, right?
That is correct: Brock Lesnar is retired from WWE. Please recall back to WrestleMania 42 in April, when Femi destroyed Lesnar in their highly anticipated yet incredibly brief match. Lesnar responded by leaving his boots and gloves in the middle of the ring and appeared to make an “X” with his arms to indicate the moment was real. Paul Heyman has confirmed Lesnar is retired. “Raw” general manager Adam Pearce filed the paperwork. He’s retired!
It is also correct that the retired Brock Lesnar will have a rematch against Femi at Clash in Italy. Lesnar shocked fans on last Monday’s “Raw” by answering Oba’s open challenge and delivering a series of F5’s to “The Ruler.” Why was he back? According to Lesnar, he couldn’t stomach the last moment of his career being an “ass-kicking” at the hands of Femi.
We have so many questions. Does Lesnar use the gloves and boots he symbolically left in the ring at WrestleMania, or are they in museum storage? Will the hottest wrestler in WWE — just listen to those crowds chant “Oba!” — give Lesnar his heat back with a loss in Italy? Does Lesnar stick around until August for SummerSlam in Minnesota where he attended college, as many have predicted? Is a retired guy still working despite being retired a bleak symptom of late-stage capitalism?
Mostly, this unexpected rematch gives Femi a formidable opponent, given the limited actual threats to him currently on the WWE roster, a list that includes Gunther and … well, Gunther.
Who knows? Maybe Femi vs. Gunther ends up being for a world title.
Why is Cody Rhodes putting his WWE Championship on the line against Gunther?
All roads lead back to Heyman, Rhodes’ forever adversary. He’s the Bobby “The Brain” Heenan to Cody’s Hulk Hogan. Or the Billy Butcher to Cody’s Homelander. Choose your reference.
Gunther usually wrestles on “Raw,” so there was a real “WHAT’S GUNTHER DOING IN THE ‘SMACKDOWN’ ZONE?!” moment a few weeks ago when he popped up on the “blue brand” and put down Rhodes with a sleeper. Heyman paid off a long-owed favor — remember when Gunther saved Heyman from an attack by Seth Rollins in March? — by getting Gunther a “SmackDown” contract as well as one to wrestle Rhodes for the title at Clash in Italy.
(When Heyman told the crowd the match would take place in Turin, Italy, the fans started chanting “U-S-A!” in a delightfully Pavlovian moment.)
Gunther refused to sign either contract until Rhodes said “please” and really meant it, which apparently is “acknowledge me” in Austrian. This led to a humorous side quest for Gunther when Royce Keys (née Powerhouse Hobbs) suddenly nudged him aside to say he’d sign the contract if Gunther didn’t … which was enough to get Gunther to really want to sign that contract. Gunther defeated Keys in a match on “SmackDown” to cement the title shot against Rhodes at Clash.
Gunther and Rhodes have wrestled once before in a singles match — at Crown Jewel in November 2024. Rhodes was the undisputed champion. Gunther was the heavyweight champion. Rhodes won the 4.25-star match, per Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, and with it the prestigious Crown Jewel Championship.
While this match is for the Undisputed WWE Championship, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship will also be on the line at Clash in Italy, thanks to the two most earth-shattering words one can utter to a member of the Anoaʻi or Fatu family: “Tribal Combat.”
Could Roman Reigns leave Italy as the deposed Tribal Chief?
If Jacob Fatu has his way, he’ll be the one wearing the title around his waist and the Ula Fala around his neck after smartly evoking Samoan tradition to earn a rematch against Reigns.
Fatu lost to Reigns at Backlash in Tampa earlier this month and wasn’t all that happy about it, assaulting Reigns after the match. His sore loser-dom went on for weeks, with attacks on Reigns, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, Solo Sikoa, Talla Tonga and various WWE officials. Things got so bad that Pearce was going to fire Fatu, but Reigns had another idea: Fatu’s job could be saved if he came to the ring and acknowledged the OTC in an informal “acknowledgement ceremony” on “Raw.” Not sure how human resources signed off on that, but whatever.
To the surprise of no one, Fatu opted instead to assault The Usos and Reigns again. But before he could be wished good luck in his future endeavors, Fatu played the final card he held: He challenged Reigns to a Tribal Combat match for the Head of the Table and his world championship. Reigns had no choice but to accept it, per tribal bylaws.
What is Tribal Combat again?
When WWE introduced the concept in 2023, we had visions of Roman Reigns throwing his opponent down a waterfall like when T’Challa fought Killmonger in “Black Panther.” But the functionality of the match is much more like your [Insert Geographic Signifier] Street Fight match, with no count-outs or disqualifications. One can only win by pinfall or submission.
This is the third Tribal Combat match, all of them involving Reigns. He defeated Jey Uso at SummerSlam 2023 to retain his Tribal Chiefdom then took the Ula Fala back from Solo Sikoa in the premiere episode of “Raw” on Netflix last January. Therein lies the difference between this match and your garden variety no DQ/no count-out brawl: It’s the only way Roman Reigns can appear vulnerable.
He can lose world titles and win them back. He can lose grudge matches and earn a win on the next PLE. But to lose Tribal Combat is to lose his status, his kingdom, his everything. It’s going from Head of the Table to the guy changing the trash can liners next to the table, should the new Chief decide that’s his role.
Of course, it works the other way too, as Reigns spelled out in the final mic battle between the two before Clash in Italy. If Reigns wins, Fatu must serve him.
Reigns: “Jacob, if you beat me, then you become the Head of the Table. You become the shot caller. You lead and I follow. But if you can’t dog-walk me, then it looks like I’m going to be walking you like a dog. I’m going to domesticate you. If you can’t beat me, you will serve me. And you will learn from me. And in time, Jacob, you will love your tribal chief.”
Fatu: “OK, yeah. Well, it looks like a win for me then. If you do dog-walk my ass, it looks like I still got a job here. Ain’t nothing gonna change.”
OK, so, “I’m good either way” isn’t exactly the strongest closing argument for a grudge match, but this should still be a fun one.
Are there other big rematches at Clash in Italy?
One might not expect Clash in Italy to have more WrestleMania rematches (two) than the post-Mania PLE literally called Backlash (one), but here we are.
Rhea Ripley won the WWE Women’s Championship from Jade Cargill at WrestleMania and will give her the traditional rematch here. Ripley almost lost that match due to interference from Cargill’s minions, Michin and B-Fab. Ripley needed her tag team partner, Iyo Sky to take them out to win. This time, Ripley is bringing twice the backup, as Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss have aligned themselves with her. The trio tag-teamed against Cargill, Michin and B-Fab at “Saturday Night’s Main Event” earlier this month, with Cargill scoring the pin on Ripley after breaking up their team’s lovefest in the middle of the ring.
You can’t spell “fragile alliance” without “Charlotte Flair,” and this is yet another example. Please recall the run-up to Survivor Series last year, when Flair initially pulled out from “Team Rhea” due to her bad blood with Ripley, calling her “a snake,” which is harsh. She eventually joined Ripley’s WarGames team for the victory, but there’s still a lot of history between these two champions. Can Flair really be trusted to get Ripley’s back … or does she have some slithering of her own to do?
Speaking of champions, what is Women’s Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch up to in Italy?
Becks is wrestling Sol Ruca. If you haven’t been following WWE lately, your next question is probably, “What’s a Sol Ruca?”
Ruca was a rising star in NXT who started to appear more on the main roster this year, including a spot in the final three in the women’s Royal Rumble. Before her wrestling career, she competed in aerobatics and tumbling at the University of Oregon. That athleticism is on full display in her finishing move, “Sol Snatcher,” which is equal parts awesome and ridiculous. It’s a reverse 360-degree flip off the ropes into a cutter that requires her opponent to stand there as if hit by a tranquillizer dart but ultimately looks spectacular when executed correctly.
She hit a Sol Snatcher on Lynch during Ruca’s “Raw” contract signing. The impetus of this feud had Ruca claiming she put the locker room on notice with her strong efforts against Liv Morgan and Iyo Sky, only to have Lynch say she never got the memo.
It’s the old “to be the man you’ve gotta beat ‘The Man'” bit, and Lynch’s heel character continues to make her a delightfully loathsome foil for an up-and-coming star such as Ruca. Like during their “Saturday Night’s Main Event” match, a precursor to their title showdown in Italy, when Lynch dragged referee Jessika Carr into the Sol Snatcher to give Ruca the DQ win. This should be a good one.
This is the first WWE PLE ever held in Italy. Will they find amore with this card?
Certo. There’s a good mix of established feuds and fresh matches, as well as established stars and fresh faces. For the rest of the WWE universe, there are some ongoing storylines that don’t appear on the Clash in Italy card — like Rollins’s continuing feud with The Vision and whatever CM Punk will be up to when he returns from his post-WrestleMania hiatus. Those will likely be featured prominently at Night of Champions or SummerSlam.
