It’s MLB playoff season, so its the perfect time for a baseball metaphor.
Over the weekend AEW took a big swing with it’s Clockwork Carnage match announcement for WrestleDream. Get it? Swing, bat? You’re welcome.
Clockwork Carnage is a new match type that will presumably serve as the main event of the AEW WrestleDream PPV on October 17 and the AEW Men’s World Championship will be on the line. Now, take a seat because I’m about to answer your question, but the answer is complicated.
What the hell is Clockwork Carnage?
Eight wrestlers, two stages, one winner
This is exactly how AEW described the match on it’s social media channels following the announcement over the weekend.
“Eight wrestlers. Two stages. One Winner. Two wrestlers start the match and are selected at random. Every three minutes, another randomly selected wrestler enters the match. This happens until all eight wrestlers have entered. During this stage of the match, any competitor that is pinned or submitted is eliminated from the match. Once the final wrestler enters, the second stage of the match begins. Stage two is comprised of all remaining wrestlers from stage one. They begin a 15-minute scoring period. During the 15 minutes, every pinfall or submission scores one fall. When the time expires, the wrestler with the most falls wins.”
Goodness. Take a minute to reread that, but think battle royal meets iron man match meets WarGames.
Hell yeah. This rules.
There is no earthly way to predict whether or not this will be a success. None. The spectrum of outcomes is enormous. This thing has the potential to be Royal Rumble levels of great and Kennel From Hell levels of bad. We’ll find out on October 17.
The thing is, the success of Clockwork Carnage isn’t rooted in the outcome. The success is in the swing. The success is in trying something new.