Arrow star Stephen Amell has made no secret of his wrestling fandom and his desire to appear on WWE’s Monday Night RAW. Last night, Amell got his wish as his feud with Stardust escalated into a tag team match at WWE’s SummerSlam.
Stardust confronted Amell several weeks ago when he was in the stands at a RAW taping, and they sniped at each other through their respective twitter accounts. On last night’s episode, Stardust attacked Neville after his match with King Barrett. Stardust then instigated another confrontation with Amell which erupted into a brawl.
Afterwards, Amell and Neville convinced WWE’s Triple H to book a tag team match between Amell and Neville vs. Stardust and King Barrett for SummerSlam.
Yes, naysayers. Wrestling is scripted and this was all planned in advance. That’s actually the main reason that Amell will appear in the tag match and not a singles match. Amell is not a trained wrestler and he doesn’t have the experience to carry the storyline and performance of the match by himself. Surrounding Amell with three experienced wrestlers helps ensure that the burden isn’t entirely on him and it will also help WWE protect Amell from any serious injuries.
WWE and wrestling in general have a long history of throwing celebrities into matches. WWE did it with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Rowdy Piper and Paul Orndorff at the very first WrestleMania. WCW infamously put Jay Leno, Karl Malone, and Dennis Rodman into wrestling matches…and they even made David Arquette the WCW World Champion as part of an angle designed to generate press.
We’ll soon see how Amell fares in his in-ring debut. SummerSlam will take place on Sunday, August 23.
