WWE Raw 1/21/13: Beat the Clock Challenge - Wade Barrett vs Sheamus

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With 10:56 as the time to beat, Wade Barrett and Sheamus squared off in a hard-hitting yet ultimately unsuccessful effort to Beat the Clock and claim the entry spot of their choosing in the 2013 Royal Rumble Match. The shortcoming was through no fault of their own, though, as the brawling Europeans were in the middle of a mighty bout when Dolph Ziggler, AJ Lee and Big E Langston stormed the ring and interfered in the contest to keep The Showoff’s mark alive.

The contest was expectedly gritty for two Superstars whose backgrounds lie not in technical mastery but in knock-down grit, as Barrett and Sheamus traded blunt kicks and punches to kick things off. The Englishman had the match firmly in had at the five-minute mark, clobbering Sheamus with a kick to the gut that left The Celtic Warrior in a heap on the canvas. A pair of superkicks to Sheamus later and Barrett seemed the foregone winner, but Sheamus powered out of Wasteland and hit White Noise, flattening Barrett and setting him up for the Brogue Kick.

At that exact moment, AJ and Langston stormed the ring, distracting both men (though not laying a hand on either) and bleeding the clock down enough for Barrett to execute the Winds of Change on a preoccupied Sheamus. The Celtic Warrior managed to recover, but a last-minute Brogue Kick wasn’t fast enough to give him the fastest time.