Clash in Paris

Clash in Paris is an upcoming 2025 professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American company WWE. It will be the third Clash event, truncated from the previous "Clash at the Castle" name used in 2022 and 2024. The event will take place on Sunday, August 31, 2025, at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre, France, and will be held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. This marks WWE's second PPV and livestreaming event held in France after Backlash in May 2024, and the first in the Paris metropolitan area.

Clash in Paris
Promotional poster featuring Roman Reigns with The Starry Night painting and The Eiffel Tower in the background
Promotion	WWE
Brand(s)	Raw SmackDown
Date	August 31, 2025
City	Nanterre, France
Venue	Paris La Défense Arena
WWE event chronology
← Previous NXT Heatwave Next → Crown Jewel
Clash chronology
← Previous 2024 Next → —
WWE in Europe chronology
← Previous Bash in Berlin Next → —

The event will feature John Cena's first and only appearance at a pay-per-view and livestreaming event in France as an in-ring performer due to his retirement from professional wrestling at the end of 2025.

Production

Background

The event will be held at the Paris La Défense Arena in La Défense, Nanterre, France.

Clash is a recurring professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American company WWE since 2022, held in European countries. The original 2022 event was titled Clash at the Castle and was held in Cardiff, Wales, with the second event held in 2024 in Glasgow, Scotland. Following the critical and commercial success of the 2024 Backlash, which was the company's first PPV and livestreaming event held in France,^[1][2] WWE President Nick Khan announced at a January 16, 2025, event in Las Vegas, Nevada that the company would be returning to France for another PPV and livestreaming event sometime later that year.^[3]

On January 29, WWE officially announced through their YouTube channel and website that they would return to France on Sunday, August 31, 2025, for the third Clash event titled Clash in Paris, which will be held in La Défense, Nanterre at the Paris La Défense Arena, marking the company's first event in the Paris metropolitan area. This truncated the event chronology's name to simply "Clash" after the previous two events were titled "Clash at the Castle". It was also announced that the September 1 episode of Monday Night Raw would emanate from the same venue. Clash in Paris will be held for wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands. In addition to airing on traditional PPV worldwide, it will be available to livestream on Peacock in the United States, Netflix in most international markets, and the WWE Network in any remaining countries that have not yet transferred to Netflix due to pre-existing contracts.^[4][5] This will be the last Clash event to livestream on Peacock in the United States, as ESPN's direct-to-consumer streaming service will assume the streaming rights beginning in April 2026.^[6]

Storylines

The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands,^[7][8] while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.^[9]

At the all-women's event Evolution, Raw's Stephanie Vaquer won the Evolution Battle Royal to earn a women's world championship match at Clash in Paris.^[10][11] The next night on Raw, it was confirmed that the match would be for Raw's Women's World Championship.^[12] Subsequently at SummerSlam the following month, Naomi retained the title, thus confirming that Naomi would defend the Women's World Championship against Vaquer at Clash in Paris.^[13] However, on the August 4 episode of Raw, it was announced that Naomi would defend the Women's World Championship against Iyo Sky on the August 11 episode.

At Money in the Bank on June 7, a villainous John Cena and Logan Paul teamed together in a losing effort.^[14] On the August 8 episode of SmackDown, after turning face the previous week, a now heroic Cena reflected over his career and subsequently issued an open challenge, which was answered by Paul. After an exchange of words, Cena wanted to face Paul on that night's episode, which Paul refused, instead challenging Cena to a match at Clash in Paris, which Cena accepted.^[15]

Matches

No.	Matches*	Stipulations
1	Naomi (c) vs. Stephanie Vaquer	Singles match for the Women's World Championship[16]
2	John Cena vs. Logan Paul	Singles match[17]
(c)  – the champion(s) heading into the match *Card subject to change