'Arrow' Star and WWE Fan Stephen Amell Gets in the Ring on 'Raw'

Christopher Wilson
·Senior Writer
Updated

When you get to play a superhero on television, life is pretty good. But even for someone living a charmed life like Stephen Amell, Monday was a particularly cool day. The Arrow star appeared on WWE Raw, culminating months of social media feuding with WWE wrestler Stardust. Stardust is… well, probably the organization’s weirdest and most interesting character, played by Cody Rhodes. Originally utilizing a name used by his father, wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes, to tag team with his brother’s character Goldust, Stardust has since evolved into a comic book supervillain, with Rhodes fully committing to the insane gimmick.

Back in April, Stardust called out Amell on Twitter, who had been lobbying to host Raw.

In late May, Amell sat ringside for a Raw episode and had a stare-down with Stardust, telling the villain (“heel,” in wrestling parlance) on Twitter after the match to tread carefully or he’d return.

The feud was put on hold when Rhodes’s father, Dusty Rhodes, passed away in June. (Just to clarify: Everything mentioned in this post is obviously complete fiction, except for this part. Cody’s eulogy for his dad was incredibly moving.) Stardust returned to action in July, starting a feud with the wrestler Neville. Neville’s gimmick is that he’s essentially a superhero, leaning on an arsenal of high-flying moves and the pretty fantastic moniker “The Man Gravity Forgot.” Conveniently, Neville’s finisher — a corkscrew shooting star press — is known as the Red Arrow.

The social media taunting continued going back-and-forth until Amell finally put his foot down and appeared on Raw in Everett, Washington, sharing his excitement on Twitter throughout the day. Things were pretty quiet for Amell until Stardust interfered in a match between Neville and British villain Wade Barrett. Then Stardust pushed Arrow and things escalated:

Amell hopped the barricade over the ropes and delivered a pretty legitimate looking spear to Stardust, showing that all of his salmon-ladder training for Arrow translates pretty smoothly to the wrestling ring. After the commercial break, Amell and Neville were in a heated discussion with Triple H, a heel authority figure.

The real-life WWE executive vice president attempted to kick Amell out of the building after he went in the ring, but the emerald archer demanded a tag match at Summerslam. Triple H acquiesced and booked Amell and Neville versus Stardust and Barrett in a tag-team match. Summerslam is one of the biggest WWE events of the year, taking place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. (Rhodes’s real-life wife is pretty excited for the match up.)

How did Amell, a life-long wrestling fan, feel about everything after the (Star)dust had settled?

Amell will finally get to square off against Stardust on Aug. 23, live on the WWE Network and Pay-Per-View; Arrow returns to The CW on Oct. 7.