WWE SummerSlam Review

So, guess which match I enjoyed most?  I know, I know...so predictable.

SummerSlam emerged out of an uncertain build this year, and was at the very least full of surprises, though not all of them were for the right reason.  Let's break this down.

First of all, I'm not going to waste any time on the pre-show filler match, which I don't consider part of the canonical event.  I'll just note that RVD didn't need that win, and Cesaro's slump is so disheartening.  This guy's a frigging main event talent, for goodness' sake.

Match 1 - The Miz (c) vs Dolph Ziggler (Intercontinental Title)

This was basically a tidy opener.  The Miz is working his obnoxious movie star persona well, and refreshingly has a character that works.  Ziggler is of course a consummate worker with a series of crowd-pleasing moves, and both started at a fine pace.  Miz was predictably funny when he tried to hide his 'moneymaking' facial features, and the match ended with Ziggler hitting the zig-zag to send the show off to a happy start.  So why was I left so deflated by the whole affair?  It's partly the lack fo build; I had little idea why Ziggler is feuding with Miz, and besides I get the feeling neither at this stage can progress beyond the lower midcard.  The title belt is also meaningless now.  A major event like this needs a high-powered start, not a pleasant little diversion.

Your winner, and new Intercontinental champion: Dolph Ziggler.  My rating: B-

 

Match 2- AJ Lee (c) vs Paige (Divas Championship)

This, on the other hand, would have made a better opening match.  Ever since AJ won back her title back, Paige has metamorphosed from a frail-looking face to an enjoyably devious heel, showering her rival with insincere praise and using mind games to mess with her famously unstable mental state.  At the start, these mind games looked like backfiring badly as AJ just snapped, biting Paige's hand (leading soccer fan JBL to make the inevitable Luis Suarez reference on commentary) and pulling out a weave from her opponent's hair.  Taken aback, Paige took a while to fight back against AJ's furious brawling and AJ hit some impressive spots, including a stiff-looking clothes-line.  Yet she fell just short as Paige cleverly turned a Widow's Peak into her own successful finisher, this time using the 'Rampaige' DDT instead of her more usual Paige-Turner manoeuvre.  The match was too short, granted, but both women made the most of it, as the action never seemed to let up.  In an odd moment after her victory, Paige tenderly kissed her stricken victim instead of launching an expected heelish attack.

This set me thinking.  Any casual fan unaware of the backstory of AJ watching this would have instantly assumed AJ was the heel from her opening vicious attack.  Meanwhile, Paige's clean victory and post-match pleasantness suggest to the unenlightened that she's a face.  So, has there been significant misdirection here?  My new theory: both are actually unstable tweeners, and these mixed messages are deliberate.  Because AJ's moodswings mean she's too unpredictable, she cannot be a pure face.  But have we also misjudged Paige?  Could it be that she's genuine about this 'frenemies' business, that, in her confused mindstate, she simultaneously admires AJ and yet wants to beat her up badly?  I could be reading too much into this, but this is potentially fascinating territory for what is looking to be the best Divas rivalry in years.   This was their best match together so far.

Your winner, and new Divas champion: Paige.  My rating: A-

 

Match 3 - Rusev (w/ Lana) vs Jack Swagger (w/ Zeb Colter)

I hate this angle.  I hate the fact that Vince McMahon's geopolitical outlook is firmly stuck in 1985 (and is heavily informed by Rocky IV).  I hate the fact that Zeb Colter's evil xenophobic heel is now a face without any significant change of character (you're playing with fire, WWE...).  I hate the fact that Lana delivers the exact same promo every week (and she did it again last night - we get it, you've got a crush on Putin).   In fact generally, I hate the fact that this rivalry contains far more talking and flag-waving than actual wrestling, although given that both men are very poor wrestlers, this is understandable.  Oh, and Bulgaria is a very different country to Russia.

This was rotten.  The lumbering Bulgarian hit his usual power moves with little conviction, while Swagger attempted to lock in the Patriot lock, which these days is about all he ever does.  There was one admittedly decent moment where because of a leg injury, Rusev could not quite lock in the Accolade.  However, mere minutes later, the injury had totally disappeared, and the submission move was locked in until Swagger passed out.  Cue jingoistic comments from commentary.  Cue Rusev attacking Colter. Cue Russian national anthem.  Cue bored British fan wishing this whole nightmare would end.

Your winner: Rusev.  My rating: D- 

Match 4 - Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins (Lumberjack Match)

It was OK, I suppose.  If by 'OK' you mean 'absolutely the tonic I needed to relieve my sour mood and make me believe in pro-wrestling again'.....

I've expressed my admiration for both men in the past, but here they found a way to exceed all expectations.  It looked like a lumberjack match was potentially a limiting situation, but excellent booking found a way round this.  The set-up worked, pointing out that that everyone ringside, face or heel, had suffered at the hands of The Shield at some point, so there was never going to be any goodwill for either wrestler, which was a neat twist. The match started as expected, with Ambrose's brawling style dominating opening exchanges, yet when Ambrose got thrown out the ring, we had the first sign that this was not going to be like other lumberjack matches.  Instead of waiting for a beatdown, Ambrose lashed out with wild punches before anyone could lay a finger on him.  It's not just that the guy is unpredictable and unstable, he's also fearsomely quick-thinking.  However, Rollins took control after cleverly throwing Ambrose out to ensure he got roughed up.  From then on a thrilling back and forth saw both men cancelling out each other's moves, until Ambrose managed to send Rollins out the ring.  The Lunatic Fringe then delivered the spot of the night with an amazing suicide dive that took out Rollins and all the lumberjacks.

With the lumberjacks incapacitated temporarily, Rollins sought to escape into the crowd.  But Ambrose was quick in pursuit, and the two adversaries had a no-holds barred brawl in the wings.  Cue the entrance of Corporate Kane, furious that the lumberjacks had done a poor job of containing the fight.  He ordered them to catch Ambrose and drag him back to the ring.   At which point Rollins tried to escape the arena, only to face a quartet of face lumberjacks on the ramp, who all ensured he made a quick return to the ring as well.   The action continued with Ambrose taking the upper hand, once again clearing the lumberjacks with a thrilling dive, and later countering an attempt to send him out the ring by using the ropes as leverage to bounce back and deliver a huge clothes-line which floored Rollins.  Then he cheekily stole Rolllins foot-stomp finisher, and would have surely covered for the pin had Kane not intervened.  From then on, chaos reigned as all the lumberjacks invaded the ring for a feverish massed brawl.  At the end, Rollins returned the compliment by knocking Ambrose with the MITB briefcase behind the ref's back; precisely the kind of desperate move that can be found in Ambrose's playbook.  See the symmetry here?  Rollins then picked up the pin.

If I'm being picky, I might complain that the end was overbooked because, well, it was.  But I'm not going to complain because this match was fantastic in every respect and the dusty finish means that the feud will continue.  This is definitely best for business.

Your winner: Seth Rollins.  My rating: A+

 

Match 5 - Bray Wyatt vs Chris Jericho

Something really has gone badly wrong with the Bray Wyatt project.  He came out second best to John Cena in their feud and just has never gelled with Y2J.  They just aren't a good fit, and at this point, I'm also getting bored with his promos. It's not because he's doing anything wrong, it's just that I've already heard it before at this stage.   Likewise, the first time he did the crabwalk, it felt like the spookiest thing ever.  Last night, when he did it again, it was just that thing that Bray Wyatt always does.  Repetition has dulled the novelty of this character.

There was nothing particularly wrong with this match; Bray was suitably creepy and Jericho was keen to put him over.  But there was little tension, and I just willed it to be over quickly.  Not least because the result was never in doubt.

Wyatt now needs a serious reboot.  He should lose the family, who are now capable of standing on their own and can bolster a flagging tag scene, and embark on a slow face turn.  The question is, who should his next feud be with?

Your winner: Bray Wyatt.  My rating: C-

 

Match 6 - Stephanie McMahon (w/Triple H) vs Brie Bella (w/Nikki Bella...or so Brie thinks...)

Now a number of sensible people have gone rather overboard here based on the fact that this wasn't a total disaster.  One excitable WWE fanboy even gushed that it was possibly the best Divas match ever.  Oh really, get some perspective!  This wasn't even the best Divas match at SummerSlam 2014....

OK, I'd admit that some of my initial scepticism was unfounded.  This wasn't a Sharmel vs Jenna Morasca-sized fiasco at all, and Steph had some decent moves.  Furthermore, encouragingly, this was built up well enough in advance, even if last week on Raw they jumped the shark by inexplicably ripping off TNA's horrible Claire Lynch storyline.  Steph has worked hard to perform here; she clearly had practised her lines and certainly looked the part in her dominatrix-style costume.  However, it was very noticeable that her offence contained mostly single moves.  She isn't a good enough wrestler to produce a combination of different moves in succession, so her arsenal looked disjointed and slow.  This still puts her ahead of Brie, who remains a horrible worker.  How she can have worked for years for the world's biggest wrestling company without mastering the basics of a believable offence simply beggars belief.

Brie is also an unsympathetic face and a terrible actress, so she really has nothing to offer here.  Except, of course, a treacherous twin sister.  I'm not even sure Nikki's heel turn counts as a swerve here, given that siblings turning on siblings is one of the oldest tricks in the playbook, and had been telegraphed from some way.  I realised the exact point at which it was going to happen. But is she just being controlled against her will by the Authority, given how regretful she looked afterward? This means a feud that has only one interesting factor will continue.  I hope they resist the temptation to mine the Claire Lynch angle any further...

Your winner (after shenanigans): Stephanie McMahon.  My rating: C

Match 7 - Roman Reigns vs Randy Orton

Awkwardly placed between the two most hyped matches, this was another fight that failed to deliver anything much.  Starting off as an uninspiring slugfest, this was never fast-paced, and when Randy Orton unleashed a series of chinlocks the contest just ground to a halt, with the silent crowd refusing to interact in any way.  This doesn't reflect well on either man, and shows the extent to which Orton has just become stale.  He only really works as a badass heel, but too many months serving as the Authority's lapdog has just robbed him of any aura he once had.  Technically, he's still a really good worker, but he's not connecting at all with an audience now.  Meanwhile, my doubts about Roman Reigns' push continue.  It's clear that he is being protected heavily by the booking which is designed to hide his flaws.  Essentially, he cannot carry a
match on his own, and relies on a small number of admittedly impressive power moves to make an impact.

The real worry is that this is starting to get really obvious.  Orton did most of the work here, and the eventual turnaround, where Reigns powered out of the RKO, proving he's strong enough to work with the big boys seemed rushed.  I sense his 'Superman punch' is now looking less impressive than it did before being, well, just a punch, which leaves his best move, the spear, as something he relies on.  This won him the victory, and does look suitably devastating.  Reigns got a small pop at the end (in contrast to the huge excitement generated by his former Shield colleagues), but questions remain.  He lacks natural charisma and needs to develop an all-round game fast if he's to be a main eventer by the end of the year, which seems to be the plan.  This looks too ambitious, as Reigns is nowhere near the finished article.

The end of the fight was pretty exciting, to be fair, but it was never enough.

Your winner: Roman Reigns.  My rating: C+ 

 

Match 8 - John Cena (c) vs Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) (WWE Championship)

Now this was very odd.  The story of the match was quite simple. Lesnar dominated from the start with a somewhat monotonous attack largely consisting of German suplexes (16 to be precise).  Cena looked battered and worn from the beginning and only had a couple of hope spots that were soon extinguished.  As soon as Lesnar easily broke Cena's notorious no-pressure STF (was the booking team poking fun at Cena's hopeless inability to pull off that move convincingly?), the writing was on the wall.  Lesnar flattened Cena one last time, and there was to be no kicking out at two here.

Just let that sink in.  In the main event of their second biggest PPV of the year, WWE booked a squash match in which their supposed biggest star played the jobber role.  Yes, Mr Never-Give-Up, Hustle-Loyalty-Respect, The-Champ-Is-Here was booked as someone totally out of his depth who could not live with the returning MMA star. This is totally unprecedented.  I mean, I expected Lesnar to win, but I didn't expect anything this one-sided.  Several questions now emerge; firstly, how can WWE cope with having a champion who almost never fights outside of PPVs (they didn't do a good job when The Rock was in that position)?  At least this time we'll get more Paul Heyman promos, so that's good news.  Secondly, have they booked Lesnar too strongly?  Who can conceivably match up to him now on the current WWE roster?  And conversely, have they damaged Cena too much?  Where's he going now?

Finally, what were WWE hoping to achieve here? Well, I can answer that by looking at the build-up.  Paul Heyman reflected last week on the sheer sense of disbelief that followed the end of the streak.  He showed a montage of faces in the crowd taken just after the end of that Wrestlemania XXX match including, inevitably, Ellis Mbeh, the 'shocked Undertaker guy' who spawned a thousand memes.  Right enough, straight after the three count last night, the cameras picked out several crowd close-ups clearly looking for a similar reaction.  However, this was never likely to succeed as well, given that the result was less of a shock, even if the manner of defeat was unexpected.

It wasn't, in truth, great wrestling, but it was tremendous television, hence my rating.

Your winner and new WWE Champion: Brock Lesnar.  My rating: B

 

Well in conclusion that was a mixed bag of a PPV.  I do have some more thoughts, but this blog post is already long enough (well done if you made it to the end), and I want to see how tonight's Raw pans out before saying anything further.

One last question: where was Sheamus?