WWE SummerSlam 2016

[Briefcase]

Blimey that felt like the longest PPV ever.

 

I thought Sasha was going to die against Charlotte as she kept landing on her head/back/neck in a very uncomfortable way, she either sold it really well or she is badly hurt.

 

Ambrose/Ziggler was the worst match of the night for me, just terrible, no excitement or drama, it felt like a pre-show match, the fans couldn't give a shit either.

 

I actually enjoyed all the Womens matches, maybe because I skip them on Raw/Smackdown I appreciate them more on PPV.

 

Balor/Seth - Still not convinced on Balor, at least its different going forward I guess. Match didn't seem to flow as well as I thought it would.

 

Styles/Cena - Really enjoyed this, so glad Styles went over, he looks mega strong now.

 

Lesnar/Orton - Actually quite enjoyed this, I guess they are going with Lesnar being the bastard who just literally beats his opponents to near death, I could go along with this if there is a massive payoff at Mania, not sure who Lesnar will face though. I would love Goldberg to go one more time against Lesnar at Mania. Watching Goldberg go on a streak all the way to Mania whilst Brock is heeling it up would be good enough for me, yeah I know Goldberg is nearing 50 but could be a good build. There is small history there too.

[Wrasslin]

People will talk about the ending of the main event. It was intentional, clearly and has accomplished exactly what they wanted.

[AshC]

Incredible job by John Cena last night, in every respect. The finish to the main was killer. Delighted for Fergal. Women's title match was great stuff.

[TildeGuy~!]

Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com reports that there was a backstage altercation between Brock Lesnar and Chris Jericho following the conclusion of Lesnar’s match with Randy Orton at Summerslam.

 

Jericho was said to be concerned about Orton’s well-being and asked producer Michael Hayes about the finish of the match. When Hayes wouldn’t give him an answer, Jericho reportedly said something along the lines of “that’s bullshit.”

 

Lesnar was walking back though the curtain and heard Jericho’s remarks. The two allegedly got into a heated exchange of words and then a brief physical exchange before Triple H broke it up. At this point, Vince McMahon also had to step in and tell Jericho that everything was a work and to be professional. Triple H apparently defended Jericho by saying that Jericho was just standing up for himself and Lesnar was the one that started the altercation.

 

It’s believed that Orton knew in advance about what Lesnar was going to do with the punches/elbow shots at the end of their match.

[seph]

What a mess of a show. Blitzed it in 2hr 45 this evening, kind-of wish I'd canned it after the excellent Cena match.

 

The dual-world-title schtick is FUBAR if the Balor injury is straight up; the "proper" Wold title match was poor in of itself but after the strong finish to the Raw promo where they teased a Ziggles turn they 180ed disastrously by having Dean "control" the match (loosely as it suggests). Arsehole crowd aside can you blame them for not booing the champion they're effectively being told to boo and vice-versa? fast-forward a few minutes and they knew who was doing what, and when the Vanity Belt Match got going they were finally into things. 

 

If they knew exactly what they were doing with the Lesnar match it didn't hold much hope for the people in it - Orton took a superhuman shitkicking and what little offence he got more over than everything since the Cena match. A post-match RKO would've been the sweetener for a sequel that would've had far more legs than anyone thought before last night. Just a five-second blood-faced OUTTANOWHERE and Randy would've caught up on the last five years. But as it happens the cynical thought would be Goldberg (questionable) or even Shane (obvious and disappointing) for WM33. 

 

Virtually everything aside of these were essentially Raw/SDx1.5. Reigns splattering Rusev was more fun than it had a right to be, Charlotte winning clean was all DAFUQ, even with botching Sasha's shoulder up. Wish they'd aluded to Eva Marie's suspension as a jibe / heat-getter (the moment Mrs. Cena came out I reached for the fast-forward button).

 

And +1 on the Jon Stewart Fuck Off Counter. Aside from that the show was thankfully bereft of celebrity hangers-on, surprising for Brooklyn.

[The Clint]

I actually found this event to be a bit of a chore to watch during most matches.  Felt sorry for Sasha she seems to be injury prone plus apparently Vince has lost faith in her. For a New York crowd they were shit throughout most of the show.  I'm a huge Lesnar fan but his matches are really becoming a farce lately.

[PowerButchi]

Fair play, Jericho's not afraid of no fucker, is he?

[I Bent My Wookie]

Lesnar can't be a safe environment backstage? He seems like he's one comment away from a massacre at the best of times. Some serious anger issues that he's tried to outlet in wrestling, football, MMA. The guys going to seriously hurt someone one day and be like "fuck it I'm off to my cabin in Canada" without a second thought

[ColinBollocks]

Bet Jericho was wearing his scarf too, while he was about to slap Lesnar about.

 

Anyway, I thought the ending was bloody good. They've squeezed all the juice out of monster babyface Lesnar so for the best to turn him heel again. A potential Shane match is a bit nonsense like, especially if Lesnar has to spend any sort of time selling for him - we all remember how that worked for Randy Orton. Proper bollocks on Orton to agree to get smashed like that. Lesnar is a legit scary stupid idiot.

 

AJ v Cena was pretty brilliant. Half way through when they were just doing moves and kicking out, it felt a bit like Cena just decided to do all his US title matches, but it built up to the story of the finish tremendously. Pleased AJ won.

 

Can't really stick Balor or Rollins; both have certain things they're clearly good at, but miss too much of the overall package to be interesting main eventers. For that reason, match was a bit "meh". Fair play that they're going all in with Balor, if he dies on his arse, then it's on him because they're giving him a proper chance. Edit: Just read about the injury, oh dear, months of Rollins!

 

Overall, the show was far too long and only highlighted how little I care for most of the roster,

[Guest]

Been re reading best in the world at what I do, Jericho gets more and more bizarre the older he gets. He's basically part time vince

[Guest]

Didn't watch the pre-show live because fuck all that nattering but did tune into every match

 

The multi-team tag match was not nearly as good as the one they just had on Smackdown for whatever reason, be it due to timing or lack of a full crowd. The crowd were still filing in for this one, so you didn't get a proper sense of how over AA are, which is a shame. This could have easily been swapped around with Cesaro/Sheamus part1of7. Delighted to see Uso's tease a heel turn as they have been the absolute drizzles for ages now.

 

Neville and Zayn looked tidy together. Neville seems to take an absolute age to hit the red arrow since his return though. Can't wait for this singles Bubba Ray that's being dangled in front of me. Tough titties for D-Von, but ah well.

 

Cesaro v Sheamus had a match and it was right physical, y'know??? Nah, I do like both of these guys, this little rivalry makes sense and I found the segment with Foley on Raw to be pretty impressive..right up until he said best of seven... Christ, five'll do, surely? Basically they've realised they probably have to chuck Cesaro and Sheamus out there a bunch of times, but thankfully they've given it a little story and a future reward, as opposed to like, the turgid go-nowhere-fest that was Ziggler v Corbin. Hard to care about match 1 of 7, but the last couple of these should be crackers.

 

Great opener, we all know Enzo & Cass are gold, that was a superstar pop. On board with the heel win though and the continuation of JeriKO. Fucking hell, they are world class together. Closer than brothers! Owens blowing a kiss to Jericho before the cannonball! Put these two all over my screen please.

 

I'm more worried for Sasha than anybody else. Every minute she seemed to be landing on her head or neck. Even on that really impressive (imo) top-rope 'rana, on the replay it looks like she fell on her bonce. I watched WWE 24 Women's Evolution and they were showing clips of Lita doing a suicide-dive and landing badly, it was a spit of the one Sasha took on the Raw she won the title. How old was Lita when she had to retire? I fear that too soon we will just have The Boss..of the Pre-show Panel

Anyway, the match was good, a couple botches aside. The finish was a shocker. All signs point to Bayley, surely?

 

Miz v Crews was a 5 minute void in time and space. Crews should not be even in midcard title matches yet, certainly not until he stops fucking smiling.

 

Cena v AJ is possibly my MOTY so far. I can understand people's drawbacks - there were a lot of kick-outs, but everything was over and the high-spots were paid off immensely. Cena I feel his 'indy' type moves flowed a lot better than the Owens matches, even his code red looked great, and we're all glad he's done away with the springboard stunner. I loved the story told in the first part of the match, Styles can do power-moves too and Cena has some flashy tricks up his sleeve. Most moves didn't leave me thinking the 3-count was coming, but they did leave my mouth agape a lot of the time so job well done. The kick-out from the top rope AA was great, they proper had me there, has anybody done that before? Cena also sold it wonderfully. I can't wait to see what Cena is like on Smackdown now. This feels like the most significant job Cena's ever done, Lesnar aside. AJ is made in the WWE, and it is surreal. I think and hope that time will smile down very fondly on this match and we could still be talking about it for ages to come

 

Jon Stewart sucks yeah. The match was pretty nothing-y as you'd expect from a no contest, but enjoyed Big E coming back and kicking arse. Reckon they must know he's the singles star there. New Day have peaked even in crowd terms now and the title switch can't be far away now.

 

Ambrose/Ziggler was a let down. There I was ready to watch the US-open challenge style, show-stealing match with kick-outs and drama aplenty that, Dolph with his great promo work in the build had made me accept and prepared to enjoy that type of match. Really lacklustre though and a strange ending. Ziggler didn't even hit the Fame-Asser for the kick-out at 2, what the hell? That's like HBK not taking a mad turnbuckle bump, it's like a watermark that all Ziggler matches MUST have, I've just decided. Ziggler must be going heel now, as they hardly made him look a show-stealer here.

 

Loved that they continued on the Eva Marie stuff, it would be a crying shame if they'd have just gone "err, who?". Nikki B coming back has me ambivalent. She is a decent hand in the ring and Smackdown needs bodies, but she may as well just play the arse-wiggling sycophantic babyface all her E! watching fanbase scream for her to be. She should be a natural given the era we're in, but she hasn't the first fucking clue how to play heel, I've noticed this before - it's either that or she just has no interest in doing so. I guess it is difficult to be heel on a first night return in a match with five other women in, but I didn't get the sense she was doing anything she wouldn't do as a babyface. She can be a heel or fuck off basically. Apart from that, I like Naomi's entrance - who doesn't like cool colours? and uh...dutch house or whatever that theme is.

 

Can't help thinking I wish someone else had got Balor's push (if Zayn - though yes he's an "underdog" so not the type to hotshot a title to - got this type of showcase I would be over the moon), but it's an exciting precedent going forward to see a trigger well and truly pulled. Decent enough match, though hated Balor no-selling that superplex so he can do his running around pointing at top turnbuckles. I'm not the biggest defender of Proper Selling in wrestling, a lot of the time it's a low priority for me, but these two make it really obvious. I thought I heard chants of "Ba-lor sucks" during the match, but I'm assuming it must have been "that belt sucks" after reading here. To be fair, it does suck a bit. It just looks like the women's one. Fans are dicks to focus on and chant that, but WWE should take note and revamp that shit.Result may be null and void and I'm really not on either guy's bandwagon at all atm so, whatev. 

In fact, I've just seen Mickers say it's now been relinquished. LOL. Ah man, if we get auto-Rollins I'm not gonna be happy at all.

 

Bit miffed we didn't actually get Reigns v Rusev. That was probably my 2nd most anticipated match of the night. When Reigns came back I wanted him to pick up that medic by the scruff and go "you are going to sanction a title match right fucking now, you hear me?", their brawling was good while it lasted though, and that spear was fucking wicked. They are going to give this to us down the line obviously, so can't kick a massive fuss

 

Don't really know what to say about the main event. It was the standard affair looking decent enough, but not living up to previous Lesnar matches. Then the elbows came, I could tell as soon as he hit the decisive one that had done damage. Orton was covering up covering up, then took his hands away for two elbows and VERY quickly put them back up, looking in absolute agony, and I spotted the blood pooling way before the commentators did. Fuck knows what it was about, whether it was intended but I won't forget that imagery in a long time. In that sense, job done.

Lesnar is a fucking anomaly, a surely just abysmal human being on several levels. Fucking seething meathead bully who wants a long talk with a psychologist. But when he can be arsed he is one of the top workers in the world, and there is so much obvious upside to him it's absurd to say he should just fuck off. He feels actually heel now though, obviously after the finish, but even during the crowd didn't seem all that arsed for the Paul Heyman, Suplex City shtick, which is good because it means he's more likely to put a cunt over now (*weeps because D-Bry is SD GM and not a wrestler*). Looking immediately forward, a Shane v Lesnar match (if that is indeed the plan) sounds fun as hell to be honest. Orton may take some recovery after seeming so cool and care-free since his return.

 

 

Overall I was pretty impressed with the show. I'm glad I gave it my time, unlike most seem to feel. It didn't quite deliver on the potential the card had, but a lot better than last year and did a much better job than last year at breaking out of the shadows of Takeover Brooklyn. Though Takeover was the much better and worlds more consistent show obviously, it's unreasonable to expect Takeover-level consistency out of 6 hour WWE main roster bonanzas.

[Guest]

I can't wait to hear Jericho talk about the Lesnar altercation on his podcast, assuming he will at some point.

 

If Mania 33 does turn out to be Lesnar v Goldberg, Jericho needs to do a run-in and just fucking drop both of them.

[The Clint]

JBL gave the result away in the Cena/Styles match.  He shouted "he's just beaten Cena" while the ref was only at 1.

[King Pitcos]

Was this the first time you've ever watched wrestling with the sound on?

[textonly]

* My memory's failing me a bit at the minute, but I think AJ Styles has probably been involved in at least three of my top five matches of the year so far. What a shockingly great success story he's been so far. I mean, I know he's been somewhat of a darling forever and WWE's a very different landscape for indie guys coming in, but my opinion in January was that his limitations - in both size and mic skills - would make things difficult for him. Wrong on all counts. His matches are great and I'll cheerily quote-a-long to "...beat up John Cena!" whenever it's teed up. Star of the show last night and not for the first time.

 

* I've said before that I'm not a fan of Ambrose and I bascially never enjoy his matches. This wasn't completely different - I still didn't enjoy the match - but it was interesting at least. He completely wrestled as an asshole, arrogant heel and I actually think he was better for it. I mean, I don't think it worked in this context because the crowd were dead and it made little sense, but were he to turn heel I could imagine liking him maybe 20% more.

 

* I hope he's not injured but I have zero affection for or attachment to Finn Balor yet. Watching him win the title left me pretty cold. Sure, I love Rollins and I wanted him to win, but I could see the booking decision made sense; I just haven't seen anything in Balor that really stands out for me yet. He reminds me of Jeff Hardy: good look and occasionally flashy offense, but lacking in character and ring psychology. I mean, I'm sure he's capable of great matches and you've all probably seen loads, but yeah... I've only seen him in two big matches (this and against Joe once in NXT) and both were kinda damp squibs.

 

* It seems the tide has turned a bit for some people, but I still love watching Brock fuck people up on PPV main events. There's so much wrestling these days and so much of it blurs together. It seems finicky to complain about Brock's three or four matches a year being too similar when you've sat through six hours of PPV and five hours of TV every week that is so identikit.

 

* Could there be a worse match on commentary than JBL and Mauro Ranallo? I don't really hate JBL in general like I know a load of you do - for me he has good moments and bad - but one of his flaws is obviously banging on about random esoteric nonsense, talking about other sports too much and taking you out of the moment. Ranallo totally does this too. Last night he was talking about female Olympians winning in amateur wrestling, referencing the McGregor-Diaz fight and some other random stuff over the few matches he had to call. One of these guys in a booth is enough. Together they sound like, at best, Niles and Frasier Crane, enjoying the sound of their own voices, or, at worst, two senile old men drifting off on tangents rather than focusing on what's in front of them. And what David Otunga is for I have no idea. At least Graves is alright.