Line of the night comes from my wife: “Kenny Omega versus a mannequin puts Ric Flair versus his suit jacket to shame.”
Well, this was interesting… Not sure if in the good way or not.
The pre-show featured three matches, two of which had championship changes. Yep! Neville reclaimed the Cruiserweight Championship and The Usos became four-time Tag Team Champions. The opener saw The Miztourage defeat Jason Jordan and The Hardyz, when The Miz pinned Jordan, clean. While a bit of a head scratcher, it makes sense to fuel Miz’s ego which will likely lead to a Intercontinental Championship down the road.
I’m not going to address the 30 second appearance of Shawn Michaels as the new WWE KFC rep… So, HBKFC?
The SummerSlam show begins in less than spectacular fashion, as John Cena defeats Bacon Rorbin in a pretty bad match. It appeared Corbin thought about making it look like he was trying, but after doing the same thing three times, it was clear no one cared.
In the next title change of the night, Natalya finally gets a reign as SmackDown’s Women’s Champion. Decent match, but I’ve never been a fan of Naomi, and I’m glad Natalya won, in hopes this might be her curtain call.
Big Cass defeated Big Show. No one cared. Until Enzo stripped down to his undies, oiled himself up to squeeze through the shark cage, only to get booted into next week by Cass. Yeah, this was lame.
Randy Orton defeats Rusev in seconds. Not entirely true, but from bell-to-bell. Problem, WWE has done the “pre-match ambush before the bell bit” way too many times to make a quick match. This, was just stupid. Right now, this PPV is all sorts of lame, the pre-show was better.
Finally! A good match, and no surprise the women put on a better show than anyone else tonight. Sasha Banks defeated Alexa Bliss to win the RAW Women’s Championship. A lot of great spots. I really hope this means Nia Jax is finally next in line for the championship. Bliss is so good, really hope this isn’t the end of her being highlighted in the Women’s division.
In the “Wish it was longer category” Finn Balor out-creeped Bray Wyatt. I’m hoping this is the beginning of a good streak, second match of the main show which was good. Only gripe, is it appeared Balor COMPLETELY squashed Wyatt. Always enjoyable to watch Balor, but geez, give Wyatt a bit more offense. So, if Demon Balor and Finn Balor are separate entities, does this mean tomorrow night on RAW, Finn will demand a match against Wyatt at SummerSlam?
The next title change of the evening takes place when Two-Thirds Shield defeats The Baaaaar in another decent match. Lots of back and forth and some big moves to keep the crowd into it. Nice rallying finish saw consecutive finishers, Running Knee Strike from Rollins and Dirty Deeds from Ambrose seals the fate for Cesaro and Sheamus. The build could have been better, but WWE needed something for Rollins and Ambrose and this was the “feel good moment” to see the brothers back together, and as champions.
Next up, Shane McMahon is the special guest ref. Why? Because each week he gets kicked in the head by either AJ Styles or Kevin Owens. It was comedy after a while to see who would be the one to inflict the damage. The comedy continued tonight, as it was stupidly predictable every time Shane got hit. He stood an inch away from someone, and then “oops!” he gets bumped. Don’t forget, when you become a ref, you suddenly have less energy than “The Mouth of South” Jimmy Hart or Bill Alfonso. Shane flopped more than a jumped shark. Good grief, it was ridiculous. Aside from the weird botches by Shane, the fight between Owens and Styles was very well done. Glad to see the tail end of the PPV pick up a lot of steam. The fighting between Owens and Shane escalated, and it is likely they will feud going forward. Winner and still United States Champion, AJ Styles.
Shane looked terrible. Appeared bloated, and really out of it, before he took the weak bumps. At one point Styles had Owens tapping but Shane was out, when Shane comes back and Styles argues, Shane says “that was two…” Uh… Way to pay attention bro…
So, the first title NOT to change hands tonight.
Next up, Lee England Jr. plays the violin for Shinsuke Nakamura, and plays the whole theme. Jinder Mahal doesn’t appear to get any special treatment with his entrance. Sadly, the match didn’t live up even to low expectations. The former 3MB member took all the signature hits from Nakamura, but as expected, the Singh Brothers interfered, Nakamura brought them both into the ring, beat them up, allowing Mahal to hit a horrible looking Cobra Clutch Slam for the pinfall win. Shame. Jinder Mahal retains the WWE Championship, the second championship not to change hands tonight.
Winner and still WWE Universal Champion: Bah-Rock Lesnar
Crowd cheers for Braun Strowman and Samoa Joe, boos even before Roman Reigns hits the ring. Michael Cole has to remind us Reigns “retired” the Undertaker. The match was majority of “carnage” type events. Braun plows Lesnar through two announce tables, then flips a third on top of Lesnar, which took him out of the match for about ten minutes. Reigns did nothing but throttle his arm over and over for superman punches, Joe did all of nothing except eat suplexes and an F5. Strowman was the one who tossed everyone around. Thankfully, in the end, Lesnar managed to maul Reigns, pinning him to retain. I enjoyed that finish. Nice to see Reigns being the one pinned.
It looked good, but I feel it could have been better, as Joe was completely underutilized.
The show as a whole could have been better, obviously nothing can compare to the masterpiece NXT put on last night. Shame, I didn’t have high expectations for SummerSlam, and I was still unimpressed overall.
