Summerslam is the second biggest event on what would be considered the ‘calendar’ year of the WWE. Now, each of the shows on the menu this week (RAW, SD Live, NXT) served to steady the ship as far as story lines would go. There were a couple of surprises, some head-scratchers, and things that were done to get your ready for a weekend of wrestling.

Let’s nail it down by each show as it corresponds to the Summerslam card.

RAW:

Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar (Universal Championship): Now, they did have something intriguing in play with a story that seemed all but played out at this point and the key was Paul Heyman. For the first time in a long time, it looked like ‘the advocate’ and the ‘beast’ were going to go their separate ways and their partnership was going to come apart at the seems. Roman Reigns FINALLY got cheers from the crowd because you built Brock into this person who doesn’t care about the brand or title so much that he’s willing to discard his only partner/friend.

This Monday, things got a little weird. Paul Heyman teases that if Brock loses, he would be the advocate for Roman. Cool. I would have rather saved that suspense for Summerslam and keep fans guessing on where Paul’s allegiance lies. Especially after the interview with Renee Young, we were convinced that there was trouble in paradise.

Until this segment. Now, why would Brock Lesnar need to resort to underhanded tactics in order to fight Roman and leave him laying? I see what the writing is trying to do. They are going for making Roman Reigns a sympathetic character with two heels that are just playing with his head. However, we’d been down this road before and the Brooklyn crowd is another animal. This crowd is not going to be forgiving and see through the facade.

Will Paul Heyman turn on Brock? You took that shock and possibility out of it on Monday. We will still react to it, but not as much as if you left the ambiguity there.

Will Brock leave Brooklyn as the RAW Universal Champion? I think there’s a bigger possibility than people think. It better serves Roman to win convincingly against Brock and have Brock go away for a while as he prepares for his UFC return. You can always insert him into the main event mix, but let’s get the main title back on Monday’s.

Pay attention to the match placement because I don’t think that Roman winning is a absolute lock. Brock is scheduled to be on RAW the night after Summerslam and there’s also a question of Braun Strowman (or Kevin Owens) having the Money In The Bank briefcase.

Alexa Bliss vs. Ronda Rousey: (Raw Women’s Championship): There have been a lot of people who have been critical of Alexa being the champion in the same fashion of Carmella on SD Live. Take a look at it this way: Alexa cuts great heel promos and is a decent wrestler in the ring. What more do you want from a heel champion? Her feud with Ronda is white hot because of this. That’s how you build up your mega face on the RAW brand.

Picture Summerslam in Brooklyn. (This match should headline the night, by the way). Alexa finally gets her comeuppance and Ronda stands tall as the new Women’s Champion. The crowd would love it. Poor Alicia Fox. Her and Alexa’s “personal security” got hip tossed.

There was no more you really needed to do here leading up. Alexa has been doing great taunting Ronda, especially with her scowl and Ronda is the “badass” that will finally get Alexa in a ring where she can’t run or hide behind anybody.

Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens (for the Money In The Bank Briefcase): This feud is fun on the simple premise of Braun terrorizing Kevin and Kevin trying to find ways to be cunning in an non-physical way. Kevin has had rental cars destroyed. He’s hid in the back of cars and even hid in Kurt Angle’s office. The tag match with himself, Braun, Finn Balor, and Jinder Mahal was to just eat up some time on the show.

I don’t expect Kevin to beat Braun for the briefcase and that’s the reason why Kevin Owens might pull out a win somehow. The way this feud has been going, this match should be over quick with the “monster in the bank” being dominant. As he should be. With the WWE, sometimes things can be too much of a slam dunk. Unless this is an outright squash match, they might pull something different on us.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental Title): Well, there was a much needed wrinkle that was added at the end of RAW. A returning Dean Ambrose. There were rumors that he was coming back after Summerslam, but because Seth has been outnumbered by the duo of Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre – why not? Plus, Dean looks to be in great shape coming off his bicep tear.

Dolph and Seth have had some great matches within this Intercontinental title feud, but they literally exhausted every option. Seth vs Dolph. Seth vs. Drew. Drew interferes. So on and so forth. Dean evens up the odds. Now, there’s a matter of if Dean will turn on his Shield brethren. Now, you can do this after Seth wins the IC title back from Dolph or do it at Summerslam and have a program with them both without it.

The beauty in that is say Roman wins the Universal title back from Brock, you have a lot of contenders waiting in the wings for him on the way to Wrestlemania. If Dolph retains, you can then set that title separate to feud with someone else. Maybe even a Dolph/Drew feud down the line. There are a lot of options here to keep an eye on.

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin: This has been a classic big man/little man story. Since Baron has become Constable Corbin, it’s given him a much needed infusion of character and fire in the ring. I’ve enjoyed him being the thorn in Kurt Angle’s side.

With Finn, he does put on great matches, but something has to give. It seems as though he will win a match and get an opportunity to become a contender for the Universal Title. He will mention that he was the first ever title holder for that belt and then they will have him come up short.

The “B” Team vs. The Revival (RAW Tag Team Championship): The “B” Team has been a bright spot in a underutilized and sometimes confusing Raw Tag Team division. The Deleter of Worlds are all but done now. The Revival had the match won, but Curtis Axel was able to squeak out the win. That’s kind of been their story. At least they will get a fresh match up against The Revival.

This match will be on the kickoff show and I don’t expect that The “B” Team will drop the titles. Not yet at least.

SD LIVE:

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe: You want to talk about tier one promos? Samoa Joe has been the best throughout the entire WWE the minute that this feud started. It’s to the point that you didn’t need for both men to get into a physical altercation since the contract signing. Joe really took the wheel in his July 31st dialogue. He took the “house that AJ Styles built” dialogue and personalized it painting him as this “absentee father and husband.”

Samoa Joe was able to up the ante a bit with the “alleged” letter from AJ’s wife. The normally collected AJ Styles has been letting Joe get to him through a mental mind game. Even though AJ might not lose the title at Summerslam, Joe has been on the offensive and made himself a legitimatize contender to make you think so.

These men have history dating back to their TNA Impact days. (If you look up the library, they had some good matches). This is different from The AJ/Shinsuke feud. This is personal and this match is going to have a certain type of brutality to it.

Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte (Smackdown Womens Championship): Ok, so maybe Carmella is not the wrestlers that Becky and Charlotte are – and that’s the point. Carmella is the champion to frustrate you and she does a good job from a heel standpoint. The challenges she’s faced whether it be Charlotte or Asuka – she’s found a way to get through them. However, there will be no James Ellsworth on Sunday, so her luck may finally run out.

Another wrinkle on this story deals with the splintering of Tea-Generation X. You saw that Carmella’s main goal is go create division with the two by constantly reminding Becky of Charlotte’s vast accomplishments. She was the first Smackdown Women’s Champion and it’s been a long road since. Here comes her friend taking away what was supposed to be her moment because neither of them respect Carmella as a wrestler.

Becky has been on a hot streak and it will be interesting to see if adding Charlotte to the match will keep them occupied long enough to where Carmella can capitalize on that.

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz: If you haven’t seen the video package from this week’s Smackdown, do yourself a favor and watch it. It’s excellent. You will see, even to my surprise, this rivalry pre-dates the famous ‘Talking Smack’ segment. Highlight this as being a possible match of the night contender. Daniel Bryan finally gets his hands on The Miz after a period where we didn’t even consider this match even happening.

Don’t sleep on The Miz pulling out a good wrestling match as well. Look back to his match against Seth Rollins earlier in the year. He can go when the lights are on and Daniel Bryan is a good person to pair with when you want to get the most out of a match.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy (U.S. Championship): For starters, it was good to see Sheldon Benjamin back on Smackdown.

This match is one of the weirdest of the weekend because is not so much about the wrestlers in the actual match. It’s more about the lurking Randy Orton and if he’s going to interfere to cost Jeff Hardy again. Is Randy going to turn his attention to Shinsuke? Shinsuke Nakamura feels like the odd man out in this feud and he has the title.

Jeff Hardy has been dealing with a number of injuries. Perhaps the next Randy Orton beat down will be a way for him to be written off to nurse his injuries. Heel Randy Orton is  probably the best Orton, so it wouldn’t serve to have a Orton/Nakamura feud because both men are great in their roles. This match will probably be more about getting Nakamura to  his next feud and not so much losing to Jeff Hardy.

The Bludgeon Brothers vs.The New Day (SmackDown Tag Team Championship): The New Day has been in some impressive tag matches starting with their match with The Bar a couple weeks ago. The Bludgeon Brothers have been protected to keep themselves as this powerhouse tag team. You saw this in the squash match they had with three random wrestlers on this show this week.

Could The New Day become five-time Tag Team Champions? There have been hints that the group will stay together, but perhaps go after individual tag titles. (How about the U.S. or Heavyweight Championships?) I don’t think you take the titles off of The Bludgeon Brothers just yet. You could always bring back The New Day down the line if need be.

Rusev and Lana vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega: Let’s be honest. Not only is this feud good, it’s probably the most underrated on the Summerslam card. The Lana and Zelina matches have been serviceable. Lana has been getting a little better in the ring and Zelina complements her.

There’s also Aiden English and his continued flare ups that cause the Rusev/Lana day collective matches. i’m thinking that the English partnership ends on Sunday. Considering that he got beat by Andrade on Smackdown. He’s running out of changes to prove his worth. This will be an entertaining tag match on the kick-off show.

NXT:

Tommaso Ciampa  vs. Johnny Gargano (NXT Championship): Originally, this was supposed to be a triple threat match with Aleister Black. Due to his injury, this championship match become a rubber match between Ciampa and Gargano. On this week’s NXT, you didn’t need these guys to sell the match anymore. A good video package was sufficient enough.

This should be the end of this feud for a while because you don’t want to run the risk of it wearing out it’s welcome. This has been a good story of former friends just beating the hell out of each other. It’s Ciampa’s methodical prodding that has turned Gargano into something that he can’t control. It cost Aleister the championship and gave it to the hands of his most hated enemy.

Gargano’s biggest triumph would be dethroning Ciampa and taking the title belt from him. Either way, after this match, you have to move these men away from each other and on to different opponents. You can even call up whoever loses in Brooklyn and retool this on the main roster in the same fashion that you would do Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn. The winner can stay in NXT until Wrestlemania call ups because you do have a returning Aleister Black who is going to want revenge.

Adam Cole vs. Ricochet (North American Championship): It will be almost a year to the day that Adam Cole arrived to the NXT scene in Brooklyn and The Undisputed Era was born. Since then, they’ve been the dominant stable of the brand. Maybe this is where the tables start to turn a little bit. Ricochet is a star even though that Adam Cole doesn’t feel that he’s worthy of a title shot.

This match can be a segue for Adam Cole to get back in the main title hunt. Ricochet can do a lot with the North American Championship. This match will advance the stock of both men on the brand.

Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane (NXT Women’s Championship): Poor Aliyah. She caught the wrath of three Insane Elbows and The Anchor from Kairi Sane this week. It was clearly a message to Shayna who was on commentary that she won’t back down from her. Shayna has been a buzzsaw through the NXT women’s division ever since she’s been champion. She’s been calling out every single women wrestler on the roster and been the perennial bully.

With Kairi, you have someone who has beaten her before in the final of the Mae Young classic. She’s someone whose not afraid of Shayna and her tactics. It gets to Shayna in a different way than Nikki Cross did. Nikki Cross was a crazy, frenetic challenge. Kairi, although small, is skilled and aggressive if need be.

You can have Kairi win here and have Shayna become undone in a effort to get the title back leading up to the Evolution pay per view. With the influx of talent coming in on the women’s side for NXT, Shayna can then move up to either brand.

Undisputed Era vs. Mustache Mountain (NXT Tag Team Championship): All three of these matches, whether it be their two previous tag matches or the singles match between Roderick Strong and Tyler Bate could all be high-quality main PPV matches. These tag teams really have good chemistry together. There’s a good story being told concerning Trent Seven’s knee and how the O’ Reilly/Strong took it apart. With he be ready for Saturday?

The War Raiders are waiting in the wings for whoever the winner is going to be. With Takeover/War Games coming up, that’s something to look out for as well. As I noted with the Adam Cole match, this might be where the Undisputed Era takes some lumps in losing titles.

Velveteen Dream vs. EC3: One great thing that NXT does with their opening card matches on Takeover is the long game when it comes to story lines. The Dream/EC3 feud has been brewing ever since Dream abandoned EC3 in their NXT UK tag title match. It’s been fun watching this match being set up on NXT every week.

Velveteen Dream has the ability to encompass his own aura and tailor that to whoever he is facing. EC3 should definitely get more credit for being an athletic guy as well as seasoned with his promos. The fact that he has the intangibles, it’s thrown Dream for a loop. He can’t really play the same mind games with EC3 that he’s done with Aleister Black and Kassius Ohno previously.

In a card that’s full of talented matches from top to bottom, look for this one to be one of the best.