0. Jon Stewart brought out Mick Foley for a comedy bit 1. Sheamus pinned Randy Orton - no MITB cash-in attempt tonight 2. New Day wins tag team championship when Kofi Kingston pinned...uh...a guy in a mask I think? 3. Rusev DCOR Ziggler - this feud MUST continue until the mixed tag 4. Stephen Amell & Neville beat Stardust & King Barrett when Neville pinned Barrett 5. Ryback retained pinning Miz who took a KO Punch from Big Show 6. Reigns & Ambrose defeated Wyatt & Harper after Reigns pinned Wyatt 7. Seth Rollins retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and won the United States Championship after pinning John Cena after Jon Stewart--you know what, I still can't believe they pulled this shit...and Stewart wasn't even very good at it. (He'll need a lot of editing after they stop using "still photos" to show what happened) 8. Team PCB won the Elimiation match
A Bella pinned Tamina
Becky Lynch pinned Brie Bella after something that was called a pumphandle slam 100 times but definitely wasn't 9. Kevin Owens pinned Cesaro after a popup powerbomb 10. Undertaker submitted Brock Lesnar after--well, I hope some writer made a lot of money on that "finish"
I feel confident you'll be able to lend a little more colour to these results.
New Day, Seth Rollins and Owens vs Cesaro were all great tonight. I'm really impressed with Owens who was out there bumping like a mad man the day after a grueling ladder match.
The ending to the title match was I guess good if you hunger for main stream press, but no. It was bad. Rollins was balls to the wall tonight. I haven't seen that guy since the Shield break up.
The Divas match, was not good and might have been the clunker of the night. It's not any of their faults, but this whole thing is being done all wrong and there is nothing at stake here nor nothing to gain, only momentum to be lost.
I suppose Undertaker-Lesnar was pretty good. It was better than I expected, but watching Undertaker the last few years is like watching bad reproductions of Clint Eastwood movies and that ending ... good lord. I can't believe they actually settled on that as a finish.
Everything else was okay to good. Four hours is a long time, and Raw isn't looking too promising. I give tonight a thumbs slightly up.
Originally posted by JustinShapiroI will apologize to the Undertaker and high five him if he pulls off a redemption performance.
I apologize to the Phenom. high five. Kind of cool for him that his record can be expunged and "it was the concussion" has been officially proven as a postulate.
Gadzooks what an innovatively stupid finish though. Get hyped for the final showdown. Can you do career vs. career for guys who wrestle twice a year? At least we now know that the Wrestlemania main event has the potential to be a great match.
Everyone who said no one tonight was going to be able to touch Bayley/Sasha had a poor comprehension of what Cena and Rollins were surely going to unleash. Of course, Cena/Rollins couldn't hit the same peak of catharsis since it was basically heel vs. heel (while the women were basically face vs. face). Kind of unfortunate to have a classic get turned into a viral headline but hey Jon, have fun. Certainly this was distinctly foreshadowed with Rollins introducing a tribute clip on one of the final TDS episodes.
NEW DAY NEW DAY NEW DAY NEW DAY what a moment and what a journey for what a great bunch of guys.
I prefer my SummerSlams to be deep cards that allocate time well and put most of the roster in positions to deliver and this was such a show. Even Orton and Sheamus have had two straight strong, heated PPV matches no matter how you feel about them.
I've seen some dumb endings in my day, but the "Completely Neutral Timekeeper Just Autonomously Decides to Ring the Damn Bell" ending is just so random and unjustified that it has to be on the level of WCW Circa Russo.
It's one thing if they'd set it up somehow, like HHH is so into this big rematch that he'd brought in Celebrity Timekeeper Jennifer Aniston and Special Guest Ring Announcer Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Aniston, mostly unfamiliar with the rules, accidentally rang the bell and Scharzenegger announced "Brake Layznah" the winner so everything fell apart under HHH's own hubris over this big match.
But, it's just so random that this guy who's so good at his job suddenly slips up during the biggest non-WrestleMania match in history. I don't see who this ending helps. It protects Lesnar, sure, but not very well.
Cena/Rollins had the right guy go over, although now all of that US Title Open Challenge stuff lacks payoff. KO should have won that last match, freeing up Cena to challenge Rollins so that Cesaro/Owens could have had some stakes tonight.
On the other side of that, Rollins' entire title run is so directionless that I don't really understand why he still has the belt and now has a US Title belt and why vacating it so no one beats Cena for it is a good idea.
I don't even think Cena would want that. He had no problem losing tonight, nor to Owens clean. He seems like someone who'd want to use this angle to enhance his legacy as a guy who puts on great matches and gives his opponents a lot of offense. The US Title Open Challenge is still one of the best things on RAW all year, but no payoff makes it kind of a bust.
Jon Stewart 4 Prez. Cena should be sent down to NXT. He telegraphed almost every move Rollins did. Taker/Brock was ok at best til the shit end. If that was your ending then don't book this match. The Bellas should be cursed to 300 lbs and move in one speed to represent their matches. Time for the Horsewomen to bust Brie;s boobs for 6 months.. I liked most of the matches especially 2/3 Shield vs 2/3 Wyatt Family for its chaos. Deport Owens Deport.
Has a fantastic ladder match on Saturday and goes on second-to-last on Sunday, putting on a clinic with Cesaro. I don't think anyone had a better weekend than Kevin Owens. I'm assuming Rollins send the U.S. title off to get held up in yet another tournament and if that has to be the case, Owens better be on the short list to win the damn thing. He's on a whole other plateau right now.
That sense of dread I had last night that the women were moving on up, but the quality was going to decline drastically? If that three-way wasn't "Exhibit A" of that, I don't know what is.
Good on Stephen Amell for not embarrassing himself out there. And God bless Cody Rhodes for continuing to play all of his characters to 11, despite all of it getting next to zero appreciation from people that matter. In a fair world, he'd be a world champion by now.
I continue to be stunned that they're not pulling the plug on Seth Rollins, but at this point, they have to go balls-to-the-wall with SOMEBODY, so it might as well be him. There's almost no better worker on the roster, but that HTM booking has just gotten so beyond old. The first thing anyone should be thinking of is "Hey, that rolling superplex spot was fucking bananas!" and not "Oh, hey, how about that Jon Stewart run-in, eh?" It hurts to watch the guy continue to get handicapped by awful writing.
And speaking of awful writing, whoever came up with that main event finish need to be flayed. In fact, let's take a critical look at the past few SummerSlam endings.
2010: John Cena Rises Above Hate, takes out the Nexus single-handedly, killing the most interesting angle in years 2011: The Summer of Punk ends with a whimper when Kevin Nash inexplicably gets called in to kill it dead 2012: Triple H tries for a Curtain Call and gets roundly booed 2013: Daniel Bryan gives us the feel-good moment of the year, until everyone gets a metaphorical kick in the balls when Orton cashes in 2014: Brock Lesnar crushes, kills, destroys John Cena 2015: Montreal, with a twist!
Aside from 2014, I'm going to say that endings are not exactly Summerslam's strong suit these days.
Originally posted by It's False2010: John Cena Rises Above Hate, takes out the Nexus single-handedly, killing the most interesting angle in years 2011: The Summer of Punk ends with a whimper when Kevin Nash inexplicably gets called in to kill it dead 2012: Triple H tries for a Curtain Call and gets roundly booed 2013: Daniel Bryan gives us the feel-good moment of the year, until everyone gets a metaphorical kick in the balls when Orton cashes in 2014: Brock Lesnar crushes, kills, destroys John Cena 2015: Montreal, with a twist!
Aside from 2014, I'm going to say that endings are not exactly Summerslam's strong suit these days.
I think it's pretty hit-and-miss, but 2013 was brilliantly executed and one of the best twist endings to a PPV in recent WWE history. Was it a bummer? Sure, but it was actually set up pretty well with Vince not wanting Bryan to be his champion and Orton being the opportunist.
Okay, Orton/HHH making amends was weak, but that ending was the blowing up of Alderaan so that Bryan could blow up the second Death Star at WrestleMania 30 and wrestling history ends there, right?
2014 and 2012 were also pretty enjoyable, even if 2012's was hilariously unintentional.
Originally posted by CRZ7. Seth Rollins retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and won the United States Championship after pinning John Cena after Jon Stewart--you know what, I still can't believe they pulled this shit.
So Stewart has turned heel?
Or maybe Rollins crew had Stewart's son held captive backstage and Jon was forced to do what he did so his son wouldn't be harmed.
Or maybe Stewart's son is a huge Rollins fan and Jon did it all for the love of his boy.
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill
Originally posted by CRZ7. Seth Rollins retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and won the United States Championship after pinning John Cena after Jon Stewart--you know what, I still can't believe they pulled this shit.
So Stewart has turned heel?
Or maybe Rollins crew had Stewart's son held captive backstage and Jon was forced to do what he did so his son wouldn't be harmed.
Or maybe Stewart's son is a huge Rollins fan and Jon did it all for the love of his boy.
Or Stewart is a Mets fan and Cena is all Boston. Is it really a heel turn if you get the biggest pop of the night. Don't know, don't care. Cena was never going to let Rollins beat him clean, so this was the best option. Ok, it really wasn't, but Rollins showed heart last night while Cena looked like he was walking through the match.
You can't give WWE credit for the SummerSlam ending when it took a fan revolt six months later to give us the Bryan win. Even Bryan admits he knew he was being jerked around during the fall. Last year's destruction of Cena gave the fans something to cheer for. Weird how Cena getting beat leads to massive pops maybe they should do something about that....Nah.
If the timekeeper is out for himself and is just going to ring the bell whenever he decides somebody should win then why didn't he ring the bell when Jon Stewart interfered? Why didn't he ring the bell when Reigns/Ambrose/Harper/Wyatt were clearly out of the ring for more than 10 seconds and the ref clearly stopped counting? Also, why did the ref uphold the 10 count in Ziggler/Rusev but not Shield and Wyatts? Is Jerry Meals officiating this?
Did anybody think that Alicia Fox's eyes looked glazed over after that kick from Charlotte? I mean Alicia is one of the few Divas that can bump really well but that looked pretty stiff and it was Charlotte that concussed her once already.
I definitely give the bookers a F for this show but I think the most of the workers showed up and performed their best.
The angle WWE.com seem to be shooting for is that Undertaker actually tapped out , but whilst the ref didn't see it the timekeeper did, explaining why he randomly rung the bell. Lesnar then comes off like a bad ass, passing out instead of tapping out. I could kind-of see where the writers were trying to go with this, but it was executed in such a piss-poor way.
I will say that the desperate low-blow before stealing a victory gives taker a pretty heel-ish vibe coming out of Summer-Slam.
They were trying for a double turn like Austin and Bret at WM13, and did it well, yet the fans didn't seem to want to play along and boo Undertaker and cheer Brock.
Originally posted by lotjxYou can't give WWE credit for the SummerSlam ending when it took a fan revolt six months later to give us the Bryan win. Even Bryan admits he knew he was being jerked around during the fall. Last year's destruction of Cena gave the fans something to cheer for. Weird how Cena getting beat leads to massive pops maybe they should do something about that....Nah.
I only brought up WrestleMania 30 to show structurally why SummerSlam 2013's ending had to be a downer where the bad guy wins. Even if Batista was the one that wound up beating Orton in the long run, that wouldn't take away from the snatching of Bryan's belt after a fantastic main event being a well done heat magnet. As a whole, SummerSlam 2013 was a great event with an ending that was justified.
Even without WrestleMania 30, the ending was still brilliantly executed with the right guy winning. It's SummerSlam. The heel should walk out the champ on that one. It's the right way to go.
None of your points even address what is so "bad" with SummerSlam 2013's ending.
It is almost unfair that this lumbering four hour soulless snoozefest had to try to follow the previous night's breezy two hour Takeover.
The main event was fun for a while. I like crazy old man Undertaker that laughs back at Brock and pulls him in with the old man coughing trick. The timekeeper, I assume, will be fired for doing a horrible job. If timekeepers rang the bell every time they saw something a referee didn't, some of these shows would have way different results. Cheap end to a good match, and I imagine it was even more confusing for the live crowd.
This was the only match I caught live, actually. I caught Twitter rumblings about how bad the divas match was and decided to wait until I could zip though most of the show. I decided to watch Takeover again before slugging through the rest of SummerSlam, and it was the fight decision.
The other main event was also hit with a bad ending to a fun match. Nobody else can take down superman Cena except for weak Jon Stewart with a weak chairshot. My only hope for this is that the U.S. title is vacated and we get a kickass tournament.
The divas match was terrible. We knew it wouldn't compare to Bayley/Sasha, but I had a smidgen of hope it wouldn't be this bad. I should have known better. As long as this is what they do with the main roster women, the #DivasRevolution isn't going to be a revolution. Let them have matches like the NXT ladies and you've got it. One match on par with Sasha/Bayley on a big show and the fans will know this is for real. Continuing matches between random combinations of the same nine women with no end in sigh... eh. Still glad to see them out there, but it is a directionless revolution right now. Congrats on your win PCB, you have the advantage for a day, before one of your members loses a match tonight to somebody from another threesome... then you're all even again.
New Day rocks! I love them so much.
Arnell looked great and that match was fun.
Good for Owens & Cesaro. Fun match.
Nothing in the world could make me watch another Orton/Sheamus match.
I like I-C champ Ryback, but nothing about him, Miz and Show together makes me care.
2/3rds Shield vs 2/3rds Wyatts means nothing when, yep, the Wyatts lose. I've never seen such a supposedly important group lose so much all the time. Can't wait for their next meaningless attack, leading to a match they'll lose.
"As you may have read in Robert Parker's Wine Newsletter, 'Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan, after a hefty portion of asparagus.'" Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
Well, nobody really thought this show was going to be better than NXT Takeover, even though it was twice as long. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe those two points are related? Anyways, we didn't think it would be better, and it wasn't. My thoughts, in no particular order:
Putting the world title match in the middle of the show is capital B Bullshit. And the only outcome worse than Cena winning was Rollins winning. You had Cena carry the US title into this feud in order to try and move some of the heat and prestige he put on that belt over onto Rollins and the world title, and instead used the same stupid, shitty booking that ruined Seth in the first place to destroy all the good work Cena did this summer. And I'm not even going to talk about Stewart and how badly he botched his appearance or how dumb the concept was in the first place. Good job all around.
Cesaro/Owens was probably match of the night, but how much better would it have been if Owens was the US champion?
Fuck finish aside, I really liked the Undertaker/Brock match. It was the match they should have had at WrestleMania, but I just wish that Brock had pinned UT clean and then he could have retired on a high spot.
Steve Amell is way better than he has any right to be - he is actually a better wrestler than Eva Marie, who has technically been in this business for two years. Also, somebody clearly hates Wade Barrett, but every time they give him a new, more awful gimmick, he goes out and gets it over. You can't stop him!
I didn't think the women's match was awful, but it was clunky. I don't think Sasha Banks had anything left in the tank after Saturday.
I liked Reigns and Ambrose v. Wyatts a lot more than I expected to.
I'm glad the New Day are champs again, and I'd kind of like to see them feud with Ambrose and Reigns.
At this point, you'd literally have to pay me to get me to care about Orton wrestling Sheamus. I'm so, so tired of the two of them, no matter how good a match they might have had. At least they got the most boring match out of the way first oh no wait the Ryback snooooore.
Originally posted by andy1278Nobody else can take down superman Cena except for weak Jon Stewart with a weak chairshot.
Or strong Seth Rollins with a strong Pedigree onto a steel chair. It's understood, I suppose, that the chair is already strong by virtue of it being made of steel.
Originally posted by andy1278Congrats on your win PCB, you have the advantage for a day, before one of your members loses a match tonight to somebody from another threesome... then you're all even again.
You oughta follow former The W poster John Orquiola on Twitter
Originally posted by CRZ7. Seth Rollins retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and won the United States Championship after pinning John Cena after Jon Stewart--you know what, I still can't believe they pulled this shit.
So Stewart has turned heel?
Or maybe Rollins crew had Stewart's son held captive backstage and Jon was forced to do what he did so his son wouldn't be harmed.
Or maybe Stewart's son is a huge Rollins fan and Jon did it all for the love of his boy.
Person I was watching it with speculated that it had to do with Stewart's conversation with Heyman backstage. Stewart had said how much he respected the streak and maybe he didn't want Cena tying Flair's "record" championships. Who knows? As much as I wanted Cena to lose, that ending sucked mightily. Poor Seth.
I was actually quite entertained by the rest of show, especially New Day. They are owning it right now. I could watch Big E and Kofi dance all day while Woods yelled hilarious crap on the outside of the ring.
The only part that sucked was... well, the entire last match. Just watching Taker last more than 2 minutes with Brock required a huge suspension of disbelief on my part. Still can't understand why people cheer a guy whose biggest weapon is kicking someone in the balls, but whatever.
Originally posted by SKLOKAZOIDI don't even think Cena would want that. He had no problem losing tonight, nor to Owens clean. He seems like someone who'd want to use this angle to enhance his legacy as a guy who puts on great matches and gives his opponents a lot of offense. The US Title Open Challenge is still one of the best things on RAW all year, but no payoff makes it kind of a bust.
No offense but if you think that John Cena, The Face That Runs The Place, thought that putting Owens over clean for the US Title was the best way to go, but was shot down by Vince, you're high. Especially with the newz about Cena putting the kibosh on 3/4 Horsewomen taking out the Bellas as their debut. Cena put on some phenomenal matches against guys who need that spotlight on them, but he's just like every other top-wrestler in the history of professional wrestling; he will protect his "image/legacy" to the death, even if protecting it is worse for the company. And the fuckery of it all is that the people in charge, the people who write the checks, go along with those top-guys.
Cena was operating at about a 5 last night. I knew he was losing based on that alone. He and Nikki are very similar in that aspect. Watch them when they're going to win: shit looks great. But when they are told to eat a pin? It's fucking amateur hour. I'm tired of it.
Speaking of being tired of things, that ending. At least Lesnar summed up my feelings about the majority of the product directly in the Undertaker's face. I got sold on the match within the first 10 seconds. I'm joining Justin on the kudos and high-five line for that performance. But whoever wrote that shit, and whoever approved it, needs to GTFO. Just... what? And how many times did Lesnar have to feed his arm to Taker and/or wait for spots to happen? I know he's a special attraction and he's old but Christ, at the very least, hit the transitions.
Owens is the real deal. That dude only operates at 10. Cesaro also looked great and not weak at all by taking the loss.
Stewart was pretty terrible last night, and I like the guy. The tongue-in-cheek approach is one of my wrestling pet-peeves, especially when done by an "outsider". Guys like Heyman have earned the right to be that way. Stewart hasn't. Wandering around the ring while awkwardly holding a chair and feinting at Rollins and Cena didn't help matters.
To the surprise of no one, JBL can't math. "21 Wrestlemania matches!" "Well, 22 now." So the Bray Wyatt match has been officially retconned (not that it shouldn't be).
I hate this version of Dog Ziggler. I hate the story they're telling and 1/2 of the characters involved (hint: Lana and Dog). I want it to end but it won't.
Amell was fine, probably the most capable celebrity they've ever had.
Big E's celebratory dance was beautiful poetry.
My brain shut off as soon as Brie and Tamina were in the ring together, especially considering the talent standing on the apron.
I just... my exasperation is turning to indifference. I'm gonna watch Raw because of the prospect of BIG DOINGS but there is a whole lot of bullshit to swallow after last night.