Summerslam 2018 Recap
Yesterday instead of doing work like I was supposed to I decided to go ahead and sacrifice my entire day to the WWE Network for another of its absurdly long Pay Per Views. Thanks to running all their Pay Per Views on their own online streaming service, they're able now to run these things as long as they want now, so they've gone from three hour shows to these five hour marathons, even longer if you count their pre-shows...which we probably should considering they have things like championship title matches on them. All total I was there from 4 when the pre-show started until 10:30 when things finally wrapped up, for a total of six hours.
What'd I think of the show? Well, let's talk about it. Forewarning: After the abysmal Money in the Bank show I kind of opted out of watching the weekly shows so forgive me if they've covered something on them and I'm not aware of it.
Andrade "Cien" Almas & Zelina Vega vs. Rusev & Lana: By no means was this a good match, but it was about as good as we were going to get under the circumstances. Rusev and Cien did most of the work, Zelina did her thing in keeping things in Cien's favor as much as possible. The only real problem is Zelina spent a bit of time actually wrestling in TNA so it looked bad when they finally tagged Lana in on some hot tag stuff. Still, the match didn't last too long and the heels won which gives them a reason to continue the story. Hopefully this leads to just a Rusev vs. Cien match as a show opener for Hell in Cell next month.
Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak: I kinda half paid attention to this match while I was watching Black Clover and taking notes so I could do the write-up for it over at Comicon. What I saw was decent, though nothing necessarily on the level of what we're used to from 205 Live since it's soft reboot at the start of the year. Drew tried to weaken Cedric for the Gu-Lock, but Cedric managed to avoid it long enough to get the pin. It was shocking he didn't use his finish, but I like how they're trying to make Alexander look strong. The one sad thing is...this didn't make me want to watch 205, and I've become one of those geeks who care about "good wrestling".
Though to be honest, 205 Live is in an interesting position. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a Junior Heavyweight division at all, but a show where there's only one title, one division, and twenty guys is weird, and they need something to make them stand out. A trios title, or maybe do some kind of thing where wins and losses are more visible and you have a ranking system instead of the usual "Well he strung a couple together, I guess he deserves a title shot."
If I'm being honest, I question the need for them to even have a show. The Cruiserweight Classic was a success; just do that once a year as a WWE version of the Best of the Super Juniors. And maybe instead of the Mae Young Classic every year...just give the women a show? I dunno, just a thought.
The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) vs. The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder): Even though I haven't watched RAW in a while, I get the feeling The B-Team is one of those "jokes" that's gone on way too long. I was excited for this match as a fan of The Revival though, as they helped put on some of the best matches of the year down in NXT. Injuries had kept them off the roster for some time, so I was sincerely hoping this would be their chance to get back to the spotlight.
If you weren't around for the Revival's time in the spotlight, they're basically the Spurs of tag team wrestling. Their tagline was "No Flips, Just Fists", referencing their overall disdain for the kind of absurd high spots indie wrestling is often known for, and a desire to return to the old-school style wrestling of the 80's. Despite this, much like the Spurs their lack of flashy wrestling still led to multiple classics because they happen to be really good at the fundamentals they stress. And this match had a lot of that: dissecting the ring, targeting limbs, knowing when and how to eliminate the other partner so it was two on one in their favor. I almost believed they'd take it...then the B-Team managed a comedy roll up after Axel tripped backwards and knocked over his partner into a victory.
Sigh. I'm guessing the Authors of Pain will eventually take these titles from them, but the RAW tag division is so dire it would just lead us into a heel vs. heel feud.
The match was "fine", though, and I'm glad to see Rollins get the Intercontinental title back. He's the most over male wrestler on the active roster, and the gimmick of him being the fighting champion has got a good bit more mileage to go before it gets close to stale.
New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods) vs. The Bludgeon Brothers: The first match was too long, this match is too short. The New Day got wrecked in one of the Pay Per Views leading up to Wrestlemania when the Bludgeon Brothers first started moving towards the main event for tag teams, and I'm not sure if they ever got their chance to get revenge for it. I thought this match would just see the New Day get "squashed" again but things actually ramped up into an enjoyable match...and just as I was calling the match "good" suddenly the Bludgeon Brothers took a sledgehammer to the whole thing, literally. They hit the New Day with their prop hammers and get DQ'd, allowing them to keep the titles.
DQ wins are basically the "to be continued" of wrestling. You know the last place you should ever see that? Your second biggest show of the year. This was shaping up to be good if it had gotten ten more minutes and a clean finish, instead it's just "okay".
Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens: LOL. This was a stipulation match where if Braun lost for any reason, from DQ to being counted out, he would have lost his Money in the Bank contract opportunity. Strowman matches are a mixed bag to me--the big dudes usually get in so much offense it starts to feel one-sided in a not fun way to me, so it's hard for me to keep interest. So, thinking I'd skip the first five minutes of the match and come in once things got hot, I left the room for a bit.
TWO. MINUTES. LATER. Braun beats Kevin Owens in a freaking squash. Obviously the logic here was to leave Strowman fresh for a cash in later, but then why have this match at all? Why not have Owens face someone else and Strowman not be on the card?
Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair: I came back in after this match was in full swing, and I was nervous the entire time. Carmella winning the championship off of Charlotte soured the aftermath of a decent Wrestlemania, and the one-two punch of her beating Asuka and Alexa taking the title off Nia Jax caused me to stop watching the weekly product. I'm actually fairly invested in the women's division, and watching the bookers hand titles to the least talented women 'cause they fit the "look" isn't something I'm willing to tolerate.
I actually couldn't tell you if it was good or not because I was too caught up in who was going to win. It wasn't bad, which is high praise when Carmella's involved, so we'll just go with that 'cause there's no way I rewatch it. Carmella did have a sweet suicide dive, telling me she has the potential to be better than she is if they were interested in letting her improve instead of being bad because "heels don't wrestle well". Nonetheless, we got to the real fireworks factory when Charlotte got the pin and became the seven time (LMAO) women's champion.
Sidenote: Holy fuck. Seven times. She's been with the company like...six years. Whatever, anyway she won and Becky snapped, beating the hell out of Charlotte before leaving the "champ" in a battered, crying mess by the announce table. Me, afterwards:
Over everything else, this moment got the biggest pop of the night. Becky's the best, most believable babyface the women's division has. She's adorkable, but has just enough fire in her to make you believe she can overcome dastardly heels--she's Bayley without the fact that her gimmick is being way too nice for her own good. In a different world you'd build the whole division around her, but instead she was SDL women's champ for like a couple months before they passed it to Alexa Bliss and let her hold the title for half a year.
Having her finally snap was satisfying, and this more than anything else ensures I'll be watching Smackdown this week.
Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles: These two haven't had the best year. Styles spent a third of the year in Dick Kick City with Shinsuke Nakamura. Samoa Joe's been cutting amazing promos then getting destroyed for no reason. Most of this feud was based around the idea of Samoa Joe getting in Styles' head, claiming that Styles' "family man" image was a facade and he cared more about the title than his wife and children. Very stock WWE stuff, but coming from a master wrestling orator like Joe it came off better than it would've in anyone else's hands.
This was easily the best match on the card, with these two beating the heck out of each other. This match got the time and the physicality it deserved, but you can tell they're building up to a bigger match later...so it's fine. DQ's are still bad, but at least there's obviously a plan in mind. My theory was AJ's title reign wasn't going to end until Brock's did, because it makes the WWE title look less important if its constantly changing hands while the Universal title is being held for 500+ days by an unstoppable monster.
The Miz vs. Daniel Bryan: I was fully prepared for this match not to live up to the hype. But as usual, Miz continues to impress me while Daniel Bryan continues to be...Daniel Bryan, one of the best wrestlers in the world. Another match with a stupid finish, things ended when Miz's wife snuck him some brass knuckles. He clocked him with them and then took that opportunity to take a quick pin for a victory.
I really wish they'd let Bryan win here, because I'm not sure where this feud goes from here. Bryan keeps begging for a match, proving Miz right? Miz losing could have planted doubt in his mind, and pushed him to want a rematch, which is a more interesting angle than having one of the top faces in your company begging for a match against a midcard heel. (Albeit one who cuts fantastic promos.)
Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin: As someone who can't understand the obsession people have with wrestlers being a certain size, or when WWE caters to those people, this match had me giddy. True, it wasn't a proper match but I loved seeing the Demon come out for the first time in a year, murder Baron Corbin in less than two minutes, and leave. The whole thing was great--Baron losing his shit when he saw the Demon, selling the offense like he just couldn't get it together long enough to come back, and Finn actually going all out like he wanted this to be over once and for all.
That's one thing WWE has over a lot of companies--sometimes there's value in a shorter match. This was one of those times.
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy: As someone of the opinion that the Hardy's are generally best in tag matches or matches where they can jump off ridiculously high places or have some sort of Extreme Rules, this match was about as bog standard as you can get. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was just...there. If it had been on an episode of Smackdown it'd be solid, but for a Pay Per View it just made me want them to move on so Nak can be challenged by more interesting folks.
Ronda Rousey vs. Alexa Bliss: I've seen talk that this match was bad because Alexa has run over the entire division and been the champion for hundreds of days, and so Ronda beating her is essentially saying the rest of the division is trash.
For one, wrestling has never worked by the transitive property. Even only watching it for a few years, it's clearly Rock-Paper-Scissors. For another, Alexa should never have gotten those accolades to begin with. To me this is much more like a soft reboot and hopefully putting her back down to her NXT power levels. And while the people at the top definitely seem to like Alexa a lot (her combined reigns total up to well over 300 days and she's only been on the main roster for two years), what they like even more are people who draw. And no one's a bigger draw than Rousey.
Rousey did show how she's a bit more green though, talking way more than most and not really doing much in the ring. If we're gearing up for a Four Horsewoman vs. Four Horsewoman feud in the near future then they're going to need to stick to big spots rather than extended "wrestling" moments.
Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar: This was...certainly a match. After setting things up for roughly a year and a half, Roman finally gets his big moment at the second biggest show of the year. On some level, you have to respect WWE's bookers. They knew the fans would shit on the match, so they made that impossible very early on by having Braun show up and say he was going to cash in as soon as the match was done, making the fans invested in what happened afterwards.
The match was...the same thing their matches always are. More special move trading than an episode of Saint Seiya, but it was mercifully short, and by the time fans realized the cash in wasn't going to happen Roman had already won.
I'm no Roman fan, but the fact that the biggest title on RAW effectively only existed once every three months or so was becoming grating. I'm fine with him getting a nice, lengthy run with the title too. At least he'll actually have to freaking defend it.
And, there we are. After spending the last month going through New Japan's G1 Climax and cutting both RAW and SDL out of my life and only watching NXT as my sole source of WWE content, this was...not as painful as I would have thought. I'm certainly not as high on the show as most people, but it was okay--a 5/10 show someone could argue is a six and a half.
The titles that actually changed hands are the ones which desperately needed to, and enough happened to left me curious enough to want to tune into RAW and SDL again. That's a victory, right?
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