WWE SummerSlam 2016

WWE SummerSlam 2016

Brooklyn, New York - August 2016

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, Dean Ambrose is the reigning WWE World Champion, the New Day are the WWE World Tag Team Champions, The Miz holds the Intercontinental Title, while the United States Title is held by Rusev. Sasha Banks is the reigning WWE Womens' Champion and tonight will mark the unveiling of the vacant Universal Championship.

COMMENTARY: Michael Cole, Byron Saxton, and Corey Graves (RAW), David Otunga, JBL, and Mauro Ranallo (SmackDown)

SummerSlam 2016 officially began with Enzo and Big Cass taking on Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens, collectively known as JeriKO. As expected, Enzo delivered a pre-match promo that referenced several famous performers, specifically The Notorious B.I.G, Frank Sinatra, Jay-Z, and Alicia Keys. Like most of their matches thus far, Enzo took a beating for a lengthy stretch before Cass got the hot tag and cleaned house, leading up to Owens and Jericho having to regroup to get things back under control. JeriKO have great chemistry (in ring and out) and Enzo and Cass are a hot act, but this one was nothing to write home about, the crowd somewhat indifferent, and the outcome did nothing to highlight how Enzo and Cass have spent over 12 months together while Y2J and Owens haven’t spent 12 weeks together. Not a bad opening match, but nothing special. (2.5/5)

Charlotte challenged Sasha Banks for her WWE Womens’ Championship next in my pick for Match of the Night. Flair and Banks wrestled with urgency and intensity, determined to steal the show. The crowd wasn’t necessarily hot at the start, but they won them over within a few minutes, especially as the bigger high spots started getting busted out. Some have criticized the two for the risks they took (especially considering that, as we learned after, Banks came into the match hurt), but I’m gonna call “bullshit double standard” on that talking point. RAW GM Mick Foley became the beloved “Hardcore Legend” by busting out insane bumps when it was his time to shine. At SummerSlam 2013, John Cena came into his match with a grotesquely injured arm and was applauded for his willingness to “do what was best for business” and put over Daniel Bryan. There are dozens of other examples. Sure, Banks and Charlotte took risks they probably shouldn’t have taken – but they were sold properly, each “Did you see that?” moment given time to register with the crowd (who were enthralled) and put over as significant by the commentary team. The finish didn’t diminish either performer’s standing or make me feel like I’d seen everything they could do, either, a criticism that would spring to mind later in the show. The only match on the show that I’d be eager to rewatch. (4/5)

The Intercontinental Championship match followed, The Miz defending against relative newcomer Apollo Crews. The biggest takeaway from this was that The Skull-Crushing Finale is, based on this show, the most devastating, unbeatable finisher in the WWE. Forget the RKO, the Attitude Adjustment, or the F-5 – the Skull-Crushing Finale is the supreme, one-and-done match-ender of the industry. Conversely, Apollo Crews’ offense is void of any effect and Maryse has picked up the power of invisibility since her first run in the company. (1.5/5)

John Cena vs. AJ Styles was next, a controversial choice for the 4-slot as, in terms of crowd reaction, this match might have only been challenged by the proper main event for being the “hottest” match on the show. On his podcast, Steve Austin called it an “instant classic,” and while I usually agree with most everything the Rattlesnake dictates, I wasn’t nearly as impressed. Like Cena’s battles with Kevin Owens last year, an overuse of special moves and “finisher spamming” meant that, by the end, we had seen a remarkable number of maneuvers, but none that seemed any more devastating than any other. To make an analogy, it was a speech loaded with $1000 words, but it didn’t say anything until its final paragraph. Admittedly, I’ve praised certain matches of this ilk in the past – but the key phrase there is “in the past.” At this point, I may have had my fill of this type of action, where finishers are transitions moves 8 minutes in and finishers OFF THE TOP ROPE only lead to near falls. To call this match “below average” would be ludicrous because no match that pleased the live crowd so much, that featured such great execution, that did finally achieve an emotional impact in the last quarter (Cena’s facial expressions may not be subtle, but they were very effective) could ever be deemed just “okay”… but I’m not chomping at the bit to inspect this match again or even call it Styles’ best of the year (that nod might go to his match with Reigns months back). (3.5/5)

Next up, the WWE Tag Team Championships were on the line when The New Day took on Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. Jon Stewart made his return to the WWE before the match, oddly choosing to come in his best Mick Foley costume – sweatpants, dirty tee-shirt, unshaven face. I really enjoyed Stewart’s involvement in the build-up to last year’s Rollins/Cena match and, to some degree, I even sort of liked how he “screwed” John Cena as a tribute to Ric Flair, but his involvement here was clunkier, the tie-in coming off as thrown together and trivial. The New Day, one of the hottest acts in the company a year ago, have been pushed past the brink of entertaining or relevant, tragically allowed to wither on the vine when they should have probably been split up soon after WrestleMania to capitalize on their popularity and propel them to the next level as singles performers. Meanwhile, Gallows and Anderson, a team that could’ve come in and run roughshod on the division, wrestling as mean-spirited, dominant heels have been made to look impotent after spending so much time chasing the titles but never winning them (or, as we saw at SummerSlam, even coming close to winning them). A “TV match” at best on a show that needed less matches period. (1.5/5)

Dean Ambrose defended his WWE World Championship against Dolph Ziggler in the next contest. Wikipedia says this one went 15 minutes, but I can only recall about 30 seconds or so (and I’m writing this minutes after the finish), Ambrose and Ziggler attempting to win back a fatigued crowd but coming up well short. These two pitted against each other is an awkward pairing – Ambrose not nearly as over as he was two years ago at this time (when he and Seth Rollins arguably stole the SummerSlam 2014 card with the best lumberjack match ever produced) and Ziggler such an established “also-ran” that there wasn’t a soul in Brooklyn who believed he would actually win. This was a good “TV match” in front of a crowd that would’ve reached for a remote control if they could. (2.5/5)

However, the most pleasant surprise of the evening followed, a textbook six-man pitting Becky Lynch, Naomi, and Carmella against Natayla, Alexa Bliss, and, substituting for Eva Marie (whose non-entrance “entrance” was wonderful), the returning Nikki Bella. For over-delivering and getting the basics right, this might’ve been my second favorite match on the show. Lynch carried the match in every one of her sequences and was over. Nikki showed little ring rust, got a huge response, and looks to be capable of continuing to work the way she was when she was maybe the most improved worker, male or female, in 2015. Naomi and Alexa Bliss exhibited the kind of spirited, personality-filled work that shows there is serious depth in the SmackDown womens’ division. As for Carmella…she’s green and has little business being on the main roster, but in her defense, she’s been wrestling for two years and her current gimmick makes little sense without the Enzo and Cass tie-in she benefitted from in NXT. Knowing this made her face-in-peril role completely natural; she got her ass beat down by Natalya because she should get her ass beat down by Natalya. For a “bathroom break” match, Lynch and company exceeded expectations by hitting their marks and decorating a basic match with quality, memorable sequences (Lynch’s hot tag, Naomi’s impressive, high energy, stepping, Alexa Bliss’ simple-but-effective striking, Nikki’s new TKO finish). Well-paced and worked in a way that made it seem like all the participants were fighting to win and not just show off their movesets. This one may not have earned many snowflakes from Dave Meltzer (who gave Cena/Styles 4.5 stars BTW), but it achieved its purpose more than almost any other match on the card. (3/5)

The brand new Coca-Cola inspired Universal Championship was up for grabs when Finn Balor took on Seth Rollins, delivering a contest that fell somewhere between the tedious Ambrose/Ziggler match and the overwrought Cena/Styles bout. Balor and Rollins started things off nicely, brawling on the outside and proceeded to go back and forth with innovative offense (including a sick small cradle driver out of Rollins), but they didn’t have the drained crowd’s attention until the match’s final third. While a rewatch might reveal a more nuanced story, the lack of heat was noticeable and somewhat easy to explain - Balor’s rapid rise from NXT star to SummerSlam main eventer hasn’t given the audience any time to invest in his character (that’s without even mentioning whether or not it was appropriate to bring the “Demon King” character out this early). Also, while I wasn’t craving a weapons-heavy, ultra-violent match out of these two, what was the point of the No DQ/No Countout stipulation? Rollins not using it to his advantage at any point in the match made little sense considering the stakes and Rollins’ win-at-all-costs drive. Again, no match with this kind of technical proficiency could ever be deemed just average, but this was hardly the epic battle it could’ve and should’ve been. (3.5/5)

Rusev vs. Reigns was scheduled next, but when the two brutes came to blows before the bell rang, the match was called off. I’m guessing this was the original plan based on the match they had on RAW days prior, not just a clever way of speeding up the show, but I’m not necessarily sure what the purpose of putting this non-match so late in the card was, especially considering the finish in the main event. A bait-and-switch that the crowd, predictably, disliked, but I’ll award a point for the stiff, physical brawling we did get, action that this show desperately needed a few hours earlier for variety’s sake. (1/5)

Main event time – Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton. Two years ago, I was as big a supporter of Lesnar as there could be, impressed immensely by his bout with CM Punk and the potential he had following his historic defeat of the Undertaker at WrestleMania XXX. A year ago, I was still a huge fan. His dominance of John Cena at SummerSlam 2014 was unlike anything I’d ever seen before and his match against Cena and Rollins at Royal Rumble 2015 was one of my favorites of the year. The past six months, though, have not been pretty. I described his Roadblock match as “the least consequential match of his second WWE run,” rating it lower even than his match against New Day from the Beast in the East special. His match against Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania was a major disappointment. The doping scandal surrounding his return to UFC spotlighted how little he appreciates or respects his own brand or his fans, arrogantly flouting the rules because of his name. Lesnar has never been a beloved figure, but there was a time when his heedless attitude towards pro-wrestling and “the business” could at least be excused because he was putting butts in seats and having the most outrageous, “must see” matches of the night. Sadly, “Suplex City” has made Lesnar’s matches repetitive and tiresome. As one could have predicted, Orton eventually got his own signature offense in via two RKOs, but it didn’t make a lick of sense and just further exposed how thin the action of this match was. The end came when Lesnar used his ground-and-pound technique to open up a brutal, stomach-churning gash on the Viper’s forehead, the main event of the company’s second or third biggest show of the year ending with a decisive victor, but not victory. Shane McMahon made his way to the ring, signaling a potential Lesnar/Shane match that will likely have me searching for new and exciting ways to rip apart a match (and may even challenge Taker/Shane for Worst Match of the Decade). Another disappointing appearance out of the Beast. (1/5)

When I think of how I’d rate SummerSlam 2016 numerically, its Kwang score of 2.40-out-of-5 seems generous. It implies that this was close to halfway good. It wasn’t. slog of a show with even the best matches on the card unable to lift up an exhausting event plagued with odd decisions in match order and booking. Why end the show with two non-finishes? Why place Cena/Styles underneath matches guaranteed to receive much less of a response like Ambrose/Ziggler? Who structured Miz/Crews? Was the goal of the entire event to make finishers meaningless? Maybe most importantly, did the WWE learn anything at all from WrestleMania’s marathon running time? For those keeping score at home, SummerSlam was the lowest rated WWE show I’ve reviewed all year, falling .03 points short of the forgettable Roadblock holdover show and a full point below the previous night’s Takeover special.

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville