Views From The Turnbuckle: Summerslam Preview, Predictions, Analysis And More
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According to WWE, Summerslam is considered the biggest event of the summer. Well, Triplemania (which will take place on the same day) and the final of the G1 Climax (which took place on the previous Sunday) will probably both end up with bigger crowds, but let's indulge WWE. Summerslam on Sunday will definitely feel like a big event, and that is because of one match.
The match I'm talking about of course, is the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar. Cena, the perennial champion, and according to pretty much anybody within the company, the greatest WWE Champion in history, while Brock, a part-time beast, has his sight set on his 5th career world title, and first within WWE in over a decade.
Despite the fact that Brock Lesnar is a part-time wrestler, and that he is going against the nearly impenetrable John Cena, many fans think Brock is going to win on Sunday. It is a true testament to Lesnar's status as a supreme ass-kicker that he is being considered the favorite to win the world title on Sunday by so many fans. Lesnar doesn't even have to show up for half the Raw's that lead into the PPV that he is supposed to be main eventing, yet fans still believe that he can win the world title.
Cena, on the other hand, is the undeniable king of WWE. WWE recently shifted the world title to him for a reason, because they feel that he is the most reliable draw they have, the safest choice and the guy that is going to deliver for them no matter what. While Brock is a big draw for the company, he is far from a reliable talent, because even if he were to hold the world title, he wouldn't be at every Raw, or even every PPV, pretty much making him the anti-Cena. While WWE greatly values Brock Lesnar as an important drawing card, it is unlikely that they would shift the only title in the company that people truly care about onto him for any extended period of time.
There is another option however. Because Seth Rollins holds the MITB briefcase, in theory WWE could have Brock defeat Cena for the world title and then immediately lose it to Seth Rollins, when he cashes in and beats Brock. Brock would still win the title and add a win over Cena to his resume, but WWE wouldn't have to risk putting the title on a part-time star for any extended period of time. Despite that being an exciting idea, I don't know how much sense it really makes. First, the Authority are the ones who gave Brock Lesnar the opportunity to take the title off of Cena (who they dislike for some unexplained reason, presumably just because he is John Cena). If Brock were to win the title, why would they endorse Rollins coming in and taking the title from Lesnar? In addition, Ambrose and Rollins still have unfinished business, and their feud only looks to be just beginning. Eventually, it would make perfect sense for them to have a match for the briefcase down the road. If Rollins were to just successfully cash in the contract on Sunday, it would unnecessarily hurry the feud between Rollins and Ambrose.
The build-up for the match has been fairly simple. Brock and Cena have both missed Raw's in recent weeks, and the booking has been very rudimentary. Brock comes out with Heyman and Heyman blusters on while Brock smiles menacingly behind him. Cena comes out and says the same stuff he has been saying for the last 8 years, essentially "I'm here because I love the fans and WWE, you don't love it as much as me, yada yada yada." WWE is basically just presenting the fact that JOHN CENA is wrestling BROCK LESNAR, and hope that is enough to get fans excited enough to tune into the PPV.
The match itself should be pretty damn good. It was kind of a rushed match, but last time these guys met at Extreme Rules in 2012, the match was really good. Cena is at his best when he is taking on guys that the fans genuinely want to see knock off Cena. His matches against guys like Randy Orton, Ryback, Alberto Del Rio, Kane and others have been less than spectacular because at the end of the day, most fans don't really care if Cena beats those guys, so those matches tend to lack any drama. When Cena wrestles guys a lot of fans get behind, heel or face, the matches tend to be really good. His match last year against Daniel Bryan, and his previous matches against CM Punk, are the perfect examples of this. When most of the fans are pulling for the guy against Cena, the drama and the psychology in the match is increased. Brock falls into that category; I suppose that most people are going to be pulling for Brock on Sunday, so while I find it very unlikely that Brock actually wins on Sunday, the match should still be pretty strong.
The rest of the card is all over the place. Improbably (or not, considering the people involved) the second "biggest" match on the show is going to be Brie Bella vs Stephanie McMahon. There are about 10,000 things wrong with this match, but I will limit it to three big issues.
Problem #1: People don't care about Brie Bella- While Stephanie is certainly a very talented heel and gets a lot of heat, a foil is only as good as the hero he (or she) is trying to disrupt. Stephanie sticking it to Daniel Bryan was able to upset the fans, because everyone only wanted to see Bryan succeed as champion. Brie is really just a poor impersonation of Bryan, in fact that is EXACTLY what she is. The numbers have proven it, that even though Stephanie is so wretched, the fans don't really care about the feud because the fans are not interested in Brie as a face.
Problem #2: The feud has been horrifically executed- Creatively, the storyline has been a disaster. Stephanie getting arrested, the phony assault charges, the stupidity of Triple H trapping Nikki Bella behind a wooden table, the atrocious acting of Brie Bella and so on. On Monday, WWE took it to a whole new level, inexplicably deciding to trot out some random woman to say that she is having an affair with Bryan, leading to Brie acting like the dumbest babyface in history, attacking the woman instead of seeing it for what it was, a stupid ploy by Stephanie to distract Brie. Why WWE decided to add that whole angle into the feud, I will never know. It was like they were intentionally trying to create the worst storyline imaginable.
Problem #3: The match is totally going to blow- I don't know if people remember or not, but Stephanie McMahon basically had no business being in a wrestling ring. Not only has Stephanie not wrestled in 11 years, but according to Cagematch.net, she has only wrestled 22 matches in her career. None of those matches have gone longer than 10 minutes, so this isn't any hardened veteran stepping into the ring. Brie has improved a lot since her debut, and with a good worker like Paige or Natayla, she could probably have a decent match, but she isn't nearly good enough to carry someone as inexperienced as Stephanie to a competent match. The match is slated to get 15 minutes, which is approximately 14 minutes and 40 seconds longer than they are capable of going, so this should be a disaster. The only way it is can be saved from being a total car crash is if they had meticulously planned the match, spot-for-spot and instead of a botchfest they just end up looking like robots. I don't even care who wins or what happens, just please make this feud end.
Roman Reigns is going to get his first big singles opportunity against Randy Orton. It is no secret that Roman Reigns has been pegged to be a future world champion, so this match on Sunday is very important. Despite what some fans may think, Reigns tends to get a really good reaction from the crowd, and a large percentage of the audience genuinely believes in him as a big time star for WWE. Reigns still has a lot of question marks surrounding him, and he will need to answer them before he gets the world title. In the ring I think Reigns is going to be okay, and working with a veteran hand like Orton should really be a good test for Reigns. If they are able to have a reasonably good match, then WWE is going to feel very confident in Reigns heading into the future. If the match ends up being a disaster, they will probably have to pump the brakes a little bit on Reigns' push to superstardom.
Bray Wyatt needs a victory, and he needs it really bad. Wyatt has slowly been losing a lot of momentum over the last few months. Around the time of Wrestlemania, Wyatt has looking like arguably the top heel in the company. But after months of losing to John Cena and now Chris Jericho, Wyatt has slowly drifted from being one of the top heels, to being just another guy on the roster. Jericho will almost certainly put him over on Sunday, but really, it might be too late. The feud between Jericho and Wyatt hasn't been bad or anything, but it really has come up short on reaching it's potential. Wyatt and Jericho, despite being a feud containing two very popular performers, has felt like the 5th most import feud in the company, which is disappointing, since both men's skill sets should have lent themselves to something bigger.
I already mentioned Ambrose and Rollins, but they will finally face off, one-on-one at Summerslam. Unfortunately, WWE decided to book the match as a Lumberjack match, a match often used as an excuse to get more people on the card, and is rarely any good. I think this is going to be the first match in a series of bouts between the two, with Ambrose winning this one, and eventually taking on Rollins in a match for the MITB contract. Still though, why couldn't they just have a standard one on one match, or a cage match, or something that will just be Rollins vs Ambrose, and not have any of the additional hang-ups that come with involving other wrestlers.
This might be the most Diva-centric WWE PPV in a long time. In addition to Brie vs Stephanie, Paige and AJ will battle for the Diva's championship. Unlike the former, the latter has done a good job building the rivalry and could end up being a pretty good match. Paige's character really seemed lost during her title reign, but once AJ returned and Paige made a sharp heel turn and finally seems comfortable in her character. Hopefully they can have a cleaner outing then the matches they have had in the past.
The last two matches are just filler. Unfortunately, the Intercontinental title is in one of them. The Miz will take on Dolph Ziggler, in a match that has a tiny build, but could end up being one of the best matches on the night. We all know about Ziggler, but I'm liking The Miz since he came back. Who is more unlikeable than a snob who acts around with a sense of accomplishment, when everyone knows that they haven't accomplished anything?
The last match is Rusev vs Swagger in a flag match. I don't know how much more they can get out of Rusev without tweaking his character a little bit. He is still undefeated, and I think he will come out on top Sunday. If Cena were to retain over Lesnar, he might need a new challenger for the world title, and I really think it might be time to bring Rusev up to that level.
Overall, Summerslam has the potential to be a pretty good show. Those who despise Cena might want to look away, and all signs point to Stephanie vs Brie being a disaster, but otherwise, the card is pretty strong with matches that have good potential. With Network subscriptions floundering, this might be a boom or bust show for WWE, so expect some big ideas.
Here are my star ratings from New Japan Pro Wrestling's G1 Climax Final PPV which took place on Sunday:
Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Ryusuke Taguchi and Tiger Mask vs TAKA Michinoku, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lance Archer and El Desperado- **1/2
Manabu Nakanishi, BUSHI and Yuji Nagata vs Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale and Yujiro Takahashi- **1/4
Minoru Suzuki, Shelton Benjamin and Takashi Iizuka vs Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI and Kazushi Sakuraba- *3/4
Captain New Japan and Jushin Thunder Liger vs Adam Cole and Michael Bennett- **1/2
Time Splitters vs reDRagon- ***3/4
Tomoaki Honma vs Tetsuya Naito- ***3/4
Tomohiro Ishii vs Karl Anderson- ***1/2
Katsuyori Shibata vs Hirooki Goto- ***1/4
AJ Styles vs Hiroshi Tanahashi-****1/4
Kazuchika Okada vs Shinsuke Nakamura- ****1/2