Summerslam Thoughts
Last night was Summerslam, which is WWE’s #2 annual pay-per-view after WrestleMania. If you stalk my personal Twitter (different from the new-ish site Twitter), you may have noticed I had a lot of issues with WWE’s webcast of the show. But I persevered, and I enjoyed what I did get to see.
I was really looking forward to seeing Dolph Ziggler vs Kofi Kingston, but I missed it last night due to my problems with the webcast. I have the replay going now, but I missed it again because it reminded me to write my angry email to WWE about my purchase of the show. But I will absolutely catch it before the week is over. And actually, I did see the very end of the match, where the Nexus beat down both of them. What a crappy way to end a match that was probably great. But I guess this was the only real cannon fodder match on the show that Nexus could have interrupted, since every other match was too big or too female. And I guess interrupting one of the best matches on the show is a great way to build heat for Nexus, but it’s still very unfortunate from a nerd’s standpoint.
Speaking of females, the Diva Championship match was okay. It’s great to have Melina back, and Alicia is tolerable. LayCool’s appearance felt kind of pointless, though. Was it to make up for a match they were supposed to have against Tiffany? I guess I should pay more attention to those kind of things. Anyway, yay Melina! I hope they let her feud with someone like Gail Kim, but I know it won’t happen.
Straight Edge vs Big Show was alright for a Big Show match. I was hoping he would lose, because him winning against three guys makes him look too strong, and makes SES look too weak. But the way it played out, with CM Punk abandoning his men to save himself, did make some sense for his character. I just wonder where they can go with the SES from here, though.
The Miz cut a pretty awesome promo. (Pun not intended; I just happen to use that word a lot regardless of him.) Sometimes I think I’m really starting to get into his character, but then Michael Cole says something and I change my mind. Anyway, him being announced as the seventh member of Team WWE/Raw/Cena/whatever was too anticlimactic, so I suspected someone else was going to replace him later. I figured it would be Triple H, but I also thought, “Hey, what if Bryan Danielson shows up, beats up Miz, and takes his spot?” Earlier in the week, I had begun theorizing it could be Danielson, since the storyline reason for his exit was that he had moral issues about what he and the rest of the not-yet-Nexus guys had done. But that didn’t seem very realistic, since he had a lot of independent show dates going into September…
Sheamus vs Randy Orton was pretty good. Sheamus has definitely taken his push and run with it, and Stone Cold Randy Orton has been interesting as well. I liked Sheamus’s cheesy line about driving the viper out of WWE a la St. Patrick, and I hope their feud continues for a while so we can get more such lines. I kind of expected Triple H to run in at some point, but considering how the rest of the show went, that might have been a little excessive. Maybe next month.
Kane vs Rey Mysterio was also pretty good, and I’m glad Kane retained his title. He’s been great lately, and after all these years, he definitely deserves a chance for a somewhat lengthy world title reign. Undertaker’s return was so obvious, though. The first few times they opened the casket, I joked that the Undertaker would be in there, and then it eventually happened. It was also kind of obvious that Kane was going to end up as the attacker, because he was really the most logical choice, as Mysterio pointed out the other day. It also works well with the fact that Kane is supposed to be criminally insane and stuff. Anyway, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a Kane vs Undertaker feud, and I’m already pretty hyped for this one.
For some reason, I didn’t have high hopes for the 7 vs 7 match, but I really enjoyed it. Although I had suspected Danielson as a possibility for the real seventh member, I was genuinely surprised it was him and not Triple H. I missed all the internet spoilers about it, too, because I was busy watching the show. Anyway, he looked great, and I’m glad the crowd was as into his return as I was. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the crowd get behind Jericho and Edge, at least for the early parts of the match. Miz’s run-in made a lot of sense, but it was kind of disappointing to see Danielson go out like that. Luckily Super Cena was still there to save the match for the good guys. I don’t know where they could take the Nexus storyline after this, but I do look forward to seeing more of Danielson and his obvious feud with Miz.
I’m really glad I got to watch the show live, problems aside. It was certainly worth the trouble and ass quality I had to put up with. Though it sure would be nice if WWE ever responds to me, preferably with some sort of compensation. Maybe I’ll try to watch future shows at a local sports bar or something.