WWE SUMMERSLAM

Toronto

DREW GULAK vs. ONEY LORCAN (8:45): I was on vacation during Summerslam weekend so I missed a ton of wrestling and it took me about a week to catch up. There was of course the last three nights of New Japan's G1 tournament. Usually the A and B block finales are best of the year type matches, but this year they weren't. Probably blame Jay White for that, as he's not really on par with the likes of Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Tanahashi, Ishii...I guess I could go on. The Ibushi/Okada match was good not great...so that doesn't entirely give me hope for their inevitable Dome main event next year. Ibushi and Okada are both awesome, but for whatever reason against each other there nowhere near Omega/Okada. The final had Jay White vs. Ibushi with Ibushi winning. That match was great late but not as good as last year's Ibushi/Tanahashi final. Ishii and Ospreay were the MVP's of the tournament and Shingo Takagi was probably the close second. Ring of Honor also put on a big show on Friday night of Summerslam weekend in the same city, Toronto, as Summerslam and Takeover. While it was an entertaining show main evented by a Ladder War match between The Uso's and The Briscoe's, the crowd size was small and disappointing. Ring of Honor has a major problem these days with getting crowds to their shows and I can't really envision them existing in the future. The funny thing about that is that this will probably be ROH's biggest money making year ever thanks to the Madison Square Garden sell-out in April. The other big show of the weekend was the Takeover show, a typical, entertaining NXT show, although it wasn't as good a show as they usually put on. Every match was good except for the Shayna Baszler match. The main event was another great match between Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole, although they did a stupid two out of three falls match where one fall was a wrestling match, one a street fight, and one a weapons filled cage. These two are the rare types that can put on a four star match without gimmicks so the weapons filled cage wasn't needed and detracted. That match went 46 minutes...so it was definitely epic. And here we finally come to Summerslam, the dud of the bunch. I suppose after watching awesome matches every night in the G1 and then watching Takeover...it's tough to give a shit about the WWE main roster. It's honestly as bad and as lifeless as I can ever remember. The main event was good, although not as half as good as those great Lesnar matches five or so years ago when CM Punk faced Lesnar at Summerslam and John Cena faced Lesnar in his re-debut. And how can you forget that awesome Royal Rumble match with Cena vs. Lesnar vs. Rollins? So the show started with the 205Live title match. 205Live has just gotten unwatchable. I suppose it's because the champ, Gulak, is a bore. This was typically average. *

BUDDY MURPHY vs. APOLLO CREWS (4:20): Murphy made 205Live great...then he left and disappeared only to reappear facing Crews in a four minute, nothing match. Huh? Murphy is a star and should be the champ and main eventing. Oh, well. Murphy did some cool stuff here but no one cared. *1/2

ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS vs. THE ICONICS (6:15): I think the one problem with the WWE is they have all these lame, short matches. Seriously, when was the last time a match of the year candidate was under ten minutes? Has it ever happened? You have to build drama and suspense and get people invested. Whatever. I suppose it's good that this match didn't go thirty. Bliss and Cross retained the Women's tag titles...titles I swore The Iconics never lost. Okay. This was as awful as one would expect. 1/2*

BECKY LYNCH vs. NATALYA (12:35): This wasn't terrible. Natalya is Canadian so the crowd was somewhat into this. They popped big when she put Lynch into the Sharpshooter. Then Lynch won. **

GOLDBERG vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER (1:50): Okay. Why is Goldberg facing Ziggler? Does it matter? I mean...Goldberg is a legend and only comes out to wrestle once in a blue moon...so, you know, why not make it special? Not just some random, early-on-the-card, superfluous match? It was short. And, hell, a lot better than Goldberg's last match, his Undertaker match in Saudi Arabia that was perhaps the worst match in the history of wrestling. The crowd liked this. Goldberg did a sick spear. It pointless fun. **1/2

AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET (13:00): There are a lot of reasons that the WWE depresses me, but nothing worse than seeing them utterly humiliate, embarrass, and destroy Ricochet, who only a few years ago was one of the best and most exciting wrestlers in the world. Tonight they made him wear this stupid, Tron-like body suit that was so stupid looking it made me cringe in embarrassment. There's no way in hell he wanted to wear that. Did he? He looked like a fucking moron. Not to mention that AJ Styles vs. Ricochet didn't have a good match. In what world do these two not have a good match? In the WWE universe. I guess it wasn't awful. But it was fucking depressing as hell. When's Ricochet's contract up? *1/2

BAYLEY vs. EMBER MOON (10:00): Bayley is the Women's champ. But there's two women's champs. So she's, like, the lesser champ. I'm grasping at straws. This was another awful match. This show sucked. Did you figure that out yet? Maybe I should have reviewed the G1 tournament this year like I did last year. Although fast-forwarding through Bad Luck Fale's matches has its perks. -No Stars-

KEVIN OWENS vs. SHANE MCMAHON (9:20): If Owens lost he had to quit the WWE. That's like a reward these days. He should've just laid down and taken the pin! If Shane lost...nothing happened. Nice stipulation! Makes zero sense. They really need to forget about this "evil boss" storyline with the McMahons that's, like, twenty years too old. I will say that Elias singing his Toronto sucks song before this was funny. Elias was the special guest enforcer or something during this match. Seriously, what the hell is going on with this company? And they expect to go on FOX and deliver big ratings? Oh, boy, are they fucked. *1/2

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. TRISH STRATUS (16:40): Trish is 43. I'm not entirely sure why she's back and wrestling this one-off. It actually got good late (this was the longest match on the show). The crowd was semi into it. The place was sold out, so any sort of crowd reaction helped the matches that were actually not half bad. **

KOFI KINGSTON vs. RANDY ORTON (16:45): This ended as a double count out. Ugh. Was making Kofi the champ a mistake? I don't know...because his match to win the title was awesome...but every match since has been terrible. Orton is too old to be in good matches anymore, so maybe it's not Kofi's fault. But, seriously, a double count out? If they're trying to save something for a rematch...then do they forget that this is supposed to be the 2nd biggest show of the year? What the fuck are you saving a rematch for? Some dumb B-ppv no one is going to watch or care about? 1/2*

THE FIEND vs. FINN BALOR (3:25): Bray Wyatt is now The Fiend. His gimmick is kind of scary and kind of basically Sami Callihan. It surprised me that Wyatt actually wrestled with his evil clown mask on. I'm not sure how far they expect to go with this "character" when he's going to eventually have to wrestle longer matches and not just be a stupid, scary gimmick thing. I feel bad for Finn Balor. Remember a few years ago at Summerslam he WON THE FUCKING TITLE? Yeah, even the WWE forgets that apparently. *1/2

SETH ROLLINS vs. BROCK LESNAR (13:25): This was entertaining. And this was the longest Brock Lesnar match in years. Rollins did a frog splash from the top rope to Lesnar down on the announce table. That was cool and, also, been-there-done-that. They kind of sort of did a back and forth which is the only thing that makes Lesnar matches work (the WWE probably doesn't realize this). If it's just Lesnar beating you down and then finally a miraculous comeback it's boring. So this had Rollins do a little more offense and eventually win the title. I'm not sure why he even lost the title last month if he was just going to win it back. This show was atrociously dull but at least this main event was pretty good. **1/2