WWE SUMMERSLAM

Nissan Stadium, Nashville, Tennessee

BIANCA BELAIR vs. BECKY LYNCH (15:10): This show happened on Saturday, July 30th, and I watched it then went on a two week vacation. I suppose if I'm forgetting anything that happened, you can blame it on not being memorable or entertaining enough for me to remember it. The big story before this show happened, though, was Vince McMahon leaving the company. He apparently had an affair with a woman that worked in WWE and then paid her off to not talk about it. When that woman's friend found out about it she emailed the press and The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about it. The WWE board looked into this and found that Vince had paid other women that worked in WWE in the past to keep their affairs quiet. While Vince is the boss of WWE and technically couldn't be fired, it seems that some people pressured him to leave so that the stock price wouldn't fall and the company wouldn't look bad. He hung on for awhile, though, but eventually left. Supposedly HHH will be the new head of creative, which is fantastic considering he did the same job in NXT and that show was excellent when he was in charge. Hopefully the WWE gets better, because right now, AEW is on fire in terms of match quality, entertainment, and watchability. The WWE is still king in the production side of things, though. This show was at the outdoor, Tennessee Titans football stadium, which made it look pretty cool and "big." Only the main event was anything noteworthy, though. This opening match was fairly entertaining. Bianca Belair retained the women's title.  After the match, a new group consisting of Dakota Sky, Bailey, and Io Shirai showed up. Totally random pairing there, but I guess we'll see how that works out. **1/2

LOGAN PAUL vs. THE MIZ (14:15): Logan Paul did a lot of high flying, which was impressive. He's better as a heel, though, so I'm kind of baffled as why they're trying to make him a good guy. This was entertaining. Logan did the old Shane McMahon top rope elbow through the announce table spot which was awesome. AJ Styles ran out to help Logan Paul and beat up The Miz for some reason as well. **1/2

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. THEORY (4:42): Vince was pushing Theory to the moon...so it'll be interesting if he gets the cool down treatment. He lost quickly here in a forgettable match. *

THE MYSTERIOS vs. THE JUDGMENT DAY (DAMIAN PRIEST & FINN BALOR) (11:08): Edge did a Brood entrance with the flames around a staircase midway through this match. That set up The Mysterio's winning. Without Edge, The Judgment Day group is kind of pointless now. So far this show seems to be more about surprise entrances than actual wrestling. Which is fine, considering the WWE rarely has great, in-ring matches. **

PAT McAFEE vs. HAPPY CORBIN (10:39): McAfee did some high flying stuff, which is impressive because he's a tall dude and also the announcer, not a wrestler. Hopefully with Vince gone they'll finally cast Baron Corbin aside to the rubbish bin. **

THE USO'S vs. THE STREET PROFITS (13:23): These two teams had a good match at the last PPV. Considering The Uso's won that match in a close contest, it was a little strange that The Uso's won more easily in this rematch. This wasn't very good at all, especially considering how good their last match was. *

LIV MORGAN vs. RONDA ROUSEY (4:34): They gave Liv Morgan the title...but apparently they don't think she's worthy of it. Rousey had Liv in an armbar submission and Rousey was on her back so the ref counted to 3 and Rousey lost. The problem? Liv tapped out right before the pinfall. This was kind of ridiculous. If you put the title on someone, at least make her look somewhat credible. *

ROMAN REIGNS vs. BROCK LESNAR "LAST MAN STANDING MATCH" (22:55): These two have seemingly wrestled each other forever at every big show...but the fans seem to not care about this. This was by far their best match...at least in recent memory. The reason was they did a unique spot during this match that will run as a highlight for years to come. Brock came out driving a tractor with a lift on it. He used this tractor multiple times during the match. The big spot had him lifting the ring with the tractor and Roman tumbled out of the ring. This was a crazy spot. I'm actually shocked Nashville let them do this, considering ringside fans could have been crushed to death if this went awry. Brock left the tractor holding up one corner of the ring so anyone sitting on that side of the ring paid all that money for good seats and couldn't see the finish. After that spot, The Uso's came down and beat up Brock and he suplexed them and Roman speared Lesnar a few times. Eventually they threw a bunch of chairs and the announce table on Lesnar and he got counted out. Good, crazy, main event. ***

ROH DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR

Lowell, Massachusetts

COLT CABANA vs. ANTHONY HENRY (10:00): This was a really good show. Tony Khan has certainly turned around Ring of Honor, as before he bought it, the last few years featured fairly dull shows with sparse crowds. This show wasn't sold out or anything, but they had a big crowd that was loud and hot for most of the night. What Khan is going to do with Ring of Honor is anyone's guess, though. They don't have a TV show and this was only the 2nd show since he bought it. Khan supposedly did give contracts to a few of the stars like The Briscoe Brothers and Jonathan Gresham (who already quit). Khan apparently bought the company simply because he's rich and a fan. I guess we'll see if putting a few PPV's on a year is going to work. This opener was fun, as the crowd was super into everything Colt Cabana did. The free, hour pre-show had four matches...so you definitely got your money's worth if you didn't want to pay $49 for the 3 hour PPV (I didn't). **1/2

THE TRUST BUSTERS vs. SHINOBI SHADOW SQUAD (5:30): Cheeseburger is still around, part of the Shinobi Shadow Squad. Does Cheeseburger have a real, 9-5 job? He has to, right? I don't even really remember this match and I literally watched it last night. *1/2

THE EMBASSY vs. ALEX ZAYNE, BLAKE CHRISTIAN & TONY DEPPEN (11:35): Brian Cage is in AEW. He mysteriously disappeared since last Fall but now he's in Ring of Honor in Tully Blanchard's stable, though Blanchard apparently quit because he wasn't on this show. Cage looked great. I remember him having a great match against Adam Page on an AEW PPV so I'm not entirely sure why he kind of disappeared off the face of the Earth in AEW. He was also in the cinematic match against Darby Allin and Sting years ago. This match got pretty exciting late, as Zayne and Deppen and Christian were all doing a bunch of fast, high flying, exciting moves against the three big monsters. Fun match. **1/2

WILLOW NIGHTINGALE vs. ALLYSIN KAY (7:50): This was pretty forgettable, although the crowd roared in approval for everything Willow did for some reason. Is she from Lowell, Mass or something? *1/2

CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI vs. JONATHAN GRESHAM (11:30): Gresham quit the company after this match. He mentioned that he felt disrespected because he didn't have much if any communication this week from Tony Khan. He also mentioned he was mad that this match, a ROH title match, went on first on the PPV and didn't get a lot of time. Let's face facts, though...he quit because he was mad he lost the title, a title he just won last December. Gresham is a short dude so WWE will never hire him, and if they did they wouldn't do anything with him. Quitting AEW will make him work indies for the rest of his life. That's what he has been doing lately, as he has his own company, Terminus, that runs shows here and there in Atlanta (they had a show last Thursday where he faced Takeshita in the main event). Gresham also wrestles a lot in Germany for WXW for some reason. So he won't not be working. But quitting ROH even though he just signed a contract seems like a mistake. Maybe he'll realize this and come back. Either way, I would have rather seen this as a longer, main event match. It was for the title, which Cesaro won. I understand that they wanted FTR/Briscoes on last, though. This was a good match but weird that it went on first and didn't go too long. I also think it was kind of obvious that Claudio was winning because as we saw with Adam Page vs. CM Punk...Tony Khan always goes with the more popular guy. Considering the WWE never gave Cesaro the title, and he never won the ROH title previously, it was kind of awesome seeing him in his 40's finally be a world champ. **1/2 

DALTON CASTLE & THE BOYS vs. THE RIGHTEOUS (9:40): I love Dalton Castle's entrance. I also think his gimmick is one of wrestling's best. The crowd loved him in this match, too. At one point he was tossing his boys left and right over the ropes onto his opponents. The Righteous is kind of a Charlie Manson gimmick. Vincent is a part of it. When Matt Taven and Vincent broke up I kind of thought I'd never see Vincent again. Taven is in Impact now, doing whatever the hell they do over there (I never watch that promotion). This was another fun match. Dalton and The Boys won the 6 man titles. **1/2

WHEELER YUTA vs. DANIEL GARCIA (15:55): This was the opposite of the typical AEW/crowd favorite type of matches. It was more ground and pound than spectacular high flying. While it was good it was also a little boring. Yuta retained the Pure title, a title with so many stipulations that it takes five minutes to explain it. No wonder ROH got rid of it for years. **1/2

RUSH vs. DRAGON LEE (15:50): This was fantastic. Dragon Lee was in it so of course it was. When ROH folded, the two best wrestlers in the company that became free agents were Bandido and Dragon Lee. Why Khan didn't fucking snap them up for AEW right away is baffling to me. But at least they're in ROH, though Bandido was missing tonight (he did look like he injured his neck last month at the AAA show when he landed on his head). It seemed to me that these two decided to just recreate the infamous Dragon Lee vs. Hiromu Takahashi match from CMLL years ago...because they did a lot of the same, spectacular spots. A few of the moves went off the rails but this was just as brutal and crazy as that one was. Dragon Lee of course broke Hiromu's neck at that New Japan California show years ago...so Hiromu isn't wrestling as crazy anymore. Dragon Lee still is, which is kind of shocking. Has he learned nothing? Lately he's been balancing his opponent on the guardrail and sailing through the ropes to torpedo them into the crowd. He tried this with Rush by sitting him on the announce table. His dive wasn't long enough, though, and he ended up smashing his head through the table. How he finished this match is beyond me. Also, these two are brothers in real life. And they beat the shit out of each other. What a glorious, insane match this was. ***

MERCEDES MARTINEZ vs. SERENA DEEB (17:20): Martinez did a sit up suplex on Deeb from the top rope that reminded me of that infamous, top rope Dragon suplex that Omega did to Okada. While this match wasn't particular good or anything, that move at least woke me up and take notice. Martinez retained the Women's title here. This was too slow and plodding in spots, but certainly brutal and hard hitting. **

SAMOA JOE vs. JAY LETHAL (12:20): The crowd was a frothing frenzy of wildness for the early part and the later part of this match. Great crowd tonight. I guess this was more an AEW crowd...since a ROH crowd doesn't really exist, anymore, plus half the wrestlers on this show were AEW wrestlers. For five minutes or so these two beat the shit out of each other outside the ring before the bell rang. Later on we got a ref bump and interference from Jay's cronies. Joe retained the TV title or whatever it's called. The early part and final few minutes of this were fantastic. The middle was kind of dull. **1/2

FTR vs. THE BRISCOE BROTHERS "2 OUT OF 3 FALLS" (43:25): This was a really intense, hard hitting, entertaining epic. Since it went so long, though, I think their first match back in April was better. This was so long it had the kitchen sink feel. They did everything and more. Cash Wheeler did a side suplex on one of the Briscoe's from the second rope down onto a table late in the match. They barely hit the table, though, and the Briscoe's head landed hard through the table. That was sickening. Also, Dax got so many chops on his chest that his chest started to bleed. Besides the table break, this felt like one of those exhausting, epic New Japan matches, which is a good thing. The Briscoe's won the first fall and FTR won the 2nd and 3rd fall. Really great match that truly had that epic, awesome, putting-everything-out-there feel that a main event title match should have. The final pin was pretty creative as well, as Dax gave one of the Briscoe's a second rope piledriver and both men fell over in exhaustion, but Dax laid his foot on the Briscoe's chest to score the win. Good end to a really good show. ***1/2

WWE MONEY IN THE BANK

 

Las Vegas

LIV MORGAN vs. ALEXA BLISS vs. ASUKA vs. BECKY LYNCH vs. LACEY EVANS vs. RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ vs. SHOTZI "MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH" (16:35): AEW just had an excellent PPV, Forbidden Door, and a wild "Blood & Guts" match on Dynamite. Your move, WWE. This show was probably supposed to be a much bigger deal when they first announced it. They were going to have the show at the football stadium in Vegas and even started selling tickets. Apparently the ticket sales weren't good so they moved the show to the MGM Grand Arena. And while Money in the Bank is my favorite WWE PPV of the year, the reason is because usually you not only get title matches but you also get two ladder matches. This year, though, there was no men's title match and the two women's titles matches were extremely weak for a PPV. The show entertained me but nothing was spectacular except for the last five minutes or so of the Uso's match. Thankfully the WWE didn't have pre-show matches so this wasn't a 5 hour show or anything ludicrous. The show went a little over 3 hours mostly because, thanks to Peacock, there's commercials between matches which stretches the show out. Watching this women's ladder match made me realize how fucking awesome and skilled The Young Bucks really are. They won the tag titles a few weeks ago on Dynamite in a ladder match against Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus. Everything the Bucks do with a ladder works and looks seamless. In this match it was the exact opposite. Raquel Rodriguez had a spot where she was supposed to pick up a ladder where two of the women were laying on. I guess they didn't practice it because she could only lift half of the ladder up and it made her look weak and pathetic. Shotzi tried to run up a ladder perched in the corner to give Raquel a DDT but Shotzi slipped the first time on the ladder then slipped again on the ropes trying to correct herself. Alexa Bliss fell on a wobbly ladder when it crashed onto the ropes when it wasn't supposed to. The whole match wasn't sloppy, but it just made you realize how great some wrestlers truly are in ladder matches, like The Hardy's, Edge & Christian, etc. I do remember one of the Young Bucks tripping on the ropes and crashing head first onto a ringside table in that crazy All Out ladder match against Penta and Fenix, so they're not perfect. But watching this match just made me scared to death one of these women were going to break their neck. The big ladder in the center of the ring was broken and couldn't stand still and it took them forever to finally move it and use another one. The big moment was Becky Lynch climbing a ladder at ringside to jump butt first onto Asuka who was laying on a ladder bridge. Unfortunately, that looked more painful than thrilling, unlike Matt Riddle's two awesome top of the ladder spots later in the evening. So this more entertaining than a typical WWE women's match...but not by much. Liv Morgan won and got a good pop, which is shocking, because they seem to have buried her six feet under with their booking the past year. **1/2

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. THEORY (11:05): What a stupid fucking name. "Theory." Jesus Christ, who writes this shit? Vince and co. want their next big star to be named Theory? They have to realize how stupid that is, right? Is it too late to change it? While he's a better in ring wrestler than The Miz, Theory is basically The Miz because he's being pushed when no one in the audience wants him to and are baffled as to why it's happening. The Miz is good on the mic, so at least there's that. Theory is young and good looking. Not like there's a bunch of fat, old people running around the locker room, though. But that's the reason he's being pushed as a superstar. The only reason he lost the U.S. title here is because they're moving him to the main title picture. Which makes little sense because he got beat clean here. Match was decent and they seemed to work well together. **

BIANCA BELAIR vs. CARMELLA (7:10): Carmella is still around? I suppose Vince thinks she's pretty or something, because the fans don't like her, she's annoying, and she can't wrestle. This should not be a PPV title match. This is like a throwaway Smackdown match at best. Bianca won. Match sucked. Carmella beat up Belair after the match. 1/2*

THE USO'S vs. THE STREET PROFITS (23:00): This was the best match on the show, although it went too long. The last five minutes or so were great with some exciting near falls and the crowd in a frenzy. One of The Street Profits reminds me of the some of the AEW guys because he does a lot of high spots, including jumping over the ring corner onto The Uso's during this match and delivering a great, high Frog Splash that got a near fall. Fun match but there were like ten minutes in the middle where it was a boring beat down by The Uso's. ***

RONDA ROUSEY vs. NATALYA (12:30)/ LIV MORGAN vs. RONDA ROUSEY (0:35): This was another title match that had no business being on a PPV. Natalya? Really? Is she still even in WWE? And she's a heel now? What? Match sucked. It was boring. Ronda isn't typically in great matches, though, is she? At least since being back she seems to be kind of bland. Maybe that's why they decided to take the title off her when Liv cashed in her contract. Natalya had weakened Rousey's knees by doing the Sharpshooter and Rousey was selling her leg. Rousey put Liv in the Ankle Lock for a few seconds but Liv got out and did whatever her finishing move is and pinned her to win the title. A cash in is exciting and gets the crowd on their feet, but I think cashing it in so early kind of defeats the year long, suspenseful drama. Liv is cute and seems like she likes wrestling and it's her dream job and all that so her winning was cool, especially considering they've buried her endlessly. I think I'd rather have seen her win the title by actually winning for the first time in a long, hard fought match than just here in fluke like fashion. **

THEORY vs. DREW McINTYRE vs. MADCAP MOSS vs. OMOS vs. RIDDLE vs. SAMI ZAYN vs. SETH ROLLINS vs. SHEAMUS "MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH" (25:25): They announced that Theory was joining this match for no reason...which made it kind of obvious he was going to win. Riddle couldn't win because he lost a title match to Roman Reigns on Smackdown a few weeks ago with the stipulation that if he lost he could never face Reigns for the title again. After that match, Brock Lesnar came out, setting up a Brock vs. Roman match at Summerslam. Yes, they announced the Summerslam main event before this show. Kind of made this show pointless. I realize that Roman Reigns signed a new contract that gives him limited dates...but they really should have put the Riddle vs. Reigns title match on this show. Riddle is one of the most over wrestlers in WWE (Reigns and Orton are the other two). Why is his title match on a random Smackdown episode? And why are they pushing Theory more than Riddle? I'm not sure who the genius is coming up with wrestler's names...but they need to be fired. Matt Riddle is a good name. Riddle is not. Austin Theory is a good name. Theory is not. Madcap Moss is not a good name. They all sound like morons. As for this match...it was a pretty forgettable ladder match to be honest. Riddle did two awesome spots, though, which were the highlights. He actually stepped on the very top of the ladder to do a flip dive down onto all the wrestlers. And he did an RKO from the top of the ladder. Why Matt Riddle is not the champion of this company is beyond me. At one point they all threw ladders onto Omos at ringside to get him trapped. Then he appeared in the ring later without ever showing him escaping his predicament. Everyone also picked up Omos and put him through the announce table. That got a big pop. Sami Zayn took a sick bump on the back of his head being slammed on a ladder wedged on the ropes. It was entertaining, though with Theory winning at the end, you kind of went home depressed. Way to go, WWE! ***