wrestling / Columns
Stew’s WWE SummerSlam 2021 Thoughts
Image Credit: WWE
Loading...I’m not quite up on the news, but I believe I heard something about AEW having a live punk rock show last night? Is that right? Well WWE has a lot to live up to then! I imagine they will have to pull out all of the stops to compete with that!
Can we talk about what COULD end up being a big swerve, but is most likely an even bigger error? Last night on Smackdown, Roman Reigns announced that if he doesn’t leave SummerSlam as the Universal Champion, he will leave WWE.
Now, at its face, it seems like WWE just removed all drama from this match by trying to add drama to it. They want there to be intrigue as to what could happen to Reigns, but there is less than no chance Roman leaves WWE, so… did they just remove ANY possibility of Cena winning? Because while it was an almost certainty than Roman would retain, this seems to have made it a dead-on lock.
Right?
OR!
Is that what WWE WANTS us to think?
Do they have some kind of triple-cross planned here? Where they have us smarks all worked up that they gave away the ending, that they can then trick us by having Cena win? And they do something with Roman either going back on his word or finding a loophole?
GOD DAMN IT, I’m falling right into their trap. It’s become so obvious that it’s actually NOT obvious, and now I have no idea what they are going to do. I’m swerving myself, and when Roman wins, I’m going to just go “….oh”.
I’m thinking too hard about this. Let’s think about something easier.
Bobby Lashley vs Goldberg!
I don’t care about this match at all! I don’t want EITHER of these guys to be the WWE Champion in the year of our lord, 2021.
I read somewhere that this match will have the second oldest combined competitor’s ages for a one-on-one world title match, and the only reason that shocked me was because it was SECOND.
(Sometime in the early 2000’s, Hogan and Flair allegedly had a WWE Title match on Raw or something)
But seriously… isn’t this indicative of everything wrong with WWE? The second biggest show of the year, and we have a guy in his mid-40’s against a guy in his mid-50’s.
Build those new stars, WWE!
All right, time to watch the Pre-Show! Like I said, I’ll be back throughout the night with my thoughts as the show goes on. Let me know if you like this or prefer the typical post-show wrap-up!
7:27PM EST: Still in the pre-show here, and we’re covering the Edge/Rollins feud. Remember the Blo–BROODbaths from the 90’s?! When the Brood dumped, uh, apparently grape jelly on unsuspecting foes? Well they are back! And nothing has changed whatsoever, what are you talking about?
AEW has CM Punk.
WWE has Not-Quite-Bloodbaths.
Who has the edge here? Clearly a push.
7:42PM: I kind of adore Sadsack Baron Corbin. This has definitely been my favorite gimmick of his because he is really committing to it. When he was death-clutching the Money In The Bank briefcase and refusing to hand it to the referee, I legitimately got a good laugh out of it. Yelling at the time keeper to put the briefcase where he can see it. Just great work from him.
Big E won and got his briefcase back, which is essential for the drama during the rest of the show. During his celebration, the camera kept cutting to Logan (or Jake?) Paul in the audience, resulting in an audience reaction of Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy-booooooo-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy-booooooo-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy.
7:52PM: We are reminded that a year ago, Roman Reigns won the Universal Title in a triple threat match when he beat… two people who went from main eventers to pink slips since then.
Also we get to relive Roman’s decree which… well… I talked about that earlier.
8:03PM: After a whole day of having Cult Of Personality stuck in my head in anticipation of AEW Rampage, SummerSlam has me constantly singing in my head “And it’s up then it’s up and it’s up then it’s up” all day today.
I feel like R-Truth. WHAT is up?!
8:18PM: I want to take a second to give Riddle and Orton all of the credit in the [WWE] Universe for being the ONLY watchable aspect of Monday Night Raw as of late. Without the antics of these two, I shudder to imagine how those three hours would pass.
It’s… it’s still so weird to hear ME giving Randy Orton credit, but dude has been putting in work for a good while now. Can’t deny that.
But is it just me did they lose 5 minutes of this match somewhere? The ending felt weirdly abrupt and sudden. It seemed like we should have had much more match than we did. They kinda tussled for a bit, Omos was barely involved, and then Randy won with an RKO.
The match wasn’t bad. It was just… abrupt.
8:31PM: Eva Marie and Alexa Bliss had their match, and… I’m not entirely sure I ever understand what is happening in wrestling the world. This wasn’t a SummerSlam match. This wasn’t even a Great Balls of Fire match. This was a middle-of-Raw encounter. Who makes these choices?
At least Piper Niven seems to be the star of this angle. But they have been teasing an Eva/Doudrop split since, literally, their SECOND NIGHT TOGETHER. So I have no idea what happens next.
I am so, so confused. If I went upstairs and there was a giant grasshopper, I’d be okay with it at this point.
8:45PM: Damien Priest has the yellowest teeth on the planet. They are ORANGE. Is he bleeding in the mouth? Or does he just need, like, 30 whitening strips?
8:48PM: Wait, bruh needs an Invisalign, too. One of his upper teeth is taking a pilgrimage away from the rest.
8:54PM: Damien Priest, DDS won the US Title on his first outing, which is a minor surprise to me. I thought Sheamus would keep the belt somehow and necessitate another encounter down the line, but… nope.
I am reminded of Priest’s North American Title win in the NXT that went absolutely nowhere. I hope they have bigger main roster plans for Damien.
8:59PM: Dominick Mysterio’s career trajectory: more likely to be Cody Rhodes or David Flair?
Don’t trash me, it’s a legit question! Do you remember Cody’s early WWE days? He was a tiny dude who was treated as a hanger-on and was ENTIRELY noteworthy as being Dusty’s kid. I can’t imagine many people saw Cody having the career that he has had back in 2007 or whenever.
So… ten years from now: is Dom David Flair 2.0 or Cody Rhodes 2.0? Discuss amongst yourselves.
9:08PM: [Obligatory comment at how I am so perpetually upset about the weird Usos’ booking under evil Roman].
9:13PM: This was the best match of the night so far; I actually bit into thinking that Rey and Dominick might actually win, even though it made no damn sense. Props to these guys for putting in the work!
Now I just want the Usos to get back to an angle that makes damn sense!
9:21PM: Did… did Shinsuke Nakamura get a ring introduction for absolutely no reason?
There are definitely aspects of this show that make me feel like I’m on drugs. And I’m not even complaining because nothing bad is happening, but it’s just so weird so far.
9:32PM: Okay, okay, okay. Can we give WWE just a little bit of credit here? They went all in on the Carmella tease and let ALL of the air come out of Las Vegas. And right when everyone bought in that we weren’t getting Becky and were about to sit through Bianca/Carmella… they gave us Becky. That made the pop even better than it would have been without the tease. Becky saving the moment gave us an ENORMOUS pop.
I am not playing the AEW vs WWE game, but how great is it to have the Punk and Becky pops on back to back nights? What a weekend for fans all over.
AND HOLY CRAP, while I was typing that, the match ended! I actually missed Becky’s new finisher (I’m calling it The Beck-End after seeing it on replays). It was “type type type WHY DID THE BELL RING AGAIN ALREADY?!”
Fight me on this, but I think this was a perfect ending. It allows Bianca to have SEVERAL excuses (prepared for Sasha; tricked by Carmella; Becky sucker punched her), so she is protected as hell here. And we get the huge Becky moment AND we can tease better matches to come.
Five star moment of the night all around. Perfectly booked from the moment they announced Carmella as the replacement.
9:52PM: Drew McIntyre and Jinder Mahal had a match where Drew won with the Claymore after the actual countdown, which you need to have so fans buy it as a possible real finish.
In bigger news, I heard during this match that Allegiant Stadium’s concessions are down, so they are just giving away food. And now I’m really regretting passing up going to this show. I could be making my money back in free food!
10:11PM: Twitter is apparently having a meltdown over Bianca’s loss. Come on, guys. See the long game here! Bianca was 100% not just “Kofi’d”.
10:16PM: Now I am hearing opposite stuff about Allegiant Stadium, that everything is bad and awful. No concession sales, toilets backed up, no PA system. Huh. I really want to know what is going on!
10:18PM: No show is so good that Charlotte winning doesn’t immediately make me feel entirely dead inside. The triple thread match was absolutely great, I’ll be honest. I was a huge fan of the bout, but then… ALL the air comes out. New prediction: Charlotte re-wins the Raw Women’s Title at every pay-per-view for the rest of the year. Why not?
I’ll take the optimist route of saying “Well, at least the match was very enjoyable”. It’s not like Charlotte WASN’T getting the belt back sooner rather than later. You just can’t be surprised by these things at a certain point.
10:29PM: Edge with the amalgam Brood/Rated-R entrance, and that was pretty rad. They should have brought Gangrel back to just walk him to the ring.
10:45PM: Edge used a Glam Slam. All I want now is for Seth to use a Disarm-Her.
10:52PM: To the surprise of no one, Edge vs Seth Rollins was a TREMENDOUS match.
I wasn’t sure about the ending when it happened, but 10 seconds of hindsight make me feel better. The repeated head slams that Edge did before he locked the move back in were really effective, and I like endings like that that make sense. He just pummeled Seth into oblivion and then force the win. Fair!
I’m always a bit wary of matches based around a single move, but this was solid. It worked that the Stomp would MurderDeathKill Edge, so I get that it was the whole story. It’s better than, say, when Edge really wanted to Spear Chris Jericho or Cesaro really want to Swing Rollins.
Take away Nikki tapping to Charlotte, and the last 100 minutes or so have been fantastic. Even Drew/Jinder was what it needed to be.
11:06PM: Bobby Lashley vs Goldberg is imminent. Time to get my leftover pasta salad and eat my feelings for this one.
11:15PM: I just finished my leftovers and this hasn’t even start yet. Nuts.
11:25PM: Well, that was a match that happened.
Remember earlier in the show when I was confused and bamboozled. That feeling is back! Why would you book that finish for this match? It seems so out of place. Almost like they want us to believe it could be a real injury, but they undercut that with the post match attack that proves it isn’t.
It’s fine. I’m fine. This is fine. WWE got that Goldberg money, and here’s what they did with it. That’s their prerogative.
11:33PM: John Cena’s new shirt makes my night.
I am still confused by how this match will go (see my opening rant). Gosh darn you for working me, WWE!
12:09AM: Hey, it’s AM now!
Roman/Cena was as good as it should have been. I didn’t love the early going where Cena kept going for tie-up pins–the guy is a dominant 16 time champ, not Dolph Ziggler–but like pretty much every Roman Reigns match from the last year, it picked up and became epic.
Roman ended up winning, so… all that fretting over a mega-swerve was for naught. It was, ultimately, as obvious as it seemed at face value. Oh well! I need to quit overthinking things!
The big news here is that Brock Odinson is back, and when was the last time we had officially babyface Brock, man? It’s been AGES. So that will be interesting since it is something new.
I mean, Roman vs Brock isn’t new at all. But the alignment shift is, at least.
All in all, I was really excited for this show. It had downs:
-Charlotte winning AGAIN
-Goldberg/Lashley
-A slow start to the show overall
But in the end, it was a pretty damn good event. I loved everything they did with Bianca, Carmella, and Becky. I think that was picture perfect. And there were a bunch of other great matches aside from that.
Good effort!
