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Cook’s SummerSlam 2018 Report Card

August 21, 2018 | Posted by Steve Cook
Roman Reigns SummerSlam 1 Image Credit: WWE

Hi, hello & welcome to the SummerSlam 2018 Report Card! We’re delayed a day or two because Daddy had a fantasy football draft to do. It’s that time of year, folks. Speaking of fantasies, WWE tried to put a card together that lived up to most IWCers’ fantasies. That was Saturday night’s NXT Takeover. SummerSlam was on Sunday night. Actually, there were a lot of interesting matches on paper. Did they live up to the hype?

Kickoff Show Mixed Tag Team Match: Andrade “Cien” Almas & Zelina Vega vs. Rusev & Lana

Vega had like one NXT match and now she’s wrestling more often than Almas. Why does Graves keep talking about mixing business & pleasure? Rusev & Lana are married, there’s little pleasure there. Almas isn’t having much pleasure at the business end of those Rusev boots. Rusev then meets the business end of the ringpost & Almas applies an armbar on the ropes. Rusev almost gets the hot tag until Vega yanks Lana off the apron. He finally gets the tag, and here go Lana & Vega! Lana with a spinarooni! I remember not really buying into the Sable comparisons back whenever Vince McMahon wanted to make Lana the next Sable, but now that she wrestles I totally get it. Dunno if Rusev will be the next Marc Mero or not, but I do know that Vega beat Lana here and eventually remembered to put her feet on the ropes.

Grades
Almas/Vega: C-
Rusev/Lana: C

Kickoff Show WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match: Cedric Alexander (c) vs. Drew Gulak

205 Live is the best show I’m not watching. This was a pretty good match with two solid competitors that excel at two distinct styles. Alexander is all about action while Gulak is all about holds & grapplef. I feel like Alexander has probably had the title for too long, but 205 Live wants people to watch the show & they probably have a better shot of it with Alexander as the face of the show rather than Gulak. This was good, but it wasn’t the epic piece of business that the announcers wanted us to think it was.

Winner: Cedric Alexander
Grades
Alexander: B-
Gulak: B-

Kickoff show WWE Raw Tag Team Championship Match: The B-Team (c) vs. The Revival

https://twitter.com/ScottDawsonWWE/status/1030492929050247168

B TEAM B TEAM GO GO GO B TEAM B TEAM GO GO GO. That’s what the Revival needs, a catchy theme song! Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson hit the Shatter Machine on Curtis Axel early, but he’s not the legal man. Bo Dallas is, and he’s taking the punishment at the moment. The Revival get most of the offense here because they’re not the B-Team. B-Team is here to get beat up & wait for the other team to slip on a banana peel. Axel spent most of the match napping on the floor. Dawson actually utilized a spinning toehold there for a minute, I haven’t seen anybody other than the Funks use that in thirty years. Dallas hangs in there. After hitting an Ego Trip he finally tags Axel in, who’s a house affire. The attempted Perfectplex by Axel leads to a rollup by Dawson, but Dallas gets knocked into them & Axel ends up on top for three!

Winners: B-Team
Grades
B-Team: B-
Revival: B

WWE Intercontinental Championship Match: Dolph Ziggler (c) (w/Drew McIntyre) vs. Seth Rollins (w/Dean Ambrose)

https://twitter.com/HEELZiggler/status/1028728029042929670

Rollins out here in his Thanos attire. With no Rey Mysterio around, somebody has to do the comic book geek thing for the major shows. Drew getting the second entrance treatment for Ziggler’s entrance is weird. But his music is better than Ziggler’s. Ambrose gets up in McIntyre’s face early to let him know he’s there. Ziggler has the IC belt on his tights like he’s Rick Rude or something. I don’t think Ziggler’s in Rude’s class, but I’m sure some will disagree. Rollins gets the early advantage, but of course it’s Ziggler taking over before too long. Rollins does a Flair Flip into the corner & lands back first on the apron. Ziggler locks in the ol’ rear chinlock. Rollins keeps getting chances, but ends up taking big bumps like backdrops over the top rope to the floor. Or he suplexes Dolph over the top rope & goes out with the momentum. Or he takes a DDT on the ring apron. You know, whatever it takes. Rollins does a reverse superplex into a Falcon Arrow! Of course it gets two. I roll my eyes, but the crowd loves it so it’s tough to blame them. Rollins gets ready to burn it down, but a distraction caused by Drew attacking Dean on the outside leads to Seth getting rammed into the turnbuckle & Zig Zagged for two. Looks like Seth split himself open on the turnbuckle. Dean gets some revenge on Drew, and Seth hits the stomp to win the strap!

Match drug for a long time there, but started picking up at the end when they got spot-happy. It didn’t do a whole lot for me, but was better than their MITB match where everybody was happy to count with the clock. Dolph will get his rematch pretty soon & that’ll probably end the feud. Drew vs. Seth seems like a better idea in my opinion.

Rollins out here in his Thanos attire. With no Rey Mysterio around, somebody has to do the comic book geek thing for the major shows. Drew getting the second entrance treatment for Ziggler’s entrance is weird. But his music is better than Ziggler’s. Ambrose gets up in McIntyre’s face early to let him know he’s there. Ziggler has the IC belt on his tights like he’s Rick Rude or something. I don’t think Ziggler’s in Rude’s class, but I’m sure some will disagree. Rollins gets the early advantage, but of course it’s Ziggler taking over before too long. Rollins does a Flair Flip into the corner & lands back first on the apron. Ziggler locks in the ol’ rear chinlock. Rollins keeps getting chances, but ends up taking big bumps like backdrops over the top rope to the floor. Or he suplexes Dolph over the top rope & goes out with the momentum. Or he takes a DDT on the ring apron. You know, whatever it takes. Rollins does a reverse superplex into a Falcon Arrow! Of course it gets two. I roll my eyes, but the crowd loves it so it’s tough to blame them. Rollins gets ready to burn it down, but a distraction caused by Drew attacking Dean on the outside leads to Seth getting rammed into the turnbuckle & Zig Zagged for two. Looks like Seth split himself open on the turnbuckle. Dean gets some revenge on Drew, and Seth hits the stomp to win the strap!

Match drug for a long time there, but started picking up at the end when they got spot-happy. It didn’t do a whole lot for me, but was better than their MITB match where everybody was happy to count with the clock. Dolph will get his rematch pretty soon & that’ll probably end the feud. Drew vs. Seth seems like a better idea in my opinion.

Winner: Seth Rollins
Grades
Ziggler: C
Rollins: C+

The Bellas are here to see Ronda Rousey make history & become Raw Women’s Champion. Shouldn’t Brie be somewhat interested in her husband’s match? Nah? OK.

WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match: The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. The New Day

Xavier Woods & Big E are your New Day reps for this one. New Day got dismantled by these guys awhile back, so it’s tough to see them having much of a better chance here. Harper & Rowan dominate Woods early. They then dominate Big E on the outside & dismantle the steps so they can try to slam Woods on them. It actually doesn’t work, to my surprise. Big E gets the tag & belly to bellys the Bludgeons on the outside. One for Harper in the ring, then a hip thrust! E’s going crazy here, and the Brothers are bringing it as well. Crucifix bomb on Big E gets a near-fall as Woods breaks it up. Woods kicks out of a sitout powerbomb by Harper. He does a top rope elbow drop to Harper on the floor! Midnight Hour is broken up by Rowan & his mallet! That’ll be a disqualification, but the Bludgeons don’t care as they hit Big E out of the ring with it.

New Day were more of a threat this time, for sure. The Bludgeon Brothers have definitely fallen off the map since getting the titles, as the only time people were interested in them was when they wrestled Team Hell No. It’s probably time to get the straps off of them. This was ok, but nothing I’ll remember watching tomorrow.

Winners: The New Day
Grades
Bludgeons: C
Days: C

Money In The Bank Briefcase Match: Braun Strowman (c) vs. Kevin Owens

https://twitter.com/BraunStrowman/status/1031279873749336064

There was some concern that Owens would actually get his hands on the MITB briefcase & cash in on Roman Reigns at the end of the night. This would have required Braun Strowman to lose, which he had no intention of doing. Splashes in the corner, followed by those shoulder tackles on the outside. Nice flip bumps by Owens. He hits a superkick on the outside, & Braun shrugs it off before chokeslamming him on the ramp! KO’s run is over thanks to a running powerslam.

That was exactly what it needed to be. Braun killing people is fun. Much more fun than giving KO some offense to fill PPV time. One question for Corey Graves though…Meat Castle?

Winner: Braun Strowman

This wasn’t long enough to warrant grades, but I enjoyed it.

WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship: Carmella (c) vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair

https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1031284408458915840

I feel like breast implants have been getting a bad rap in certain online circles lately, so let me just say that I approve of Charlotte’s upgrade. Carmella is trash talkin’ & moon walkin’ & bringing the fight right away. She’s getting Becky & Charlotte upset with each other. Well, Becky seems more upset than Charlotte anyway. Both of them have to contend with Carmella mocking them while dominating them & reminding everybody that she’s the champion. What’s she going to say when she isn’t the champion? “I’m the former champion” doesn’t have the same ring to it, just ask Becky. Carmella uses Trish Stratus’ headscissors in the corner on Becky, which is cool since she’s supposed to be the Diva here. It doesn’t work on Charlotte, as she forces Carmella down to the mat & locks in a Boston Crab, then a Figure 4. Becky drops an elbow off the ropes for two. Carmella forces her outside, then does a suicide dive under the middle rope! Dang. Charlotte does a twisting dive from the top turnbuckle! It doesn’t get caught but it looks pretty. Becky blocks Natural Selection & locks in the Disarmer, but Carmella breaks it up. Becky with another nearfall broken up by Carmella. Some good nearfalls here. Becky locks the Disarmer on Carmella, but Carmella’s in the ropes. Becksploder & another Disarmer, but Charlotte hits Natural Selection, covers Becky & becomes a seven-time Women’s Champion!

Carmella isn’t happy, but Becky is downright P.O.ed! She hugs Charlotte, and then slaps her down! The crowd approves of the heel turn, of course. I was skeptical that Becky could be a heel against Charlotte, and the reaction here doesn’t help that idea. The crowd felt that Charlotte deserved the beatdown & the tears after didn’t get the desired reaction. We’ll see how it goes from here, but even though Becky was good I can’t say it worked.

Nice match right there though. Let’s give Carmella some credit for her work. She struggled early in her reign, but she grew into the role & more than held her own in this match. She’s proven she belongs at the championship level.

Winner: Charlotte Flair
Grades
Carmella: A-
Becky: B+
Charlotte: B+

WWE Championship Match: AJ Styles (c) vs. Samoa Joe

AJ’s wife & child are in attendance, and seem to be ok with him being champion. Joe decides to introduce them to the crowd. No introduction for AJ, I guess he doesn’t need one after 280+ days as WWE Champion. TNA chant! Styles is composed early on in spite of the shots Joe has taken involving his family. He weathers an early storm from Joe & launches into some of his traditional offense. Things turn when AJ takes a face-first bump on the apron that was safer than a DDT. Joe goes on the offensive from there. I don’t like when Joe uses the rear chinlock. It’s too close to the Coquina Clutch. Styles actually knocks Joe out of the ring with a punch & then dives onto the man. Joe tries a similar strategy, but AJ kicks him on the dive attempt. The Phenomenon DDT gets a two count. Joe hits a leg lariat off the middle rope! He’s getting some close falls here, but AJ fights back. Pele kick followed by an STJoe! Styles hits the Styles Clash, but doesn’t hook the leg & gets a two count. Joe breaks the Calf Crusher & locks in the Clutch! He signals for the Muscle Buster, but Styles fights out. They head outside so Styles can eat some steel steps. Joe gets on top of the German announce table and tells Wendy that he’ll be her new daddy! Styles finally loses his temper, attacks some stagehands & hits Joe with a chair for the disqualification! Looks like AJ got busted open on those steps, but it doesn’t appear to bother him as he repeatedly hits Joe. Fit Finlay & Joey Mercury finally get the chair away from Styles after another shot to the back. He goes to his family & his daugher points out that he’s bleeding. They walk off through the crowd to the back. Joe walks up the ramp like he’s a man possessed.

Pretty solid match here. Even though we don’t get a proper finish one presumes that’s coming later in the feud. There is a Hell in a Cell PPV next month…

Winner: Samoa Joe via disqualification
Grades
AJ: B
Joe: B

The B-Team turn on Miz, proclaiming their allegiance to Daniel Bryan. Winning a championship makes one forget their roots.

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz

https://twitter.com/mikethemiz/status/1030885567960113152

Bryan has wanted to punch Miz in the face for years. He has to wait a little bit before landing his first punch in this match. Miz lands the first few, actually. But Bryan gets his opportunity & then hits some Yes Kicks in the corner. Bryan really laying the shots in tonight, which you have to do in a grudge match like this one. Miz goes back to Bryan’s playbook & utilizes the surfboard! Bryan knows the counter though, and lands more kicks after getting out. He shows Miz how the move is done. Bryan bounces on his head after a clothesline off the ropes from Miz, which isn’t great. CRAVATE from Miz! Some redness is visible on Miz’s chest from those kicks, and Miz decides to land some punches. Bryan fires back. Dropkicks in the corner! More kicks to the chest! A rana off the top gets two. Dive to the floor by Bryan, who looks like a goat possessed. Miz gets Bryan off the top, but ends up in the Tree of Woe for Bryan’s baseball slide dropkick. Belly to back off the top! Yes Kicks! He misses the last one & Miz hits the kneeling DDT for two. Miz hits some It Kicks to get some revenge for his red chest, but Bryan says No! Slaps to Miz, dragon screw & the Yes Kick to the face! Miz blocks the running knee, slingshots Bryan into the turnbuckle & hits the Skull Crushing Finale for two! A high kick from Bryan gets two & some rest time. They fight on the apron & Bryan kicks the ringpost! Miz locks in the Figure 4, and to my amazement he applies the move on the correct leg. Bryan eventually reverses the move & Miz has to reach the ropes to break it. Bryan lands some repeated elbows & sets up the Yes Lock! Miz gets out of it but gets knocked outside, where Maryse, seated at ringside, gives him a chain! Gotta love a woman that knows how to get foreign objects through security. Miz wallops Bryan on a dive attempt and gets the duke in a match eight years in the making. What a cad!

The crowd reaction wasn’t what one might have hoped for from a heated feud like this one, but it was a superb match. Miz can take a beating. The Twitter machine folks seemed to think that Bryan losing meant he got buried and should head off to the indies & go All In & all that stuff. I didn’t know that losing due to a chain shot meant you were buried. Now, if it was one punch, I could se an argument. But chain. This feud will continue. Possibly forever. Miz had to win the first chapter.

Winner: The Miz
Grades
Bryan: A-
Miz: A

Finn Balor vs. Constable Baron Corbin

Well, The Demon is here. For a match with Baron Corbin. OK. It ended up making sense because Balor completely dominated Corbin in a couple of minutes. The Constable didn’t even get any offense before the Demon dispatched of him.

Winner: Finn Balor

Not long enough for a grade, but it was the right call. Corbin shouldn’t have gotten any offense at all on the Demon, and that’s exactly what happened.

WWE United States Championship Match: Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Jeff Hardy

It feels like this feud has been more about Randy Orton being a creepy creeper than anything else. Nakamura & Hardy can both be weird too. COME ON! Hardy responds by ducking Nakamura shots, dancing around & mocking the taunt. Nakamura takes control on an okey doke and does a move working the shoulder, one of many body parts Hardy has injured over the years. Hardy eventually fights back. No low blow! Twist of Fate & a Swanton Bomb! No cover due to Hardy needing time to recover, but he does another Twist of Fate. Nakamura moves to the apron & Hardy decides it’s a good idea to do his Swanton Bomb there. Nakamura moves, of course. Boot to the head, then a Kinshasa finishes Hardy off.

Creepy Randy Orton makes his way out to be creepy. He walks down to the ring, turns around & walks to the back. OK.

Decent enough match. Hardy killing himself always helps push things up a notch or two, and you knew he had to outdo all these apron people somehow.

Winner: Shinsuke Nakamura
Grades
Nakamura: C
Hardy: C

Natalya comes out prior to the Raw Women’s Championship Match wearing the jacket her father wore at SummerSlam 1990.

WWE Raw Women’s Championship: Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Ronda Rousey

The champion comes out first & shoos off the Bella Twins, who are sitting at ringside. Coach talks about how NYC loves Rousey, which seems like a fine point except it seems most cities seem to like her so far. No, I’m not a fan of Ronda’s eye makeup either, but I wouldn’t say it to her face. Bliss’s strategy is to hit & run, minus the hitting part. One shot from Rousey sends Bliss outside, where she stays for awhile. Rousey wants Bliss in there & offers her back. Bliss applies a rear chinlock. which Rousey has little time for. She lifts Bliss onto her back & judo thows her to the mat. Back outside goes Alexa. She gets Ronda to chase her back in and lands a couple of shots, which serve to piss Ronda off. Judo throws, a slam to the mat, and its time for the armbar. Ronda applies a wristlock, Alexa sells it like it’s death, and the armbar ends it in less than one MMA round. Natalya & the Bellas join in Ronda’s celebration.

We’ve had some short matches. Like the others, this one went about as long as it should have. Bliss has had some of these matches on PPV where she gets a ton more offense than she should, and they cut that all out of this one. The one thing we have to wonder…who will be believable against Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey?

Winner: Ronda Rousey
Grades
Bliss: B
Rousey: B

WWE Universal Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) (w/Paul Heyman) vs. Roman Reigns

After both men are introduced, Braun Strowman’s music plays! He enters the ring with briefcase in hand & asks for the microphone. The fans seem to approve. Braun says he doesn’t want to cash in when their backs are turned. He wishes Roman & the Beastie Boy good luck & says that one of them will get these hands after they’re done. The bell rings & Reigns lands three Superman punches. Spear! Spear! Spear…reversed into the guillotine choke! There was some fierce tapping action early there but the referee lets it go. Reigns counters with a spinebuster. Back into the guillotine choke. Reigns powers out again. Suplex time! Brock hits 3 & sets up for the F-5, Roman slips out & goes for the spear, but Brock sends him outside into Strowman! Brock F-5s Strowman on the floor! Then he hits him with the briefcase a few times & throws it to the entranceway. Chairs to the back! Braun might wanna wait for another evening. Brock back into the ring with the chair…Roman hits the spear & it’s all over in less than ten minutes!

Hey, if you’re going to do this match and change the title, no need to drag things out. Brock’s beatdown not being as lengthy made the match more tolerable. Not a MOTYC by any means, but it was about as good as I could have hoped for.

Winner: Roman Reigns
Grades
Lesnar: C
Reigns: C

Final Thought

My main takeaway from this show? WWE has finally started doing something that I’ve been begging for ever since I started doing these. They’ve realized that not every PPV match has to go over ten minutes & have 50-50 offense in an effort to chase imaginary stars & “This Is Awesome” chants. People can get squashed on these shows. Heck, it gets more people on the card. When you have dominant faces, they need to be booked as such. Guys like Kevin Owens & Baron Corbin can get more heat getting beat.

This won’t be one of the more memorable SummerSlams of all time, though the Rousey win will probably get major play forever. Maybe Reigns too? Eh, who knows at this point.

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