At the SummerSlam at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns once again faced each other in the Main Event in the battle for the Universal Championship. As expected, the mood was bad. Earlier Ronda Rousey met Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss and AJ Styles risked his WWE Championship against his long-time rival Samoa Joe.
Winner: Andrade “Cien” Almas & Zelina Vega, after Vega Lana rolled up and pinched her feet on the ropes. Instead of an involuntary distraction by Aiden English, it was Cien who diverted Lana’s focus away from her opponent and thus cost her the match. The victory for Almas and his business partner makes sense in order to push him further, even if this match contributes only insignificantly to it.
The focus should be on the Mexican, but instead the differences between Lana and Rusev, which will be remembered in a few weeks, will probably be the result. A longer feud is accordingly not to be expected, but if necessary it still comes to individual matches between the involved ones.
Winner and still Cruiserweight Champion: Cedric Alexander per Rollup. As expected, it was the strongest wrestling match of the kickoff and the feud should not be over after Alexander’s happy title defence. Gulak has developed strongly over the past year and would have deserved a run with the belt.
Winner and still Raw Tag Team Champions: The B-Team by rollup from Axel to Dawson, after Dallas stumbled into a pin attempt from Dawson to Axel and turned the cover over. Three kickoff matches, three rollup decisions – pure booking unimaginativeness! In this match it even made sense to present the B-Team as clumsy and happy winners.
At the same time, however, Dawson & Wilder once again look like the fools off the job and are far from standing as one of the best day teams in the world they had at NXT. Damn far away. The feud should be continued for lack of alternatives, as the other ex-NXT top team, the Authors of Pain, is ridiculed in parallel in a feud against Titus Worldwide.
Winner and new Intercontinental Champion: Seth Rollins per Stomp after a super kick. Previously, chaos had broken out at the Ring when Drew McIntyre and Dean Ambrose were once again involved. The Scotsman climbed the apron to distract Rollins, but Ambrose dragged him back to the ground and gave him Dirty Deeds. The distraction used his former Shield brother for a super kick and his finisher.
After the fantastic main event at Extreme Rules, Rollins and Ziggler got plenty of time again in the SummerSlam opener and showed a top match, in which, as expected, their companions were more in focus. The second IC title win for Rollins is more than earned and ensures that the feud continues – in the future as 2 vs. 2.
Winner via DQ: The New Day, after Rowan grabbed his hammer and attacked Xavier Woods. Previously, after Midnight Hour, Woods and Big E seemed to have the titles in the bag, but instead there was a huge beating from the champs. The feud is obviously continuing and the Bludgeon Brothers look crazy as usual with the finish, but not necessarily like strong, convincing champions. Highlight of the match was a spectacular Flying Elbow by Woods from Top Rope to Harper.
Winner: Braun Strowman per Running Powerslam. A clear squash victory for the Money in the Bank winner, in which Owens was completely destroyed. No surprise, Owens was humiliated once again, there is nothing more to say.
Winner and new SmackDown Women’s Champion: Charlotte Flair per Natural Selection against Becky Lynch, while she had Carmella in the Dis-Arm-Her. After the match Charlotte was loudly booed and hugged Becky, before she turned against her long-time girlfriend and really hurt her. The hall celebrated Lynch with a “You deserve it”-Chant. Finally the Irish girl is gymnastic! Since winning and losing her title after the roster split, Lynch has been booted throughout horrific and – as the fans made clear – has more than earned this moment.
At the same time, Charlotte is increasingly becoming the female counterpart of Roman Reigns and received appropriate reactions in the Barclays Center. Unfortunately, the turn put an end to Carmella’s strong title rainfall, which deserved a longer run.
Obviously she will get her re-match and it remains to be hoped that she will not simply be dropped afterwards, because the Princess of Staten Island has more than proved that Mella is indeed Money. Either Charlotte will now get rid of them quickly and then miss with Lynch, or Mella will win the title again in the finest Alexa Bliss manner – thanks of course to the support of Lynch.
Winner via DQ: Samoa Joe, after verbally provoking Styles several times and finally explaining to his wife and daughter: “Daddy AJ won’t be home, but Joe will and he’ll be your new daddy”, whereupon Styles grabbed a chair and put Joe on it. After the match, a bleeding Styles continued beating his chair into the Samoan Submission Machine, while the hall chanted “Who’s your daddy?” before his wife brought him to his senses.
On the one hand, it’s a pity about a strong match that had to end this way, but at the same time it brings the necessary hardness into a feud that has enormous potential. Obviously the two will fight each other for at least another month, if not longer, and a title win for Joes, who obviously harasses Styles with his trick, is still conceivable.
Afterwards Elias came to the hall for his big concert. After insulting the audience eloquently as usual, he set out to play – but his guitar broke. While the fans chanted “You fucked up”, Elias freaked out slightly and then moved away insulted. The probability that Raw Bobby Lashley will be exposed as the one who manipulated the guitar is ridiculously high. At the same time the non-appearance at the slam also says a lot about Lashley’s standing.
Page 1: Samoa Joe is new WWE Champion
Page 2: Next edition of Lesnar vs. Reigns