Unified Tag Team Championship: Chris Jericho & Big Show def. Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase
The ppv starts off with a promo. Bad idea. Aren't Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and Superstars the shows that are supposed to set up the angles for the ppv so you don't have to see that on the show that you're paying for? What a way to kick off the excitement - by having Jericho deliver another one of his monotone promos talking about (and showing us) the same thing we've seen and heard before. Then, the big mystery becomes a huge let down. I don't normally rip on Big Show, but he hasn't been exciting for a while now. When you build an angle around mystery, your fans are going to expect something different - something fun and interesting. Why play the safe card again and just put another one of your typical main event guys in the spot? Then there's the issue of this being a heel vs heel match, so the fans start the entire ppv off by having nobody to cheer for. A monotone promo, a groan of a "surprise", and a match with inactivity from the audience? What ever happened to the curtain jerker being an exciting match that gets people pumped up? Big Show's new outfit looked a bit odd, too. The match was nothing worth paying for, as it wouldn't even have been a "first-hour main event" on Raw.
CM Punk Promo
CM Punk as a heel is far more entertaining than CM Punk as a face was a few months ago. He was growing stale and this turn is making him someone to really pay attention to. Nice promo. Not really necessary on a ppv, though. The point of a ppv isn't to be paying to see more of the stuff you'd see on TV to build the storylines, its supposed to be paying to see the wrestling that comes as a result of said storylines.
ECW Championship: Christian def. Tommy Dreamer
I haven't liked any of the matches they've had together, mostly because of Tommy Dreamer, as I don't find him to be very entertaining. This was no exception. A very bland match with a very bland outcome. It appears as though they decided Tommy wasn't a big enough star for Summerslam, hence Christian getting the title back. I'm really hoping that this doesn't lead to Christian/Kozlov as I don't ever want to see that again, either.
SummerSlam Commercial
Hey guys, remember to buy our next ppv! We'll make sure its chock full of rewinds, recaps, and repetitive promos. And don't worry, you'll get your 8 minute tragedy in the Kane and Khali match, cause that's what everyone is itching for.
Jericho & Big Show Segment
Its all about business and not friendship, Big Show's big, evil cackle laugh, etcetera. You don't need a transcript of something so simple.
United States Championship: Kofi Kingston def. MVP, The Miz, Carlito, Jack Swagger, and Primo Colon
The Miz received a nice reaction coming out. Shame they won't do anything about that until Miz moves to Smackdown where wrestlers actually have a chance to be something. This was a real breath of fresh air. The haphazard nature combined with the fact that each of these guys is talented ended up becoming what I'd consider the match of the night. I can't remember if I've ever seen a double superplex/powerbomb combination before, so that was great.
Randy Orton Promo
Same old, same old. Absolutely worthless for this. Did we not see all of this stuff go down on Raw, then rewinds for it on every ECW, Smackdown, and Superstars, and then did we not also see a recap at the beginning of the ppv, and aren't we going to be seeing another when the match is about to happen? What did he say here that he hasn't said every single day he gets on the mic? Oh, there is one thing, but its a terrible job on the writer's part. Randy Orton tells the fans that someday, they'll give him a standing ovation like they do with Triple H, and someday they will cheer him like they do John Cena (about 50% cheers if you're fair lol), but the kicker is that he says "until then, I'll remain your WWE champion". Apparently when the fans start cheering Orton, he'll lose the title lol.
Women's Championship: Michelle McCool def. Melina
This was about as decent as it could get. The best part of the match, by far, was Michelle's baseball slide into Melina while she was doing the split. If this weren't scripted, naturally you would take advantage of something like that if you were intelligent and a dirty fighter like Michelle is supposed to be. I was surprised to see Michelle retain without using her finisher, and that's a good thing. Sometimes it feels good if someone just wins without their finisher, you know? I'll be very happy if I never have to hear Melina screech again, though.
Another Recap
Because according to the WWE, we all have short term memory loss! Either that, or they're arrogant enough to think there are lots of people that are buying their pay-per-views that aren't already fans that watch Raw, Smackdown, and ECW.
WWE Championship: Randy Orton def. John Cena and HHH
Let me preface by informing you all something about myself. I have a high tolerance for sleep. I can run perfectly fine on a half an hour's worth of sleep. I have an inability to nap, ever. Even when I'm exhausted, it takes me an hour or longer to fall asleep. And let me start off reviewing this match by saying three simple words: I fell asleep. There's a 2 minute gap of this match that I missed because I was so bored out of my mind that I IMMEDIATELY dozed off. That's saying a lot. This match was absolute trash from beginning to end. Did the notes for the match backstage say "your goal is to stand and walk around the entire time and do virtually nothing"? As with most triple threat matches that aren't consisting of competitors that are good enough to "carry a match", these three fell into the trap of having one of them remain outside while the other two went at it. It's less of an AvsBvsC scenario and more of AvsB, B is replaced by C, then A is replaced by B. Then they have what looks like a decent ending, with the double submission, and Orton taps, but the ref keeps the match going on? If they don't do something with that, it will be such a massive waste of what could be the basis of something interesting. Wouldn't it make sense to have them say that Orton clearly lost the match, but they can't figure out whom should really get the win, so Cena and HHH need to fight each other over the vacated title? I wouldn't want to see Cena/HHH, but at least that would be logical. Instead, the ending is what we all could have predicted with our eyes closed: HHH once again does not take the pinfall. I am so above and beyond tired of seeing the same things on loop. I mean, hell, we even had Rhodes and DiBiase interfere in this match!! Don't they do that enough, by having it happen every single episode of Raw for the past year? I'm done talking about this.
Miz and Maryse Segment
Not really necessary unless they plan to build on it.
Diva's Championship: Mickie James def. Maryse
Can the commentators quit trying to say "Maryse" with an accent? It sounds so stupid when they keep calling her "Mudeese". Standard women's division match. Even if you considered it "great" on those standards, it isn't saying much.
Unnecessary Legacy Segment
Explain to me how this couldn't have been said on Raw.
Intercontinental Championship: Rey Mysterio def. Dolph Ziggler
Decent overall. I was less impressed with the match itself as I was with Ziggler. Nemeth seemed like he was putting forth that little extra bit of effort that catches your eye, instead of just putting in enough to get by. Maybe its because he was excited to have a title match, maybe he just liked wrestling Mysterio, or maybe he was just having a great day, I don't know. Whatever it was, if he continues that, then I think he'll be making some rather interesting ripples in the WWE.
DVD Plug
Buy, buy, buy! You paid for this pay-per-view so we could give you advertisements for more stuff you should buy!
World Heavyweight Championship: Jeff Hardy def. CM Punk
Well I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. The match itself was pretty decent, so when the ppv ended, it didn't leave as much of a bitter taste in my mouth as I had felt the whole rest of the night. I'm a little worried though what they'll do from here. If they decide to have Jeff Hardy defend the championship against John Morrison, I think that will be a huge mistake. Morrison isn't nearly as popular as Jeff Hardy yet, and he'll be booed at SummerSlam if he's facing Jeff. Also, does anybody else get the feeling that they aren't confident with these people? CM Punk's two world title reigns consisted of him basically being a loser that holds the title, and Jeff Hardy's first two reigns were practically nonexistent. Maybe this one will last a while and be worth it, who knows? And does anybody else think its weird that Jeff Hardy is a three time world champion now? Lol. I'm weary of where they go from here, but I don't have anything to criticize yet, so I'm hoping they have a good plan.
Overall, I'm extremely glad that I didn't pay to see this live. There was nothing great about this ppv at all, and when you had the very small amount of good things about it to the overwhelming majority of bad, you can't really be pleased with an event that you could rank as bad or "severely mediocre at best". If SummerSlam doesn't deliver better than this...
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