WWE SummerSlam 2011 Review
1. Rey Mysterio, John Morrison and Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz, R-Truth and Alberto Del Rio
The show started off with the Miz coming out and cutting a promo, out comes RTruth to interrupts him, Truth cuts his crazy usual promo, now out comes Alberto Del Rio! It felt like I was watching an episode of SmackDown, very strange way to open up an A Show PPV, yes they had the anthem and promo, but this was strange.
I figured out it was a six man tag by the time Morrison came out, with no help from the commentators, which noticeably did not include Jim Ross. Kingston and the Miz started off the match, Kingston taged in Morrison, face team had the advantage. Morrison and Truth were legal, Morrison went after Truth, Truth fought back.
At this point it stopped feeling like a random tag match, and more like a coherent build up of all three feuds. Miz was now the legal man and he worked over Morrison for a bit, crowd were into Morrison’s tag to Kingston, Kofi and Miz went back and forth, until Kingston got the advantage and hit the Boom Drop. Kingston went for Trouble in Paradise, the Miz countered went for the Skull Crushing. Finally, Kofi countered it into the SOS, Del Rio was there to break it up.
Morrison took out Del Rio, Truth and Kofi were now legal, there were strong Little Jimmy chants, at least the crowd is still into the gimmick. Del Rio was tagged in by Truth, his stay in the ring was short lived, Miz and Kofi were tagged in, Miz taunted Mysterio, Kofi rolled up Miz for the two.
Crowd got into it, Kingston double foot stomped the Miz. Truth and Mysterio were tagged in Rey went for the 619, Miz tried to stop Mysterio, but was drawn into the 619, Mysterio went for the double 619. Del Rio grabbed the leg, Morrison dived on Del Rio on the outside, Kofi landed a huge splash on the Miz, he got so much height, Rey got the splash for the three. Fun little match, went about fifteen minutes, crowd were into and everyone got in their spots.
Match Rating: ***
Lauranitis wanted a public apology from CM Punk for kicking him on RAW, Punk apologized sarcastically. Stephanie Mcmahon was backstage, she wished Punk luck, Punk said he knew Vince was still chairman of the board. Stephanie offered the handshake, but Punk said he knew where the hand had been, awesome. Good little segment.
- 2. Sheamus vs. Mark Henry
They had a good video package to hype up the match, basically summing up Henry’s run of dominance and the Sheamus face turn.
Henry dominated early on, Sheamus fought back, it looked like he could stand toe to toe with Henry, Sheamus pounded away at the back of Henry and the crowd really got behind Sheamus.
Henry got back on top and threw Sheamus out of the ring, then in a great display of strength by Henry, Sheamus was gorilla pressed back into the ring. Henry hit the big splash, Sheamus kicked out at two, then in one of the many displays of preposterous statements by the commentators, Cole claimed that Henry had broken the legs of Kane and Big Show among others. If that was the case why are they still wrestling at the moment, are they a breed of some sought of super human, capable of withstanding broken legs and just walking it off?
Henry hit the back breaker, crowd got behind Sheamus again, Henry got a bit of heat, not much. Henry had Sheamus in the torture rack, Sheamus powered out, Henry went for the big splash again, but Sheamus rolled out the way. Sheamus started to work over Henry, Sheamus hit a few clubbing blows to the chest of Henry. Sheamus and Henry both went for the cloths line, they both connected at the same time and fell to the floor.
Sheamus nailed the shoulder block of the top, Henry went for the Worlds Strongest Slam, Sheamus reversed it into the Brow Kick, Henry fell out the ring. Henry slammed Sheamus threw the barricade, it looked great, but the crowd never reacted as well as you would expect them to.
Sheamus crawled to the ring, but was counted out, the crowd was really into this. I don’t think that they should have had the count out, count outs almost never work ron Pay-Per View, but I guess they wanted to keep both men’s credibility. The match went an okay amount of time and Sheamus still came across strong and if they continue the push, then maybe they can add a little more depth to the SmackDown roster.
Match Rating: **1/2;
Josh Matthews interviewed Christian, he said he had guaranteed that Orton wouldn’t leave with the title, said he had an insurance plan. Called himself Harry Potter and Orton Cowboys and Aliens, okay promo. Cee Lo Green performed live, crowd really didn’t react well.
3. Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix
One thing that struck me on this show was that the champions entered first, first Kelly and then Christian, this came across as very strange to me.
This was the first Diva’s match I have cared about in years, and WWE did not deliver, the match had a lot of potential, not quality wise, but where they could have gone with Phoenix as WWE Diva’s champion.
First of all they had Kelly come out like she was Aja Kong or something, being tough and just wailing on Phoenix with kicks and elbows, and really all you could think to yourself was this women cannot work. She tried I will give her that, but why have her unload of Phoenix and dominate from the get go, if you never have her dominate and Phoenix was supposed to be this dominant women? I thought that the entire point of the match was that, Phoenix thought Kelly was a joke and that she wanted to prove she could wrestle, that’s it. Yes, they were probably trying to get Kelly over by having her go after Beth, but it never worked.
Kelly dived on to Phoenix who was on the outside and Phoenix delivered a clothesline to Kelly. Phoenix pressed Kelly of the ropes and mocked Kelly’s stinkface it was fine. Kelly fought back, but Phoenix got her in the torture rack, hit the powerslam and put Kelly in the tree of woe. Kelly rolled Pheonix up, and then proceeded to scream and slam Phoenix’s face into the mat, I wanted to tear my hair out when I heard this.
Kelly went for the cartwheel into the corner, it was countered into the glamslam by Phoenix, Kelly countered into a rollup for the three. Preposterous, you could have done so much with Phoenix as champion, and it really could have helped with the Punk angle, but sadly Kelly retained the title and Phoenix lost some credibility, even though it was a rollup. Still a better then average Diva’s match.
Match Rating:**
Stephanie was back stage, camera zoomed on the door that she just came out of it was Cena’s lockeroom. Truth had a segment with Jimmy Hart leading up to Truth realizing he was Little Jimmy, it was okay.
4. Wade Barrett vs. Daniel Bryan
The match started off back and forth with both men exchanging moves, Bryan was relatively over, but not as over as he could be (no thanks to Michael Cole). Bryan started to work on the arm, Bryan landed the dropkick in the corner. It looked like Bryan was going for the surfboard, but he stomped on the knees of Barrett instead of going all the way.
Cole was cutting one liners on Bryan, really Cole should just stop he is not doing anyone any favors with, well, anything. This obsession with Bryan should have just ended on NXT, especially since Bryan is supposed to be the man cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania.
Barrett gained control of the match with a black hole slam, then Booker put over money at the expense of all the championships in the company, great job. Bryan made a short comeback only for Barrett to gain control again, Barrett hit the knees to the head and a big boot on Bryan. Barrett locked in the headlock, Bryan hung up Barrett on the top rope.
Barrett went for the Wasteland on the apron, Bryan got off the shoulders and hit a drop kick, Barrett fell to the outside, Bryan caught Barrett off the apron with a flying knee. Barrett hit a good looking kick to the gut of Bryan, Bryan landed a flurry of kicks to the legs of Barrett, he kicked Barrett in the chest, and then his a brutal kick to the head. He locked in the guillotine, that he transitioned into the LeBell lock, Barrett got to the rope.
Booker T said he swore he just tapped even after the replay, I swear these are the worst WWE commentators in history. Barrett landed a kick, Bryan got hung up on the rope, Barrett hit a clothesline off the rope and the Wasteland for the win. And this is the man that is going to cash in the his Money in the Bank at WrestleMania?
I cannot understand how this is possible, are they going to take the briefcase off him, is he just going to fail, or is this just some kind of joke? Plus the match only went 12 minutes, ridiculous why did you need all the extra bells and whistles? I mean its not like you had a jam-packed card anyway, you only had six matches and at the time that SmackDown went off the air there were only five matches. The match could of gone another ten minutes easily, but sadly it only went twelve.
Match Rating: ***
5. No Holds Barred Match for the World Heavyweight Championship
Randy Orton vs. Christian
Christian entered first and cut a promo said that he would reveal the man in his corner, it was Edge. He looked good, he had cut his hair and lost some weight. Edge said he had done some bad things in his career, but he was never a wining, moaning, crying little b****.
Strange statement considering Edge was supposed to be the most vile human being on the planet, back when he had the Rated-R Superstar gimmick. Edge left, Christian looked shell shocked, this eventually tied into the story of the match.
Orton made his entrance, dominated early on, but Christian started to fight back, this led to a back and forth battle early on.
Orton stomped on Christian and then delivered a low blow, Christian got brief control and strangled Orton on the rope. Orton went for the draping DDT, but got thrown to the outside by Christian, Orton started to pick apart the announce table, he went for the RKO on the announce table, but Christian escaped grabbed the belt and ran into the crowd.
Orton caught up to Christian and pounded on him in the corner, Christian redirected Orton’s shoulder into the turn buckle and grabbed a kendo stick from underneath the ring. He hit Orton with the stick and rammed it into his throat, Orton got a roll up for the two, Christian nailed a spinebuster for the two. Orton was bleeding from the mouth, Christian jumped off the rope with the cane, but was dropkicked.
Orton wanted to use the cane on Christian, but Christian got the boot up. Christian slapped Orton, Orton lost it and Thesz Pressed Christian, this was the point in the match when you could just sense a change in the personality of Christian, it was like you could see his mind ticking. He became afraid for his championship, so he fled with it, but was forced to confront Orton, so he had to fight and that’s where the sudden attitude change came from.
Orton went for a DDT, Christian countered into the Kill Switch, but it was countered into the neckbreaker. Orton went for the punt, but Christian moved out of the way, he grabbed the legs of Orton and he was going for the low blow between the post, but Orton pulled his legs back and Christian went face first into the turn buckle.
Christian got two tables from under the ring, Christian set up the table on the outside, he was back in the ring and Orton nailed a suplex on the folded table. The table was cracked, Orton set it up in the corner, Christian hit an inverted DDT and crouched down for the spear. Orton went for the RKO, but got thrown to the floor, Orton threw Christian into the steps and both men looked pretty good and credible at this point.
Christian smashed the head of Orton into the steel steps that were set up in between the steps and the floor, Christian set up the other announce table, and just nailed Orton with the monitor. This was really where Christian started to shine, he kind stole Orton’s gimmick at this point playing a psycho, and just basically saying to the crowd and everyone watching, that he can show everyone that he deserves the championship.
Christian went for the RKO threw the table, but Orton countered into an RKO threw the table, the table broke and all I could think was Vince must be pretty happy that its broken. There was a this is awesome chant, Christian crawled into the ring and both Christian and Orton rolled in at the exact same time.
Orton went for the RKO, Christian hit the Kill Switch for the two, the crowd were super into it. Christian grabbed a couple of chairs, and Booker pointed out that the concerto was coming, I was super impressed with this. Orton set up the concerto and spat on Orton, showing that he could spit on Orton now, because he was in control.
Orton rolled out the way, Christian hurt his hand, Orton hit Christian’s back with the chair, then off the apron threw the table on the outside. Orton threw everything in to the ring after that, garbage cans, kendo sticks, steps etc. Orton powerslammed Christian threw the table in the corner. Orton caned the back of Christian, he hit the draped DDT on the garbage can and I don’t know if it was from the garbage can or earlier on, but Orton cut his thumb wide open.
Orton started to taunt for the RKO, but Christian caned him, Christian went for springboard of the rope, and Orton nailed the RKO on the steel steps for the three! This was an awesome finish and an awesome match, but was it really the right thing to do? You had the chance when Christian won the championship at Extreme Rules for Christian to replace Edge in a way, obviously it is a different time and realistically Christian wouldn’t have reached the caliber of Edge, but at least you have someone to fill the void.
But now we have two very serious problems on SmackDown, first is you have a serious lack of star power, yes even if you had Christian win you still couldn’t of had Orton vs. Christian again at Night of Champion, but at least you would have two top tier superstars on Smackdown. Instead you only have one now, and even if you have Christian vs. Orton one more time at Hell in a Cell, which is what I got from the way they worked the match, it still wont feel like Christian is on Orton’s level (To the casual audience).
The other problem is that this devalues the title significantly, first you had Orton win the title in five days, then you had Christian win the title three moths later, and then the next month you had the title change hands again. Eventually it just feels like a prop and not like something worth fighting for.
Was the match great yes, was the match well booked yes, but was Orton the right man to win the championship, of course not. The match was worked very well, with regards to the action and the way Christian changed threw out the match, but Orton going over was completely unjustified.
Match Rating: ****1/4;
Video package of Summerslam fan axxess, they had a promo for the anti-bullying campaign, I find it so ironic well with JR not being on the show and all that they can say that they are against bullying, when Vince is the biggest bully of them all whatever. We also had Triple H and Stephanie chatting backstage, added intrigue, whatever.
6. Undisputed WWE Championship Match
John Cena vs. CM Punk /w Triple H as Special Guest Referee
CM Punk was way more over than Cena, Cena came out he got quite a lot of boo’s, it seemed like he got more boo’s than he did cheers. When Cena made his entrance he looked right into the camera and said something like, “this is where it all started I used to walk around here in gimmick”, just thought I would point that out.
They started in the collar and elbow tie up and continued to go back into the tie up, and mat wrestle which is suffice to say not one of Cena’s strong points.
There was a lot of dual chanting among the crowd, but the mat wrestling didn’t have much substance, and the commentators did not help one bit.
Booker said that they were wrestling on the mat to much and it wasn’t the kind of wrestling he enjoyed watching, while Cole and Lawler bickered over the fact that Punk was wearing down Cena, we really needed Ross to save the commentary for this show. While Cena was wrestling Punk on the mat there were “you cant wrestle” chants, they were noticeable, and it kind of added to the theme of the match.
The match started to pick up speed once Cena got the STF locked in, Punk countered it and neck ringed Cena on the rope. There were dueling chants once again, didn’t really add much to the match at this point since they were just on the mat the entire time, and sine they took really big brakes in between headlocks. Punk had Cena in the abdominal stretch, Cena overpowered Punk and nailed the tilt the world slam.
There were even louder you cant wrestle chants, it was funny for those that found Cena’s mat wrestling bad, but didn’t really add to the match besides the comedic value. Cena nailed the shoulder block, Punk hit the knee on the roped, Cena hit the Protoplex, Punk locked in the Koji Clutch, Cena countered into the STF. Punk got the Anaconda Vice locked in, but Cena got Punk back into the GTS, Cena was thrown over the top rope. Punk hit the suicide dive on the outside, both men were counted out, Triple H was having none of it, he threw both men back into the ring.
What I was thinking was, it is all fine and well that you had that spot, but there is some serious logic missing, yes you put Triple H over as the impartial referee, but you have to ask yourself the question why didn’t this happen in the previous matches. Punk and Cena exchanged blows, Punk got the cheers, Cena was booed, Cena hit a dropkick and the five knuckle shuffle, went for the AA, but Punk rolled him up for the two.
Punk got Cena in a Jackknife pin and hit a high kick on Cena, Punk got a two count. Punk went for the GTS, Cena reversed it and hit a splash In the corner. Cena nailed the Attitude Adjustment, for the two the first legitimate nearfall. Cena went to the top, Punk hit a high knee, Punk hit the bulldog from the top rope.
There were dueling chants once again, Punk went to the top rope, sold like he had absolutely no energy left in his body. Punk went for the springboard clothesline, it got countered into the STF, Punk got the rope. Cena went for the Attitude Adjustment again, Punk countered into the GTS, but Cena countered into the Attitude Adjustment nailed it, for the two count.
Great near fall, Cena thought it was a three and glared at Triple H, this was completely out of character for Cena but it was fine. Cena went to the top rope and Punk got out of the way and hit the GTS, for the two another great near fall. There were dueling chants once more, Punk went to the top rope and his leg fell asleep great little detail to add into his selling, he hit the Savage Elbow, for the two counts as Randy Savage chants start coming from the crowd.
Punk argued with Triple H, he got rolled up by Cena for the two. Cena landed a flurry of punches, Punk landed a kick to the gut and a knee off the ropes, got Cena up for the GTS and landed it for the three. Cena’s foot was on the rope, I thought the match was going to be restarted, it wasn’t, but I was pretty sure something would happen.
Triple H raised the hand of Punk and I was expecting a pedigree or something, I think it is pretty safe to say though that I wasn’t expecting a run in by Kevin Nash of all people. I was expecting Del Rio, but I saw out of the corner of my eye at the bottom of the screen, someone that looked like a security guard coming towards the guard, a few second later there he was, there was Kevin Nash standing in the middle of the ring behind Punk.
Kevin Nash nailed the Jacknife powerbomb on Cm Punk, outcomes Del Rio to cash in Money in the Bank. Del Rio nails the enzuigiri to become the new undisputed WWE Champion. Now the first thing that I could think, was why not have Del Rio cash in when Raw is live in Mexico? First of all you would get a bigger reaction, making Del Rio seem like a bigger star. Second you would have had more time for this angle to run its course, without having Del Rio in the mix.
The whole run in with Nash seems like the first part in the incorporation of Stephanie Mcmahon into this angle. I just hope we don’t get a match between Kevin Nash and CM Punk at the upcoming Night of Champion Pay Per View, or ever for that matter.
Was the match as good as their match from Chicago, of course not, but you couldn’t have expected it to be. You never had the atmosphere or the expectation, so it would be extremely unfair for you to expect that this match would be that good. it just couldn’t, I think that the mat wrestling really hurt it, the mat wrestling just came across as a time filler, it didn’t feel as important like in Chicago.
As for Kevin Nash we will see where it goes, it could turn out good and they good cut some very interesting promo’s, like the ones we saw on the RAW after Summerslam, but will it add to the story line we will have to see.
And as for Del Rio it made sense to have him cash in after the Nash run in, but he would have looked better in Mexico and WWE seem to be forgetting that this angle is supposed to be reality based, because they now have Del Rio as the champion and lets face it no matter how much you like Del Rio, he is an 80’s cartoon character at the end of the day. And it just doesn’t feel needed at this point.
Match Rating: ****
Overall PPV Score: 8.0
Overall a pretty fun show, we had two good main event’s and a few other decent matches on the card. It turned out better than it looked on paper, yes Cena vs. Punk could have been better, but it was good for what it was, and as for Orton vs. Christian that was by far match of the night. Overall a fun show that wasn’t that hard to sit threw and was good for what it was, a two match show.
Best Match: No Holds Barred Match for the World Heavyweight Championship Randy Orton vs. Christian
Worst Match: Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix
WWE Summerslam 2011 Review By: Ryan Clingman
