Great show, but first of all let’s discuss the people who were left off SummerSlam. We’ll start with Roman Reigns. Are you kidding me, leaving your supposed top dog off the shelf? I try to stay away from highlighting the negatives from WWE because that’s just not me, but it’s hard not to acknowledge that WWE left Roman out to dry on this one. Let’s hope they can recover quickly. It’s surprising because he just had a movie release with one of the top actors in Hollywood.
It’s also plainly obvious that WWE has no direction in mind for the Women’s Tag Team Championships, considering they were left off SummerSlam. It has been made public that Vince McMahon reluctantly created the championships with no real direction in mind for them. There is hope for them, however, now that they are in the capable hands of Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross.
The three men who stuck out the most from Summerslam are Kevin Owens, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt, and Seth Rollins. The match between Rollins and Lesnar may in fact be one of the best Lesnar has put on since his return to WWE in 2012. Nonetheless, Rollins absolutely deserves it despite all the somewhat negative criticism he has received on the Internet in recent months. In this day and age, no matter what you say you’re going to offend somebody. I guarantee I would be guilty of offending quite a few people if I were to be in Seth’s position, so he is handling that much better than I would.
The Fiend is absolutely menacing. This may very well be one of the most, maybe the most, creative characters WWE has ever conjured up. The new wrinkles to Bray’s entrance music are fantastic too, making it slightly more upbeat and menacing. It is also a bit of a throwback to see him using Mick Foley’s Mandible Claw to finish matches. He may look to confront Paul Heyman and challenge Brock Lesnar in the coming months.
Kevin Owens is officially over. Did you hear the reaction he got. There was also great audience participation in this match. This may have been the match at SummerSlam the audience was most into. WWE should look to build a storyline out of this having it culminate with KO winning the WWE championship at WrestleMania (unless WWE elects to have him go after the Universal Championship instead).
The great match between Ricochet and AJ Styles will further the storyline in which The OC is being billed as the new version of The Shield. Ricochet also looks like a superhero out of a comic book with his new ring attire, and it suits him perfectly. I also have an entirely new level of respect for Kofi Kingston after seeing his WWE 24 special. It is very interesting to learn that the concept of The New Day was Xavier Woods’ idea. His match with Randy Orton had a disappointing finish with a countout, signaling that the rivalry will likely continue. I was of the thought that this may be a one – off match to further elevate Kofi’s status, but there’s a reason I don’t have any input… Yet! Orton is also so smooth in the ring.
Dolph Ziggler and Goldberg can be explained in one word: Expected.
Charlotte Flair deserved to be put over by Trish Stratus, but it was still nice to see Trish make a respectable exit from the company. Natalya may not have won the Raw Women’s Championship, but the rivalry with Becky Lynch still more than did its job of seeking to reestablish Natalya as a legitimate threat. She had not been involved in any storylines of note since being involved with Ronda Rousey.