WWE SummerSlam 2017: Best and Worst Moments

Source: WWE.com

SummerSlam gave the WWE Universe some good moments and some not so good moments. Here’s a breakdown of some of what happened in Brooklyn.

As with any WWE pay per view, SummerSlam this year was a mixed bag. There were plenty of good things going on if you paid attention. But it was impossible to ignore some of the not so good things sprinkled throughout as well.

This year, SummerSlam was a marathon – more than six hours between the kick off and main show. A total of 13 matches (!) was on the card, including a staggering eight championship bouts. Leaving aside the fact that eight championships, in general, is kind of ridiculous, that’s an astonishing number. And with such a massive show, obviously, it’s going to be difficult to maintain a certain level of quality.

SummerSlam has always been one of WWE’s biggest shows of the year. Nowadays, it seems that only WrestleMania is a bigger event. But the extended run time – for better or worse – is closing the gap between WrestleMania and SummerSlam. We may as well call SummerSlam “WrestleMania Without The Stadium.”

But was the quality of SummerSlam equal to the quantity of the matches we got this year? Were all 13 matches on the good side of average? What about memorable moments during the course of the night? Did the Brooklyn crowd get their money’s worth?

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Please read on for the best and worst moments from WWE SummerSlam 2017.

Worst: What is This, Halftime Heat*?

The most glaring negative aspect of SummerSlam 2017 was the majority of the kickoff show. Not the amount of matches, or even the length of the kick off itself, but the crowd. Well, the lack of a crowd, I guess is more accurate.

Apparently, the show start time printed on tickets was 5 p.m. – when the kick off show started – but the doors didn’t open until, uh, 5:05ish. That seems like a problem.

Ok, so let’s not play Fashion Police and try and figure out exactly what happened. Let’s instead focus on what it meant. You have an opening match – which in kayfabe was made literally to get the Hardy Boyz on SummerSlam – that takes place in front of nobody. That’s followed by a Cruiserweight Championship (re)match with not too many more people present. Then we got a concert from Elias.

Wait, what?

Yes, WWE structured the kickoff show so that a couple of Hall of Famers had to wrestle in front of an empty arena, leaving plenty of room in the middle for a musical performance that furthered precisely zero storylines. No interference from even R-Truth, nothing. Even the SmackDown Tag Team Title match was in front of a less than a full building – and that match was really good!

Let’s not forget the like ten minutes at the end of the kickoff show devoted to a KFC commercial and Shawn “Colonel Sanders” Michaels. Gotta pay the sponsors, right?

Even if the empty arena was caused by the venue and not WWE, someone should have had the foresight to shuffle things around to get some people in the building. It may have been chaotic, but The Hardys deserve better at this stage in their career.

(*- Halftime Heat was really good, though)

Best: Harry Enzo-dini

Look, the shark cage is one of the dumbest stipulations in all of professional wrestling. It has little to no possible shock value – the person in the cage always finds a way to escape/interfere.

Couple that with the fact that the Enzo/Cass/Big Show feud has been pretty DOA for a while now. I mean, Enzo and Cass have already faced each other multiple times, and Cass won all of them. Big Show keeps trying to stand up for Enzo, but Cass is always a step ahead. Why would tonight have changed anything?

But I laughed so hard at the result of Enzo’s escape. Not so much at the actual escape – it was kind of dumb and even I can’t suspend that much disbelief. But the end result? Beautiful.

So Enzo is in the cage, and Cass is thoroughly decimating Big Show. The whole broken hand deal was a big part of it, but even though Show adapted to become a southpaw, Cass had the clear upper hand.

Next thing I know, Enzo’s yelling and half naked in the cage, pouring baby oil on himself because what guy doesn’t carry a tiny bottle of baby oil around with him? THEN he puts on a pair of gloves – oil on the hands means no grip, so they really thought this one through – and shimmies out of the cage.

Cass, of course, sees the whole thing, so as Enzo drops from the cage to the mat he’s immediately floored with a big boot. Big Show eats two big boots, and Cass wins, I laugh, and we never discuss this again as we move on.

Worst: RK No

Randy Orton has been a WWE superstar for roughly 15 years. That’s a decade and a half. Orton’s debut predates the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Impact Wrestling, and Twilight – both the awful books and the terrible movies.

And for the vast majority of that decade and a half, I have been thoroughly underwhelmed by all things Orton. The best thing he’s ever done was the RNN News Updates he did when he was out with one of his many shoulder injuries. His appeal, as far as I see it, is the start of his music, his corner pose, and his finisher. That’s it.

I’m not discounting his achievements – you have to be pretty good to be a 13-time world champion. And wrestling is in his blood, and he’s perfectly good at what he does. I just don’t like what he does, if that makes sense.

So at SummerSlam, when it looked like Rusev got the jump on him before the bell, I was excited. Randy was going to have to fight from behind, and maybe show something his character doesn’t often show. But the longer it took for him to get up, the worse I started to feel about what was about to happen.

And lo and behold, Orton got up, the bell rang, Rusev attempted an attack, and Orton hit an RKO from outta nowhere, and got the fastest victory in WWE since Corbin’s failed cash-in on Tuesday.

If I were Rusev, I’d be fuming. Guy missed WrestleMania due to injury, and was basically forgotten about for weeks. Then he comes back, loses to Cena in a Flag Match, and gets booked in a six second match at the second biggest show of the year? Ugh.

Best: Title Changes For Everyone! (Almost)

Coming into the night, with eight titles being defended, I figured maybe one or two would change hands. Sure, SummerSlam is a big show, but even WrestleMania doesn’t go crazy and swap all the titles.

Cut to three straight title matches resulting in new champions, and I was changing my tune a little bit. I’m all for chaotic results and things that you can’t predict, so anytime something I’m not expecting happens I’m thrilled.

The second show on the kick off was Akira Tozawa making his first title defense of the Cruiserweight Championship. His opponent? Neville, cashing in his guaranteed rematch as the previous champion. I thought, “Well, Tozawa literally just won the title on Monday, there’s no way they flip it back to Neville so quick!” And I was wrong.

The final match on the kick off was the SmackDown Tag Team Title match. The New Day defended against the men they beat for the titles at Battleground, The Usos. Again, I thought, “Well, there’s no way two titles are changing hands on the kick off show, so I guess New Day will retain!” And I was wrong.

The second match of SummerSlam proper was the SmackDown Women’s Championship match. By now, I’m not trying to guess any outcomes of title matches. So when Natalya defeated Naomi to win the title, I just thought of it as a great moment for Nattie, and waited for a Carmella cash-in that never came. Then Sasha beat Alexa for the Raw Women’s Title later, and it was pure pandemonium for the incumbent champs.

Four rapid fire title changes right off the bat set the tone for the rest of the night. There was no predicting what was going to happen, which greatly increased my enjoyment of (most of) the show.

Best: Talk About Making An Entrance

In the least surprising best moment of the night, Finn Balor’s entrance for his match against Bray Wyatt was fantastic.

It’s been a year since we last saw The Demon (or The Demon King, depending on what day it is and who’s talking). Personally, I love the paint and dramatic entrance when Balor breaks it out. But the lengthy time between appearances made it so much more special tonight.

And the fact that Balor tweaks The Demon every time he calls upon it is a brilliant touch. Remember at TakeOver: London when he was Jack The Ripper? Or TakeOver: Dallas, when he had a chainsaw? I think tonight’s tweak was the best – if you’re going to try and out creep a creepy guy, use his own stuff against him. Opening this entrance with the strains of “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” is the best thing anyone has done to compete with Bray Wyatt.

Of course, Wyatt himself helped Balor by selling the entrance as good as he did. The look on Bray’s face when the lights came back on was perfect. Without a word, Wyatt both put over Balor as a creepy individual to be feared, and made it look like he could find a way to stand with it. Later in the match, when Bray did his crab walk, Balor popped up and it freaked Wyatt out – more great body language from the Eater of Worlds. But Balor got a big win, and somehow Wyatt doesn’t seem to take a hit like he usually does with a loss. Great all around.

Best: THIS IS WHAT I THINK OF YOUR BEACH BALL

If there was any doubt that Cesaro is the greatest thing WWE has, this should seal the deal.

I will never understand people who spend the amount of money they do on tickets, then ignore the show because a beach ball is more important to them. It was well reported that SummerSlam tickets – especially on the secondary market – were going for a literal arm and a leg. I had comp tickets for NXT TakeOver and I didn’t want to stop paying attention. It’s maddening.

Thankfully, world’s greatest human Cesaro thinks along the same lines as I do. When the Brooklyn crowd got a little distracted by a beach ball, The Swiss Superman had enough. He took off, hopped the barricade, grabbed the beach ball, and literally ripped it in half.

Take a look at this glorious image:

It reminds me of that time about a year and a half ago when Kevin Owens ripped the crowd for doing the wave. Fun fact: That was a show at Barclays in Brooklyn, as well. It’s almost like they intentionally try to be terrible crowds!

Of course, Cesaro and Sheamus would end up falling short in their title defense against Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. That made it five for five in titles changing hands up to that point of the show. But for at least one brief, fleeting moment, Cesaro got the upper hand over fans with an attention span that can only be measured in nanoseconds.

Worst: A Darn Shane

Raise your hand if you thought that Shane McMahon would not be the focus of the United States Championship match at SummerSlam. Hey, look, no hands are up!

Yes, as everyone on the planet could have predicted that for reasons unclear to anyone, Shane McMahon would be the most important person in a match featuring two of the best wrestlers on the planet. AJ Styles came in as the US Champ, and Kevin Owens gave him a hell of a fight. At the end of the match, Styles became the first champion of the night to successfully defend his or her title.

But no one cares about that. All anyone will talk about when discussing this match is the work of McMahon, the special guest referee. In fairness to Shane, he did exactly like he said, calling the match down the middle. Also true to his word, he had no issue with incidental contact from either competitor, but intentional contact would be reciprocated.

So we have a referee who is literally telling the competitors in a championship match “go ahead and hit me, I’ll just hit you back if it was on purpose.” It’s absolutely ridiculous. And of course, both Styles and Owens were guilty of “incidental contact” as well as intentional. This meant at any given moment, either guy could have lost the match because of what boils down to Shane’s incompetence.

Why this match couldn’t have just been Styles vs. Owens with an actual official is beyond me. But it wouldn’t be WWE if there wasn’t a McMahon front and center for something.

Worst: Change All The Titles Except The Ones That Need Changing

While the United States Championship being successfully defended wasn’t a big deal, both the WWE Championship and the Universal Championship could have stood to change hands. I’m on record as being a Jinder Mahal as World Champion fan, and who doesn’t love Brock Lesnar? But a storytelling standpoint is different from a fan’s standpoint. And as a storyteller, I would have taken the opportunity to do a soft reset on both championships.

First, Jinder retaining wastes a glorious entrance by Shinsuke Nakamura. And the way it went down makes it abundantly clear that this feud is continuing. So all we’re really doing is dragging out the inevitable – Mahal dropping the belt to Jinder (but not until after the Indian tour is over). The interference from the Singh Brothers was par for the course for Mahal’s reign, which isn’t really a terrible thing, but once in a while he needs to win a match on his own.

Then came the fatal four way for the Universal Championship. It was, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, a match of the year contender. Words can’t do this match justice. But when the smoke cleared and the pieces of furniture had all been cleaned up, Brock Lesnar retained. WWE had kind of painted themselves into a corner with Lesnar making the declaration that he’d leave the company if he lost tonight. So Lesnar winning wasn’t really a surprise.

But man, was it disappointing.

Listening to the crowd (and me at home, if you could hear me screaming the whole time), Braun Strowman is more over than anyone in WWE history it seems. Everyone wanted him to win the title, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Instead, we get an absent Universal Champion until we get closer to Survivor Series. I can’t hate on the match itself, but the end result was just so disappointing (but totally acceptable, if that makes any sense).

Next: WWE SummerSlam 2017 Review

What were the best and worst moments of SummerSlam for you?