The Week In Wrestling 8.29.02: Addenum – Summerslam

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Hey all. I very rarely do a mid-week column of any sort, but I feel it necessary to express my positive thoughts about Summerslam. It seems like it’s getting plenty of positive reviews around the horn, and I think I should add my own. Basically, I spend a lot of time criticizing what the WWF does storyline-wise, and I forget about the basics that being just a good damn wrestling show, which is what Summerslam was.

Quick plug, check out 411’s new Music Section. Widro’s running it, some new writers, and I’ll be doing some columns over there eventually, too. It’s good stuff. Widro and Ashish have some great visions for this site in the future, if y’all stick with us.

I don’t know if I can fully attribute it to the fact I was there, but I just enjoyed the event more then I have any in recent memory. It was my first live wrestling event on the Island, and it really is a fully different world than Albany.

First the Colisseum it’s huge. When you go to Pepsi, you can’t really get a bad seat. This was my first experience in an arena that really kinda had nosebleed seats. You forget how small the ring is until you’re reasonably far away from it. The WWF was going to have a lot to justify for charging $77.50 for seats that weren’t even on the floor.

Second, traffic. Upstate, you get stuck for 15 minutes and you get pissed. Down there, it’s a way of life. The guy who drove, originally from down there, later moved up here after college, said he doesn’t miss the traffic one bit but he could call exactly where the roads would jam up. This was after going about an hour out of our way, specifically to avoid the city itself basically avoiding the last 15 exits of the Thruway, the Tappan Zee, and the Bronx.

Third, fans. Much more intense, I think. Albany crowds seem hot live, but the venue is smaller. Nassau fans know what it’s like to freak out for good things. Fans were also a little less trashy than Albany, but that could be the damn near hundred dollar seats.

Fourth, the round trip. 8 hours of driving for a 3 hour event and it was still worth it. This includes increased, Long Island food prices and the morons who work at the 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts at Thruway Exit 15 who don’t know the difference betweeen Chocolate and Chocolate Glazed and between Coffee and Hot Chocolate. Not that I’m bitter.

Fifth, beer prices. Four Bud Lights, 25 bucks nuff said.

The show:

We got an early indication that the crowd was mostly Pro-Rock in that, when they brought up the Smackdown your Vote thing, and they mentioned his name, the booing already had started. The new Brock Shirts were going fast, too, including one sold to one of the guys I went down with. Brock’s demon tattoo is on the front, you would figure it would be on the back since, you know, that’s where the tattoo is and it says “The Next Big Thing” on the back. Good shirt all around.

Kurt Angle vs Rey Mysterio Jr: Went to the house show in Albany the night before, so I had a decent working knowledge of how the match was going to look, as they worked most of the spots the previous evening. Rooting for the Underdog was enough to fire up the crowd in Long Island in a way that the preceding Stevie Richards match was just not able to do if you can imagine. Actually, I think one of the reasons the crowd came across so dead in the Ric Flair/Jericho match was just because of Rey’s loss. The crowd was a bit bipolar in this match, though, as half the crowd was busy chanting “Angle Angle” and the other half was busy chanting “Angle Sucks.” So, go figure nothing wrong with a divided crowd though, since they were also busy chanting between “Lets go Rangers” and “Lets go Islanders” most of the night.

Chris Jericho vs Ric Flair: As I said, this match suffered from dead crowd syndrome, but it doesn’t take from how good the match turned out to be. It’s basically because Flair shouldn’t be wrestling anymore, and is much more effective as an entertaining mouthpiece. The match ended with a false finish first that being Flair tapping out, but grabbing the ropes first, then on Jericho tapping out to the Figure Four. I think it would have been much more effective for Jericho to tap before the move is even fully on, like in the old WCW days. I also think this would have been much more effective if they turned the UnAmericans into the Bogus Horsemen and THAT was the backing for the match. Just me, though.

Edge vs Eddy Guerrero: Match was OK, a bit slower placed than I liked. Edge gets a very girl pop when he comes in I think that’s why people think he’s so over. I honeslty can’t even see why he’s not even man-pretty John Cena now THAT’s man-pretty. I don’t really have much to say about it other than I just don’t like Edge.

Un-Americans vs Booker T & Golddust, for the WWF Tag Team Titles: The simplest gimmick in the world to get over, the “I Hate America” gimmick. I guess they’re doing it just as well as anyone else. The Us/Canada thing got old when Bret Hart did it five years ago, though. I really thought Booker T and Goldust would take the titles here, but they got to stick the Unamericans around a while longer to annoy all of us.

Chris Benoit vs Rob Van Dam, for the WWF Intercontinetal Title: Excellent match, and I’m waiting on the DVD so I can see it from multiple camera angles. Both guys were free to work here without that aggrivating “WWE Style” clause which meant they could stiff each other a bit and make the match look great. Neither of them are worried about taking and giving shots with a bit of mustard on them. I was surprised to see Benoit busting out the Falling Canadian Forehead again, simply because he was just out for a year with a neck injury, and that move just can’t be good for the neck. Some odd submissions by Benoit as he tries to make his new “Making people squeal” gimmick stick. RVD ended up taking the title back to Raw, which Stephanie found incredibly humorous for some reason. This started rumors of RVD jumping to Smackdown, but I can’t see that happening if they want people to keep watching Raw.

Undertaker vs Test: Very forgettable, but the image of the Undertaker holding the flag at the ringpost, which he got from a ringside fan, was a very, very nice image. However, having him singlehandedly destroying an entire faction was a bit much.

HHH vs Shawn Michaels: I hope Shawn Michaels has enough left in his tank to make the naysayers eat their own asses – Me, PK’s 8/19/02 Raw Report. And he did. When Shawn left, I really didn’t care one way or another but you don’t know what it’s got until it’s gone and all. Shawn proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he still has “it.” He worked the Long Island crowd around his finger, even making me pop for him AND get out of my seat. HHH did the man-sized bladejob for the first time in recent history of a Shawn-Daminator with a Superkick. Shawn did some bumps to his back that made me concerned for him, simply because of the seriousness of the injury he’s supposed to have. Backbreakers, sidewalk slams onto chairs, chairs across the back it’s just nuts. Shawn basically covers his entire career in this one match, and stuff he never got to do. A little bit with a ladder, a little bit of brawling, and a little bit of wrestling. He worked all the way through to the trademark Michaels come-back kick-up. It ends with a superkick reversed into a pedigree reversed into a roll-up for the pin. Yes Shawn won, no he didn’t win via his finisher which I think he should have. Reason being is that HHH needed his heat back post match. Shawn takes a sledgehammer shot to the back, which drops him to his knees and then a sledgehammer shot to the back of the neck, effectively murdering him.

I find it amusing that Scott Keith, who spent the last three weeks saying that it would be “a cripple vs a bum” and an awful match, now say it was too good. The rest of the people who said it would suck at least used the term “pleasantly surprised.” The match was great, hands down If something is great, just say it’s great. It doesn’t have to be great with qualifiers. Jericho’s ‘net diatribe, couple weeks ago THAT’S what he was talking about. The match was a classic, hands down, and, oh yeah I TOLD EVERYONE SO.

The Rock vs Brock Lesnar for the WWF Undisputed Title: The crowd was pretty evenly divided but, as my friends said, drunk guys can drown out screamin yaks and kids any day of the week, which is how it went down. The match was tremendous, almost living up to the Michaels/HHH but coming just a bit shy, but the fighting of the crowd between the fighting of the guys makes it that much better. The early Rock Bottom had approximately 60% of the crowd fooled, save one of my seatmates who screamed “Oh, you all think it’s over I promise you it isn’t ready ONE, TWO BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Everyone hated him, including the guy one row ahead of us who decided to get into an argument about how Goldberg could straight on kick Brock’s ass and so could the Rock. Anyway, I had no problem with this match either, and I think the crowd was more shocked than anything else when Brock kicked up before the People’s Elbow. The F5 made it official. Brock was the new champ. It incited tears from people two rows ahead of me. Post match, and after the cameras were off, the people of Long Island turned on the Rock something fierce, with boos enough that I actually felt sorry for him. Now, if the WWE would just catch up with what the fans have been smellin’ since Wrestlemania Seventeen, for Rock/Austin when the fans were turning on him then.

All in all, it was the best PPV I’d seen in quite some time. In fact, between the phatness of the show, coupled with the fact I was there, it may be the first WWF show I buy on DVD or Video ever. In fact, I know I’m going to buy it.

I don’t know if there’s a replay left, but if there is, get it. The show was totally worth seeing.

That’s it for this little addenum, and I’ll be back on Sunday night, with the goings on of this week.

End Transmission.