I know every man and his dog are going to write about Summerslam. There’s going to be columns ad nauseam about the matches, the booking, the spectacle, the new nose hair trimmers that HHH has obviously invested in. You name it, it’s going to be dissected, looked at, pored over like the stomach of a mysterious death in CSI:TitanTowers.
So I’ll start by looking at Summerslam.
RVD v Ambrose was good, but the ending felt weird.
Kane v Bray Wyatt was like a Michael Bay movie – great visual effects but little of substance inside.
Damien Sandow v Cody Rhodes felt like the first five minutes and last one minute of a much longer match. Rhodes looks like he’s improved over the past few years; Sandow not so much.
Alberto Del Rio v Christian was a good match. Christian is becoming the go-to guy to get a good match out of just about anybody at the moment.
Natalya v Brie Bella was a match.
Brock Lesnar v CM Punk was quite the intense and realistic match. But, seriously – Lesnar needed Paul Heyman to help him win? Seriously? Still, MOTN and possibly MOTY (but Undertaker wasn’t involved, so we know it won’t be MOTY).
The mixed tag match was not too bad, and I think I’m beginning to actually appreciate Big E.
John Cena v Daniel Bryan was surprisingly good with a surprisingly clean win and a surprising non-factor in HHH. Then HHH turned on Bryan giving Randy Orton the easy cash-in victory to be new champ.
Other things:
– So Ryback’s new gimmick is food critic? Ryback v Gordon Ramsay – book it!
– Shawn Michaels has the coolest beard on television right now.
– I know the money’s in the chase, and so having Bryan chase Orton till he gets the win back is cool. But why do I see it all transferring to Cena and Bryan fighting Curtis Axel for the IC title on the WrestleMania pre-show next year?
– The HHH turn is clearly because… nope. I got nothing. Okay, it’s so Bryan will see only the fans have his back, to make him the new every man, but it still felt forced to me.
– Dancing With The Stars contract on a Pole Match, Miz v Fandango – book it!
Okay, so what else has happened? Someone’s sexual orientation is not what was expected, and people are rightfully congratulating him for coming out and saying it. If he was in Australia he would be accused of just saying it because of the publicity he got, and then they’d accuse him of being black just for the welfare benefits, and he’d be pilloried by the Murdoch-owned media and driven away and into a life of crime just so the media could say, “We told you so.”
Man, being in Australia sucks at the moment.
But, bravo to Darren Young. I hope my kids end up in a world where sexual orientation, ethnicity and socio-economic status are not relevent, but we live in Australia so that’s never going to happen.
TNA have fired Brooke Hogan. Not let her go, but the reports actually have all said she has been ‘fired’. She was doing nothing for the product, so I can see it as a sensible cost-cutting measure. But they should be doing so much more.
Now, TNA, listen up. I want to enjoy your product. I really do. There have been times and certainly there have been matches recently where I have enjoyed it. But there are three things you need to realise:
(1) one of the main reasons WCW went out of business was because of the booking, the booking that you are so slavishly copying right now, with everyone in a faction and heels hardly ever getting their cime-uppance;
(2) not every WWE cast-off is any good; now, I’ll give you Jeff Hardy has been a boon for TNA, Kurt Angle is great wherever he is and Bully Ray has even been something of a revelation, but Anderson and the others are not helping you;
(3) your fans, those who have stuck with you through thick and thin, like their TNA originals, like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Daniels, et al, and those are the wrestlers they want to see pushed to the moon, and this gives the added advantage of having something different from WWE, not being seen as the WWE holiday camp for losers.
But, hey!, I don’t run a company that prides itself on supplying power in an environmental manner, so what would I know about wrestling?
(Still, nothing’s as bad as this.)
After my column about what you need to be ready for if you want to be a professional wrestler, Mike’s actually interviewed a trainee at a US school. Read it. It’s good.
Anything else this week? No, nothing wrestling-wise, not really. Except the Wolf, an Australian indy wrestler, hurt his foot when he stepped on a piece of his son’s Lego, an accident that could see him out for up to three days. Such is life in the high profile world of sports entertainment.
Next week, I’ll be doing something different, so until then, that’s the view!
