– stock.adobe.com)
WWE is not for me, as I was reminded during last night’s “SummerSlam,” which featured a run of underwhelming matches and illogical finishes.
I’ll acknowledge that, vis-à-vis its main competition, AEW, the WWE presentation fares well head-to-head, with its signature “Raw” and “Smackdown” weekly TV shows more than doubling the viewership of AEW’s top show, “Dynamite.”
I don’t get it, personally, but then, I have a YouTube premium subscription mainly so that I can watch bootleg videos of 1980s Memphis, Mid-Atlantic and World Class, just to let you know where I’m coming from.
And just to be up front about the good ol’ days: it’s a stone cold fact that many multiples more people were watching pro wrestling back then compared to today.
That’s important context to keep in mind when you consider how well WWE is doing.
They’re making more money, yes, but it’s off a lot less people than used to tune in.
My critiques of “SummerSlam”
Solo Sikoa should be nowhere near a ‘SummerSlam’ main event
The only reason Solo Sikoa was booked as the challenger to Cody Rhodes in the main event of last night’s show is that he’s a first cousin to Roman Reigns.
Seriously, that’s it.
Sikoa is 6’2”, 250 pounds, with no discernible muscle tone, so, he’s a relatively small fat guy, without anything compelling in terms of what he can do in the ring or on the mic.
Dude was in the main event last night because WWE didn’t have the sense to hire Jacob Fatu a couple of years earlier and push him toward the top spot alongside Reigns in The Bloodline.
How can you botch Drew McIntyre-CM Punk?
This was the one match that had my interest going in, and the booking just totally flubbed it.
I get why you have Seth Rollins in as the special guest ref, but I’m not that the people who put this one together are in on what should have been the logic.
You have Rollins involved here because you set up a three-way feud, but instead, what we got was Rollins, as the ref, blatantly favoring Drew McIntyre at the expense of CM Punk, with an ending that came across as a relatively clean pinfall win for McIntyre.
OK, so, we leave with Punk wanting to get revenge on Rollins, but I’m not sure it’s justified, because Punk cost himself the match, when he hit Rollins with a GTS, allowing McIntyre to low-blow him, then deliver his Claymore Kick for the one-two-three.
Meanwhile, there’s no reason to think there’s heat between Rollins and McIntyre, who came across as working together from the opening bell.
Nia Jax?
Never been a fan of Nia Jax. It has always felt, with her, that her push is because of who she’s related to, and not because of her work – she’s horrible on the mic, and a danger to her fellow performers in the ring.
Her win over Bayley for whichever of the women’s titles was up for grabs in that match felt more like, we need to keep the streak of titles changing hands going to get you to think that Cody is going to lose to Sikoa in the main event, than anything logical.
The couple of things that I liked
Wins for Gunther, Breaker
These guys are guys to build around.
I’m not gaga over Gunther like a lot of people who watch wrestling are, but he’s a classic foreign heel who gets ring psychology.
Bron Breaker is a guy with unlimited athleticism who was smart to take advantage of his pedigree, as the son of Rick Steiner and the nephew of Scott Steiner.
Unlike Sikoa and Jax, who seem to me are just coasting on their bloodlines, Breaker paid attention to the business as a kid growing up, soaked up the reams of wrestling knowledge that would have had to have been in that household with his dad and uncle being among the greats of a generation ago, and used it as a leg up.
I’m not sure about the ceiling for Gunther, that it’s at the level where you can see WWE building the company around him for a year or two or three, but Breaker is, barring injury, the next huge star, on the level of a John Cena or Hulk Hogan.
Just needs to get better on the mic.
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Chris Graham
