Parties

Jericho-Michaels sucked, while Jericho-Mysterio from roughly the same time was great to the point where they were having MOTYCs on random Smackdowns. I remember not even understanding how slow botch magnet Y2J was having these matches, which to this day are the best of his career. It's tempting to say Rey carried him based on how bad Jericho was directly before and after, but I always think it's weird and tricky to say someone "carried" someone else unless its an injury situation. Some guys just have good chemistry, or find their athletic groove for a limited time in the same way that in baseball, career .250 hitters will get red-hot for some random month.

As others have noted, wrestling's discussed/critiqued in ways far surpassing mere match synopsis all the time. That said, match reviews are getting short shrift in this conversation. DVDVR/Segunda Caida were/are match reviews as high art. The context of a match and date are really just a springboard for talking about wrestling however the writer is capable of tackling it. Even the bell-to-bell isn't a confined beginning or end point when you see the best of our peers at work. Sure, there are reviews in some places that are too focused on simply writing down the play-by-play of moves. But I likewise think there are folks here and elsewhere who prattle on with vague, needlessly obtuse theories that simply read as self-aggrandizing. When I read eight paragraph essays of why someone liked or didn't like a match via an attempt to coin capital-T Theories, I'm reminded of H.G. Frankfurt's "On Bullshit", which clarifies how bullshit is neither true or untrue, but an attempt to cloud thoughts in such word salad that they're technically irrefutable, or cause your audience to just shrug and surrender. The happy medium in match reviews would be to capture what happened while contextualizing it in your own original, entertaining voice. Which many fans have thoughtfully done for decades. I'm not sure I buy that there's such a thing as a "sophisticated form" of writing, or the idea that match reviews aren't one. There are sophisticated and unsophisticated writers, and we shouldn't be fooled in either case by crayons or a quill. EDIT: One last thing that I meant to add here - I do think it's a flaw in much/most modern wrestling that what happens in skits/promos/"the rest of the show" too rarely has an impact on the matches themselves. It's probably one of the more valid arguments against something like Gabe's booking, or WWE TV matches often being deemed "Autopilot", void of what gets called "storytelling": the matches don't play upon previously set-up character work in a way that would invite foreshadowing, logic, etc. Part of why you may be seeing wrestling writers struggling to contextualize matches within the shape of everything else is that most bookers aren't crafting scenarios in which the action of a match plays with the kinds of dramatic ironies (or "poetic justice" as Gorilla would call it) that make for really fulfilling moments. In the case of something brilliant like the Funk-Lawler Empty Arena Match (itself almost a hybrid or simultaneous match and angle at once), there are countless nuances to what Funk says vs. what he is, how the match is set up and executed, Lance's role, etc. It's often said that the best theater contains moments that at once feel to the audience both surprising and inevitable. You see the way a great play/episode/movie ends and think, "I never saw that coming, but of course! It could only end that way!" Pat Patterson knew what Euripedes knew.

Detective Dan Barry's speaking role on "Holy Foley" is the new highlight of Summerslam weekend.

WWE.com telegraphing the Bubba Ray turn so hard with these headlines. They might as well just be "Dudleys Poised to Retire Friendship".

4-6 months! I actually enjoy him as a talker, but Rollins should get on some banned substances if he wants to be allowed to injure dudes w/o recourse. Quite an evening, between this and the Jericho-Lesnar backstage brawl.

One other wack option that could come out of that main event, BTW: Orton-Brock continues at some point in the future despite the two being on separate shows, and is justified by Shane and/or multiple McMahons being so angry with Brock for the F5 that we simply must have a co-branded feud.

It's a different time now and I think arenas have successfully quelled such behavior, but it's not hard to imagine a scenario at the end of that show in which the fans pelt the ring with a hailstorm of trash and heaved beverages like some NWO-ruled Nitro.

I really don't mean to sound like a snide troll in saying this, but that was so much worse than any of us could have anticipated. Stunning. If this leads to Brock vs. Goldberg at Mania, that's pretty much akin to what it would have been like if at Wrestlemania 6 in 1990, the company had decided that rather than have Hogan work the main event with Warrior, his fresh new challenger would be Pedro Morales. That's the best "really popular babyface who'd peaked 18-19 years earlier" that I can come up with. If it ends up being Brock vs. Shane, that would be more like Skydome being main evented by Hogan vs... who, Ernie Roth? Pat Patterson? Those aren't perfect analogies, but they're in the ballpark of what people online are taking at face value here.

This year's best Thesz/Flair Award candidate is reduced to doing a no-contest pre-match brawl. That Brock-Orton has a high potential to end in some kind of Wyatt or Goldberg distraction finish is amazing.

Jim Cornette cameo on Summerslam 2016, ladies and gentlemen.

I can only assume it'll be revealed later that Renee has the flu or something, but until then: let the games begin. @wresnocontext's GIF of Chicken Mizzle slapping Col. Ziggler is the first smile I've cracked during this show.

You can argue a lot of things about Brock and how he is handled in the WWE as "sending a bad message to the fans and locker room" He is the biggest star in the company right now (or #2 behind Cena) and is costing the company millions. So they are definitely going to treat him like a main eventer Well yes, that’s my point, I suppose. Dude screws up colossally on a very public level, company divorces itself of any responsibility via nonsense technicality of their own invention, then keeps him as the main event. What do they gain from it? The cache he had after his UFC win is now less than zero. They’re paying him the money either way: putting him in the main event doesn’t improve their investment. Let’s even say that most fans watching think Orton-Lesnar is a bigger match than either of the title matches: that’s a bad precedent, and one they should actively book against. They did the same thing last year with Brock-Taker, and it was a mess from which they achieved nothing. In part it's because Vince doesn't have faith in any of the four title match guys, but that too speaks volumes.

Once Ambrose is cast aside, can Nikki vs. Bliss be the next SD world title feud? Also, why in the hell is Orton-Lesnar going on last? Unless there's some massive storyline coming, that's a bad message to send to both the fans and locker room.

Yeah nevermind, that match blew goats. Terrible telegraphing of sequences from both guys. Ambrose having to work dominant boss role because he isn’t athletic enough for a competitive back-and-forth outing. I did enjoy his mockery of Ziggler’s theatrics, but this match kind of exposed why Ambrose is an odd fit for the world title. On his best day on the mic, he’s almost Roddy Piper. But once he gets in the ring, he's barely Steve Lombardi. Crowd was so, so dead for this. Horribly awkward finish. Also: dear God, why does Ziggler have a Gadsden flag on his tights? What a buffoon.

I have to give them credit for somehow getting me interested in Ambrose-Ziggler.

This was in a sense a play on their recent live matches, but you also got the Styles Clash, the nice Cena control segment, the suplex on the apron, and a torture rack into a spinning powerbomb. I don’t know if I loved the middle of this being an exchange of power move finishers. The head drop followed by a minute apiece of selling and catching breath in the middle of the match felt somewhat Taker-HBK/HHH, but it doesn’t last long as they launched into the rapid springboard 450 and Code Red. The Phenomenal Forearm was great, but I liked Cena’s sudden gorilla-looking lariat almost as much. Overall: too many 2.9 armageddon finishers perhaps, but these two are as well-equipped as anyone to have this style of match. Cena’s reactions were fun if over the top, and the actual conclusion was stellar. The “Cena doesn’t have it anymore” story is interesting and I’m curious where they can go with it. Not as good as their recent house show handhelds, but better than the reception here would have you think.

Cesaro-Sheamus was tremendous, esp. as a pre-show match with two outstanding GWE 100 contenders that had no heat going into it. Probably the best singles they've had, at least from what I can recall. That's how you go out and try to steal the show, esp. all the storytelling around Cesaro's shoulder and whether it could hold out amidst all the power offense from both. Another match I need to rewatch.

This pre-show has been rough so far. Also, I'm a huge Sasha fan, but her promos have been terrible lately. I wonder if she's one of those workers who doesn't like being a face.

Names brought up by the nosebleed crowd during Bayley/Asuka: AJ Styles, John Cena, Kurt Angle, Mark Henry. Really liked the finish: Bayley's reactions were killer and Sasha's Tina Fey glasses are the finishing touches on a masterpiece.

Surprising number and volume of "Johnny Wrestling" chants. Surreal to see Gargano go from La Boom to Barclays in a month. Loved the ref missing the blind tag. Crowd screaming "Tap!" only to have it broken up by Dash would have gotten an equivalent pop in '86 Crockett. Crowd screams at the top of its lungs for the faces and audibly boost the heels, once Parv's nerve gas sets in. Surprisingly smart match: even if they're taking three months to plot out these Takeover bouts and having them blessed by Sara Del Ray in some blood sacrifice temple, they are still outstanding and clearly the product of long term planning.

Crowd loves Roode and hates Andrade. Authentic Brooklyn crowd feedback: "Cien stole Randy Savage's pants!" I can affirm on La Sombra's behalf that it's hard to be such a pretty man in a sea of scrubs.

Crowd is wyling the hell out at Roode's theme song. Can we give propers to NXT for rehabbing all of TNA's recent stars? Andrade by comparison is met with boos followed by nada.

Ember is the act that wrestling needs, and from one crowd's opinion, the act they want. Great finish, great showing. Asuka's long term rival if they want it, and good on them for keeping the NXT women's division interesting with a new contender.

I'm not always a fan, but that match reminded me that I've been watching live Austin Aries performances for over ten years, and he's a guy who seems to have become a much smarter worker in the last decade. Both deserve credit, but the booking and crowd response point to this as a moment for Aries. Props to him for looking the credible threat despite being nine feet shorter than Jose.

TM61-Authors as new age Fantastics vs. new age Headhunters was entertaining, as was Ellering looking younger than he did in 1991. Pretty basic structure, but everyone looked good and the faces are pretty blue chip in what the main roster wants (being a tag team notwithstanding).