SummerSlam Recap

Unfortunately, I did not get to posting yesterday, so away we go...

I'm a little surprised that so many people consider the W.W.E.'s SummerSlam pay-per-view to be the promotion's second best of the year - squarely behind Wrestlemania. I always considered the Royal Rumble to trail 'mania, but that's me I guess. This year's SS card was received with a great deal of skepticism by many prior to the event, overall, though I personally would give it a 7.5 on a scale of 1-10.

Let's go match by match:

Edge lost to The Undertaker in a “Hell in a Cell” Match
We all knew The Undertaker was going to win this match, the question was if the bout would put a real exclamation point on this lengthy, but good feud between two of the industry’s best. I think it did. Some thought that Undertaker choke slamming Edge through the ring after the match was overdone, but I didn’t mind it. Now I wonder who is next for both of these guys? Does Undertaker go right after Triple H or do they save that for Wrestlemania? I’d love to see Edge “emerge from hell” whenever that is as a deranged character. The role he played leading up this match as a guy that had snapped was brilliant. They could script it that just like “Hell in a Cell” changed Mick Foley, it made Edge a bit off-balance.

W.W.E. Champ Triple H beat The Great Khali
This match was better than I expected, but I had pretty low expectations for it. Oh I get it, Khali dominates the match so he appears as a legit contender, while Triple H’s pedigree is so devastating that it is all he needed to do against Khali. The strange thing is that W.W.E. had Big Show fight in the dark match of this pay-per-view. Why? Is Show the next one for Hunter or is it Undertaker?

World Champ CM Punk over JBL
This match was good, but was it pay-per-view quality? Hmmm, probably not. Glad to see Punk win and go back to his hometown of Chicago last night as World Champ.

E.C.W. Champ Mark Henry lost via disqualification to Matt Hardy
How long was this match? 40 seconds? Definitely not p.p.v. quality, although always good to see The Hardys.

Batista beat John Cena
I liked this match and think it was probably the best that these two could have against one another, although it would have been better if it had gone another five minutes and if there was something at stake like a title, pride or something.

MVP defeated Jeff Hardy
Rumors had circulated that Jeff Hardy had broken his neck early last week, thankfully those turned out to be false and instead Hardy actually had to have fluid drained from his elbow. This match left me wondering if having Shelton Benjamin interfere sets up a triple threat match down the line?

Santino Marella/Beth Phoenix vs. Mickie James/Kofi Kingston (Winner-Take-All)
They took the IC title off of Kofi and gave it to a guy that was just recently seen losing to Jimmy Kimmel’s cousin? "Creative" writing indeed.

Shawn Michaels Announcement
When you get right down to it, the best in the business today is Shawn Michaels. Thankfully he did not retire, which I’m sure most people did not expect him to. Because as Jim Ross wrote on his blog recently, wrestling needs Shawn Michaels more than Shawn Michaels needs wrestling. His wife, Rebecca, did a great job in taking that “punch” from Chris Jericho who is also at the top of his game right now. This feud between Michaels and Jericho has just been so well done, funny I read that Michaels and Jericho are scripting the whole thing and not the “creative” writing team. Go figure!