I’m
41.
Don’t
turn 41. Wait a little bit and turn 500
months. Blast it out and never celebrate
a birthday again.
I’m
503 months; meaning if you look at my actuarial table I should be a lapsed
wrestling fan.
I’m
not. I’m an unrepentant wrestling fan; I
keep lists, I give matches qualitative ratings, I have an auxiliary hard drive
filled with hundreds of hours of puroresu (that’s Japanese wrestling – you know
any movie snobs? I don’t mean people who
dislike movies with the words Fast and or Furious in the titles, I mean people
who read the new Sight & Sound
ranking of
the greatest movies of all time and railed about Au hasard Balthazar being ranked ahead of The 400 Blows? I’m that dude
– except with wrestling. I’ll accept
your judgment) and I watch every WWE PPV.
I
even preview some of them. That is this.
SummerSlam
is Sunday from Los Angeles. Here’s the
card.
1
Triple
H vs. Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman)
-When last we
left young Brock he dropped the WWF Title to Eddy Guerrero at the PPV between
the Rumble and Wrestlemania XX in early 2004 – somewhat forgotten (because its
largely been edited from subsequent DVDs) is that match included a Bill
Goldberg babyface run in that helped cost Lesnar the strap. Steve Austin was shoehorned into the
storyline as a second Lesnar antagonist and when the MSG crowd turned on both
Goldberg and Brock (both leaving the promotion) more recall Austin’s stunning
both men than who won that Wrestlemania match (it was Goldberg).
8 years later,
Brock returned to WWE to an enormous babyface reaction when he destroyed the top
star in the promotion, John Cena. In the
interim Brock became one of the biggest stars in all of combat sports, arguably
the second most popular fighter of any type in the US behind Floyd Mayweather,
and coming off the heels of a financially successful return run by the Rock,
Lesnar looked like a license to print money.
Granted, that would be money that could then be funneled into another
losing US Senate campaign, but Vince is a “genius” after all.
So far – tough
to call this a big success. Brock lost
to Cena in his only PPV appearance to date, and then settled into a feud with
Hunter (in his role as Stephanie’s Husband, heir to the family throne, holder
of the booking pencil) over dueling interpretations of the statute of frauds.
Paul Heyman,
also gone from professional wrestling for several years, returned in a panto of
his real life role as Lesnar’s advisor to serve as mouthpiece; in the go home
RAW Lesnar broke Shawn Michaels’s arm (HBK remains retired, but popped up in
the past couple of weeks as Hunter’s best friend who would be in his corner
against Brock) because, you know, he’s a bad man. A bad man who wants a small number of
guaranteed dates and the bottled water in the green room to be tepid. Tepid, goddammit.
Lesnar/Cena was
super; better, in my view, than HHH/Undertaker from Mania (but neither were as
good as Punk v. Bryan from whatever PPV that was) I’d expect this match also to
be very good, Lesnar beating Hunter so badly we don’t see him even one time
between now and Mania is the only result that makes any sense at all. I don’t have any idea if they will do it that
way. (3 1/2 stars, the best match of the night, Brock going over hard with a clean submission win)
2
WWE
Championship: CM Punk (c) vs. Big Show vs. John Cena
-There are two
World singles champions in WWE; this belt is the lineal WWF Heavy weight Title, Bruno and Hogan and Bret
and Austin – it’s that belt.
Punk’s on a
historically significant title run; he took the strap last summer during the
brief stretch when he caught fire with the sports culture at large and then
regained it from Alberto del Rio in a Survivor Series 3 way. This is still that run – the longest since
Cena’s from ’06-07 – if he can make it to the end of the year, it’s the longest
WWE Title reign since Hogan’s first, almost 30 years ago. Were Cena to survive at SummerSlam, that’s
all he should be talking about, every match should be his doing whatever he
could possibly do to make it to the Rumble as Champ (where, incidentally, the
Rock will be taking on whomever holds the belt).
It’s a winner,
right? It wins for me, at least; you can
see the clip package where Punk discusses his superiority to every champ for
the past three decades – and given that Punk is now a bad guy or at least
evolving toward bad guy status, that gives him an easy weasel character and
puts over the value of the title belt, which, since the Rock will now be in
play for it, is probably an emphasis they want to make. Of course, given that I
think the best booked show on television is Jerseylicious (particularly a
season ago when Olivia kicked Tracy in the head and shouted throughout the club
“This is a shoot! It’s a damn shoot!”)
So we’ll say Punk keeps in a
not particularly good match; Cena (who I like less than does anyone with the
possible exception of his ex-wife) runs in place until his eventual rematch win
over the Rock and the Show remains Big, Big. (Didn't make it to 3 stars and those are the only matches worth thinking about once they're over; Punk kept)
3. World Heavyweight Championship:
Sheamus (c) vs. Alberto del Rio (with Ricardo)
-The other World Title in WWE is
really the promotion’s secondary title; think of it as similar in scope to the
old Intercontinental Title (that is now the tertiary belt with the US singles
title being something they fight over on YouTube) WWE used to have a more
pronounced roster split between RAW and Smackdown, and this title belt was
created to reflect that (and to give some recognition to the old WCW line of
champions which gave some recognition to the old NWA line of champions). Now it primarily serves as an anchor for the
B house shows.
Sheamus
has been Champ since Mania, getting as big a babyface push as anyone in North
America in 2012; he’s fine. Not “girl,
that Sheamus is fine” but, he’s fine – I like him enough as a middle card guy,
which essentially is how this title holder is positioned. I’m uncertain I see him as a potential number
two babyface in the promotion type, and given his relationship with Stephanie’s
Husband there’s potential for a multi-year overpush, but in 2012 there’s not
much reason to complain about Sheamus. I
don’t know who wins; one assumes Randy Orton, who just returned from getting
Melkied (new term for a drug suspension, let’s see if we can get some traction
on it) will quickly be put into this mix, probably as a babyface for a little
while longer given the Punk turn. This
should be a good enough match to watch. (3 stars even with a screwy finish with Sheamus keeping)
4. Kane vs. Daniel Bryan
-Bryan Danielson’s my
favorite ever wrestler who didn’t kill his entire family, so his getting over
as bearded solipsistic heel is my favorite element of 2012 WWE. Kane’s just a placeholder in this program
which is really the tail of Bryan’s relationship with former valet and now RAW
figurehead authority figure AJ (it’s unclear in storyline terms what made her
qualified for the job, had Vince said “she has the best ass for any GM
candidate since Mike Adamle” it would at least provide a pretense. This was presumably supposed to be the
Charlie Sheen spot, serving in some way as Danielson’s antagonist. I’d assume there was some type of
#It’sYourOwnFaultforTryingToWorkWithCharlieSheen type of negotiating
issue. If anyone could get a PPV match
worth watching out of Kane…(Bryan won)
5 Dolph Ziggler (with Vickie Guerrero)
vs. Chris Jericho
-Here’s
the match I’m most looking forward to on the card.
Jericho’s
leaving again, to go sing and write a book and host some godawful reality show
and preserve his body and more guys should take his career approach and
periodically cycle away from wrestling as they age. He’s made a soft babyface turn in recent
weeks and finds himself in a hotshot program against criminally underpushed
Ziggler, who is a cocky, Hennig-like heel.
(Tyson
Kidd’s exception to my referring to a guy actually booked for the show as
underpushed is noted for the record.)
It’s
a good, simple program. Ziggler says
Jericho’s washed up. Jericho disagrees. They fight.
Oddly
enough, there is no clamor for a discussion of the finer points of subrogation
or similar such contract law doctrine.
Wrestling booking ain’t that hard.
Ziggler’s
really the only example in WWE of an undercard worker who generally attempts to
do something that steals the show – that’s my favorite mindset for a wrestler
and the type of show I’m most likely to buy – where each wrestler looks to have
the best possible match as opposed to sublimating their abilities so as to not
show up the staring contest in the main event.
This
match probably gets 8 minutes. But 6 of
them will be good.(3 1/2 stars, it got more time than I expected and was as good as I expected, Jericho won and then lost the next night, leaving the promotion again)
6 Intercontinental Championship: The Miz
(c) vs. Rey Mysterio
-Two
recent returnees match up here; The Miz just got back from shooting the latest
WWE film that you’ll never see, presumably an extended conversation between Miz
and Wally Shawn reminiscing about Polish theatre while Gymnopedie No. 1 plays
in the background. He took Christian’s
IC and probably keeps here against Rey, one of the ten greatest wrestlers who
ever lived. Reys’s back from his latest
catastrophic knee injury and the clock’s ticking fast on his ability to keep
doing this at a high level. (3 stars, Miz keeping)
7 Tag Team Championship : R-Truth and
Kofi Kingston (c) vs. The Primetime Players (Titus O'Neil and Darren Young)
The
champs are the good guys; the challengers the bad guys; no one involved will
make a Kobe Bryant rape joke. (Champs kept.)
There’s
also a pre-show match with the former Claudio Castagnoli probably winning the
US Title; maybe they add a women’s match or a Brodus Clay or a Ryback or even a
Cody Rhodes v. Sin Cara.
So
– it’s a show worth watching, I think; although not one superlikely to produce
a match that cracks this list: (Nothing was close to making this list.)
The
Ten Best Matches in SummerSlam History
1.
Bret Hart d. Owen Hart (‘94)
2. Davey Boy Smith d. Bret Hart (‘92)
3. Edge/Christian d. Hardys/Dudleys (‘00)
4. Shawn Michaels d. Razor Ramon (‘95)
5. CM Punk d. Jeff Hardy (‘09)
6. Bret Hart d. Mr. Perfect (‘91)
7. Christian v. Randy Orton (’11)
2. Davey Boy Smith d. Bret Hart (‘92)
3. Edge/Christian d. Hardys/Dudleys (‘00)
4. Shawn Michaels d. Razor Ramon (‘95)
5. CM Punk d. Jeff Hardy (‘09)
6. Bret Hart d. Mr. Perfect (‘91)
7. Christian v. Randy Orton (’11)
8.
Undertaker d. Edge (‘08)
9. CM Punk v. John Cena (’11)
9. CM Punk v. John Cena (’11)
10.
Brainbusters d. Hart Foundation (89)
Enjoy
the show.
