SummerSlam Was A Wild Ride In Brooklyn, But Brock Lesnar Still Reigns Supreme

Last night, Jared Carrabis, myself, and my big brother took Brooklyn by storm for WWE’s biggest party of the Summer, SummerSlam! We had a really good time despite a lackluster first half of the card, and when it was over, we headed right back to the office and recorded a recap extravaganza podcast full of laughter, shouting, and possibly even crying. If you’re more into the blog side of content, I’ll give an abbreviated version of the night below, but you’ll have to listen to the podcast for the in depth shit though.

Also, before I get into it, I want to give Nick Buono a huge shoutout. He runs the From The Top Rope Twitter and Instagram accounts and KILLS it. He’s a good follow on his personal Twitter, too, @thenickbuono.

We got to our seats right as Akira Tozawa vs Neville was starting on the pre-show, and they had a really great match. It reminded me a lot of Neville’s match against Austin Aries at WrestleMania, in that it was on the pre-show making hardcore fans complain, but they got an infinite amount of time because of that, and it was for the better. Neville won his Cruiserweight Championship back, marking the first of the five title changes last night.

One of the best matches of the night was The New Day vs The Usos. We all agreed on From The Top Rope that it was only behind the main event, which we fucking loved. This was, as Big Daddy Trent would say, false finish city. It’s sometimes hard to buy into false finishes when you’re there live because you can see people on the outside preparing to break up pinfalls and such, but they were so creative here that I was buying everything hook line and sinker.

The first match of the main card was John Cena vs Baron Corbin, and it’s goal was to pretty much make Corbin look like the biggest geek imaginable. Cena toyed with him in the beginning, didn’t take too much heat, and won after one finisher. The dangers of rubbing Vince the wrong way, kids.

Natalya beat Naomi for the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship in a pretty enjoyable match the crowd just wasn’t into. Probably because of the shitty build/Natalya’s stale character, but I dug it. The finish got a sizable pop, but everyone wanted Carmella to cash in, and when she didn’t, we were disappointed. She did look damn good though.

This was one of the worst matches I’ve ever been in attendance for and I feel really bad for everyone involved. Enzo is Zack Ryder in late 2012 levels of dead with no chance of recovery. Cass is still very salvageable. Big Show is our guest on From The Top Rope this week so he’s exempt from burials this week.

Rusev got RKO’d. Great sell. That’s that.

The crowd was slightly more into this than the other Women’s Title Match but not much more. Again, it’s a shame because this match was good, and Sasha finally got her pay per view title win, but that Brooklyn crowd is unpredictable. I’d much prefer last night’s crowd to last year’s, where they were focused on beach balls and getting themselves over.

The highlight of SummerSlam may have legitimately been Finn Bálor’s entrance. When he’s the Demon, he might just have the coolest entrance in the history of wrestling. It’s so fucking cool. His match with Bray was good, too, and the show started to pick up and kick into a new gear.

The Shield is back, baby! Well, two thirds of them at least, to Carrabis’ chagrin. We loved this match, not quite as much as the SmackDown tag match, but it was close. The closing stretch of this one was amazing, and Cesaro ripping a beach ball to shreds was one of the best heel tactics I’ve ever seen.

I thought this was the best match Kevin Owens has ever had with AJ Styles, and Carrabis heavily disagreed. This is one you have to listen to the show to get our opinions on, because we both back up our takes will pretty long winded explanations.

I tried staring directly into the fucking sun today so I’d never have to see Jinder Mahal wrestle again. Take that for what it’s worth.

THE MAAAAAAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING!!! We’ve been sucking the balls of this match since it was only a wee rumor, and it lived up to our shockingly high expectations. These four big hosses just beat the ever living fuck out of one another and we were bananas. Look at these gifs.

Brock winning took the air out of the building a little, because it was so clearly Braun’s night, but the match was good enough to make up for that. Carrabis shit himself in rage when The Shield didn’t reunite and had one of the most over the top rants I’ve ever heard on the podcast. I had to calm him down, and it was good for our relationship.

Make sure you tune in on Wednesday for our exclusive interview with The Big Show.