Summerslam 2023 aka the second ever party of the summer orchestrated by Hunter Hearst Helmsley which sounds like it’s going to be a slam dunk of a show on paper.
However, going into the second biggest WWE event, there’s one major head-scratching decision made by Titan Towers and that is the cancellation of two women’s matches, one is the women’s world title between Rhea Ripley and Raquel Rodriguez bout and the other is the encounter between Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus.
According to Fightful Select, the reason why those matches (at least one of the matches in Becky and Trish Stratus) got, metaphorically speaking, axed by Triple H’s hammer is due to time constraints.
This led to #WWEWomenDeserveBetter being used on the site formerly known as Twitter and I 100% agree with the hashtag (check out Corey Brennan’s piece on the women’s world championship cancellation, by the way).
Look, Money In The Bank 2020 was one of my favourite shows partially due to the runtime.
But, cancelling out two women’s matches considering that the Lynch/Stratus feud in particular, has been building since after Wrestlemania only to replace it with a meaningless battle royal to promote a meat munching product in SlimJim is to quote Philp DeFranco, “stupid, stupid”.
With that out of the way, how’s the 36th annual Summerslam treating ya boy? If I had to give it an Ebert/Siskel thumbs up or thumbs down rating then I’ll give it a thumbs up.
However, it’s also the weakest show in a sea of great shows produced by WWE this year.
Let’s note down the highlights first. Logan Paul got a much-needed victory against Ricochet in a fantastic opener given that his last win was at last year’s Summerslam.
Speaking of Ws, Cody defeated Bork Laser himself concluding a feud that I can best describe as meh. LA Knight won the aforementioned meat-munching sponsored battle royal (here’s hoping they don’t pull a Cesaro or a Rusev or a Zack Ryder or a Shinsuke. Damn, they sure do fumble the bag on white hot babyfaces, huh?).
Io Sky’s cash-in and winning the women’s title was great (fingers crossed for an Asuka and Io match soon. The triple threat match itself was outstanding). Gunther still keeps the Intercontinental championship. In other words, it’s the only championship reign that hasn’t run its course (looking at you, Roman Reigns).
Seth Rollins retains the world title due to a stomp to Finn Balor on the Money In The Bank briefcase. Yep, they’re gonna break up (no sh*t, Omar). And Ronda vs Shayna was cool, I guess?
You know what’s not cool though? The main event match between Jey Uso and Roman Reigns, specifically that sudden heel turn from Jimmy Uso that was so random and nonsensical, Vince Russo is blushing right now, BRO!
Triple H is utilising his most significant trope from NXT, the “best partners now bitter rivals” in the worst of circumstances. The storyline’s conclusion should’ve been Jey beating Roman due to the Bloodline angle starting out with Jey Uso but instead, we got this monstrosity.
And GOD I hope not the explanation of Jimmy turning on his brother was out of jealousy because we clearly haven’t seen that story told before.
But yeah, Summerslam 2023? Good. The ending? Not so much.
Check out Omar’s podcast “Best Things About Pro Wrestling This Month” where he highlights the best of wrestling in any particular month.
