Just as many others were a bit gob-smacked at how out of hand the finish for the Lesnar vs. Orton match went, I would like to tip my hat to someone for standing up and getting in the face of a creature twice his size and about as reasonable as, well, a ‘roided-up gorilla with delusions of grandeur. If the Bollock Club ever decide to take a testicular sample from this chap, I’m sure they’d need to keep them in a whale tank.
So, without further ado,
Let’s hear it for……
The #BallsOfJericho
Shameless fan-boy dedications dealt with, let’s crack on.
Last night at Summerslam recap:
– Finn Balor defeated Seth Rollins to become the first ever WWE Universal Champion.
#RAW
BREAKING NEWS: Corey Graves, Byron Saxton and Michael Cole start the show by informing us that Finn Balor injured his shoulder last night. He popped his shoulder back into socket mid-match and needs surgery. It seems he will be out for AT LEAST six months. Balor now has to relinquished the title he just won.
#UniversalTitle
Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon are in the ring and they introduce Finn Balor to the ring.
Finn has a smile on his face and thanks everyone that helped him on his way to last night, even Seth Rollins for the match of his life. He assures everyone that he’ll be back and after the title again eventually. Foley gives him a bit of a patronising hug as he removes the title from Balor’s shoulder and raises his hand.
Before Balor gets to the back, Seth Rollins appears. As expected of a thunder-stealing Rollins, he’s smiling and laughing and walks straight past Finn. Seth makes his way to the ring and grabs a microphone. Trollins immediately suggests we flip/reverse the mood and begin a celebration for the “beautiful” Universal Title and himself.
Sami Zayn interrupts. Chris Jericho comes out and starts begging Steph to consider him instead. Kevin Owens joins the party. Enzo and Big Cass out too, I don’t know why, they lost last night to a very short term tag team. Fashionably late is Roman Reigns. Boos from the majority of the crowd and Seth doesn’t look too impressed either.
Foley says they’re going to have a series of matches leading up to crowning a new champion next week. The first match is up next. Rollins jumps Zayn as Owens has his attention.
#UniversalTitle
Sami Zayn vs. Seth Rollins
Joy. Another injury seems present after Zayn landed on his feet awkwardly early on. Props to him for limping through it. They keep most of the action nice and short range to save Zayn hobbling around where possible. Seth hits The Pedigree for the win.
Later:
Photo gallery from Summerslam with shite backing music.
#UniversalTitle
Kevin Owens vs. Neville
Owens wins with a Torture-rack Neck-breaker. Neville’s Apron 450 Splash is always fun. Chris Jericho came out mid-match to cheer on Owens and distract Neville.
Great effort from Neville with the old dead lift on Owens.
Corey Graves, Byron Saxton and Michael Cole announce that all the winners of the Universal Title matches will advance to a Fatal 4-Way next week.
Later:
Big Cass vs. Rusev
Roman Reigns vs. Chris Jericho
The New Day are back in full force since Big E returned at Summerslam and they’re backstage having a chuckle.
Now it’s time for this week’s……..
#PatYourselfOnTheBackTimeUsingStatsVinnyMacWantsEngravingOnTrophies
Or P.Y.O.T.B.T.U.S.V.M.W.E.O.T. for short!
New Day are en-route to the ring, Big E drive-by serving up Booty-O’s to fans. They celebrate their beast of a title run and thank the fans for putting up with their daft shit over their reign and before. They reveal a Booty-O filled Unicorn Piñata and Big E’s going to take a big old swing at it.
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson show up and interrupt the festivities. Thankfully, they’ve dropped their exhausted doctor coats and look like they mean business.
Gallows and Anderson inform The New Day that they have no grounds for celebration since they lost last night and that they’re entitled to a rematch. Gallows adds that Anderson is going to beat Big E shortly.
Big E (w/Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) vs. Karl Anderson (w/Luke Gallows)
Big E wins with the Big Ending after Gallows failed to cause a distraction; Xavier and Kofi neutralise him on the outside. Looks like it’s time for Gallows and Anderson to form a new club, get their numbers back up a little and increase their dominance.
Later:
Clip from the Dudley’s debut on Smackdown in 1999.
More stills from last night with diabolical musical accompaniment.
Titus O’Neil in the ring falling over his promo like an angry, drunk toddler rampaging through a military assault course. He slags off the locals a little, makes some pop culture references and then finally moves on to dissing Darren Young and Bob Backlund.
He calls out Young and blames Backlund for the no-show. Backlund runs out and manages to get the Chicken Wing locked in. Titus breaks free and Scoop-Slams Backlund into the next season of Legends’ House. Young runs out to protect his coach, but is met with a Clash of the Titus.
Highlights from Orton’s murder last night.
Tom Philips is backstage with Stephanie McMahon. He asks her reaction on the actions of Brock Lesnar. She says Lesnar DID cross a line, and there WILL be repercussions. Yeah, yeah. I’m sure there will be
Another replay of Balor’s shoulder injury.
And his promo earlier.
Lana in the ring. As per usual, she looks fantastic and attempts to maintain her accent while introducing the only snout that’s allowed in her trough, Rusev.
Replay of the no contest between Rusev and Roman Reigns last night.
#UniversalTitle
Big Cass vs. Rusev
Big Cass wins via count-out. Rusev played having knackered ribs throughout and Cass took advantage of the injury at every opportunity until Rusev decided he couldn’t beat the big man in his current state and walked away from the match.
Rusev still looked relatively strong considering he ran away. I don’t think Big Cass is ready for the big push yet, but I have been grumbling about him and Enzo getting rather stale, so I’ll welcome a chance to show me something different from him/them.
Tom Philips introduces Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens. Tom congratulates Owens for his win earlier and poses the question of the potential for them to have to face each other next week. Their opinions gently clash before deciding to worry about that next week. They take the piss out of Philips some more and wander off.
Charlotte and Dana Brooke are heading towards the ring and apparently have some business polluting my senses. Also, Sasha has injured her back and won’t be returning for some time. Bad times.
Stills from Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks last night to crown Charlotte the champion once again.
Dana gets her troll face on and tries to get a “You deserve it” chant going while clapping awfully out of time. Charlotte claims to be the greatest female athlete going today. She rubs in the fact that she did it all by herself and that Sasha’s reign was a flash in the pan. She gloats some more and then they fuck off. Well, they try to until they’re cut off by Mick Foley.
The crowd chant for Bayley and Foley drills home the fact that Sasha will be entitled to a rematch once she’s recovered. Charlotte interrupts Foley again to tell the crowd to get over themselves. She says she deserves the night off as there’s no-one around to merit her time. Foley puts Charlotte in her place, corrects her and announces that Raw have actually just signed……….
Charlotte isn’t impressed, but Bayley challenges her for a title shot anyway. Charlotte refuses and Dana is pushed under the bus and offered instead, Foley gives it the green light and it’s up next.
EVEN MORE Summerslam stills/Ear-displeasure.
Bayley vs. Dana Brooke (w/Charlotte)
A debut win after a Bayley to Belly. The lasses put on an quick match while Charlotte barked and pulled a face like a bulldog licking piss off of a nettle on the outside.
Roman Reigns walks down a corridor wearing black and blue tonight (I wish he’d stick with one colour scheme and not switch between four). Tom Philips appears and stirs the pot between Roman and Jericho before their match later. Roman waves his fist around and buggers off.
A decent Cruiser-weight Classic promo, showing a little bit about a few of the competitors. I haven’t watched a great deal of it to be honest, but I’ve seen enough to hope they give the division a decent showing on Raw. They seem to be plugging it enough anyway.
A replay of Sheamus’ win against Cesaro in the first of their series of matches from Summerslam’s pre-show. Sheamus is backstage saying they’re not going to need all seven fights anyway. He lists local sports teams and says they’re all shite.
The next match in the #SameOldShit7Series will be next week and it will be a one hundred question pub quiz with teams of three meeting at The Fox & Cheese round the corner from the arena, the free supper afterwards is pie and peas.
HHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRGGGGGG!
#StrowmanSquash
This jobber told Byron “I like big, sweaty men” before Strowman flattened him with the Reverse Choke-Slam. He beats him down some more and demands that the referee counts a second pinfall.
They’re changing little bits each time that he bludgeons someone into a fine paste. It’s not taking up too much of my time and it doesn’t offend me a great deal. I’m still well on board this year’s return of the squash match.
#DudleyBoyz
More Dudley history via a nice video package.
The Dudley Boyz arrive to a warm welcome so they can say their goodbyes.
Nice speeches from both guys. They thank the audience and everyone that supported and worked with them along the way. Looks like they’ve got some company.
The Shining Stars crash the party and put The Dudley Boyz down. The crowd drown them out for a bit with “we want tables!”. The Dudley Boyz are invited to retire over in Puerto Rico. The Shining Stars get knocked around for a bit for their troubles.
Before the Dudley Boyz are able to get wood, Gallows and Anderson jump them and send the Dudley Boyz out on their backs as well as making sure D-Von got the table.
#UniversalTitle
Chris Jericho vs. Roman Reigns
Owens runs down and helps out mid-match, getting a few cheap shots which fail to set Jericho up to Reigns.
After he overcomes those odds and shows his Samoan super powers overcoming two foes, Reigns hits the spear to be the last entry into next week’s title match.
Hey, everyone, Roman Reigns is back in the title picture!
Well, at least one person in the arena was smiling at the end of the show.
Afterthoughts:
Since the roster has suffered harsh losses due to injury, they’ve managed to chuck together somewhat of an interesting replacement title picture for next week’s Raw.
I’m surprised at Big Cass being in the mix, but like I said earlier, I guess we can give it a try if it makes a different sound to the already overplayed Enzo & Big Cass mix tape.
Personally, I’m hoping Kevin Owens takes it.
Good Shit:
- Gallows and Anderson back to their usual game.
- Corey Graves. “Foley took the title from Balor!”
- Women’s Division is looking better than the Smackdown Diva’s Division. In my opinion, it could still be a lot better, but inviting Bayley to the dance will certainly maintain a certain level of quality. Dana’s getting better a little each week too. She’s become Charlotte’s Mizdow.
Bad Shit:
- Injuries galore.
- I don’t think there’s anything that I can say that hasn’t already been said to describe my opinion on the new title design; we finally got closure as to what happened to the remains of Jericho’s Light Bright Jacket and at least Finn now has the time to make another one out of Lego I suppose.
- Enzo and Big Cass. It was a short but sweet promo, but Cass admitting to capitalising on Reigns’ assault the previous night at Summerslam was a bit silly.
Until Next Time:
This guy with the sign deserves free VIP tickets to every WWE show FOR-EV-ER as long as he brings this sign to every Lesnar appearance. Seriously, if you’re a guy, high-five him, if you’re a girl, it’s a free motorboat I’m afraid….or vice versa, depending on his preference.
So, it was a tiny bit funny when Brock came back and had a match with Cena where he wasn’t quite sure if he was still in the UFC or not half the time. That was fine, Cena was there to carry him and be that sacrificial lamb to try and integrate Brock back into the WWE’s style. Brock seemed like he was trying and that he made an effort to protect the guys he was working with.
Something went wrong down the line though. Whether it’s because the only people that surround him are folk that are piss-scared of him and never tell him no, or because his ego is just naturally in-fucking-sane, he’s gotten a bit too big for his boots.
I’ve already pissed and moaned about the drug scandal and the let down he caused amongst fans. His general attitude towards the business (BROCK DO ANY SMASHY JOB FOR MONEY, FUCK YOU!) has always been overlooked by many, myself included, because at the end of the day, he still made the effort to work WITH other people and try to put on a show.
Summerslam was different however. Work or not, he went too far on Orton with those elbows. There was no effort to protect him what-so-ever. He has been put in a position where he’s responsible for the safety of another guy and he’s taken the piss out of that trust due to a lack of skill and professionalism.
I agree that he is a big name, one of the biggest and that he’s drawn a lot of money for a lot of people over the years and I agree it’s fun to live vicariously through him and his monstrous character, but I haven’t really enjoyed anything he’s done since ending the streak. Well, his destruction at the Royal Rumble this year was fun I guess, but I hated his match with Ambrose at WrestleMania. Like most of the card, it was completely fucking pointless.
The point I’m trying to make is that I wouldn’t miss him if he wasn’t around. The company wouldn’t suffer a great deal either to be honest. They have plenty of other part time attractions at their disposal/that could be looked into as and when they feel the need to and no one would really lose out. I can’t see fans chanting for Brock when Vince is around or they’re bored like they do with the CM Punk chants, for example. Plus, if Paul Heyman wants to stick around and advocate someone else, fantastic.
Putting it bluntly, I think he’s just turned into a childish, egocentric, greedy, lying, steroid-shrivelled bell-end and we all just need to ignore him, starting from……………NOW!
“They have plenty of other part time attractions at their disposal/that
could be looked into as and when they feel the need to and no one would
really lose out”.
I honestly wish they stop with the part-timer nonsense especially if these guys are going to be thrust into the main event like Brock was or linger around the mid-card wasting TV time like Rob Van Dam. The roster space is getting tight enough as is (along with the roster being mismanaged enough as is).
In principle, I agree wholeheartedly with you, but the WWE aren’t going to stop any time soon. At least it doesn’t cause as much damage as celebrities like the dude that plays The Arrow or that mess from Jersey Shore going over on full term talent.
I’d rather see the celebrity element DELETED sooner than the idea of bringing an ex-star back to work a little with someone, as long as the booking is done well and not The Rock decimating someone in a matter or seconds or Lesnar showing up every three months to injure someone.
Two of the participants (Stardust, Neville) in Amell’s match had comic book-style gimmicks, with Wade Barrett playing along. The celebrity involvement made sense in that case – not that Amell should have gone over, but celebrity involvement in wrestling is usually on the level of WCW paying the No Limit Soldiers to get rowdy bowdy and fail to make Rey Mysterio Jr. look gangsta.
“Putting it bluntly, I think he’s just turned into a
childish, egocentric, greedy, lying, steroid-shrivelled bell-end and we
all just need to ignore him, starting from……………NOW!”
Nope. Not gonna do it. Almost everything Lesnar did was BOOKED to be done. He was supposed to cut Orton open. The idea that you can “graze” someone open is just ridiculous. As far as Jericho is concerned, like McMahon said, he needs to act like a professional. He was worked by Vince too and took Brock to task for it. Of course, those big dinosaur balls of Jericho are nowhere to be found when it comes to Vince. Why didn’t he put Vince up to a wall?
By the way, Sami Zayn was not injured either. It was a work. Looks like you need to get your facts straight first. Vince is working you and you’re falling for it.
Brock just doesn’t interest me any more. It’s a shame as I’d been a fan of his from the start. Still have his Next Big Thing T-shirt in my wardrobe upstairs. Buuuuuuut, If I wanted to watched an insecure meat-head pissing contest, I would just watch UFC from time to time, but it’s not my bag I’m afraid.
I understand the TKO was booked, but Lesnar made NO effort to play it safe with those elbows. I’m not a fan of Orton’s really, but wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.
And no, I wouldn’t prefer Big Dave. In fact, if you read just a little bit above, you’ll see that I’m not a massive fan of bringing back talent in this manner, but I understand the WWE aren’t going to stop any time soon, so why not ask for part time workers that aren’t going to show up and injure the main roster as a means to get their bad-ass personality over?
There’s very little room for more self-serving arse-holes on the roster/in the industry in my opinion. People will still support him though, for whatever reason, just like they’ll cheer Hogan when that greedy cunt eventually gets let back in the house.
Cheers for the interest and input.
I agree with most of what you’ve said about Brock, he’s pretty stale as is, and is taking up space more than anything else.
That said, I think you’re being very harsh over the elbows. Fact is, he wasn’t throwing them anywhere near full force, and much of the movement was sideways. In a real MMA fight, the elbows are a LOT more vicious than the ones Brock threw…a lot more. I think it’s fine to argue they should’ve bladed instead, as the mere presence of blood would’ve sold a vicious beating just as well as actual hardway shots, but I think it’s unfair to bash Brock as making zero effort.
Once they picked hardway elbows, Randy was going to get hurt more than he would’ve via blading, that’s unavoidable, and all involved knew that.
It was the downward elbow strikes to the top of Orton’s head that I have a problem with. That and the fact that Brock (imo) focused more on the opportunity to get himself over as a killer, than the safety of his co-worker.
I’ve studied Freestyle Martial Arts (or MMA now-a-days to you cool, young ‘ens) since I was 14, I know all about different types of elbow strikes. It’s the fact that there’s only one outcome to stabbing the point of your elbow into the top of someone’s skull like Brock did, and we saw the results.
Yes, you can tell it was planned when he jumped on him after and was throwing worked strikes, but he’d already emulated hitting Orton in the head with a ball hammer a couple of minutes prior to this so it was a bit redundant in my opinion.
Long and short of it is that yeah, there were other ways of pulling off the end result WITHOUT rattling someone’s brain around in their skull like a pea in a bucket, I’m sure the WWE are big into preventing concussions and stuff!
Cheers for stopping by, see you again 🙂