CHARLOTTE REGAINS THE WOMEN’S TITLE & AJ STYLES IS PHENOMENAL!

By Tarron Coalson

SUMMERSLAM is live from the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, NY in front of a packed house of 15,974 & to get the crowd pumped up right off the bat was Enzo & Big Cass going up against Jeri-KO (Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens).

The crowd was hot but then a funny thing happened..the crowd fizzled out? Kevin Owens got most of the pop’s & I can’t believe they’re mis-using Kevin Owens like this. But, Enzo makes the “Hot Tag” to Big Cass to tagged back in Enzo going for their Sha Ka La Ka (Rocket Laucher) finisher but Kevin Owens puts a stop to it. They dump Cass outside the ring & Owens cannonballs him. They get Enzo & hit (kind of..) a Pop Up Code Breaker for the pin. They missed the timing on the move, but if they get that down, it could be a big time finisher. I’m still not a fan of the Jeri-KO tag team, but we’ll see. GRADE- C.

Next up is Shane McMahon & Daniel Bryan running into Mick Foley & then joined by Jon Stewart & his son Nate. New Day comes out & “borrows” Stewart for a few minutes.

Following that is the WWE Women’s Champ Sasha putting her belt on the line against former champ Charlotte, who’s by herself. It’s another GREAT match after they missed & early timing move & they were trying some new stuff. Charlotte attacks Sasha’s back after she hurt it early on a nasty fall from the ropes. Charlotte tried a Razor’s Edge from the second rope that Sasha reversed into a Hurricarana. Sasha locked Charlotte in a Boston Crab through the second rope. Sasha hit the Double Knees from the second rope to the floor & then reversed the Natural Selection into the Banks Statement which Charlotte escaped. Sasha locks the Banks Statement in again, which Charlotte reversed by bridging into a pinning position to become the new WWE Women’s Champ.

Sasha & Charlotte, as I’ve said before, could become the Flair/Steamboat feud of our time. It’s that good. The psychology between these two is excellent. They are both TREMENDOUS workers & this match was only a notch below their match at Monday Night Raw where Sasha won the belt. The crowd was stunned as Charlotte scored a clean victory by herself. Hopefully this feud goes on & on & on & on…GRADE- A minus (minus only because of the timing miscues at the beginning)

Then, it’s the WWE Intercontinental Match with The Miz, dressed as The Phantom of the Opera) & Marise verses Apollo Crews, and it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It did have the misfortune of following Sasha & Charlotte though, so the crowd was still stunned and not into it. The end came as Miz went for the Skull Crushing finale that Crews reversed and rolled up Miz who escaped and then ducked as Crews was charging at him with a Stinger splash. Crews hit his head on the ring post & the Miz hit the Skull Crushing finale for the pin to retain his title. GRADE- C+

Then it’s AJ Styles verses John Cena and all I can say is WOW! The crowd is hot! It’s a split crowd with Cena Sucks and AJ Styles chants going and neither guy disappoints! Too many moves to list them all, so I’ll hit the high spots:

Cena goes for an AA and AJ lands on his feet and hits the Pele kick & the Styles Clash for a near fall. Styles hit an AA on Cena! AJ went for a springboard 450 and missed.

Ok, get ready, AJ goes for a springboard with cena turns into and STF & Styles reverses it into a Crossface submission (Daniel Bryan’s submission move) that Cena reverses into an AA that Styles reverses into a calf crusher that Cena reverses into an STF that Styles reverses into his own STF..got all that?

AJ hits a springboard Hurricarana & a Phenomenal Forearm & Cena kicks out. Then, Cena gets AJ into an AA position & climbs the ropes & hits a Super AA from the second rope and as the crowd thought that was it, AJ kicked out before the three count, to the crowd’s delight! Cena had a puzzled look on his face as he realizes AJ’s as hard to pin as he is. Cena goes for another AA & Styles reverses it into another Styles Clash & hits a second Phenominal Forearm and gets the clean pinfall win over John Cena with the crowd giving both men a tremendous ovation. GRADE- A

Next up is The New Day with Jon Stewart taking the place of Big E Langston & introducing Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods putting their WWE Tag Team Title’s up against Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson and it’s not a very good match. Gallows and Anderson hit the Magic Killer & Jon Stewart saves them but it getting ready to get the Pole Litis move that sidelined Big E Langston. Then the New Day’s music starts and Big E Langston runs in to save Stewart & chase off Gallows and Anderson.

What a wasted opportunity as WWE could have used Big E Langston’s injury as a way to put the title’s on Gallows and Anderson & saved Big E’s return to go after Gallows and Anderson for revenge and regain the title’s. I think this is a miscue by WWE creative. GRADE- C MINUS

The next match is for the WWE World Heavyweight Title as champ Dean Ambrose battled challenger Dolph Ziglar. Here’s the problem for SMACKDOWN, no one believes that either one of these guys could beat Styles or Cena. But, their promo’s leading up to the match had been pretty good…but something happened on the way to Brooklyn and not in a good way. It was a dreadful match, nothing was fluid, crowd was dead, at one point Ziglar hit a Superkick outside the ring and you could see Ambrose try to hop the rail after a delayed reaction to the Superkick. After what seemed like forever on the top rope & neither guy wanting to trust the other to do anything they kind of “hopped off” & Ambrose hit a weird looking Dirty Deeds for the victory. Not good. The match with these two should have been pretty decent, I’m not sure what happened. MATCH- D

And then we get a six ladies tag team match featuring The Human Glow Stick, Naomi, Carmella & Becky Lynch vs. Natalya, Alexa Bliss & they play Eva Marie’s entrance and then say due to exhaustion & the hostility of the WWE fans, Eva Marie will not be appearing tonight. The only problem is that everybody and their brother knows Eva Marie was suspended by WWE for thirty days for a violation of their Talent Wellness program.

The only good news was a large pop from the crowd as it’s announced the third lady is a returning Nikki Bella, who’s back from neck surgery. It’s a ho hum match with the crowd only reacting when Nikki gets in the ring. After a six lady melee, Nikki Bella hits a modified stunner on Carmella for the victory, so the crowd’s happy. Looks like Nikki going to SMACKDOWN. GRADE- D PLUS

Now it’s time for the first ever match for the new WWE Universal Title between Seth Rollins and Finn Balor. Confession time, and I’ve said it before, I’m not a Finn Balor. He’s got a cool entrance & gimmick but I’ve seen a hundred guys as good. Maybe I’d like him more if he did the green fog Kabuki/Muta gimmick. Rollins carried the whole match. He’s one of the best in the business but the powers that be decided to put their money on Balor. He’s got nothing but a top rope stomp & a still looking two foot drop kick. I don’t get it. But Balor hits the Coup De Gras to become the first ever WWE Universal Champion. GRADE- C

The following match is for the United States Championship as Rusef with Lana faces Roman Reigns and Rusef attacks reigns before the match begins. The brawl continues until about ten ref’s come out & try to separate them but Reigns will have none of it & continues his response, using a chair. He’s ordered to the back & doctors check on Rusef & won’t allow him to compete as he appears to have a rib injury and as he’s gingerly walking out, Reigns returns to spear him again. GRADE- C

Finally it’s a match fifteen years in the making as it’s Suplex City verses Viper Ville, Brock Lesner verses Randy Orton, & it’s no contest at first as Lesnar attacks Orton with the savagery that is Lesnar calling card. After seven suplexes, Lesnar hip tosses Orton through the SMACKDOWN table & places Orton on the RAW table & appears to be setting up for an F5 but Orton hits an RKO on the table & then hits a DDT to get a near fall. Orton lands a second RKO but can’t get the victory. Then Lesnar hits an F5 for a near fall.

What happens next is a bizarre finish as Lesner removes his gloves & begins a ground & pound on Orton and appears to open Orton up with a couple of elbow strikes. Orton is bleeding like a stuck pig and everybody is wondering what’s up as WWE has a pretty strict no color (blood) policy. The ringside physician steps in and Lesnar pushes him away and hits Orton with about twenty more hammerfist to the head and the back of the head and Orton is out and busted open. They announce that Lesnar wins by TKO, which might be a WWE first. Lesnar appears ready to pound Orton some more when Shane McMahon comes into the ring to try and check on Orton and tell Brock to leave and gets F-5’d for his efforts as Lesnar walks away. Not sure what happened but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the plan as neither Lesnar or Orton looked particularly pleased entering the ring. Brock’s demeanor was very off. GRADE- C plus

Overall, WWE can’t be pleased with this Pay Per View, which on paper had the potential to be GREAT and the Sasha Banks/Charlotte and the AJ Styles/John Cena matches were. But the rest of the show was disappointing to say the least. Hard to place a overall grade on the show because of the two great matches but there were a lot of dud’s for sure. I’ll give it a C minus overall based on the two great matches being early in the card and everything after AJ & Cena was not very good.

Remember to check out the RAW AND SMACKDOWN write up’s weekly at SportsCarolina Monthly!