BRM Reviews WWE SummerSlam 2021

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews WWE SummerSlam 2021

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 22nd, '21, 16:57

WWE SummerSlam 2021 (8/21/2021)- Paradise, NV


WWE RAW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: AJ Styles & Omos(c) vs. RK-Bro- 6.25/10
The babyfaces won clean in a solid match, but nothing special. AJ, of course, too the pin. It would have been more productive to have Riddle beat him, but I think the thought process was that an RKO would get the biggest pop.

ALEX BLISS vs. EVA MARIE (w/Doudrop)- 4/10
I don’t care if it’s a doll. Eva hitting Alexa with Lilly should have been a DQ. Alexa won a rather blah match that thankfully didn’t have any magic in it.
After the match, Doudrop took the mic and proudly declared Eva to be the loser of the match, then mocked her, including wearing (and walking off with) her robe. This had better be the actual turn.

MARIO LOPEZ INTERVIEWS RK-BRO- fine
He’s aged well, although my guess is that there has been quite a bit of Botox involved. Orton said a catchphrase and left. Riddle then told A.C. Slater that he had a surprise for Orton on Raw tomorrow.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Sheamus(c) vs. Damian Priest- 6.75/10
Priest wins clean. Hopefully they really start to run with him.

THE MYSTERIOS BACKSTAGE- fine
Rey gives Dominik a pep-talk. Those things hanging off of Dominik’s hood are atrocious.

WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Usos(c) vs. the Mysterios- 7/10
A clean win for the Usos, with Rey getting pinned. Hopefully this feud will be finished now.

TIFFANY HADDISH INTERVIEWS DAMIAN PRIEST- meh
She referred to it as “the SummerSlam” and called Priest the “national champion.” Maybe you should only work with people who are actual fans. Or at least just pre-tape sh*t to make sure that we don’t get any more Jeremy Piven stuff.
The stuff about being from a little town was nice, but that “Sheamus is a bully” stuff that came before it killed it for me because it’s so phony.

RICK BOOGS WASTES MY TIME- dumb and boring
Boogs plays guitar and introduces Nakamura. The two of them and Pat McAfee danced on the announcers’ table. Dude… I’ve got NXT, a major show from wXw, and two big shows from ROH to watch (oh, and also Rampage, where something big might have happened). Why are you wasting my time with this?

DUMB SH*T HAPPENS, CHANGING AROUND THE WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH- First we are told that Sasha Banks is unable to compete tonight. I’m not sure when they ascertained this, but I’m highly doubtful it was within the last three minutes, so it makes me wonder why they played their Sasha vs Bianca video package and why the announcers talked the match up.
Then we were told that Carmella was getting the title shot instead, because why would WWE want to give the fans something new and exciting like Bianca against… Mandy Rose? Who is even on Smackdown anymore?
Bianca grabs a mic and cuts a promo on Sasha and Carmella, which was the only passable part of this. The referee held the belt up as if the match was about to start… and Becky Lynch’s music hit. Are you telling me that in kayfabe, WWE had a healthy and cleared to return Becky Lynch in the building, wearing her gear, and instead of a first-time ever match-up between major stars, they decided to give Carmella yet another title shot against a champion who has beaten her soundly several times now?
Becky came out and beat the crap out of Carmella for no good reason. Well… at least now I know that I should be rooting for Bianca and rooting against Becky in the…

WWE SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch- DUD!
And then Becky just went and squashed Bianca like a bug. I don’t care how over Becky is! THAT IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT A BABYFACE! And especially one in her first title reign! But even if Bianca were a heel in her nineteenth title reign, this still would have been dumb. How about you spend some time building up to the big moment of Becky regaining the title she had to relinquish. You know… tell a story?
And on an entirely different axis- and I’m not someone who usually brings this sort of thing up because I usually don’t think it matters- how blind to you have to be to run a video package where you puffed your chest up with pride about all of these media outlets noting that for the first time you had two women of color main event a WrestleMania, and then have one of those women get squashed by a white chick?
And, of course, the reason they felt that they had to go through all of this stupid sh*t was to take us on an emotional rollercoaster. Any effectiveness that had on anyone was thoroughly killed off by Michael Cole explained it to us. But even if he didn’t the whole thing was dumb as hell because in order to do this you opened up a plot hole and made the company look like kayfabe idiots. And is that emotional rollercoaster really better than just announcing a mystery opponent and thus people will either 1) figure out and feel smart when they’re right, or 2) eagerly anticipate finding out what the surprise is and then be happy when you deliver it?

THEY’RE GOING BACK TO SAUDI ARABIA IN OCTOBER- Feel free to get out you torches and pitchforks, but make sure your mob is socially distanced. Can you even have a socially-distanced mob?

THEY’VE GOT THE AMERICAN OLYMPIC WRESTLING GOLD MEDAL WINNER- good
Tamyra Menash-Stock was extremely excited to be there. Gable Stevenson less so. She brought her gold medal with her. He did not.

EXTREME RULES COMMERCIAL- SOOOOOOOO F*CKING DUMB!

SINGLES MATCH WITH VEER AND SHANKY BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Jinder Mahal vs. Drew McIntyre- 4.5/10
Drew won a short match, but at least I got to see one big dude throw another big dude around. That always makes me happy.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- dumb
Veer and Shanky come out to check on Jinder, then start to menace Drew. Drew grabs what he has publicly said was a fake sword and swings it at them. They run away from the fake sword.

RAW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Nikki Cross(c) vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley- 7.5/10
Charlotte won the belt back in a great match where she came off oddly like the babyface. This is one of those title changes that makes you wonder why they put the belt on Nikki in the first place if they were going to have her lost it right back to Charlotte in a few weeks.

SETH ROLLINS vs. EDGE- 8.75/10
Edge doing the Brood entrance first felt pointlessly performative to me, much like my objection to Jericho deciding that he would be the Painmaker for his match against Nick Gage.
This match was awesome. Everything was built around Rollins working over Edge’s surgically repaired neck to set up the stomp and end his career, and they focused on that story, selling well and setting up clever spots throughout, with everyone building to a wonderfully brutal finish.

I’m dead sure I heard Pat McAfee refer to Peacock as “the Cock.” He must be a fan of The Fix with Todd Martin. I knew that Pat McAfee was a smart cookie.

THE MIZ, JOHN MORRISON, & NEW DAY ENGAGE IN CLOWNISH BULLSH*T THAT HAS NO PLACE ON A PPV- very bad

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bobby Lashley(c) (w/MVP) vs. Goldberg- 5/10
Well… it lasted longer than I was expecting. More than seven whole minutes! There were some very scary moments where people came close to hitting their heads on the mat or on the ringpost. It would have been nice if Lashley could have won without MVP’s help, as the whole idea of bringing Goldberg in should have beet to put Lashley over. It also would have been nice if Lashley could have gotten a pin instead of winning by referee stoppage due to injury.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Lashley beat Goldberg up with a chair because… um… because someone wanted to do a post-match segment where Goldberg’s kid jumped in and got beaten up trying to save his dad. I have no interest in seeing a rematch, but a rematch is also the only thing that makes sense coming out of this.

WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE MATCH: Roman Reigns(c) (w/Paul Heyman & the Usos) vs. John Cena- 8/10
They had great intensity and lots of big moves, and also played into Cena’s comments during the build about winning via roll-up. That being said, while awesome, this was not the “dream-match” good that WWE wanted it to be.

BROCK LESNAR IS BACK- With a TERRIBLE Mohawk and beard. Like Alexander Wolfe if he took a lot of steroids… which reminds me that I still need to watch the wXw show from this weekend (the Alexander Wolfe part, not the steroids part).
Heyman is surprised by Brock’s return. Brock gets face to face with Roman. Roman slowly leaves, as does Heyman.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why people want to see this match, or see Brock ever again. He’s going to come back and have short sh*tty matches, taking a spot on the top of the card at a big show that could otherwise go to a Cesaro or Keith Lee or Damian Priest or AJ Styles or Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn. Why would I ever want that?


This was an okay show from WWE. Really, it was a two-match show and that was it, with a bunch of mediocre matches, a few bad ones, and some bad segments that had no business being on PPV. The good pretty much cancelled out the bad and vise-versa, so I’m not going to call it a bad show, but I don’t think it quite made it to being good, either.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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