Wait, Summerslam is Today!? WWE Summerslam 2017 Not Live Blog

I forgot this was on today! Whoops!

1. Hardy Boys/Jason Jordan vs. Miz/Bo Dallas/Curtis Axel

ER: Wow they really started this one early. This is essentially an empty arena match, wouldn't be shocked if there were thousands of people still trying to filter in. It sounds like there is nobody there, real quiet crowd. We do eventually get a Brother Nero chant so it's something. Corey Graves wonders if Jordan's career is going to stall similar to Curtis Axel's career, as Jordan is wrestling in a pre-show match taking place in front of a fraction of the crowd. Jordan has some really bad hot tag offense. His back elbows were an embarrassment. But his spine shortening corner spear looks good. He hits a few of them here. This wasn't much. It had a nice stupid Jeff Hardy bump on the turnbuckle, but I have no clue why they held this match so damn early in the night. It seriously looked like they were just trying out their match in the ring before fans got there. Weird choice.

2. Adrian Neville vs. Akira Tozawa

ER: They work this one at a pretty decent slow pace, with Neville grinding in stomps and reclined headlocks, looking miserable and grumpy. Crowd wakes up with a killer Tozawa dive, cracking Neville with a forearm on the dive. Loved the spot where Neville catches a springboarding Tozawa on his shoulders, and Tozawa maneuvers into a nasty octopus hold. Neville whips Tozawa's arm violently into the mat and Tozawa's anguished scream makes me believe in the violence. It doesn't seem to go anywhere interesting, as moments later Tozawa is climbing up for a top rope senton and Neville is a guy who can take a front suplex off the top in ugly fashion. Finish came off kinda weak, as Tozawa hits knees on a senton (but not really) and Neville hits the red arrow to Tozawa's back (even though it landed lighter than any other red arrow I've seen from him). Flat finish, mostly flat match. Real shame as I think this might have been the weakest of their matches. Neville does wear & carry that belt nicely, so I think the result makes sense.

ER: I'm not a guy with a lot of sneaker style, but Otunga's purple and gold Ait Otungas are perfect flash. And I FF through the Elias Sampson Son House cosplay. I was the music director at a college radio station in the 2000s, I heard enough beardy white guys playing folk/blues. There's a new Iron & Wine album in my inbox if I'm that interested in listening to beard folk with my pro wrestling.

3. Usos vs. The New Day (Big E/Xavier Woods)

ER: Weird to see these teams shunted to the pre-show as well. Usos have been doing their career best work as heels, but it's weirdly been their least profile work. They're real mean with Woods and Woods is a guy who can build some sympathy to a hot tag. I love the heel Usos now-staple move of building their opponent for a hot tag, only for one of them to yank down the guy from the apron right when the tag is getting made. They did it to perfection in the American Alpha series, andI liked it here too: Woods finally getting there one Uso running himself into the post but still hitting his mark yanking Big E down. New Day's run of offense is real fun when it happens, Woods hits a weird flipping wheelbarrow that slam's Jey's face into the mat, then gets E on his shoulders to whip E into a splash. Usos hit a double back suplex on E and he eats a huge hip attack in the corner. The uranage/back stabber timing was off, so it wasn't pretty, but it was still a guy getting slammed into another guy's knees, so the pain is there. The rope running forearms is a silly spot, but at least the guys were landing. I like Woods breaking out headbutts and Jimmy takes a big bump over the floor off a lariat. Big E eats a nutso top rope apron splash as he's draped over the bottom rope, and Woods kicking out of a top rope splash is a nice nearfall. Woods hits a nasty tornado DDT on the floor and New Day hits a combo big ending/leaping DDT, but Jimmy makes the surprise save. They keep upping the crazy, as they toss Woods from the ring to the floor for an alley oop Samoa drop, and then Big E hits the "can't believe they still let him do that" spear to the floor. I really disliked the rest of it though, as Jimmy is back on the apron 10 seconds after taking that spear, which feels like way too little time. That move is so risky and spectacular looking, but it was sold far less than many moves in this match. The double big splash finisher always looks epic, but my interest dropped out when that spear was treated as a transition move. Still, overall killer match, hated the layout of the finish.

4. John Cena vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Usos/New Day delivered them a nice molten crowd for this match. The "where's your briefcase?" is a fun chant to get under Corbin's skin, and he has no problem showing ass by letting it get to him. I really liked Cena hitting his sloppy dropkick, only for Corbin to get bounced in the ropes  and come off with a right hand. Cena sells that right hand better than anybody will sell most things tonight. Match starts getting great when Cena actually misses the five knuckle shuffle, and then Corbin does an insanely high chokeslam right onto his own knee, with Cena dropping onto the back of his head. Cena's new thing is apparently taking a rough drop on the back of his head every match. Between this and the Nakamura suplex drop, this is a bad trend. Cena sidesteps Corbin and sends him sliding to the floor, then blasts him with a lariat and AA for the win. Cena should just use that lariat as his new secondary finisher. It looks great, but he criminally only uses it in quick thrown off comebacks. It has the thump to mean more. Fun match.

5. Natalya vs. Naomi

ER: Natalya exists in a weird place in my brain, as I can't stand her personality but I realize I enjoy her wrestling more than most, especially when she works heel. She should always work heel. I don't think the green/orange cyber rave look is working for Naomi. She looks like someone passed out in the grass at the Electric Daisy Carnival, or a cut extra from Strange Days, or someone about to be slaughtered in the Daft Punk "One More Time" video. Natalya hits a mean snap suplex and throws nice short elbows to Naomi's temple, and seems to take Naomi's complicated headscissor moves better than most. Natalya doesn't take short cuts on things like stomach kicks (though she doesn't know how to occupy herself in the ropes very well while Naomi does the slingshot legdrop). Cool spot where Natalya catches a kick and slams Naomi's leg straight into the mat, forcing her to do the splits. Natalya also locks on one of the better sharpshooters, and there have been some people with genuinely terrible sharpshooters over the years. Natalya always gets a great low base which sets her's apart. I still didn't expect her to get the belt, but I think it's for the best. Naomi works better as someone chasing a title, I didn't really find her reign itself that memorable.

6. Big Cass vs. Big Show

ER: I...don't know why I'm actually excited for this match, but I am. Enzo in the shark cage is so stupid, Show is working on a busted right hand...and I think that's it. I love giants working a vulnerability. It's why I loved Andre in the last few years, he was this mammoth man who was in crippling pain, so it gave him this who air of vulnerability. So Show with a bad hand is money. Cass is dry as desert for me, but I liked him weaselly going after Show's bad hand, hammering it with fists, kicking it, and Show's devotion to throwing lefty lariats. Cass goes back to the hand, slams it into the ringpost, and I like how Cass always reverts to working like such a little guy. He's billed as 7' yet he always instinctively starts working like he's trying to make up 100 pounds on a guy. It's like when Edge working HHH, you'd see people saying "this was a good big guy/little guy match" even though Edge was as big as HHH. Match finish is a total fart noise as Enzo amusingly greases himself up to escape from the cage...but then just hops to the mat and eats an immediate big boot, followed by Show going down just as easy. Super anticlimactic. I don't mind Enzo immediately getting toasted, but he could have done any other thing other then just hop down. You have him missing a crossbody, or him getting caught on a crossbody and used on Big Show, those seems like better avenues to a Cass win. I just don't see Cass ever amounting to anything, even if he does eventually get a title because of his size.

7. Randy Orton vs. Rusev

ER: I really dislike how much of a joke Rusev looks like. I loved his first Gable match, loved him wrecking Gable in the rematch, and am just totally sick of Orton. So we get Rusev jumping him in a sneak attack, and Orton still catching him with an RKO. Rusev to his credit took the RKO in a nasty snap, but man who cares about this.

8. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: Banks comes out with an awesome boss cloak that the announce team totally ignores it. And the crowd is noticeably quiet after that Cass match and the Orton non-match. But these two start to get them back. Bliss hits a middle rope version of the double knees and then the double knee moonsault, and that really feels like something that should be more than an early match spot. They try some new things that work, like Bliss getting the back of her head whipped into the buckles, and I especially like Bliss yanking the ring skirt and causing Sasha to slip off the apron. Very cool, subtle spot, timed right when Sasha's foot hit the skirt. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt since they took their time getting there. Sasha has built much better finishes with Nia and Charlotte, but the match itself was fine. It seems a little flat to do a title change here, just an hour after Naomi lost the title. But this show has been all about surprising or weird finishes so far.

9. Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor

ER: Finn is a demon, but a demon with really lousy strikes and a running forearm that misses Bray Wyatt's face by a foot. He would have mostly whiffed a flip dive but Wyatt leapt in and to his left. Wyatt makes me interested in the match by suplexing Finn on the floor, but Finn as a demon is so hokey to me that I can't stay in for long. Finn does some more light running forearms, not even leaving his feet, and at least his double stomp from the apron to the floor on Bray's neck looked good. Finn hits the lightest slingblade I've ever seen and man does this demon stink. Wyatt generously sells Finn's light dropkick on the floor by flying into the barricade, and Wyatt hits a nice clothesline back in the ring. This was not much of a match, I just cannot take Balor seriously when everything he does looks so bad.

10. Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins

ER: Okay, Cesaro and Sheamus look awesome in their entrance gear. Those army jackets with matching kilts, and the back to back pose making them look like they were fusing was pretty neat. Ambrose and Rollins as a team mean that I don't have to watch an Ambrose or Rollins singles match on this show, so that feels like a win. Cesaro and Sheamus should be doing more crazy power spots against these two, but I liked them catching Rollins' always-slow tope. Cesaro rips up a beach ball from the crowd, making him a hero to non-asshole live sports fans everywhere. That's too much of a face move right there. I hate when some doofus brings a beach ball to a baseball game, always cheer security when they catch and deflate. Just once I'd like to pop one. Cesaro grabs a nice front choke to prevent a tag out and I dig all the ring cut offs. The hot tag doesn't do much for me, Ambrose run looked pretty soft. I did like the jumping elbow to the floor though. The babyface double teams don't do a lot for me, but Cesaro making the save after the frog splash on Sheamus ramped things up a little. Sheamus warms my heart by kicking Ambrose in the back to stop the rebound lariat, and the double crucifix bomb was a nice visual. Match went on too long, but I liked Rollins' full extension superkicks during the finish, and like that this keeps Ambrose/Rollins tied together instead of taking up two matches on a card. Apparently all of the titles are getting changed on this show as well, though something tells me Jinder will still have his belt at the end of the night.

11. Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles

ER: I'm...beyond ready to see these two fight other people at this point. It feels like Styles has been married to Owens for months. A quick count shows that 10 of Styles' last 14 TV/PPV matches have been opposite Owens, dating back 4 months. Please, make it stop. The Shane involvement doesn't interest me as it just seems like it's going to lead to somehow another match. All the big spots in the match are built around Shane getting in the way, eating part of a 450, getting knocked through the ropes to the floor after Styles gets kicked into him, getting the big moment of shoving Styles into a nearfall schoolboy. At least they throw some nice bombs during the standing exchange, and mix up the strikes so it's not just forearms back and forth. Shane gets to repeat his shove into nearfall spot with Owens. I'm ready for the feud to end, AND the match stopped the streak of title changes. Shane's tan is ridiculous by the way. He should work a masked gimmick as Burnt Sienna.

12. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jinder Mahal

ER: I don't think Jinder is really built to take Nakamura's offense, so it makes sense that Nak worked early parts of the match like Bugs Bunny, just getting Jinder to run into things and fall to the floor. Jinder doesn't sell kicks in interesting ways, but he takes a nice bump into the ringpost and that's a plus. Singh brothers are probably happy that they just have to take a couple knee strikes tonight instead of letting Orton dump them on their necks. They're digging their heels in on Jinder, which, whatever. It would be easier if the matches were better.

13. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well this was pretty much exactly what I wanted. This is the match I was excited about a couple months ago, this was the match I wanted to see tonight, and it delivered. This was total chaos with bigger men making for bigger landings, some inventive sequences, and some great saves. Braun and Brock finally get an actual showdown. It's crazy how these two have been kept apart, as usually WWE doesn't have that kind of patience, but I don't think these two have ever crossed paths outside of a Royal Rumble. I don't think they crossed paths for more than a moment in the Rumble, either. Which was probably for the best, as it would have created a nuclear shockwave that would have likely snapped all the ring ropes and taken out the first couple rows of fans. I loved that Brock tried to suplex Braun and couldn't budge him. Braun is a real beast, starting by taking a mean shot into the post, and before long just murdering everybody. I always love the ways Brock gets taken out in multimans, and him getting flattened through two tables is a pretty great way to take him out. Braun flips a third table onto him and all the agents and medics run out to help. Finlay's presence makes me sad we never got Finlay/Brock (or Finlay vs. the others). But Lesnar is gone for now and Reigns starts unloading all of the superman punches, Joe starts trying to lock in a choke on everyone, and Braun starts Brauning all over everyone. Braun Brauns through stairs and chairs and tables and bodies...but then Brock comes back and things get even better. Vulnerable Brock is the best as I think bumping and selling is far and away his best feature. His stumbling and selling is the best in wrestling, and desperate Brock is far and away the most interesting Brock. I love him yanking the ref out of the ring, knowing it was his only chance at retaining. We get awesome moments like Brock getting bulldozed into a corner by Braun, Brock locking in a kimura, then Roman hitting a superman punch on Braun. There were a couple of moments where Roman inadvertantly saved Brock's bacon, another when Braun had Brock up but Roman hits Braun with a spear. Joe was somewhat of an afterthought, but whenever he would appear he would lock in his choke and seem just as credible as the others. These heavyweight multimans are just incredibly satisfying pro wrestling, everybody remaining protected through complicated saves, everybody looking strong by taking turns demolishing everything, playing out like a real life version of the arcade game Rampage.

PAS: This landed like a bunker bomb on the arena, and was exactly the type of Godzilla v. Mothra v. King Ghidora v. Mecha Godzilla battle you wanted it to be. What an awesome performance by Braun, it has to rank up with the greatest monster wrestling performances I can remember ever seeing. He looked so scary and destructive, while still having moments of vulnerability, when you think about all of the giants who have proceeded him and failed, it is quite the credit to his talent and the WWE booking that he has gotten to this point. He has Sid's aura and prime Giant talent, and he was incredible here. Braun destroying Brock, was as shocking as Brock destroying Cena in 8 minutes, but it allowed Brock to play roided Ricky Morton, which he is great at. Loved Roman in this too, as a guy who just looked for opening to throw shots, he found all of these cool moments to throw in superman punches and spears, and I love how they have been having him get so close to putting down Brock but failing, when he finally gets over the hump it will be a great moment. Joe was sort of marginalized, but had some cool moments (loved his Misawa elbow tope), and was certainly not hurt, glad he wasn't pinned again by the same counter.

ER: Crap show due to length. If this had happened over a normal 4 hour PPV then it would have been fine. I liked both women's matches, the Usos tag and that main event was blowaway. The lows were REALLY low, but we ended on a real special high, so...Phil and I had a long back and forth about where to put the monster main event on our 2017 MOTY MASTER LIST, and it came down to putting it at #1 or #2. It was a tough call. This match had the better finish, but Ki/Callihan somehow had even more violence. We eventually decided the next day to make it our #2 match. But it was close.