Yeah pretty much I spent the entire weekend on my ass watching television. Not only did I watch all of The Defenders with great relish, I also enjoyed the fact that it was a weekend featuring both NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III as well as the 30th anniversary of SummerSlam, with a brief interruption by Game of Thrones. Since I don’t really get the chance to watch WWE television since I no longer have cable, I have kind of fallen out current storylines for the most part, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to enjoy either show.
To cut to the chase, it should be of no surprise that I would say that Takeover was easily the superior show, since there’s very little denying that they’re a vastly superior wrestling product versus the overboard storytelling on the main roster. The subtle invasion of the next wave of Ring of Honor expats blew away the smark-hip Brooklyn crowd which is always a hot market for live shows, and it sets up NXT for a few months of above-average talent to mix things up with.
As a whole, I would say SummerSlam was pretty mediocre for what the WWE constantly bills as their #2 major show of the year. It’s also way too god damn long, since it started at 7 p.m. EST and went all the way to 11; adding in the hour I paused to watch Game of Thrones, I actually had to stop prior to the main event and pick it up later, because I didn’t want to be up until like 1-2 a.m. watching wrestling on a night where I’d have to go to work the following morning.
But in typical WWE fashion, they have potentially good matches like The New Day vs. the Usos on the undercard, and have garbage like Big Show vs. Big Cass with Enzo Amore in a suspended cage in more premiere spots on the card. Matches like AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens with the completely ‘roided up and humorously over-sweaty Shane McMahon as referee were reliably good, and I was moderately pleased by the main event despite my skepticism of any match featuring more than two singles competitors.
I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the Alexa Bliss vs. Sasha Banks women’s title match, as I think both are really good workers, but the match itself was pretty lackluster. And even in spite of Corey Graves selling the shit out of and putting Alexa Bliss over, the match itself seemed to lack any steam or real narrative, and the ending of the match was as bland as the lack of build up the entire program was given.
But no more match was as big of a disappointment as the Jinder Mahal vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match for the World Championship. If I haven’t taken the time to say it before, I’m definitely in the camp that is most definitely not a fan of putting the belt on Jinder Mahal, and I very much look forward to the time when he loses the belt. But it’s a painfully obvious ploy by the WWE to tap into and leech off of the Indian market and siphon as much money, publicity and notoriety as possible, and the belt is going to stay on Jinder until they feel that they’ve gotten as much of it as they can, and not even an insanely over talent like Shinsuke Nakamura is going to stand in the way of political agenda.
I felt like Mahal/Nakamura was kind of a microcosm of SummerSlam as a whole, which was pretty disappointing in spite of the roster and card that they had. The match lacked any real chemistry, and Mahal is still greener than Lex Luger in the ring, with no sense of ring psychology and what looks like he’s going through a mental checklist of spots and moves he needs to check off before the Singh Brothers run interference and then the match mercifully ends. Mahal even botched his signature cobra-clutch slam, and in a weekend where finishers were kicked out of left and right, Nakamura actually does the job on one slam and a crap match is over.
I can’t help but wonder if Nakamura regrets coming to the WWE, because he was pretty much a god in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and for matter he was pretty much a god in NXT as well. But since making his way onto the main roster, he’s been reduced to this gimmick that occasionally wrestles 8-10 minute matches, but really spends most of his screen time looking like he’s having seizures, flailing his hands and flapping his head around, doing his usual schtick, but having way less wrestling time to offset just how weird his character is. Instead, he’s called an artist, and is currently 40% ring entrance, 30% weirdo artist gimmick, and just 20% as the plus-caliber wrestler that made him a commodity in the first place. Yes, there’s 10% missing in that equation, but that’s because the WWE doesn’t really know what the fuck they’re doing with him, leaving an incomplete product that’s lacking something that’s holding him back.
If it’s up to me, the best match of the entire weekend was without much question, Asuka vs. Ember Moon on Saturday’s Takeover. It was a pretty cut-and-dry feud and singles matchup, but it had adequate build-up, and a lot of important variables that make a match have some needed narrative. Like maybe Asuka would drop the belt, because she’s been champion for over 500 days, and all streaks eventually get jinxed; but on the flipside, Asuka’s been champion for 500 days, why would she lose? But the important thing is that the match had a lot of time to build up, with both competitors getting in some early licks in the weeks leading up to the match, and when it comes to NXT, there’s always the impending main roster depromotion that dictates what happens in NXT programming.
Regardless, both Asuka and Ember had a very good match which featured a classic dynamic of Ember playing the determined face, while, despite her being over with the crowd, Asuka playing something of a little bit of a heel, with a vicious mean streak and a large variety of offense. The match had a lot of excitement with Ember hitting the Eclipse on Asuka only for her to kick out and send the crowd into agony at no longer being able to figure out what is coming, and an exciting finish with Asuka snapping on the crossface chicken wing after a nearfall for a drawn-out submission finish that had the entire crowd out of their seats that makes me believe that I’m not the only one who believes that this was the best match of the night.
It was no more prevalent than watching the Drew McIntyre vs. Bobby Roode match where the crowd was mostly sitting and pretty unimpressed by the mechanical and “too-WWE” style of two seasoned veterans. It really wasn’t until the post-match, where Adam Cole arrived on the scene did the crowd get excited, but by this point, show was over, and Asuka clearly stole the show.
Overall, I was glad to partake in a nice weekend of wrestling programming, and in spite of my general failure to be impressed by the majority of the product, there were still a few good matches that renew my vision of who’s good, who are just in storylines that lack chemistry, who’s being wasted, and Jinder Mahal. Asuka lives up to her moniker as the Empress of Tomorrow, and it’s going to be a dark, dark tomorrow in NXT when she’s ripped from the roster and likely put into a mindless and fluff feud against like Sasha Banks and/or Becky Lynch on the main roster, but until then she’s the rock of stability that the company is riding and I for one do not mind.
