Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson defeated The New Day by disqualification (New Day retains Tag Team Titles)

This match didn’t meet my expectations. I was expecting an exciting, back-and-forth tag match. Instead, it never really got going. Jon Stewart was in the corner of The New Day and even got in the ring to try to stop a Gallows & Anderson attack. Then Big E ran out for the save, which led to a disqualification for his team and that ended it. The New Day trio is back together with a healthy Big E, while Gallows & Anderson will likely get another title shot since they didn’t lose the match.

Dean Ambrose defeated Dolph Ziggler to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

Most disappointing match of the night. That’s the best way I can describe it because I had such high hopes going into it. The crowd just didn’t seem to care. Near-falls were barely getting a reaction. It just didn’t feel like the big match it should have been. Part of the blame goes on the booking, part of it goes on the wrestlers, but most of it goes on the show being too long.

Ambrose won clean after 15 minutes. I don’t think it’s a sign for Ziggler that the crowd didn’t care. The fans just don’t have faith in him as a believable top guy after years of being booked poorly. WWE should turn him heel soon because the face act is stale. As mentioned earlier, Ambrose should move on to a feud with AJ Styles.

Nikki Bella, Natalya & Alexa Bliss defeated Becky Lynch, Naomi & Carmella

This was the return of Nikki, who missed about six months of action with a serious neck injury. She was cheered, even though she was on the heel team for the match. Nikki got the pin on Carmella. The crowd didn’t care about this except when Nikki was in there.

Finn Balor defeated Seth Rollins to become the first-ever WWE Universal Champion

The match result didn’t surprise me because Balor made sense as the winner of this new title, but the crowd reaction told another story. They hated the look of the new Universal Title, which has the same design as the WWE Title and the Women’s Title, except it’s all red with the WWE logo featured prominently. They chanted some things towards the title, which is pretty silly considering the great work that was going on in the ring.

Here’s a look at the Universal Title in case you haven’t seen it yet.

After the show, Rollins shared his displeasure with the crowd reaction.

On the YouTube video below, you can see how much the fans hated it by looking at the comments, as well as the overwhelming number of dislike votes compared to like votes.

As a match, it was pretty good. Second-best match of the night. Rollins came close to winning multiple times and so did Balor. In the end, Balor went wild with several dropkicks ,leading to the Coup de Grace double foot stomp off the top rope for the win. It was a big win for Raw’s newcomer Balor, who wrestled in his “Demon King” gear.

Here’s a tip for WWE: Next time WWE introduces a new title, put up a poll with several different designs. Go with popular vote. Easy way to please the “universe” in the future.

Roman Reigns and Rusev brawled without having a match

A lot of people were complaining about Reigns/Rusev going after Balor/Rollins, but after seeing the booking, I understand it. This was just a brawl that Reigns won as a way to continue the rivalry. They already had the long non-title match on Raw. Doing a brawl adds intensity to the feud. Sure, some fans are going to whine about no actual match, but they also complain about everything that Reigns does, so it’s fine with me.

Reigns ended the whole thing with an impressive Spear on Rusev outside the ring after he ran down the ramp. That looks great when he does it after a full sprint.

Brock Lesnar defeated Randy Orton by TKO

A Technical Knockout victory to main event SummerSlam? I doubt anybody predicted that finish, but Lesnar was expected to get the win and he did.

The story of the match was Lesnar overpowering Orton for most of the battle. He hit seven German Suplexes to weaken Orton. Lesnar tossed him through a table at one point. Orton came back with a RKO on the announce table, which didn’t break. Lesnar nailed the F5 and it wasn’t enough for the pinfall.

That’s where the match got really interesting as Lesnar took off his gloves and punched Orton multiple times. Then he nailed Orton with sharp elbows across the head. The elbows led to Orton’s head getting busted open. The referee got in there, then doctors checked on Orton and the match was called as a TKO victory for Lesnar after about 14 minutes.

Post-match, Lesnar kept on attacking Orton with punches. Shane McMahon, the Smackdown Commissioner, showed up to check on his guy Orton. That led to Lesnar hitting a F5 on Shane. Paul Heyman, Lesnar’s brilliant advocate, was freaking out, yelling at Brock about what he was doing.

The whole thing led to a lot of chatter on social media after the match. Some people think that Lesnar legitimately hurt Orton because he’s a big, angry dude. In reality, it was just a really physical way of telling a basic wrestling story, where one guy is a mean bully (Lesnar) and the other is the one we’re supposed to root for (Orton).

I think it was a great way of putting over Lesnar as a one-of-a-kind physical talent unlike anybody else in WWE today or in the past. He looked like he legitimately hurt the guy because that was the point. The blood was real because Lesnar cut him open with elbows to the head. They don’t do “blade jobs” anymore since the company went PG in 2008 and they have sponsors in place. Instead of blade jobs, they would rather have a guy cut somebody open “hard way” like Lesnar did. People who think that Lesnar legitimately hurt the guy without permission from the company are buying into the story that WWE is trying to tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL1jydaCBM0

What’s most likely to happen on Raw is that Lesnar (who is not scheduled to be there tonight) will be suspended for his actions against Orton and Shane McMahon, who is the Commissioner of Smackdown. They’ll do the suspension angle, which they also did in 2015 after WrestleMania, because Lesnar works a limited schedule. It’s a way to write him out until Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble whenever he returns again.

The angle was well done. It could lead to something like Orton getting more sympathy due to the 10 staples he had put in his head. They could have a rematch down the line. I think it was a way to set up Lesnar as a heel character again, while also putting over whatever wrestler is the guy to beat Lesnar clean. It will be a big deal when that happens, which is why it was smart to do an angle like this.

One thing is for sure. That final angle got people talking and that’s a good thing heading into Raw Monday night.

Closing Time

I was expecting a better show. The matches were set up in such a way that I thought there would be a few more competitive matches with thrilling results. Instead, there was really only Styles vs. Cena that was spectacular, and then Balor/Rollins was pretty good. Charlotte winning the Women’s Title was a surprise.

The ending with Lesnar and Orton upset a lot of people because of the way the match concluded without a pinfall or submission finish, but shouldn’t we applaud WWE for trying something different? Predictable finishes are boring. What they did is try something different as part of a long-term storyline. I think it could work out pretty well.

SummerSlam was not the best WWE PPV of the year like I expected it to be, but I thought it was slightly better than average.

The next WWE PPVs are Backlash on Sept. 11 featuring the Smackdown brand while the Raw brand has Clash of Champions on Sept. 25.

About John Canton

John has been writing about WWE online since the late 1990s. He joined The Comeback/Awful Announcing team in 2015. Follow John Canton on Twitter @johnreport or email him at mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any comments or questions. For more of his wrestling opinions, visit his website at TJRWrestling.net. Cheap pop!

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