Here’s our final review of WWE SummerSlam 2016!
American Alpha (Jason Jordan and Chad Gable), The Hype Bros (Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley) and The Usos (Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso) vs. Breezango (Fandango and Tyler Breeze), The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor) and The Vaudevillains (Aiden English and Simon Gotch) (12-Man Tag Team Match)
Reactions: So the first time this match happened, it was decent enough. But on a much bigger stage, this huge 12-man team match was taken up a notch. This was a fine preview of what’s to come when SmackDown gets its own tag team titles. The opening moments were a good back and forth between both teams, the middle portion saw Ryder get downed by a bunch of cool tag team moves and the finishing stretch was full of insane move exchanges. American Alpha, Breezango and shockingly The Ascension shined the most during this Kickoff Match. The good guys won and built up to some future competition between the winning members, which built up some anticipation for the Blue Brand. This was a good way to start off the show.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Sami Zayn & Neville vs. The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley)
Reactions: This was the type of match that would feel more at home on an episode of RAW. This seemed like more of a showcase for Zayn and Neville to pull out their best moves instead of a competitive tag team meeting. The Dudleyz continue to screw up up due to miscues, which we’re hopping leads to Bubba ditching D-Von and adopting his prior “Bully” moniker. This was just there to fill time, to be quite honest. Skip this one if you must.
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
Cesaro vs. Sheamus (First Match in a Best of Seven Series)
Reactions: These international talents have developed a nice chemistry with each other lately. They brought that chemistry to SummerSlam and put on a hell of a stiff encounter. Sheamus came ready to work and Cesaro was his usual European Uppercutting self. Some crazy new stuff was seen here, such as Cesaro jumping off the ring post to land a graceful flying body splash. Sheamus pulled off a cool moment when came off the top rope with Cesaro locked in a Rolling Senton slam. Sheamus got dirty to take the win, which is just what we expected. That nefarious ending didn’t sully the rest of the great match that took place, though. Judging by this match, we now have a feeling that the best of this series will continually improve.
Rating: 3 & a Half out of 5 Stars
Enzo Amore and Big Cass vs. Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens
Reactions: Man, that opening promo from NYC’s own G’s was magnificent! Enzo and Cass made the NYC crowd happy with their awesome words of inner city wisdom. The match itself was a solid contest that was full of humorous trash talk from the Canadian greats. Enzo was his usual scrappy self and Big Cass threw out his best big man offense. Jeri-KO pulled off some great moves, especially Owens’ Cannonball Splash to Cass on the outside. The finish was insane, though. Owens launched Enzo behind him right into Y2J’s devastating Codebreaker. The hometown heroes lost? What a surprise (not the sarcasm). This was a fun little tag match.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte (WWE Women’s Championship; Dana Brooke is Barred From Ringside)
Reactions: The Women’s Revolution continued on with this intense title match. In the early portions, both ladies made several attempts to land their big finishers. Charlotte got the best of the champion with tons of offense that targeted her back. There was a sloppy moment in the middle portions of this match that scared us a bit (it looked like Banks was gonna land awkwardly after a Gory Special attempt). But the match got back into a good flow as time went on. This match was full of some crazy moves, such as Banks throwing her knees onto Charlotte on the outside and Charlotte dropping Banks onto the top rope with a Sidewalk Slam. We had no clue that Charlotte would get her championship back so quickly. But after getting it back due to a good performance during this match, we’re perfectly fine with that result.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
The Miz (c) (with Maryse) vs. Apollo Crews (WWE Intercontinental Championship)
Reactions: Yeah so…The Miz won. Is that cause for celebration? No, not at all. But at least he and Crews put on a halfway decent match before that disappointing result. Crews was a house of fire during this title match and The Miz held up his end of the match. This honestly felt like a preview of a much more quality rematch that will take place further down the line.
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
John Cena vs. AJ Styles
Reactions: Excuse our french but…HOLY SHIT! This rematch was that much better than its predecessor. Cena and AJ are the consummate professionals who known how to perform on the biggest stages of wrestling. They did just that with this “Phenomenal” matchup. It seemed like every time Cena had AJ down for the pin, AJ blew the crowd’s mind by kicking out over and over again. Cena pulled out new moves, a dropkick, several AA’s, his STF and stiff strikes in order to get the win. But AJ fought right back with his dropkick, forearm strikes, Phenomenal Elbow, big kicks and more. The near falls here had us on the edge of our seat! Cena had the win in his grasp, but AJ did the unthinkable: survive an avalanche AA, land a Styles Clash and then a finishing Phenomenal Elbow. This was another coming out party for AJ and another fine notch onto Cena’s belt as one of the greatest of all time. Watch. This. Match!
Rating: 4 & a Half out of 5 Stars
The New Day (Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston) (c) vs. Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson (WWE Tag Team Championship)
Reactions: This match was more of a vehicle to add some much needed hilarity to the SummerSlam card. And that’s exactly what it did. While the match itself was pretty average, there were some fun moments strewn throughout it. Jon Stewart joined The New Day festivities by filling in for Big E, which was actually frowned upon by the BK audience. They haven’t forgotten about his slimy tactics during last year’s Summerslam. The match broke down after Jon almost got slammed into the ring post. Big E came out to join the fray and put a hurting on Anderson and Gallows. This was OK, but we know it will be even better at the next PPV. We still got some hip swiveling at the end of all this though, so we’re still somewhat satisfied.
Rating: 2 & a Half out of 5 Stars
Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler (WWE World Championship)
Reactions: This was good, but not good enough for a match where the WWE World Championship was on the line. The crowd didn’t seem too energetic during the entirety of this bout, but they came alive during a few moments here and there. Ziggler kept the pace going while Dean entertained by mimicking his opponent’s familiar taunts. They went back and forth with their usual moves, but there seemed to be a lack of energy from both the crowd and both men during the closing stretch. We did get a “kick” out of Ziggler’s Superkick to Dean on the outside. Overall though, this was not quite as special as we imagined it could have been. Ziggler lost, which is quite the heartbreaker for us.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Carmella, Becky Lynch, and Naomi vs. Natalya, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Bella (Six-Woman Tag Team Match)
Reactions: Eva Marie’s suspended, but her grand entrance still got showcased to the live audience. So who ended up taking her place? Nikki Bella, who’s now medically cleared to get back into the newly refreshed Women’s Division. The crowd got a kick out of her seeing her make her surprise arrival, which was a cool moment to see. As for the match, it was your run of the mill multi-women tag team match. Every woman got their time to shine, especially Carmella and Alexa Bliss. NXT’s latest main roster call up’s looked impressive here and helped keep the fast pace going. The bad gals won, which was fine. This was decent at best. If you’re a huge Nikki Bella fan though, this match will mean so much more to you.
Rating: 2 & a Half out of 5 Stars
Finn Bálor vs. Seth Rollins (WWE Universal Championship)
Reactions: Finn’s entrance, Rollin’s fly new gear and the newly revealed WWE Universal Championship added an extra sense of specialness to this big RAW match. When this finally got underway, we were all treated to a much-faster paced matchup that was a bit better than SmackDown’s title match. Bálor did his best to target Rollins knee, while Rollins targeted “The Demon King’s” back. Rollins pulled out all the stops, which included the return of his Small Package Driver. Bálor made sure to fight back with as much vigor as his opponent, which resulted in several Shotgun Dropkicks and his 1916 reverse DDT. The crowd was into this one as they got into dueling chants over who should become the victor. The multiple kick exchanges and the final stretch that resulted in a Coup De Grâce capped off a great match. Congrats to our new “Demonic” Universal Champion.
Rating: 3 & a Half out of 5 Stars
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Rusev (c) (with Lana) vs. Roman Reigns (WWE United States Championship)
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Reactions: Rusev didn’t really give a damn about properly defending his title. His concern was defending his wife’s honor, which led to him getting into a pull apart brawl with Reigns. The crowd crapped all over Reigns at first and even cheered on Rusev. Reigns son got the advantage and began laying in some punches of his own on Rusev. Rusev got the worst of it after he got taken down with chair shots. Reigns ended this whole segment after putting Rusev down with a Spear. We can tell this match wasn’t going to actually happen as soon as they started fighting. You can count on this match actually going all the way through at the next RAW PPV.
Rating: No Stars…
Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) vs. Randy Orton
Reactions: Was this the massacre we expected it to be? It was all that and a bit more. Orton did the best he could as he took down Lesnar with a dropkick, his trusty DDT and two nice RKO’s. But it was all for naught. Lesnar went crazy on Orton with a myriad of big suplexes and two devastating F5’s. Lesnar even tapped into his MMA skills by landing a bunch of ground and pound strikes to Orton. These strikes were so fierce that Orton got busted wide open. And for the first time in a while, a match ended under TKO circumstances. Lesnar bloodied Orton, F5’d Shane McMahon and left SummerSlam 2016 as the ultimate winner. This was pretty fun to watch. It may have been a bit short for such a hyped up main event, but it was still cool to watch Lesnar in his finest form.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Match of the Night
John Cena vs. AJ Styles!
Final Verdict
WWE SummerSlam 2016 was good. But this mega card featured the type of matches that should have resulted in an excellent event. We’re slightly disappointed in a few of the bouts that were presented (Ambrose vs. Ziggler was pretty underwhelming). But there were plenty of bright spots during this evening of August wrestling action. AJ Styles and John Cena completely stole the show with their barn burner of a match. Cesaro and Sheamus put on a fine matchup in the first part of their best of seven series, the 12-man tag match was fun and Lesnar’s destruction of Orton was quite the sight to see. The crowning of a the 1st ever Universal Champion was pretty awesome to see, too. We were let down by the United States Championship match though, which we were actually looking forward to. The long runtime and match lineup hurt this show when all’s said and done. The crowd seemed to lose their energy as it went on, too. Overall though, this year’s SummerSlam was a mix of some standout bouts and a couple of heartbreaking disappointments.
Final Score: 2 & a Half out of 5 Stars
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