McGuire’s Mondays: Overthink Mondays – WWE SummerSlam edition

By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer

It’s one thing to sit on your couch, chicken wing in hand, and settle in for a Saturday night glued to Peacock for a professional wrestling spectacle; it’s another to walk the perimeter of Cleveland Browns Stadium in 90-degree heat hoping that you’ll find the media tent before you completely sweat through your blue button-up shirt.

The latter was me on Saturday, in case you missed my coverage of SummerSlam from the vaunted press box at said Cleveland Browns Stadium. The RC Cola was flowing and the air conditioning was welcomed with open arms as WWE’s second biggest night of the year commenced. In the heat of the moment, I fired off time-stamped updates of the experience, complete with not-that-funny quips and grumblings about how the media just ain’t what it used to be. But now that we’re two days removed – and I’ve had some time to watch a few of the matches back to see how this whole thing looked on television – you know what time it is: Overthink Mondays – SummerSlam edition. Let’s go.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT

The Judgment Day is no more. Or, well, The Judgment Day isn’t what it once was. Who knows what will happen from here on out after Finn Balor betrayed Damian Priest and Dirty Dom filed a petition to separate from his Mami. Now that we’re here, be honest: What did you think of the faction?

I ask because I’ve had two days to think about both sides and I still don’t quite know where I land. On one hand, it was a very solid No. 2 group behind the Bloodline and one that leaned into a quirky sense of reverence that was ultimately rewarded with the WWE fan base coming around to liking them. On the other hand … well, meh?

Don’t get me wrong. This thing did wonders for Dominik Mysterio. Without the Judgment Day, that guy would still be wearing Dollar Store Power Ranger costumes, looking like a frumpy 19-year-old who was just happy to be there. For the rest of time, Dirty Dom owes this faction his career. Priest benefited, too, because until these people got together, he was floating in Undertaker rip-off purgatory that didn’t not feel like the second coming of Baron Corbin (before the gimmick changes). But Rhea Ripley? She was destined to be a star, Judgment Day or not. Finn Balor? His legacy had been cemented before this thing developed and I’m not so sure he didn’t step a rung or two down the ladder by being involved with it.

In the end, I still can’t quite put my finger on what the final takeaway from the Judgment Day should be. I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder. For me, I’ll continue to (over)think about it.

AND THEN THE BELL RANG

I think we can all agree that we had our reservations about the main event of SummerSlam – SummerSlam! – being Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa. And I think we can all agree that after seeing the main event of SummerSlam – SummerSlam! – those reservations were warranted.

Convinced I was missing something being up in the press box at the end of an overly long day, I went back to watch the replay of the main event Sunday night. To the surprise of nobody, it turned out I wasn’t just really tired; that match wasn’t great. It might not have even been good. A) I admire everyone’s attempts to make Solo Sikoa into something he isn’t quite ready for just yet, but … well … Solo Sikoa wasn’t really quite ready for where he was on Saturday. B) Cody is great at being Cody, but let’s not pretend like he’s capable of pulling greatness out of everyone he steps in a ring with. And C) Can we please retire this Bloodline Rules stuff for a while now? It’s a no DQ match. Actually, it’s now a formulaic no DQ match. So what?

To be fair, the world was working against Sikoa and Cody to begin with as the shadow of Roman Reigns’s return loomed over not just the main event, but probably the entire night. Why we had to sit through predictable run-ins and 20 minutes of occasionally mediocre wrestling before Roman made his ballyhooed return is beyond me. These two guys had no rules binding them and here we were, 10 minutes into the contest, Sikoa working some type of rest hold. That ain’t it, as the kids say.

Roman’s return was fun, but it’s the only thing that saved the match (or, as I heard one guy say to his friend as he was walking out of the building, “If Roman Reigns didn’t show up, that SummerSlam would have been trash!”). Outside of the nonsense, that was not a good main event. Actually, speaking of not-good wrestling matches …

AND THEN THE BELL RANG AGAIN

The build to CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre was tremendous. In a lot of ways, Punk’s injury only made that story better, the heat simmering for months until it got most of us beyond ready to see the thing come to a boil. Rarely was there a miss in any of their interactions leading up to Saturday night. But then … well … .

As I noted in my live coverage, that was the match that felt like it stood at the top of the crowd’s mind as they went into the night. By the time those two made it to the ring, those Cleveland folks were ready to see this finally go down. My only problem was that it didn’t really go down in the way it kind of felt like it should go down. Punk promised uncomfortable violence and yet the only thing uncomfortable about this was the fact that now at the center of a supposed blood feud between two (maybe three?) grown men is a bracelet someone made on Etsy. What? Are we serious?

Violence was barely a part of the match and, to boot, Punk looked tired. It wasn’t not like the early days of his AEW comeback. I was in the building when he wrestled Darby Allin in Chicago at All Out and I remember thinking, “OK, it’s understandable that he might need some more reps to get his wind fully back.” I kind of/sort of had the same feeling walking away from this match. There was a lot of nothing going on until there was kind of something happening only some of the time.

All told, the match served as a microcosm of my biggest issue with the show …

MAKING MOVIES

Didn’t Noted Fetish Fan Vincent K. McMahon say something a few years back about how WWE makes movies and not wrestling matches anymore? SummerSlam was noteworthy for the news it created – high points in stories that probably aren’t yet done being told – but the wrestling itself left a lot to be desired. From the overlong entrances to the focus on auteurism over athleticism, this show was predictable, gratuitous and begrudgingly imperative to move forward. Does that make for a great pro wrestling Premium Live Event? For some, it might. For me, it doesn’t.

I wrote in this space a week or two ago that WWE was in danger of being complacent and this year’s SummerSlam cemented that fear. If the biggest intrigue was the likely return of the guy who carried the company for years – and that return was all but promised to fans, smart or not, with the ways WWE teased it on television through the weeks leading up to this – then I suppose everyone got what they wanted. And while sometimes the obvious thing is the correct thing, so much of what makes the pro wrestling formula fun is the element of surprise. There were no surprises on Saturday. Not Dom turning on Rhea. Not Finn turning on Damian. Not LA Knight winning his first WWE main roster title. Not Nia Jax beating Bayley. None of it felt fresh.

So, where do we go from here? Good question.

BASH AWAY

The next PLE is in four weeks (join me for live coverage on this very website!). It’s in Berlin, so here’s hoping they find a way to heat something up with Gunther right quick. It’s also not necessarily a marquee event. And what have we learned in this Paul Levesque era thus far when we get to something that’s not necessarily a marquee event? Not much happens. Titles rarely change. Half-important matches are given too much time. The amount of video package time supersedes the combined time actual pro wrestling is given. In a lot of ways, it’s become grating.

Or, worse, it’s become watered down. Roman Reigns is great and Roman Reigns made WWE a really fun watch for a really long time, but who knows how often he’s going to be back and who knows where he goes from here. Is a Reigns vs. Sikoa match really on the docket for sometime soon? I can’t say that gets my blood flowing. Are we slow-walking towards The Rock ultimately being the one behind all of Sikoa’s antics over the last few months? Most likely, but how long will it take to get to the reveal and how boring must it be before that program finally kicks into another gear?

Part of my whining comes as a result of how much WWE spoiled us for all those months leading up to right now. But even if you put that aside, when you objectively consider SummerSlam, it felt less than. At best, it was a good mid-level PLE; at worst, it was one of the most disappointing Big Four shows in recent WWE memory. Was it an exception, a bump in the road that was necessary to move stories towards more intriguing developments and a reset that can rejuvenate a lagging show like Smackdown? Or was it the new rule that adheres to predictability, safety and the all-around blandness that WWE did such a good job thwarting the last several months leading up to this most recent run?

Time will tell. As for this year’s second-most important WWE stadium show, it might not be unfair to say that while Cleveland rocks, SummerSlam 2024 did not.