WWE continued their build towards SummerSlam last night (SURPRISE IT”S GOING TO BE FOUR HOURS LONG!) with a focus on clearing up the WWE Title picture and all but announcing who the new #1 contender will be, SPOILER ALERT: We’ve seen this before.
Let’s take a look at what went down last night, as always GIFs and fun included below!
Guess Who’s Back in the Title Picture?!
Okay, you have three guesses to figure out who will (likely) be facing Seth Rollins at SummerSlam for the WWE title. Ready? Go!
Who are we kidding? All you need is one weary, cringe-inducing guess on this one.
That’s right folks, John Cena is back in the title picture and will most likely be the man Seth Rollins faces at SS. I say most likely because the match wasn’t officially announced last night, but the focus on their storyline indicates Cena is what we’re getting.
Yay.
We kick things off with the Authority coming out to celebrate Triple H’s birthday and man do I feel old right now. Was it really that long ago that Trips was an up-and-coming star? All of the sudden he’s in his late 40’s and I feel a lot older than I did five minutes ago.
Triple H promises that tonight will be a night of firsts and kicks things off by telling us that SummerSlam will be a full four hours long instead of the normal three. Which basically means WWE is pushing this to be the closest thing to Wrestlemania we’ll get outside of March.
Cue the Brock Lesnar-Undertaker hyping from Steph.
Trips announces a bunch of matches including Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton which deserves its own “THANK YOU HUNTER” chant right about now.
Rollins interrupts Trips and starts boasting (that’s right, boasting) about his own firsts like cashing in at Wrestlemania and then he calls for the crowd to stand and admit he’s one of the all-time great WWE champs.
Naturally, anyone other than John Cena being called an all-time great bothers Cena so much that he comes out and says that Rollins is a joke and hey it’s last week all over again!
Cena says he has a first time ever idea and it’s Rollins vs. Cena for the WWE title. Stephanie asks the audience for their opinion and they lose it cheering, so Steph says for the first time ever…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Trips says nobody wants to see the title defended on Raw (which used to be a near-weekly thing during the Attitude Era but lol k) and instead says we get Rollins vs. Cena for the U.S. title because best for business and all that jazz.
Backstage Rollins talks trash on Cena’s open challenges and promises to stop the need for the next generation to go through Cena to get a real shot which, yeah can’t argue with Seth there.
Main event time and the two champs put on a pretty good match that saw some exciting stuff go down, including this awesome top-rope suplex into another modified sit-down suplex combo from Rollins that was absolutely bananas.
The highlight of the match though was when Rollins inadvertently hit Cena in the face with a stiff knee that legitimately broke the U.S. Champs nose mid-way through the match.
Ouch. Seriously, LOOK AT HIS NOSE!
But John Cena is a trooper so he found the strength to finish the match and continue his tradition of winning in the worst way possible.
That’s right folks, John Cena, 15-time champ in need of no push whatsoever made the WWE Champion in desperate need of a convincing win tap out in the center of the ring.
On a Monday Night Raw.
For free.
And all of that so that we could get Cena in another title match because we definitely haven’t had enough of those.
Don’t get me wrong, in 2015 John Cena has (shockingly) proven to be one of the best in-ring performers in the company today. But the best part of his whole renaissance was that it was done outside of the WWE title picture, in the mid-card where Cena could put over other wrestlers who needed the rub.
I guess we should have seen this coming when Cena made Owens tap at Battleground instead of dropping the U.S. title like he should have.
I have no doubt these two will put on a great match, but if we’re building all of this up so Cena can beat Rollins and immediately lose the title on a Sheamus cash-in I am literally going to lose it.
Other Results:
Owens-Cesaro Is the Feud That Will Save Us – If there is one feud on the table right now besides Taker-Lesnar that could absolutely steal the show at SummerSlam it’s the budding rivalry between Kevin Owens and Cesaro. Owens took on Randy Orton and yes, Kevin Owens is still the best.
Shockingly, a match with Sheamus on commentary ended with Sheamus hitting Orton with a Brogue Kick to cause a DQ. I know, I’m shocked too.. I’ll give you a second to comprehend what just happened.
Good?
Well after the match Sheamus tries to beat down Orton but Cesaro makes the save and then turns his attention to Owens who is ringside.
YES!
The two brawl back into the ring and Owens eventually catches Cesaro with a Pop-Up Powerbomb.
It says a lot about Owens that they are putting Cesaro in a feud with him to see if the Swiss Superman can get over. This match is going to be incredible.. assuming it doesn’t turn into a Cesaro/Orton vs. Owens/Sheamus tag match instead.
Crap.
Bray Wyatt… Still Creepy – Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper made their way to the ring to cut a promo on Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose. Wyatt says mommy and daddy lied to us and we need to fear those that protect us and then we can be set free. Wyatt says he set his pet free and the pet returned by with a scar and it learned that the world has sharper teeth than it does and apparently that pet is Harper because hey Harper’s talking now!
Harper says he didn’t understand why he existed until the Wyatts saved him and then Wyatt says Reigns is misleading Ambrose and WE’RE HERE.
Seriously let’s get to the Sting return already, this thing needs some new life.
Divas Continue to Impress – Another week, another impressive showing from the Divas revolution. Raw had two good matches that kicked off with Paige taking on bae aka Sasha Banks. It was actually a decently long match that did have some eh moments but otherwise was impressive.
OH LOOK A FLYING GHOST!
But at the end of the day, the Boss rules and Banks picks up the win with the Bank Statement.
Swoon.
Later, we got Charlotte and Becky Lynch taking on Alicia Fox and Nikki Bella in a good tag match. Charlotte took a beating for most of this before Becky got the hot-tag and destroyed everyone. The finish came when Lycnh reversed a roll-up into the Disarmer for the dub.
Now that was impressive.
Dean Ambrose Refuses to Die – So Dean Ambrose took on the Big Show in a match that had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that you can’t keep Ambrose down and that he’s willing to do anything to win. Even if that means untying your boots.
Seriously, he took two chokeslams and this KO punch before finally being counted out.
And Ambrose still almost beat the count. Afterwards, Show tried to murder Ambrose for reasons, but the Lunatic dodged his spear attempt and the Giant went smashing through the barricade for fun.
Rusev and Lana Do Things – Look, I can’t act like this storyline interests me at all. So if you want a good recap on it I’m sorry but this isn’t going to be the place. Rusev bought Summer Rae a dog and named it Dog Ziggler, he gives her a fish head named Lana, more stuff happens and eventually it ends with Summer Rae face-first in the fish courtesy of Lana.
Seriously, four hours of SummerSlam so this thing can be a part of the show.
Stardust Hates Heroes – Pretty standard match between Neville and Fandango (yes he’s still alive and I know I’m as shocked as you are) that saw Neville pick up the win with some cool offense like this.
Afterwards Stardust appeared on the titantron to cut a promo on how he doesn’t like heroes and pretty much set up Stardust against the Red Arrow with the Green Arrow in his corner. Think about it for a second, you’ll get it eventually.
Tag Teams, Tag Teams Everywhere – After Los Matadores picked up a win over the Tag champs last week to put themselves in the title picture, the Lucha Dragons beat Los Matadores to throw themselves in as well. And don’t forget the New Day, who will always be in the title picture and also always be hilarious.
So a four-way match for the tag titles is likely what we’re getting… OH MY GOD JUST LIKE WRESTLEMANIA!