Summer Slam 2011

The build is here.

Summer Slam 2011 –Los Angeles

Joey/JR is your announce team.  Josh does interviews. 

Dark: Ambrose d. Black

DiBiase/McIntyre d. Tatsu/Sydal

Both dark matches further storylines; Black, you may recall, finished second to Ambrose on WWF Underground; he then moved to training in developmental, and has been having his will bent to Regal’s.  So postmatch, Ambrose extends his hand – and Black takes it.  That’s a spot they’ve been doing for a few weeks by this point.

The show opens with the results of the end of the second match, a postmatch beatdown of the two GDI members by Underground – Sydal and Tatsu are helped from the ring on the first shot of the live telecast.

They’re immediately replaced in the ring by WWF Commissioner Bret Hart – Bret welcomes us to the 98^th WWF PPV and reminds us that his contract was originally set to expire at WM 27.  But with all of the planning for WWF100, the biggest WWF show of all time, Bret agreed to stay on until Survivor Series.

But at Survivor Series – in the WWF’s historic home – MSG – Bret will give up control to the new Commissioner of the WWF – a man who always puts the best interest of the WWF first – the Head Trainer of WWFU – Steve Regal.

Regal enters, he and Bret raise their arms above their heads and wave at each side of the crowd as if they were running for office, and they’re encountered by CM Punk – as its match time.

1

.       CM Punk d. Wade Barrett (DQ)

Barrett is positioned in this inner circle in Underground with Nemeth/Sheamus; the story of this match is how he hangs with the 3 time WWF Champion Punk – until he doesn’t, Punk gets control, has him ready for the GTS, and then he’s attacked by Underground (not the beltholders), they have a quick beatdown, enough that Punk is laying as Bret has Howard Finkel announce the next match.

2.       CM Punk d. Alex Riley

With Punk laid out, this looks like any easy, cheap win for Riley, but in a matter of seconds, Punk rolls him up, gets the fall, rolls out of the ring and escapes through the crowd.  Underground fumes in that way you’d expect.  Following the next match there’s a shot on the video wall of Punk, shielded from security by a wall of fans, escaping the arena, getting into a car and driving away.  As Bret watches that – we see that he turns to Regal and says “lock the gates.”

3.       Dos Caras, Jr. (w/Ricardo/Vicki/Atlas) d. Randy Orton

Dos Caras promised a surprise for the Rock when he came to his “hometown” of Los Angeles, that surprise is a new limo driver – Tony Atlas.  The story here is that Atlas, as Rock’s dad’s longtime tag partner, is Rock’s godfather – but, he’s down on his luck enough, apparently, that he’s now under Caras’s employ.  Atlas does the typical reasonably degrading stuff to serve Caras; Orton remains as listless as he’s been all summer and submits. 

4.       Ka$h Kingston d. @TruthKills (countout)

Killings plays the crazy man, leading to him walking out of the match – not because it seems like he is losing, to the contrary – he just hits a highspot – but because he is late for his part time job at Ikea.  He puts on his vest, apologizes to Kingston, and makes his way up the ramp.

5.       No DQ: Bryan Danielson d. John Cena

Cena’s got a receipt coming; ideally this is a fairly intense brawl, much of it taking place outside the ring, the type of things you’d expect to see used get used, Danielson goes over strong and then is absolutely mauled by Underground; everyone but the beltholders.  There are no GDI members left – Punk roars back to the building but is blockaded by security from re-entering the arena – Tyler Black stands in the ring with Underground – and eventually lays in some shots to the defenseless Dragon himself.  Danielson’s spent the summer looking to get over as the best wrestler in the world from the outside of the company – and that ends here. 

6.       Tags: Empire (Barrett/Riley) d. Clique (Nitro/Miz with Natty)

With Empire having wrestled earlier tonight and now facing the Clique, they could be expected to go in as underdogs; the finish comes when Riley pulls a mask out of his trunks, puts it on, and falls to the outside, rolling under the ring, when he emerges, still with the mask, it’s to quicky tag in as he’s going to the top rope to hit Gabriel’s signature highspot and get the fall on Nitro.  He immediately disappears back under the ring – and emerges quickly again, Riley removing his mask to the confusion of the officials, protests from the Clique – but still holding the belts. 

7.       IC: Sheamus d. Christian

Christian’s unable to win his first singles belt in WWF as Underground’s big night continues; Sheamus goes over clean in the best match they can have and ends it the way he ended Edge’s career, by tossing him shoulder first into the ringpost.

8.       WWF Championship: Nick Nemeth (w/Kelly) d. Rey Mysterio

So, this is designed to give Nemeth credibility; Rey’s been talked about in reverential terms for the past year; he really moved to transcendent status; partially because of the failures of young wrestlers like Nemeth to beat him, Rey not losing all year until his career unbeaten streak at Mania fell to Danielson.

He loses clean here, it’s an enormous win for Nemeth – his immediate response is to scream up at the skybox where Mistico and his crew have been all night – for weeks, the potential of a Mysterio/Mistico title match at MSG had been almost impossible not to foresee – Nemeth, constantly feeling slighted, really came into this match with a chip on his shoulder and he taunts the Mistico box postmatch – grabbing at his genitals and pointing at Mistico – and then, with the full adrenaline of the moment raging, he begins to stomp out the defeated Mysterio.

It takes the rest of the Underground crew, all of them who emerged to celebrate postmatch, a beat to go along “really, this is okay, to stomp out Rey Mysterio” – but then they do.

Everyone here has to go bananas – the announcers – ideally the Latino fans, Bret Hart – who begins yelling at Regal in the front row – and then the WWF locker room (guys who weren’t on the card) runs in, some faces, some heels.

Colons.

DMW.

Mark Henry

Santino – there’s a spot where Henry and Santino work together briefly

Lawler - the color announce on Fight Night

Booker - last seen as one of the trainers on WWE Underground, beaten up by the Underground vets

The Undertaker

HHH-M

And that makes it a good brawl – but Underground still has the numbers:

Nemeth

Sheamus

Barrett

Gabriel/Riley

McIntyre/Ted

Tyson Kidd

Black/Ambrose

Douchebags: Ryder/Slater/Hawkins/Reks/Barretta…

…and they leave the WWF locker room laid out. 

They do the Whose House….Our House call and response chant….and the show ends.  Underground controls the World Wrestling Federation.

I’ve got two more entries in my series of recaps of every WWF PPV; there will be another TNA show when real world Bound for Glory occurs; October, I’d guess, we’ll see the build to Survivor Series – and then November will the the 99^th WWF PPV, Survivor Series from MSG, where Nick Nemeth will defend the WWF Championship against Mistico.  It’s going to be a happening. 

Build.