Summer Slam 2020 is coming next month from The Bubble in and around Orlando.
Here's the card.
WWF Title: Tyler Black (w/Danielson and Owens) v. Drew McIntyre (w/Sheamus and Miz)
IC: Angel Garza v. La Sombra
Tags: Street Profits v. Winners of Opening Tag
Womens Title: Asuka v. Sasha Banks (w/New Day)
Bayley (w/Sheamus and Miz) v. Mandy Rose
Apollo Crews (w/Aleister Black/Buddy Murphy/Steve Regal) v. Dominik Mysterio
Losers of Opening Tag
Parejas Increibles: Orton/MVP v.
Fiend/Strowman
Not exactly a must buy, I appreciate. We're making quarrantine content here in the Bubble.
Okay - we kick off another wrestling season; let's reset.
RAW and Fight Night are the tentpole programs; with Mauro Ranallo leaving the promotion after Mania, Scott Stanford becomes full time PxP for both of those programs. Dark Ride Wrestling is the midweek program and Vic Joseph will take over as the lead broadcaster. Paul Heyman is the analyst on RAW, Samoa Joe on Fight Night and Corey Graves and Steve Corino on Dark Ride.
The primary ring announcer is Jeremy Borash.
We're in The Bubble; this is pandemic programming. This entire build is recorded, taped in chunks; in fact, everything all the way up through Rumble 2021 will be recorded. The build here largely looks like the taped matches before WM with trainees and other personnel starting to trickle in to serve as "fans" - each PPV will take a step forward in terms of "getting back to normal" - at Summer Slam, managers/valets/other seconds will be allowed around ringside. Thunderdome will debut at Survivor Series. The Rumble will be live and Mania will have fans.
Vince McMahon is the 46th President of the United States, if you're unaware how that happened and care enough, you'll need to go back several years for that full storyline.
Here's the build:
WWF Title: Tyler Black (w/Danielson and Owens) v. Drew McIntyre (w/Sheamus and Miz)
-Black cashed in the briefcase at WM 35 and took the title from Styles. At that time, he was a member of the Bullet Club; that stable was blown apart by Lesnar in the build for WM36, but at WM36, Black retained over Lesnar and aligned with Danielson and Owens, who had been established as a new heel act at the Rumble.
-During this build, Black/Owens and Danielson claim ownership of the GDI stable name (they call themselves oGDI, so there's brand new merch) beginning a low key (largely over Zoom) feud with the current owners of that name, Cole/Strong/O'Reilly, who wrestle on Dark Ride (GDI is a stable begun by Punk upon his first signing with WWE some 15 years ago and has had multiple iterations since).
-McIntyre wins a #1 Contender Battle Royal in this build; that used to be a staple, every other year, either after Mania or Summer Slam, there would be a battle royal to set up a new number one contender. That's largely faded given the use of the battle royal as a method conferring the Dark Ride title, but it returns here. McIntyre and Langston are the last two entrants, both babyfaces, Langston is 1/4 of The New Day (and previously 1/3 of The Shield) and McIntyre is 1/4 of the Hooligans. Both babyfaces.
-oGDI then feuds with Hooligans. As a rule of thumb, I minimize physicality between upcoming opponents when it's their first match; once there has been a match, then then seal is broken and builds for rematches tend to have a lot of contact. Thats pretty easy to do here, as none of the other guys in either stable has a match at Summer Slam so they can focus on each other and absence from the ring is easy to explain because we're not pretending there is no virus. Things are weird. Hooligans need to get enough of the advantage in this feud so there's a good sense that the bigger McIntyre might knock off Black and take the strap. The individual Hooligans have been in underneath slots for years, rarely with the opportunity at the top spot - and so the hopes of Sheamus and Miz, both of whom have "glass ceiling" stories (Miz/Danielson is a fun wrinkle, given their relationship when Danielson was WWF Commissioner and Miz was The Cuck) get funneled into McIntyre's story as underdog challenger, as guy who used to be here and was released and worked his way back.
-It's an All Star stable - each man a WWF Champion - against the underdog Hooligans - Black defending the title against McIntyre.
IC: Angel Garza v. La Sombra
-Sombra is a technico, he was set to be in the IC Ladder match at Mania, but quarrantine got him; his spot was taken by another of Zelina Vega's charges, Garza, who is a rudo. Garza won the ladder match and took the strap.
Sombra has had underlying tension with Garza/Carillo and Zelina's involvement with them, that all came to a head in their program with Claudio/Gargano that led them turning face and becoming the Kings of Wrestling. Sombra's named number one contender and so the build is about Zelina stuck in the middle between her two acts - her heels, her babyface, set to clash at Summer Slam for the IC strap. It's clear she will have to make a choice, pick a side - that she will no longer be able to keep them all uneasily together. What will Zelina do? That's the storyline for this one.
Tags: Street Profits v. Winners of Opening Tag
Losers of Opening Tag
Orton/MVP v. Fiend/Strowman
The Profits are young babyfaces, doing the same act as IRL; they took the tag titles from Edge/Nitro at Mania. As mentioned at Mania, Edge will get viciously attacked by a mystery masked man in this stretch and is not expected to return anytime in the near future.
Orton beat his old partner Cena at Mania, it's Cena's retirement match - that build was about Cena convincing Orton to get his old Viper edge back - an edge he lost after a devastating squash by The Fiend.
The night after Mania, as mentioned in the Mania post, Cena is on RAW to say goodbye, and he's destroyed by The Fiend, continuing Wyatt's assault on those he feels wronged him in the past.
That leads to what looks like a renewal of Orton/Fiend - but when Edge gets hurt (the initial advertising is a rematch with Edge/Nitro for the tag titles) a tag title match is needed, so the planned Orton/Fiend singles match turns into a tag with randomly generated partners; calling back to a Summer Slam tradition of opening the show with a Parejas Increibles tag match.
MVP is a former IC Champ, in fact, his IC reign is the longest in modern history; he's doing a veteran babyface comeback gimmick that begins the night after Mania. He and Orton clearly do not trust each other, but this is a big opportunity for Porter and he recognizes Orton's value as a multi-time tag champ.
Strowman was one half of Gods of Carnage, he runs his partner, Rusev, out of the territory; Strowman and the Fiend are both reticent in their respective ways - but by the end of the build, it appears that they have formed a new Gods of Carnage.
The winners of the opening tag will go on to face the Street Profits for the titles - and so they become involved in all this mess; and the losers will immediately square off in a singles match, presumably ending their burgeoning partnership.
Womens Title: Asuka v. Sasha Banks (w/New Day)
Bayley (w/Sheamus and Miz) v. Mandy Rose
Asuka regained the Women's Title from Baszler at Mania - she faces a fellow 2 time Champion, Banks, who has been on a tremendous roll since joining the New Day, pinning Lynch/Flair in the same match and then submitting Lynch in the Montreal Match at Mania. Nakamura became aligned with Asuka in a previous build - that resumes here and they are joined by Kushida - Nakamura, as a fellow former Bullet Club member, giving him some babyface cover as Kushida tries to integrate himself into post-Bullet Club life. They can mix and match with the New Day as proxy for Asuka/Banks, who we look to keep apart - everyone's a babyface here, this is a "who is the better wrestler" program - Asuka has been framed as the best worker in the women's division, in a class by herself - and now here comes Banks, a steamroller, she's looking to become the first 3 time Women's Champ and with Lynch having left the promotion and Flair wiped out by the Horsewomen post Mania, Banks says she is fully seizing the mantle of the Best Women's Wrestler in WWF history by beating Asuka and taking her belt.
Bayley is a babyface, she's toughened up with her association with Hooligans, but she is fan favorite babyface Bayley - Mandy Rose is doing a hot girl heel thing.
Apollo Crews (w/Aleister Black/Buddy Murphy) v. Dominik Mysterio
Dominik Mysterio is Rey's masked son (definitely masked) currently training in developmental; he's super green. Crews was a babyface, but his irritation over his partner Kalisto's relationship with Rey led to a heel turn, Crews/Kalisto had a TV only singles program, Crews going over, as Apollo joined the upper leadership of Underground, with Black and Murphy.
The three men are hanging out at WWFU and start picking on young Mysterio - really giving him the full bully trainer treatment. This creates a fissure between those 3 and Regal; Regal doesn't like harrassment of someone working in developmental, the wrestlers say they're just trying to toughen him up - there's an uneasy peace and the decision is made that Dominic will make his PPV debut, against Crews, at Summer Slam.
And that's your card. Quarrantine Summer Slam 2020 - live (well, not, it's taped) in August!
