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.

Road to SummerSlam 2011 - Part 2

Part one is here.

Here are the 3 matches set up so far.

CM Punk v. Wade Barrett

CM Punk v. Alex Riley

No DQ: Bryan Danielson v. John Cena

In part 2, we get the 3 title matches:

WWF Title: Nick Nemeth v. Rey Mysterio

IC:  Sheamus v. Christian

Tags: Empire (Barrett/Riley) v. Clique (Nitro/Miz)

So, of course Nemeth’s wrestling Mysterio – Rey is this world’s HBK, he’s got enough credibility in the bank to get guys over as he’s beating them.  Mysterio was Nemeth’s transition feud last year; Rey beat him in consecutive PPVs, Nemeth growing more frustrated, more heelish, but at the same time more certain of his own abilities as a singles wrestler in constantly losing to Mysterio (Low Ki also lost to Mysterio, Danielson also lost to Mysterio).  Rey’s deification reached its height going into Mania, where he was unbeaten in his career, the only man ever with at least 5 Mania decisions never to lose. 

But he lost to Danielson, and that serves as part of the fuel for the summer, as long as Danielson’s out there saying he’s the best wrestler in the world, Mysterio is clearly who Nemeth needs to beat to establish himself as a legitimate champion.

To add to the flavor of this match – Bret names the number one contender, the man who will wrestle the winner for the title in the main event of Survivor Series in MSG.

Mistico.

Mistico doesn’t appear at all in a WWF ring in the summer – we get taped pieces from Mexico and that’s it.  The emphasis is that Mistico is the heir to Mysterio in lucha libre, his idol is Rey, he’s Mexico’s biggest star in a decade, and to see Mistico v. Rey for the WWF title is an all time dream for millions – parenthetically its always added that Mistico would also love to wrestle Nemeth, he thinks of Nemeth as where he was a couple of years ago, and has been impressed by him – but he can’t help but cheer for Rey.

Obviously, this gives Nemeth the ability to bristle – people say he didn’t really beat Punk at full strength, Danielson’s poking at him from afar all summer,  he hasn’t beaten Mysterio – Nemeth’s got a giant, giant chip on his shoulder coming into Summer Slam.  Late in the summer we find out that Mistico and his crew will be sitting in a box watching the big event. 

The other guy, of course, missing in the equation is Swagger.  Every significant graduate from developmental is part of the Underground stable – but Nemeth’s tag partner, best friend, his girlfriend’s brother, and the unquestioned star of developmental – Jack Swagger, is nowhere to be found.

About a month, maybe 6 weeks after Mania he shows up.  It’s billed for maybe 3 weeks, Jack Swagger’s return, with Nemeth saying his tag partner will join the group and put on one of the t-shirts and stand behind him to support his championship era.

We do 3 weeks of that type of build.

Swagger, who had really lost most of the year with a knee injury, returns on RAW, beating someone not affiliated with any group (probably PAUL or Kane, given they took out his knee).  And then Underground hits the ring.

It’s the “take the t-shirt, join the NWO” spot, Nemeth and Swagger were once pretty similar in demeanor, much m ore amateur wrestler than professional – Swagger’s still that guy, he’s solid, firm, not a lot of color, he’s all substance, no ga-ga.  He’s the opposite of his name.  And Nemeth now is full on Ziggler. Seeing them together shows how far Nemeth’s come.

Nemeth puts Swagger over while also telling him what his spot is now – says Swagger was the greatest product of the Underground, his poster still hangs at WWFU, every single man in this ring (and it’s a bunch of them, like 18, this is a big group) knows by heart the words, “everybody watch Jack to see how to do the damn drill.”  And now here we are, and Nemeth wants Swagger with the guys watching his back, cheering him on, wearing the Underground colors.

Swagger pauses – quietly says, Nick, you’re the champ, you earned it, but this whole gang thing, that’s just not really for me. 

He hands back the shirt and turns to walk away – Nemeth grabs his arm.  Nemeth says maybe he’s not being clear – this is a war, it’s us against them and us is winning – you need to understand that you have to pick a side.

Swagger tells him to let go of his arm.

Now Nemeth’s hot, says look – these guys all hate you, everyone’s always hated you but me, I stood in your shadow when everyone else wanted to hit you with a pillowcase full of soap – and now it’s time you stood in mine. 

Swagger and Nemeth go toe to toe – Swagger again refuses, tells Nemeth he’s changed.

Nemeth says “and you haven’t” – and then Underground attacks Swagger.

Everyone but Nemeth – he holds up his arms as if to show “look, I’m not doing anything” while Underground tears Swagger apart – Kelly probably doesn’t have the range to pull this off – but she should be torn between her boyfriend and brother – but she chooses the boyfriend, and they exit up the aisle as Underground buries Swagger.

The other two title matches are the Clique matches. 

Christian returned in the big angle at Mania, trying to aid his brother who was taken apart by Underground, specifically Sheamus.  Edge doesn’t make even a single appearance after Mania, his career has ended at the hands of the new IC Champ and Christians here to take his revenge and win the title.

Christian’s never won a singles title in WWF, so that’s part of the program here; Regal and Christian once feuded during the long Clique v. Team Angle program, so that’s here – and Christian takes a place he’s never had before, at the front of the Clique – given that it’s Bret who engineered this entire thing.

Whose title Sheamus took was Nitro’s – but as opposed to a rematch Nitro teams with Miz to go after Empire; these two programs can be mixed over the summer, there are 3 members of Empire and 3 members of the Clique – McIntyre can serve to feed Christian to get him ready for Sheamus – the Hart kids are now heels, so their feud with the Clique can be restoked over the summer – lots of matchups we can hit as we build for Summer Slam.

Two more matches.

Dos Caras, Jr. v. Randy Orton

Ka$h Kingston v. @TruthKills

A fair question to ask would be what is Orton’s summer like?

Orton got swerved by his own partner at Mania, DiBiase left him laying, joining longtime Orton rivals like Regal and Sheamus with Underground – and it was a real swerve, with Orton, a career (probably lifelong) dick, always first to blame everyone else around him, finally giving credit to DiBiase who lifted him out of his post Sheamus funk and helped Orton finally regain the tag straps, his stated goal in creating Defiance.

You’d expect a crazy, out of control Orton – but instead his summer is listless, disengaged, he ignores DiBiase, ignores Underground, its not even that he’s despondent, it’s like he just is no longer there.

Who that contrasts with is Cody – Cody also got screwed by the Underground formation at Mania; he looked to be about to win Money at the Bank (not just from how that match was playing out, but you could construct a narrative of Cody as babyface young boy who had crawled up the ranks, had won before at Mania, had put in his time, and if someone is about to ride that rocketship from way underneath to the top, Cody would have been a good bet) but he was taken out by Tyson Kidd (allowing Cody to be extra angry at Bret) and lost the match.

So – while Orton is listless, Cody is angry at authority.  But he’s not in the match – who is in the match is Dos Caras, coming off his win over the Undertaker in the Legends Match.  Orton, like Caras’s other opponents, is a legacy – so it gives Caras an easy talking point – and to see Caras pick on Orton the way he picked on Cody, for example, with Orton really not fighting back, spotlights where everyone is.

Caras also cuts the occasional promo on the Rock all summer.  

Rock, recall, used his first WWF appearance in years, at Mania, to cut a promo on Caras and rock bottom Ricardo; it was a one off (‘cause the Rock’s obviously too big a star to come back to WWF) Caras, obviously, takes exception, and periodically will use promo time to poke at Dwayne.  As we get closer to the event (in LA recall) Caras says he’s coming to Rock’s home and he’s got a surprise for him at Summer Slam.

Finally – partners explode, Kingston v. Killings; Killings is the heel, but really he’s a crazy person; he’s Ron Artest, he officially changes his name (shows us the papers) to @TruthKills, he gets a part time job at Ikea for the discount, and he starts putting up videos on his own channel, crazy man videos, sort of like real world Matt Hardy – but eventually it will be commentary on the news – conspiracy theories – we didn’t walk on the moon, 9-11 was an inside job, Obama is a scientologist, the Jews are trying to implant thoughts into his brain.  @TruthKills.  I don’t know how much of that is this summer, this is his new character, so it can be spaced out.

That’s the show.

WWF Title: Nick Nemeth v. Rey Mysterio

IC Title: Sheamus v. Christian

Tags: Empire v. Clique

No DQ: Bryan Danielson v. John Cena

Dos Caras, Jr. v. Randy Orton

 Ka$h Kingston v. @TruthKills

CM Punk v. Alex Riley

CM Punk v. Wade Barrett

See you again in August for the show.