Summer Slam: Thumbs Up
Best Match: Hell in a Cell
Worst Match: Henry vs. Hardy
Was going to give this show a thumbs down if it wasn't for the last two matches. Even if you don't want to see Henry defend the ECW title as long as he has the belt they should at least try and do a match. That was really lousy especially I like Hardy. Really thought the overall line up for the show outside of the two final matches made it seem like a really weak line up for a Summer Slam. Khali should not be put in that kind of spot anymore. No one wants to see him compete for a title.
Robb Block
Dave,
This show from top to bottom was a great PPV. I thought everything they did was well done. This is one of their best PPVs this year in my opinion. The Edge/Taker match was the best that these guys have had in this lengthy fued. Batista v/s Cena surprised me being as good as it was.
Best Match: Edge v/s Undertaker
Worse Match: Matt Hardy v/s Mark Henry
I give this show a big thumbs up
Heath Pittman
Summerslam Feedback
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Undertaker v. Edge
Worst Match (by far): Mark Henry v. Matt Hardy
Hi Dave
I enjoyed the show, with the only thing that was mind-numbing being the ECW title match with the worst booking of a match I've seen. Did someone get in trouble like the Punk/Atlas situation last year?
Speaking of Punk, I really enjoyed his match and his title reign seemed to turn the corner. I take my hat off to JBL, who came off like a 1970's MSG Title Challenger. And Punk's work was great.
HHH/Khali was harmless enough.
Santino and Phoenix are a great act. A friend of mine knew Santino well through Judo and said he's always been hilarious. I think he may be one of the funniest guys ever in wrestling (one of, not necessarily the top).
I LOVED Cena/Battista, with Battista seeming to want to prove himself, bumping and selling like I've rarely seen him.
Undertaker and Edge was great, a classic, and a showcase of why Edge is probably the wrestler of the year at this point.
I liked the Michaels/Jericho skit but the use of violence against women (this and the recent Edge/Vickie stuff) blows my mind for a group that is trying to be PG, especially in a post-Benoit world. It's almost like WWE doesn't know any better. If I had children, I don't know that I'd let them watch WWE, certainly not anything I hadn't watched already or knew the results of already.
Other than that downer of a rant, great show and well worth the money. I thought the announcing was great tonight and the match order was perfect.
Dave Musgrave
Whitby, Ontario
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Edge/Undertaker
Worst Match: Matt Hardy/Mark Henry
HiTC was awesome, maybe the best of all time.
I liked the opener with Jeff Hardy and MVP, but I think they can have better matches and hopefully will in the near future.
I'm not sure why Henry and Hardy only went 30 secs so that wrecked the match for me. I'm not sure that it could've been great, but it surely could've been better than it was and with even 5 more minutes it most definitely would've been.
I liked the mixed match for what it was and I'm glad that it was a same sex ending (i.e. girl vs girl). I just hope that they don't follow up on the Beth/Maria angle. I'm all for Maria becoming a fixture as a backstage interviewer again.
Khali/HHH was what it was.
Jericho is really making that program work for me. To me if Michaels was doing the exact same angle with someone else it probably wouldn't work for me the way it is with Jericho.
Cena/Batista was a really good match, although I'm a bit surprised to see a clean finish. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised none the less. I thought they worked really well together. I'm interested to see where they go with this. I guess this could be the way to turn Batista by not giving Cena a rematch which could lead into Batista winning the title and Cena having the rematch at Wrestlemania after winning the rumble of follow-up PPV title shot.
Rishi Malhotra
Toronto
Hey Dave,
Thumbs In The Middle for me.
Decent showing from WWE but you expect more from the second biggest show of the year. Best match I thought was Batista-Cena. Crowd was really into it and the near falls were great. Surprised Batista won clean but it looks like down the road Cena will pick up a win against a heel Batista. Hell in a Cell was also very good, but the cartoonish ending was really unnecessary. Why do they always have to do some bullshit that reminds us what we're watching isn't real, just a TV show? JBL-Cena, now this Edge sent straight to hell crap.I guess that's what happens when you hire Hollywood writers to write wrestling...Good to see Punk win clean. The other stuff was blah as the last two matches really saved the show from a thumbs down.
Randy, San Francisco, CA
BEST MATCH: Undertaker vs. Edge
WORST MATCH: Mark Henry vs. Matt Hardy
This was definitely a two match show, and one of those matches was better than the other one. The rest of the show, save for the HBK/Jericho segment, was a major let down.
Jeff Hardy vs. MVP was a good opener, but they could have gone a bit longer, and I think there was something up with Jeff, even if it wasn't a broken neck. MVP should be ready for a feud with Triple H now after that.
The mixed tag was a fun match, but as a Mickie James mark, I was unhappy with the way she lost her title. She's more over than Kofi Kingston, and Beth would have been more over if she had pinned Kofi. Mickie's been blindsided every week for a month now, and it's making her look like a joke. They can keep the IC title on Santino for a while for comedy, but surely Beth's being used as a transitional champ so that Mickie can get the title back. In fact, I think that's what they might be doing, so that Mickie gets closer to Trish's record.
As soon as I saw Rebecca out there, I knew she'd get involved in whatever angle was coming up, but I thought she'd turn on HBK. Instead, we got something more awesome in Chris Jericho punching her lights out. At least she's got some of her husband's spunk and got back up herself. Can't wait for HBK/Jericho 4 at Unforgiven if that's where it's happening.
I was hoping for far better from Henry and Matt Hardy, rather than the very short non-match we ended up getting. Instead, we get the match again on Tuesday night. Was it even worth them turning up? Did WWE really need to pay for Todd Grisham and Matt Striker to fly out to the show?
Punk/JBL was a good match that would have looked great on RAW, but felt out of place here. I think they may have gone to the finish early here after they collided heads, but Punk simply repeated his win from last month, and moves on without having really proven anything.
The WWE Title match was Khali's best ever match by default - HHH sold his stuff well, and Khali seemed to comply with the few things he had to do for HHH. The Pedigree looked alright as well, and hopefully HHH moves onto MVP now.
Batista/Cena was much better than I expected it to be, they connected to the crowd well, and I liked Batista's attempts at submission holds as well. Surprised to see Batista go over clean, which I guess kills an immediate rematch, which makes me wonder what they've got planned for Cena.
The main event was absolutely amazing, and it's now the greatest Hell in a Cell match ever. Edge's facials were Oscar-worthy, Taker didn't miss a beat, and the bumps were out of this world. I thought when they went outside that they were going to go up top, but bringing it back in proved to be a good move, and the chokeslam through the table was gold. Afterwards, Taker killed Edge and sent him to hell - a stunning visual, and one they'll surely never show on TV, as implying your top heel was burned alive under the ring isn't exactly PG, is it? Still, a brilliant spotfest, and I can't wait to see it again.
The show gets a thumbs up on the strength of the last two matches, and it clearly set out new booking directions on RAW and SmackDown, which is what I was looking for out of the show.
Martin Bentley
London, England
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Undertaker vs. Edge
Worst Match: Mark Henry vs. Matt Hardy
I'm convinced Edge has been watching "The Dark Knight" a lot lately because his recent work is as close as a psychotic deep performance we're going to get to Heath Ledger's Joker. The Hell In A Cell was amazing, and although the action was slow and it was more of a spotfest, the execution was excellent. The spear on the announcers' table, the Edge crash through the two table, and the breaking of the cell were three amazing spots. Undertaker using Edge's moves was very well thought-out and made sense, since Edge had been the one taking a page out of Undertaker's book by being psychotic as of late. This will be a Match of the Year candidate.
I didn't expect Cena and Batista to have that great a match. What I didn't expect is how well they seemed to click together in the ring. They did a very good job executing the sequences of moves which were well thought out to begin with. Whoever booked the match deserves credit. It portrayed both guys as larger-than-life characters, which was the point. Batista's expression after the match helped put Cena over, even though he lost clean. It's a shame they rushed this match, it would have been a great WrestleMania moment.
The Shawn Michaels-Chris Jericho confrontation was simply amazing. Having in mind who's involved, I'm not surprised, but these guys just keep getting better and better. I thought Michaels' wife did a great job as well. Very smart of them not to book this match here, but keep it for Unforgiven.
Everything else was just about where I expected it to be. Hardy and MVP could have had a better match, and I thought Triple H and Khali will be worse, but it was smartly booked for what it was. I have to say that Punk and JBL was better than my expectations, and JBL looked his best since he's come back. Matt and Henry was just ridiculous. They deserve a rating below 1.0 this Tuesday just for that. Very stupid.
Eddie T.
Summerslam '08
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Edge Vs Undertaker
Worst Match: Matt Hardy Vs Mark Henry
Hey Dave,
A good show all the way through, especially the final four matches.
Jeff Hardy Vs MVP: A good opener, a bit short though but there will more than likely be a program with Shelton, Jeff, and MVP which can always be a good thing on TV.
Mix Tag match: I feel that Kofi Kingston needed the title a bit more, to me he is one of the best athletes on Raw and continues to get better in the ring. But I guess seeing Santino trying to decide if he should go after the women's championship is funny TV. But Beth showcased her strength by carrying Santino over her shoulders longer than 30 seconds.
The segment with HBK and Jericaho was fantastic. This reminded me of the HHH vs HBK feud which started at Summerslam back in 2002. Adding a bit realism to any angle is good. Now Rebecca, through her years as a Nitro Girl never took any bumps, but she did a fantastic job selling that punch and it made you wish that Shawn would beat down Chris right away. I look forward to seeing where this goes.
Matt Hardy Vs Mark Henry- They were building this match very nice on ECW, I also kind of figured they were going to wait on Matt winning the ECW title, but damn what was the point of wheeling out Grisham and Striker to the booth if they weren't even going to be out there for a minute?
C.M. Punk Vs JBL- FINALLY!!! A good decisive win and JBL was the right man to give that to Punk. A good match and I just feel that JBL doesn't get enough credit to how he can make the opponet look good and make the next wrestler into a superstar...I.E. John Cena. Hopefully this does it for Punk.
HHH Vs Great Khali- HHH did a good job, as always of making Khali look at least credible. I know people chant "You can't wrestle" to him, and while that may be, he makes me laugh when he goes off on a tangent and we don't know what he is saying.
Cena Vs Batista- These two had a good match that will be remembered, but I wish they would have waited for this match for Wrestlemania. But I also feel the right man won the first time, and they should have played up that Batista was "hand picked" by Flair and HHH more because that would have represented that Batista was more willing to play "dirty" if he had to.
Edge Vs Undertaker- Hell of a match, one of the best HIAC matches yet. The best part was they reinvented themselves by breaking through the cage door and not go up top, like they used to have to do. So my question is where do we go from here? Does Edge take a bit of a break? I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Kevin Gillman
Canton, Ohio
SummerSlam 2008
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Undertaker v Edge
Worst Match: Mark Henry v Matt Hardy
Good matches, almost respectable booking. They killed their top heel dead in the main event, and he's lost clean on the last two big shows so the WWE has some rebuilding to do. Either that, or Edge has to win the WWE Title at the next show in three weeks.
Jeff Cohen
Flushing, NY
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Undertaker vs. Edge
Worst Match: Matt Hardy vs. Mark Henry
Decent PPV not to the level of the best UFC PPV's. This was my second WWE PPV purchase of the year and I do not feel overly excited to see the next one. I bought this one due to the hell in the cell match and I thought it may be a memorable match due to the 10th anniversary of Mick Foley vs. Undertaker. A good show all around but nothing life changing.
Anthony Pape
Lame.
I never purchase PPV anymore, and I will go back into that mindset after this BS they called SummerScam.
No blood in the Cell?
Then, they had the nerve to say what a physical match it was?
Vickie Guerrero is absolutely disgusting.She looks like she gained 30 pounds at least, since Eddy died.
Why is she the part of ANY storyline? You mean to tell me that after Edge has Lita, anyone is going to believe that he would go for THAT?
And, the go-through-the-ring gimmick. Lame
I first saw that in ECW. It was great once.ONCE.
So, after Undertaker sets the hole in the ring on fire, are we supposed to believe, like Vince McMahon, that Edge is dead?
Garbage, Dave. Pure And Simple!!
Mike Stack
Montgomery NJ
Mild thumbs up.
Best match: Batista-Cena
Worst match: Henry-Hardy
No real bad matches here, and pretty good ones throughout. Hell in the Cell
was good for what it is - they worked hard. Batista-Cena was a solid match, although
hardly a classic. JBL-Punk interesting. Loved Santino Marella's celebration.
-- Mike Omansky
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