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Summerslam 2008 is in the books, and I figured I would do a little write up with my thoughts on the show. I’ll start off by saying I didn’t have a lot of expectations for the show going in. As I wrote in my preview column last week, it didn’t feel like Summerslam going into the PPV. The build for the show was mostly weak. So how do I feel after the show? I feel like I got exactly what I expected. I didn’t expect much, and I didn’t get much. It was just an ok show for me. I would give it thumbs in the middle, or a 5/10 if you want to score it that way. I’m pretty ambivalent on the show as a whole.

Let me start off with The Undertaker vs. Edge "Hell in a Cell Match." Dave Meltzer wrote in his report on the show that it was a hell of a match, and that it was worth going out of your way to see the replay just for that match, and that it was maybe the best match of the year in WWE thus far. I respect Dave’s opinion on wrestling more than anyone’s, but I have to disagree with him somewhat on this match. I thought it was a decent match. It certainly was a top notch effort by both guys. They worked very hard. I will say that. But I wasn’t blown away by it, like some people appear to have been, based on the feedback to this and other sites. Good main event, definitely the match of the PPV tonight by far. But a hell of a match that I would out of my way to see again, I didn’t see that. I think some people are going overboard in their praise of the match.

Perhaps I have unrealistic expectations, and maybe I need to adjust those expectations. But this match tonight didn’t feel special to me. It felt like something I had seen before. It was slow and plodding at times, as both guys meandered around, setting up furniture for the next spot. Them going out of the cage, and doing the spot where Edge speared Undertaker through the ECW announce table was a nice spot. That was something original for this type of match. That’s what I was looking to see more of. This mostly felt like a mish mosh of spots from previous HIAC matches. I guess I was looking for that one "holy shit" moment. The big spot of the match was the chokeslam on Edge from the top through the two tables stacked on the floor. Again, nice spot, but it didn’t translate into that classic moment that all great HIAC matches have.

Another aspect sorely lacking from the match was blood. I’m not a blood mark or anything, and I’m all for using blood in limited spots where appropriate. But is there a more appropriate spot than a Hell in a Cell Match, the main event on one of the biggest PPV’s of the year, and the culmination of a six month long feud? The use of blood would have added tremendously to the drama of the match, and gave it that feeling of intensity that I felt it was lacking. Plus I’m all for realism, and you have guys whacking each other in the head with steel chairs, television cameras, ring steps, and so forth, and you don’t get any blood from that? But Shawn Michaels was bleeding all over the place last month at The Great American Bash from a back elbow to the head. I’m looking for a little continuity. Why was blood appropriate in that instance last month, but it wasn’t appropriate here? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

I realize we’re in the new family friendly PG era of WWE, and blood might scare the little kiddies away, and cause them to have nightmares. Then their parents might not buy them the John Cena foam fingers and the "Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect" boxers. What kid wouldn’t want to wear a pair of those? I never leave the house without them. But what’s the message that’s being sent here? Hitting a guy with a television camera, or clobbering him in the face with a chair is family friendly, but blood isn’t? Trying to murder someone with a car, or setting a car on fire with a person in the back seat is family friendly, but a little blood in a high stakes PPV main event, a style of match known for having blood baths in the past isn’t family friendly? Does that make sense to anyone else, because it sure as hell doesn’t to me.

My way of looking at it is if you’re going to have a Hell in a Cell Match with no blood, then you might as well not book the match at all. Just book a straight wrestling match, you’d get the same effect, and people’s expectations wouldn’t be so high. I’m always of the opinion that you go all the way with something, or you don’t do it at all. Tonight’s Hell in a Cell match wasn’t going all the way. It was a watered down, sanitized, 3rd grade version of what used to be counted on to be a tremendous match every time out. It lacked that one true memorable "holy shit" moment, the lack of blood took away from the match, and the fact that it felt like a recycled, jumbled together piece of past HIAC matches rendered it just a decent match to me. The intensity didn’t seem to be there.

Maybe that makes me a spoiled wrestling fan, and maybe my expectations are too high. If they are then it’s only because WWE raised my expectations with the nature of the majority of the past Hell in a Cell matches I’ve seen. When you give people filet mignon for 11 years, and then stick a rump roast in there one night, you’re not going to like it as much. That’s the way I feel about what I saw tonight. Rump roasts are fine, but they’re not filet mignon. I respect both Undertaker and Edge for their physical effort in the match. I would never take that away from them or anyone. But I simply didn’t like the match nearly as much as everyone else seems to. Sorry if that’s not a popular opinion, but I’m not here to say what I think is popular, I’m here to state my opinion. I gave the match a star rating of ***1/2, which I feel might even be a little generous.

I didn’t mind the ending of the PPV, either. It was silly and cheesy, but that’s what you get from The Undertaker. You get the special effects, and the over the top, hocus-pocus stuff. It’s worked for 18 years. Who am I to argue with success? It was a nice period on the storyline, and the aspect where Edge said he was taking everyone to hell. The Undertaker figuratively sent him to hell. I don’t know whether Edge is taking some time off. I had heard he has some knee issues, and might be taking some off. We’ll see if that happens. But no, the ending didn’t bother me. WWE sometimes like to end their PPV’s with dramatic cliffhangers, and that’s what this was.

As far as the rest of the show goes, I’m pretty meh on everything else. That’s how I felt coming in, and they didn’t do much to change my feeling. John Cena vs. Batista was a pretty competently worked match, as I expected it would be. The crowd was hot for it, and they leaned noticeably more towards Batista. They built to an exciting finishing sequence. The best spot was the one towards the end where Cena jumped off the top rope, and Batista met him in mid air with a powerbomb. That was a well timed move that the fans really bought as the potential finish. There were several near falls that were done really well, which the fans bought. Batista winning was a surprise to me only because Cena has already lost so many times on PPV this year. I’m not sure what their ultimate plan is with him, but I can’t seem to recall too many top guys losing as many times as he has on PPV in 2008. Match rating for this from me was ***1/4.

Cena is one strong man, I’ll say that. It’s not just a gimmick when they put over how strong he is. The way he grabbed Batista, and maneuvered him around in one motion from a body slam position to an FU position was very impressive. We’ve seen him hoist up behemoths like The Big Show, Mark Henry, and The Great Khali before. Think what you want about how he got his body to look the way it does, but strength like that comes from genetics and a lot of weight lifting.

The two title matches on the show were about what you would expect. I’m glad CM Punk won, and I’m glad he finally got that elusive clean win. He needed that in the worst way. The match with JBL wasn’t much. Those two don’t click together at all. JBL really needs to go back to announcing. I think he’s gotten about as much mileage out of this return as he’s going to get. Awkward spot when Punk and JBL banged heads towards the end of the match. I’m not sure if that was one of those accidental things that happen sometimes, or if it was someone’s fault for being in the wrong position, but it sure looked like JBL ended up with the worst of the deal. I don’t know where they go with Punk now, but this was a good win for him, and a good building tool for his character. **1/2 for this match.

Triple H had what would be considered a bad match with pretty much anyone else, but because it was The Great Khali, it was considered pretty good. I guess if any Khali match isn’t a complete cluster fuck trainwreck then it’s considered good. Triple H did the best he could with him, and they did a good job working around Khali’s dictionary sized list of weaknesses. There’s really not much else to say about it. It was on the high end of what you could have reasonably expected. I had the match at *3/4. When was the last time Triple H had a match under two stars on PPV?

The Mark Henry vs. Matt Hardy "match", I’d rather call it a debacle, was just atrocious, lazy booking. I don’t care if it is the ECW Title that no one cares about, you don’t book a cheap, lame ass finish like that on PPV. That is just inexcusable. If you’re going to do something like that, then you shouldn’t even bother booking the match on the PPV in the first place. Save it for television, which is apparently what they’re doing this Tuesday, anyway. I realize no one bought the PPV for this match. But lazy, thoughtless booking like that just drives me up a wall.

Tony Atlas was late on his cue to break up the pinfall attempt by Matt Hardy. And that was a really weak DQ too. People not involved in the pin break up pinfall attempts all the time, and they don’t get disqualified. It was just poorly thought out, and poorly executed all the way around. It was like they had their writers meeting for the PPV, and everyone got up to leave thinking the meeting was over, and then someone said, "Oh shit, we forgot the Henry/Hardy match. What do we do with that?" Vince McMahon says, "DQ in 30 seconds, Atlas breaks up the pin, send Jeff Hardy out as the rodeo clown to distract from the shit finish we just did. The fans will fall for it, they’re stupid. Let’s eat!"

The best thing on the show for me was the HBK/Jericho confrontation. That was very well done. Even if everyone could see what was going to happen the minute Michaels came out with his wife Rebecca, who is a fine looking women, by the by. He set the perfect tone on the mic, as he announced initially that he was retiring. They managed to find a few girls in the crowd that didn’t get the memo that wrestling isn’t real, and were crying, either that or they were really good plants. Jericho came out looking impeccably dressed, as always. I absolutely loved Michaels line to Jericho when he said, "Okay Chris, I'll admit it. I’ll sit down with my wife and kids and tell them the reason I can't wrestle anymore is because of the actions of a vile, worthless, selfish human being." That is a brilliantly written line. I can’t believe anyone on the WWE writing staff actually wrote that line, or much of this storyline, come to think of it. It’s been too good.

Jericho stiffed HBK's wife in the face with that punch, which I'm sure she agreed to ahead of time. Michaels reaction was what you would expect from a guy concerned about his wife. He tended to her tonight, tomorrow night on Raw, you better nail everything down when HBK shows up looking for Jericho. Then we’ll get whatever gimmick match it’s going to be at Unforgiven. I can see something where Michaels puts his career on the line, and then they can make it a Street Fight or something along those lines, and just let those two loose. That was some excellent stuff tonight, as everything between those two has been so far. Michaels/Jericho is the easy feud of the year in wrestling so far this year.

The bit with Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix winning the I-C and Woman’s Titles was fine for comedy purposes, but it was really a shame to see Kofi Kingston and Mickie James marginalized the way they were. It was like they were background players for the Santino/Beth Show. And don’t get me wrong, I love Santino and Beth together. But Kingston and James should have been protected a little better. I hope my friend David Fulstow from the UK isn’t on any bridges or high buildings tonight with Mickie losing. This match was way too short. It was more like something you’d see on Raw rather than a PPV. The first half of this PPV did actually feel like an extended TV show, and not a PPV. *1/2 for this match.

Jeff Hardy vs. MVP was the right match to open the show with, and they did a nice job with the time they were given. But with HIAC going 26 minutes not counting the intros, nothing else was getting a lot of time tonight. Hardy and MVP were on the verge of taking their match to the next level, and then Shelton Benjamin showed up, and it was over. I’d love to see them be given more time on Smackdown. I’m perfectly fine with them interjecting Benjamin into this feud, because he needs something to do, with Ken Kennedy out with his latest injury. That man is a walking injury. But they need to start getting a little more creative with their finishes. Two weeks in a row on Smackdown, MVP interfered in what were two very good Hardy/Benjamin matches, now tonight they had Shelton interfere. It’s time to change up the script a little bit. I’m interested to see where they go with this. Three good workers, should be fun. I gave Hardy/MVP **1/2 as the PPV opener.

Those are my thoughts on the 21st Summerslam. It came, it went. It seems to be getting an overwhelming amount of positive feedback on the various wrestling sites, so maybe I’m wrong, maybe I missed the boat tonight. It wouldn’t be the first time. I just called it like I saw it. I didn’t hate the show by any means. It wasn’t a bad show. It just wasn’t a show worthy of the Summerslam name, and it wasn’t worthy of the $40 I paid to see it, in my humble and honest opinion. Hopefully I did a good job explaining why I feel that way.

Before I go, I need to respond to remarks someone wrote in the Summerslam feedback that was posted on the site here last night. Mike Stack from Montgomery, NJ wrote this:

"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?"

You know what’s really disgusting, Mike? Your hateful remarks about Vickie Guerrero. That’s what is disgusting. Vickie Guerrero happens to be very good at her job. And what does it matter that she has a few extra pounds on her body? It shouldn’t matter at all unless you’re an arrogant, egomaniac that is concerned about people’s looks above all else. The woman lost her husband, and has two daughters to raise on her own. Maybe her comfort is in food. Everyone has their vices in life, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, gambling, smoking, sex, food, or whatever else.

No one is perfect, and no one has the right to stand in judgment of another person like you are doing here with Vickie Guerrero. That is the height of arrogance and disrespect. It’s the sign of someone with low self esteem, who has to make themselves feel better by putting down other people. I don’t know if that’s you, but I do know that’s how you’re coming off with the words you boldly sat in front of a computer and typed about a woman that you don’t even know. That’s very brave. It’s also very pathetic, and I just wanted you to know that you weren’t being funny and you weren’t being cool with your comments. What you were being is ignorant and hateful, and I’ve already wasted enough time on you.

Want to thank everyone for reading this special Monday bonus column from me. Hope you enjoyed it. I may or may not be back later in the week with another column, we’ll see how things develop. But until next time, take care and be well!

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