WWE SummerSlam (August 2020)

Original Airdate: August 23, 2020

From Orlando, Florida; Your Hosts are Tom Phillips, Samoa Joe, and Byron Saxton (RAW); Michael Cole and Corey Graves (Smackdown)

Opening WWE Smackdown Women's Title Match: Bayley v Asuka: Okay, the ThunderDome thing is pretty cool. It's going to get annoying eventually, but it's better than the empty arena stuff (even with the fake crowd). It is the perfect opportunity for Sabu to make another run, though. Asuka uses speed to dominate in the early going, as half the crowd blacks out on the screen. Maybe they all went to the bathroom at the same time? It's possible! Asuka tries for a submission, but Bayley gets into the ropes, so the challenger sends her crashing to the outside with a hip attack. Asuka dives off the steps with a DDT on the floor (and a really poorly executed one at that), but it only gets two on the way back inside. Bayley dumps her into the ropes and snaps her throat across the middle for two, and a vertical suplex is worth two. Bayley works a chinlock to wear her challenger down, and an elbowdrop is worth two. Asuka tries fighting back with strikes, but the Bayley-to-Belly puts an end to that effort, though it only gets the champ two. That allows Asuka to come at her with a schoolgirl for two, and she finally lands a big kick to the head to buy some recovery time. Asuka makes a comeback, and a hip attack gets her two. Bayley bails to the apron, so Asuka goes after her with a hip attack out there, but Bayley catches her with a kneebreaker across the apron. Bayley clips the knee on the way back in for two, and he takes it to the mat for a toehold to try for the submission. Asuka counters to an anklelock, but Bayley throws an elbow to escape, so Bayley hits her a double-knee facebuster for two. Missile dropkick, but Bayley catches her in a kneebar on the way down, and Asuka fights into the ropes to escape. Bayley responds with a sunset-bucklebomb, and she dives with a flying elbowdrop, but Asuka catches her in a cross-armbreaker on the way down. Unfortunately, she has to release it to fight off potential interference from Sasha Banks, allowing Bayley a schoolgirl for two. Asuka tries staying in it with another hip attack, but Sasha takes the bullet for Bayley, and the champ cradles at 11:36. This was solid day's work. **

WWE RAW Tag Team Title Match: The Street Profits v Andrade and Angel Garza: Kevin Owens is out to do guest commentary on this one. Montez Ford starts with Andrade, and tries grabbing a waistlock, but Andrade is on him with forearms. He goes up to the middle for a dive, but Ford brings him off with a rana, so Garza runs in, but Angelo Dawkins cuts him off, and the champs clean house. Ford tries diving out onto both challengers, but gets caught with a powerbomb on the floor - which Dawkins responds to by cheering him on from a safe distance. Real gem of a partner that guy is. Back in, the challengers go to work on Ford, but he slips free of a series of kicks from Andrade, and gets the tag. Dawkins comes in hot, but eats a rough looking elbow from Andrade, and both guys tag. Ford dives with a flying bodypress, but Garza rolls through for two, and Zelina Vega is up on the apron. She ends up colliding with Ford, and the champs put Angel away while Andrade is busy checking on her at 7:49. Couldn't get more basic than this. *

No Disqualification Loser Leaves Town Match: Mandy Rose v Sonya Deville: Whose brilliant idea was it for Mandy to start wearing more clothes? She tries a bicycle kick at the bell, but Sonya counters with a cradle for two, and they spill to the outside for a slugfest - won by Rose by sending Deville into the barricade. Mandy adds a vertical suplex on the ramp before sending Sonya into the post, and she dives off the announce table with a clothesline. She wastes time setting up a table, allowing Sonya to grab a chair to block the effort, and she takes control with a series of kicks on the way back in. Running kneesmash gets her two, so she tries a dragon sleeper, but Mandy starts to throw elbows, so Sonya shifts to a triangle choke. Rose shifts into a cradle for two, so Deville starts hammering her, but Mandy comes back with a high knee for two, and Deville bails. Mandy follows to toss her into the barricade again, and she puts her across the table from earlier, but Deville distances herself before Rose can dive. Mandy responds by chucking a few chairs at her head, but Sonya ducks them, and hits a bicycle kick on the floor. Back in, a reversal sequence ends in Mandy hitting another kneesmash, and she gives Deville another pair for good measure. Mandy with a double-underhook facebuster to set up another kneesmash, and that's it at 9:50. This was really flat, and they were working super loose. ½*

Street Fight: Seth Rollins v Dominik Mysterio: This is Dominik's debut. Hard to believe he's 23 years old, he looks like a high school freshman. He's also dressed like AJ Styles, for some reason. Hopefully that leads to a feud over who his real father is. Again. Seth dominates in the early going, just playing mind games and teasing Mysterio. Mysterio manages to get some stuff in to back Seth off a bit, earning him a sarcastic clap from Rollins. Mysterio falls for the old test-of-strength trick, which, frankly, if you're stupid enough to fall for that at this point, you deserve whatever you get. Like, that trick was obvious before Mysterio was even born. Seth grabs a kendo stick, but Mysterio knocks it away from him. He chases Rollins around, but Seth corner whips him before he can use it... and then just does that some more. Um... why not just grab the kendo stick? You wanted it before, now all of a sudden some corner whips are getting you off? Rollins with a suplex, and he takes Mysterio down into a headvice while taunting papa Rey Mysterio. Seth with a slingblade, and he grabs a chair, but wastes way too much time taunting Rey, and Dominik fights him off. Mysterio with a headscissors out of the corner, followed by a DDT for two. He grabs the kendo to unload on Rollins with, driving the camera crew into a frenzy. Well, we know what kind of sex those guys like, I guess. Mysterio goes upstairs, but he's too slow with his dive, and Rollins brings him off with the vertical superplex into the falcon arrow for two. Seth responds to the kickout by grabbing two new kendo sticks, and he goes to work on the kid. Seth brings a table in next, and takes Mysterio to the top for a Russian legsweep, but Mysterio manages to reverse through the table! Mysterio is beat to hell, but manages to get to the top rope for a flying frogsplash for two. And then he just walks around for a while instead of doing something else, and everyone is somehow surprised when Seth powerbombs him. Really? Seth pulls off Mysterio's top to give him some more brutal abuse with the kendo, but that still fails to draw dad in to save him, so Seth decides to get really crazy by grabbing a pair of handcuffs. That draws mom out, but Rey talks to her in Spanish, so you known things are serious. That distraction allows Mysterio to schoolboy Rollins for two, so Murphy comes in to try and take Dom's eye out, but that finally gets Rey to step in. He manages to save his son, but gets his ass kicked in the process, and ends up getting handcuffed to the middle rope for Rollins and Murphy to abuse with kendos. But then they decide that's not good enough, and they go after mama bear up on the ramp, but Dom saves. He hits Seth with a 619 on the apron, then a standard one inside, before going up with another frogsplash... only for Rollins to lift his knees to block. That allows Seth to murder the kid with the curb stomp, and that's enough at 22:35. I didn't really buy into the drama of this one, and as a match is was pretty weak since Mysterio is a rookie, and Rollins spent more time working with Rey than with Dominik. * ½

WWE RAW Women's Title Match: Sasha Banks v Asuka: Sasha goes right for the knee with a dropkick at the bell, and she dives onto the part once getting Asuka horizontal. Asuka tries fighting back with kicks from down on her back, and manages to shake Sasha off long enough to slug it out, and the challenger gets control. Banks tries bailing, but Asuka drags her back to avoid a countout, so Sasha wrecks her with a nasty sunsetbomb on the floor. Back in, a lateral press gets her two, so she tries a cradle, but still only gets two. Kick to the head gets two, so Banks tries a slingshot in the corner, but gets caught in an electric facebuster. That allows Asuka to grab an anklelock, but Sasha escapes, so Asuka tries a dive off the middle, but Banks blocks. Banks follows up to the middle for a DDT, but Asuka reverses for two, and she dives with a missile dropkick for two. Sasha fights her off with a double-knee facebuster out of the corner for two, so she goes up with a flying frogsplash, but Asuka rolls out of the way. That allows the challenger to try for the Asuka-Lock, but Sasha counters into a cradle for two, then shifts to the Bank Statement! Asuka counters back to the Lock, but Sasha escapes, so Asuka superkicks her. Hip attack, so now Bayley tries to take the bullet for her friend, but it ends up backfiring when Asuka sees the trick coming, and the Lock finishes at 11:29. The match felt really disjointed, but it wasn't a train wreck. * ¼

WWE Title Match: Drew McIntyre v Randy Orton: Orton immediately bails to stall and frustrate, which seems like a weird strategy for a challenger. Frustrating McIntyre is a good idea, but you're the challenger, bro. Drew can just hang out all day, he doesn't need to beat you. But then, McIntyre seems to be getting angrier and angrier instead of just hanging back, so maybe this Orton kid knows what he's doing. He suckers Drew into a chase and steals the high ground, but McIntyre blocks an RKO attempt, and bails to the outside to kill the momentum. That does him some good, and he comes in strong on Randy, but the Claymore Kick misses, and McIntyre ends up getting dumped back to the outside. Randy follows to go after the shoulder Drew hurt while falling out of the ring, and McIntyre gets served helpings of the announce table and post. Orton slams the champ across the announce table a few times, and gives him a suplex on the floor, before finally bringing him back in to cover for one. Haha, fuck you, Randy. Orton goes to a chinlock, and it's interesting to note how many of the fans on the screens are wearing merchandise supporting guys from twenty or thirty years ago. That's not a good sign for the future. Orton pounds him with the Garvin stomp, and he starts working the leg, but runs into a spinebuster. That allows McIntyre to put a figure four on, but Orton pokes him in the eye to escape, forcing McIntyre to throw a desperate chop to buy time. That leads to a slugfest, and Orton goes for the RKO, but McIntyre blocks. Drew gets fired up with a few suplexes, and a flying clothesline connects, but the bad knee is slowing down his momentum. He tries taking Orton upstairs for a superplex, but the knee gives out, and the champ ends up in a tree of woe. Orton clears the cobwebs and looks to capitalize, but McIntyre guts out a slam off the top from the tree of woe position anyway. Future Shock DDT gets Drew two, so he goes back to the top for a flying clothesline, but Randy dodges. The challenger capitalizes with a powerslam for two, but Drew counters the rope-hung DDT with a headbutt, and a clothesline sends both men tumbling over the top. Orton is first in, and he grabs McIntyre with the rope-hung DDT anyway as he follows, but the punt gets countered with a powerbomb. Claymore, but Orton ducks. RKO, but Drew counters to a backslide, and he retains at 20:35. This was okay, and nothing more. I liked that they had it end in a type of cradle instead of a signature move, though. That's the kind of finish Bret Hart was a true master of getting over, and it's always great. **

Main Event: WWE Universal Title Falls Count Anywhere Match: Braun Strowman v Bray Wyatt: Strowman blitzes him in the corner at the bell, but Bray just laughs it off. Literally. Bray with a chokeslam and a few neck cranks, so the champ bails. They fight it out on the floor in dull fashion, and Braun hits the front-powerslam on the way back in, but it only gets two, so they go back to the outside. Fantastic. They brawl over to the entrance area, and then to the backstage area, and Gorilla is completely empty. Usually they at least left some bodies around. Wyatt hits the Sister Abigail for two in Gorilla, and back out in the arena, he chucks Strowman into the big screen at the entrance. Bray slaps on the Mandible Claw at ringside, but Braun shoves him into the apron to escape, and whacks him with a forearm across the chest for two. Inside, another front-powerslam gets the champ two, so he goes out to grab a box cutter. Okay, well, this is an interesting turn. Unfortunately, he doesn't stab Bray to death on live TV, but instead just tears up the mat to expose the wood boards underneath. So now it's a home improvement project, great. He goes for Bray, but Wyatt chokeslams him on the exposed wood, and hits a pair of Abigails to win the title at 11:58. This sucked, but at least it sucked for twelve minutes instead of twenty. And then afterwards, Roman Reigns returns to beat everybody up, since sure. DUD

BUExperience: The Big Dog days of summer.

DUD