(Probably the only thing I’m going to post today, but then it’s a week of middle chapters, plus some books I’m still getting in physical form and haven’t received yet…)<\/p>\n
Summerslam is traditionally the second-biggest pay-per-view of the year behind Wrestlemania (a distant second, admittedly), as well as the occasion for the WWE’s annual excursion to California. \u00a0I suspect I’m going to be a bit busy to sit down and watch a three-hour show, and one which is basically a two-match card anyway, but let’s run it down anyway.<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0WWE Title: John Cena (c) v Daniel Bryan (Special Guest Referee: Triple H).<\/strong> \u00a0Ah, now there’s quite a lot going on here. \u00a0While I’m sure this’ll be given plenty of time with the expectation of having a good match, there are a number of major storylines circulating around this one.<\/p>\n This is a face\/face match, something that often works with John Cena, since he divides the audience so much. \u00a0The kids love him, the men less so. The starting point for the storyline here is that in a fit of pique, Vince McMahon has appointed inexperienced dimwit Brad Maddox as General Manager of Raw. \u00a0For his first action, Maddox allowed Cena to choose his own opponent for\u00a0Summerslam, a move that even Cena promptly derided as unfathomably stupid. \u00a0But Cena\u00a0is<\/em> a babyface, so instead of just choosing a no-hoper, on the strength of audience reaction, he gave the title shot to Daniel Bryan, a popular upper midcarder emerging from a year in a comedy act with Kane, and a former holder of the (distant second) Smackdown title. \u00a0Basically, the idea is that Cena has chosen to bestow the title shot on a popular and credible challenger who deserves the opportunity.<\/p>\n Cue the second strand of the storyline, which is the ongoing feuding among the members of the McMahon family who run the company. \u00a0Exactly who has the ultimate say in running the company remains stubbornly obscure; now that the company is floated on the stock exchange, there are occasional mutterings about a board of directors who can overrule people. \u00a0But on a day to day basis, the major authority figures in the WWE are the GMs who run Raw and Smackdown (Maddox and Vickie Guerrero), and above them, Vince McMahon, his daughter Stephanie, and her husband, retired wrestler Triple H. \u00a0Attempts have been made to write Vince out from time to time, but somehow he keeps emerging from the shower a few months later as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n At any rate, the big idea here is that Vince has old-fashioned ideas about what makes a champion, and wants to push big huge guys, not (by his standards) scrawny nerds with unusual beards. \u00a0So he doesn’t like having Bryan in the main event and definitely doesn’t want him as champion. \u00a0Triple H, representing the next generation of management, likes Bryan, respects him as a wrestler, and is happy to run with his fan support. \u00a0And Stephanie is trying to bridge the gap by attempting to repackage Bryan so that Vince will like him more. \u00a0Meanwhile, Bryan has made very clear that, while he likes and respects Cena and all, he sees Cena as basically a company man who loves the big stage, while he (Bryan) is a wrestler\u00a0<\/em>who just loves to wrestle and happens to be doing so here.<\/p>\n Oh, and Vince tried to appoint a stooge as special guest referee, presumably to screw Bryan. \u00a0Triple H blocked that and appointed himself instead. \u00a0So the idea is that he’s there to fend off any schemes. \u00a0Both Bryan and Cena have explicitly said that they trust him. \u00a0They clearly haven’t watched much wrestling, since while it’s not completely unknown for a guest referee to simply call the match, it’s getting there.<\/p>\n That’s the storyline. \u00a0This all plays off the fact that conventional wisdom among many hardcore fans is that Bryan is indeed not Vince’s idea of a champion, and off the fact that Bryan was indeed a workhorse of the independent circuit before coming to the WWE roster, while Cena is the company’s favourite main event wrestler, who has been headlining shows seemingly forever. \u00a0So the storyline doubles as a tacit acknowledgement that the company knows this is what everyone thinks.<\/p>\n Plus, a strand three: at last month’s show, Randy Orton won the Money in the Bank title shot that gives him the opportunity to challenge for the WWE Title at any time. \u00a0He isn’t booked on this show but he’s been lurking around the margins hinting that he’ll show up and cash in. \u00a0Logically, that ought to depend on how battered the winner of the main event is. \u00a0But he’s bound to turn up in some capacity.<\/p>\n And still a further consideration: Cena is working hurt. \u00a0He has a major swelling in his elbow and supposedly he’s going to be taking some time off for surgery. \u00a0That points strongly towards him losing the title on Sunday, either to Bryan or to Orton. \u00a0Fortunately, we’re at a point in the storyline where that would very likely have happened anyway.<\/p>\n So. \u00a0What happens?<\/p>\n The match itself will likely be very good. \u00a0Cena has good matches with most of his opponents, and Bryan is one of the best wrestlers around, so (subject to the inevitable problems of getting the audience to buy into false finishes when everyone knows that the match can’t end without the referee doing something dodgy) it ought to be a strong match.<\/p>\n My guess would be that Bryan wins the title, and then Orton cashes in to steal it from him, turning heel and aligning himself with Vince, who then gets his classic-looking champion. \u00a0Then you have several months of Bryan chasing to regain the title and become champion for real, which should fill time nicely while Cena’s out of circulation, also building the McMahon family storylines into the bargain. \u00a0Given that Orton’s not already wrestling on the show, I suspect any cash-in match he does is going to be more than just the usual walk-on, but you never know.<\/p>\n Well, that was long. \u00a0The rest of these will be a lot quicker.<\/p>\n 2. \u00a0CM Punk v Brock Lesnar.<\/strong>\u00a0 Upon his recent return, CM Punk turned babyface and split with his manager Paul Heyman. \u00a0Heyman is not very happy about that, leading to violent retribution and ultimately this match against Heyman’s\u00a0other<\/em> main event client, Brock Lesnar. \u00a0All common sense says that Punk ought to win this one, since he’s only just switched sides, and Lesnar’s on a very limited contract where he works very few dates. \u00a0So if Lesnar wins, there’s no obvious opportunity to continue the story.<\/p>\n However… at the start of the week betting suddenly lurched in favour of Lesnar winning. \u00a0Yes, really, you can bet on this stuff. \u00a0The WWE has had an issue over recent months with the leaking of results, which have made the betting odds a ludicrously good predictor of results, if you’re minded to pay attention to such things. \u00a0That could be the reason for the move.<\/p>\n On the other hand, it could just be that everyone saw Punk get the upper hand on Monday night’s Raw, and the WWE has a very predictable booking pattern where the guy who wins on the penultimate show usually loses at the PPV. \u00a0And the WWE has a tendency towards last minute changes of mind anyway.<\/p>\n My guess would be that Punk wins in order to further his feud with Paul Heyman, in what looks on paper like a strong match.<\/p>\n 3. \u00a0World Heavyweight Title: Alberto Del Rio (c) v Christian.<\/strong>\u00a0 Some odd booking here. \u00a0The Smackdown title has long been a distant second to the Raw title, but this match appears to have been thrown together more or less arbitrarily. \u00a0Del Rio, initially meant to be a babyface but floundering in the role, lost the title a while back to Dolph Ziggler when Ziggler cashed in\u00a0last<\/em> year’s Money in the Bank title shot (he’s a patient sort of guy), only for Ziggler to spend most of his title reign out with a concussion. \u00a0When he returned, Del Rio got his long-awaited rematch and won the title straight back after aggressively going after the head. \u00a0This was a double turn, with Del Rio reverting to heel status and Ziggler turning face, or at least tweener. \u00a0And since it reflected the way fans wanted to react to these wrestlers, it worked fine.<\/p>\n You might have thought this would lead into a further feud between Ziggler and Del Rio. \u00a0But instead, it seems Ziggler is first going to have the obligatory break-up feud to detach him from his heel stragglers AJ Lee and Big E Langston. \u00a0That leaves Del Rio without an opponent, and so long-serving upper midcarder Christian is getting the shot. \u00a0He’s held this title before, but he’s been out of contention for a good long while. \u00a0They’re trying to push it as his last opportunity, though that feels more like a case of trying to tag a theme onto a randomly assigned feud. \u00a0It’ll be a solid match; it’d be very surprising if Christian won. \u00a0He’s just not generally used at that level any more, and the promotion has been desultory – aside from Del Rio turning on his sidekick Ricardo Rodriguez and getting rid of him. \u00a0The thinking there seems to be that people actually like Ricardo, the overenthusiastic Mexican ring announcer, and so he’s detracting from Del Rio’s heel act. \u00a0In theory that makes sense, but in practice at least the crowd liked seeing Ricardo; Del Rio’s a bit vanilla without him, and Ricardo has no obvious role at all once he’s separated from Del Rio. \u00a0Of course, it could all be a double bluff, in which case, so much the better.<\/p>\n