Welcome to part three of Old Skool View presents……Summerslams of yesteryear. In this instalment i’ll be looking back at the Summerslams from 2000-2009, where no doubt many of you witnessed your first summerslam, but as i’m old and all that i’ve got a bit of time on you haha.
Anyway, Summerslam 2000, the first Summerslam of the new millennium, even as great as this show was for a couple of standout matches, it still had “who booked that” moments. This instalment of Summerslam witnessed THAT TLC match where Edge & Christian retained the Tag Team Titles against The Hardy Boyz & The Dudleyz, and the main event was a Triple Threat match where The Rock retained the WWE Title against Kurt Angle & HHH. We also had Kane vs Undertaker again that only lasted 6 minutes and was declared a no contest when Taker unmasked Kane, see who booked that? Plus Chris Benoit overcame Chris Jericho in a two out of three falls match.
Elsewhere on the card we had Right To Censor (Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan & The Goodfather) beat Too Cool & Rikishi in a 6 man tag, X-Pac beat Road Dogg, and in another who booked that moment Chyna became the Intercontinental Champion after pinning Trish Stratus in an Mixed Tag Team Match also involving Eddie Guerrero & Val Venis. Jerry Lawler beat Tazz, Steve Blackman beat Shane O’Mac for the Hardcore Title, and The Kat beat Terri in a “Stinkface Match” see who booked that?
Summerslam 2001 was the one where it was WWE vs ECWCW during the Invasion angle. The double main event saw Kurt Angle beat Stone Cold via DQ, and The Rock becoming World Heavyweight Champion after beating Booker-T. There was also a very good ladder match between RVD & Jeff Hardy over the Hardcore Title, where RVD prevailed in the end.
Elsewhere on the card, Edge beat Lance Storm to win the IC Title, The Dudleyz & Test beat The APA & Spike Dudley in a 6 man tag team match, X-Pac beat Tajiri to unify the Cruiser & Light Heavyweight Championships, Chris Jericho made Rhyno tap out, and The Brothers Of Destruction (Kane & Taker) unified WWE & WCW Tag Titles by beating DDP & Chris Kanyon inside a steel cage.
2002 Summerslam is the one where Brock beat Rock to become the WWE Champion. It’s also the one with that brutal, unsanctioned Street Fight where the returning HBK beat HHH, that match was almost half hour of brutality, ahh memories. The rest of the card was a bit meh for me but this is how it went down.
Kurt Angle made Rey Mysterio tap out, then Ric Flair did the same to Chris Jericho. Edge defeated Eddie Guerrero, The UnAmericans (Lance Storm & William Regal) retained the Tag Titles over Booker-T & Goldust, RVD beat Chris Benoit for the IC Title and Taker beat Test. Yeah less said about this event the better.
Summerslam 2003 is one I would suggest you go back and watch if you haven’t recently, or if you’ve never seen it. The main event for this event was an Elimination Chamber match for the WHC, during HHH’s reign of doom in this calendar year and he somehow retained the title over Godlberg, Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, Kevin Nash & HBK. The main event from SD was Kurt Angle retaining the WWE Title by making Brock Lesnar tap, yes LESNAR TAPPED OUT!!!!. We also had a nasty little match between Kane & RVD and there was an excellent fatal 4 way as Eddie Guerrero retained the US Title against Chris Benoit, Tajiri & Rhyno.
Elsewhere on the card, La Resistance (Rene Dupree & Sylvain Grenier) retained the World Tag Titles against The Dudley Boyz, Taker beat A-Train, and Shane O’ beat Eric Bischoff in a Falls Count Anywhere match.
Summerslam 2004 is the one where Randy Orton won his first WHC as he beat Chris Benoit. For the WWE Title, JBL retained against Taker via DQ and in a who booked that match, Kane beat Matt Hardy in a “Till Death do us part” match.
Elsewhere The Dudleyz (Bubba/DVon/Spike) beat Rey Mysterio, Billy Kidman & Paul London in a 6 man match, John Cena beat Booker T in the first match of a best of 5 series for the US Title, Edge retained the IC Title in a triple threat match with Chris Jericho & Batista, Kurt Angle made Eddie Guerrero tap out and HHH beat Eugene.
The 2005 version had an horrific main event, and yes, just like the 80s and early 90s it involved Hulk Hogan as he beat HBK, who the hell booked that? Outside of that horrific main event Batista retained the WHC against JBL and John Cena retained the WWE title against Chris Jericho, plus we had a certain Randy Orton beat The Undertaker. We all had a 25 second tap out as Chris Benoit beat Orland Jordan to win the US Title.
Elsewhere, Edge beat Matt Hardy via KO, Rey Mysterio beat Eddie Guerrero in a ladder match to win the rights to Dominic, now who booked that? Then Kurt Angle beat Eugene for the Olympic Gold Medal.
The 2006 version was pretty shocking too, but when you see the matches you know why. The main event of Edge retaining over John Cena wasn’t bad at all, however the rest of the card was err yeah. Batista killed King Booker for the WHC, really King Boookah was awesome, stupid booking that, and the third main event was DX (HBK/HHH) beat Vince & Shane O’.
Elsewhere Chavo beat Rey, Big Show retained the ECW title against Sabu, Hulk Hogan, yes him again, beat Randy Orton, and Ric Flair beat Mick Foley in a I quit match.
2007 sucked just as much as 2006, however again the main event wasn’t too bad as John Cena retained the WWE Title against Randy Orton. Batista again won the WHC at Summerslam as he beat The Great Khali, and for the 2nd Summerslam running King Bookah was killed, this time by the returning HHH.
Elsewhere Kane beat Finlay, Umaga retained the IC title in a triple threat with Carlito and Mr Kennedy Kennedy, Rey beat Chavo, Beth Phoenix won an interpromotional divas battle royal, and John Morrison beat CM Punk to retain the ECW Title.
After a couple of years of poor Summerslams 2008 pulled it back a little as Undertaker beat Edge inside HIAC in the main event, and Batista beat John Cena in the co-main event. CM Punk retained the WHC against JBL whilst HHH retained the WWE Title against Khali eurgh. There was also an intergender tag match for the IC & Womens title as Glamarella (Santino & Beth Phoenix) beat Kofi Kingston & Mickie James to win the titles. Elsewhere MVP beat Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy retained the ECW Title against Mark Henry via DQ.
The final Summerslam of the 00s was again a pretty decent one, even if it did have a who booked that moment as some eejit booked DX to beat Legacy in a tag match, I mean really? In the main events, CM Punk beat Jeffy Hardy in a TLC match to win the WHC, and Randy Orton beat John Cena to retain the WWE Title.
Elsewhere Rey Mysterio beat Dolph Ziggler to retain the IC Title, MVP beat Jack Swagger, Jerishow (Chris Jericho & Big Show) retained the Tag Titles over Cryme Tyme (Shad Gaspard & JTG), Kane beat Khali and Christian retained the ECW title against William Regal.
So like previous decades the 00s had a lot of ups and downs for the Summerslam events. We had some old names return and win (Hogan you horrible man), we had some right random booking moments and some excellent matches.
The final instalment next week will see my look at the last 6 years worth of Summerslams as we had towards this years event.
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