With Summerslam being around the corner this coming weekend in Toronto, and with this pay per view one of four of WWE’s marquee shows in a calendar year, there is already a solid card booked for the event as it unfolds at the Scotiabank Arena in Canada’s largest city.
What happens in Toronto could reshape the rest of WWE’s year in the case of the title picture or storylines going forward, and with past examples of how character development being bungled, here’s a review from my own humble perspective of what should happen at Summerslam.
Bray Wyatt Needs to Beat ‘Demon’ Finn Balor
Balor has been victorious at every Summerslam since he debuted on the main roster, including when he appears as the ‘Demon’. Since 2016 when he became the Universal Champion, Balor has appeared as the Demon at Summerslam and emerged victorious. It won’t be a surprise to see if Balor appears as his ‘alter ego’ to face off against Wyatt’s new ‘alter ego’.
However unfortunate it would be to break Balor’s winning streak during WWE’s marquee summer pay per view, I think it needs to be done because of all the time and investment into Wyatt’s new character. There have been many false starts with the feuds Wyatt engaged in over the years; he should have prevailed against John Cena or Roman Reigns, but didn’t. The only feud he kind of ended up with the upper hand on was with the former Dean Ambrose (now Jon Moxley) and that’s almost never talked about anymore.
Balor is rumoured to be taking time off after Summerslam anyway, so having him win against Wyatt would do little to advance the storyline if he’s just going to take a break and not be on television. A win for Wyatt would help establish his new character going forward. I’m willing to bet Balor shows up just as himself to face “The Fiend” which would be a huge indication of the expected conclusion of this match.
Kevin Owens Should Beat Shane McMahon
Shane McMahon is, in the year 2019 at the ripe age of 49, is racking up wins against the likes of The Miz and Roman Reigns of all people. I’m very impressed by Shane’s athletic prowess but he really shouldn’t be getting this much screen time when there really is that deep of a talent pool in the roster to fill WWE’s time slot.
In a sense, Kevin Owens was really the most logical choice for someone to feud with against Shane McMahon. In one of those rare instances were it is a continuation of a previous storyline, this would make it full circle for when Owens was drafted to Smackdown back in 2017 and he ended up facing McMahon the first time. The major difference now is Owens is playing the part of babyface and McMahon is now the heel.
The video above also provides the context and reasoning behind this rivalry. Owen is obviously not really quitting, except if there is some extension of this feud into the next pay per view whereby he gets another chance to ‘get his job back’, but that wouldn’t really make sense to me at this point in time. McMahon’s been on screen for almost a full year every week and this rivalry ending in an Owens victory would be a good way to take Shane off TV for awhile.
Charlotte Flair Should Beat Trish Stratus
I have mixed feelings about this even though I’m Canadian. Trish Stratus coming out of retirement to beat Charlotte in Toronto would be pretty amazing, but in the long term does not advance either women’s careers? Stratus is no longer an active competitor so the more logical conclusion would be for Charlotte to win to continue solidifying her WWE tenure.
Even though Charlotte has had multiple championships under her belt already during her time in WWE and it’s now a pretty established fact that she is one of the top performers across the entire roster, she probably should beat someone from the previous era of women’s wrestling in WWE in order to solidify the current crop of women as the future, or however that narrative goes.
Seth Rollins Should Beat Brock Lesnar, But…
Even after Lesnar basically killed Rollins on live television with about a week to go before Summerslam, I still think the narrative is that Rollins somehow regains the Universal title. Back at Extreme Rules when Lesnar cashed in on his Money in the Bank contract, some expected Becky Lynch to low blow Brock in order to allow Rollins to pin the former champion to ‘thwart’ Lesnar’s cash in attempt. That would have been a more interesting storyline development but obviously that didn’t happen.
From the two consecutive weeks that Rollins was booked to be totally beaten down by Lesnar, I would expect some amazing comeback for The Architect at Summerslam. We’ve already seen him use a low blow to beat Lesnar at Wrestlemania, so could we see just a repeat of that scenario or even some outside interference on Rollins’ behalf at this point?
To wrap it up, here’s some of my other brief thoughts on the remaining matches on the card:
- With the strong way ‘The OC’ has been booked on RAW this past week, with Gallows and Anderson picking up a clean pin over Smackdown Tag Champions the New Day, it’s highly unlikely they would book AJ to drop the US title to Ricochet, although we should expect a clinic out of their match.
- As much as I would like to see Natalya win the RAW women’s title on Canadian soil, I doubt WWE would have her as the one to dethrone Becky at this point since Becky also became one of the cover stars for WWE 2K20. I still think WWE is holding out for a Ronda Rousey return match against Lynch at Survivor Series.
- I’m hoping Ember Moon comes out as the new Smackdown Women’s Champion, but
reality is this would be a good opportunity to set up a returning Sasha Banks versus Bayley feud for the title. - Goldberg and Dolph Ziggler will be the Summerslam opening match, with predictably laughing results in a 10-30 second squash for the Hall of Famer.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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