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Deadseriousness 2023 WWE Summerslam Review: Trish Stratus Watches Roman Reigns Slowly Walk Around For an Hour

2023 wwe summerslam

Going into 2023 WWE Summerslam, Trish Stratus and Becky Lynch were told there wasn’t enough time on the card for their match. Summerslam ended around 1am Eastern time and when we got there, it was safe to say plenty of cuts could’ve been made to give the Hall of Famer and future Hall of Famer some time at the second biggest show of the year behind Wrestlemania.

Anyway, let’s run through 2023 WWE Summerslam and talk some shit:

Logan Paul vs. Ricochet

This was advertised as the most viral match in WWE history. It was mentioned several times throughout the match. And for some reason instead of doing dope moves off the top rope and having viral moments, Logan Paul and Ricochet elected to have a Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit match.

Technically, both men performed well but I’m not watching Logan Paul and Ricochet to see a grueling 20-minute grudge match.

Sure, there was the Spanish Fly off the ring apron where both men landed on their feet but we’re comparing that moment to Logan Paul recording himself frog-splashing Roman Reigns through the announce table or Logan and Ricochet leaping off the top rope into each other in the middle of the Royal Rumble.

 

Just do flips and moonsaults. I did appreciate that big tornado DDT Paul did though. For whatever that’s worth.

Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar

No one in the business is better at mythologizing their own careers in real time quite like Cody Rhodes who lost the big championship match at Wrestlemania and still has a documentary about his life as if he has reached the pinnacle of his profession already despite being pushed to the side and forced to wrestle Brock Lesnar for the last 3 months.

And this match was made for part II of the doc. I loved the silliness of Brock dumping him out of the ring over and over trying to knock Cody out via count out but like, 5 minutes into the match without really even hurting him bad enough for the audience to think for a second Cody was going to stay down for an entire 10-count.

I’m shocked the announce team isn’t constantly telling the audience “Did you know Cody Rhodes is an underdog??”. And again, I don’t hate it all because it’s working. Kids still weep when Cody hands them his weight-lifting belt.

Cody Rhodes is the lead actor in the TV series “Wrestler” and that’s totally okay.

What a season finale.

SummerSlam Battle Royal

I think battle royals have become my favorite match. It’s always fascinating to see the order of elimination and who they allow to be the final people standing in the ring. It’s the company’s way of letting us know who we should care about going forward.

Bronson Reed, AJ Styles, Sheamus and LA Knight being the Final 4 was instrumental in who we should expect to see wrestling in the next few PPVs. It also says a lot about what WWE feels about Austin Theory who got dumped out of the match before the fucking Miz. Please give that US Title to someone else. It didn’t work. Sorry. Time to take him off TV and try to re-tool and fix what’s broken.

EVERYBODAY SAYIN L. A. KNIGHT. YEAAAAAAAA.

Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler (MMA Rules match)

I wish I cared about Ronda Rousey as much as WWE thinks I care about Ronda Rousey. I will never forget them shoving her into the first ever Wrestlemania main evented by women because of her name recognition despite her inability to wrestle anywhere near as well as Becky Lynch or Charlotte Flair.

BUT, this MMA rules match was the best Ronda has looked. Obviously, this style of match is flawed from the beginning. In MMA fights, punches and kicks will knock you out and in professional wrestling, you can punch and kick someone a bajillion times in a match without your opponent being even slightly dazed. So pretending to have a fight is tough.

Good for Ronda considering this may be her final match with the company. Knowing everything I know about her, I was shocked she didn’t give herself one last victory to stroke her satellite-sized ego but nope, she gave her friend the look. Stunning.

Intercontinental Championship — Gunther (c) vs. Drew McIntyre

The biggest moment in Drew McIntyre’s career happened in an empty training facility with fans skyping in like a marketing teleconference in Tallahassee. Last Wrestlemania, he lost a triple threat match against Gunther and Sheamus for the Intercontinental Title. Then he sort of disappeared after a forgettable feud with Karrion Kross and his departure was accompanied by vague reports of a contract dispute as McIntyre said he wasn’t coming back until WWE put his character back on track.

Coming into this match at Summerslam, Gunther had been doing TV stuff with Matt Riddle and more importantly, Chad Gable—setting up a future title match with Gable thus making this McIntyre match an afterthought knowing Chad Gable was getting his shot next.

I don’t know what Drew McIntyre wants but I imagine he didn’t come back to be fed to Gunther for the second time.

As far as Gunther goes, another classic performance from the best worker in the company. Part of me wants him to be the longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion ever and a larger part of me wants him to come a day short so the Honky Tonk Man keeps the record. I’m rooting for the dumbest possible outcome.

World Heavyweight Championship — Seth Rollins (c) vs. Finn Balor

So many things could’ve happened in this match but at the end of the day, I think I have to applaud the WWE for showing some restraint and not doing the very obvious Damian Priest Money in the Bank contract cash-in. Every Monday, they have been spoon-feeding the audience that Priest was going to run in and take the title away from Finn Balor moments after he won but they didn’t pull the trigger. Yet.

The bad news is we’ll probably never see Finn Balor win the title again. This was his best shot in a grudge match against the guy who originally forced Balor to lose the Universal title with that reckless powerbomb Seth Rollins does. The same one that ended Sting’s career. Stop doing that shit.

Here’s some more bad news, I don’t think this Seth Rollins/Judgement Day feud is over yet. Damian Priest is not cashing in on Roman Reigns which means he is going to be orbiting Seth Rollins for the remainder of the year.

Shout out to the 3-4 people left who still want to keep seeing them wrestle various tag matches every Monday until Wrestlemania 40. Y’all won.

WWE Women’s Championship — Asuka (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair

Recently, AEW’s women’s division has been under a microscope. The women rarely get to wrestle longer than 3 minutes and there don’t seem to be any storylines outside of the Outcasts running in and spraypainting shit. None of the women have fleshed-out characters. Jade Cargill won every single match she was in and the moment she lost, she vanished from TV because her entire character was summed up by “undefeated”.

Meanwhile, Asuka, Bianca and Charlotte just had a match-of-the-year contender. I have talked a lot of shit about Charlotte Flair in my life and I promise there will be more shit-talking in the future but she was incredible in this triple-threat match and made everyone look like megastars.

Bianca Belair was a boring champion and needed to lose the belt in order to pull off the amazing underdog story they told in this match with her injuring her knee and fighting to stay in the match and eventually get the title back. I am officially a Bianca fan now.

But it’s Iyo Sky’s time now. I’ve really only seen clips of her looking dope in Japan so I’m excited to see what she looks like against Asuka, Bianca and Charlotte in the next few months before her inevitable very boring match against Bayley when Damage Control implodes.

WWE Undisputed Universal Championship — Roman Reigns (c) vs. Jey Uso (Tribal Combat match)

Lol.

What can I say about a Roman Reigns title match anymore, man? They explained the Tribal Combat rules clearly which stated there was no outside interference yet Solo and Jimmy beating the life out of Jey was just totally fine and legal.

I will say good on Roman for taking that table bump. When tables started coming out, I was 1000% certain Jey Uso was going through every single one but nope, Roman did a nice thing for his cousins being beating him and going on vacation again.

As far as this Bloodline storyline goes, uh, let’s wrap this up. Jimmy turning on Jey was the ultimate “we are out of ideas” move. It’s almost as if Sami and Kevin taking the tag team titles and Cody beating Roman at Wrestlemania was the perfect ending and all of the nonsense they’re doing now could’ve still happened without the undisputed title being involved but nope, WWE has to make this bloodline shit run into the next Wrestlemania no matter how stale and dumb it gets.

Trish Stratus and Becky Lynch didn’t have a match because we had to stay up to 1am watching Roman slowly walk around the ring for an hour in a match he was never going to lose. Ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Written by thelesterlee

Creator of Deadseriousness. Diehard Knicks, Yankees and Giants fan who wants to create a sports and pop culture space that isn't the same copy and pasted AI content you see everywhere else.

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