The Road to SummerSlam: Napping is a Must at Pit Stops
When older adults bring up the amount of “fun” that they had in their twenties, there’s always a mention of an exhausting road trip. They either drove down to a big music festival, or took a visit to a historic park, or maybe just visited family members that live very far. With our generation having the luxury of technology, you always hear, “back in my day we didn’t have IPods and satellite radio, you kids are so lucky,” from adults.
Well … thank god I wasn’t around then.
The first night on the road to WWE SummerSlam was epic.The aftermath of BattleGround gave us the main event, and the initial confrontation between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar was as epic as it can get.
Unfortunately they can’t fight for four hours straight and something needs to fill our appetites. So let’s get to it!
With Brock Lesnar off to kill take on The Undertaker, Seth Rollins needs an opponent for the biggest event of the summer. He’s been dealing with the same foes since his title reign began in Randy Orton, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose so something fresh was hoping to happen in regards to a new challenger. So insert John Cena. The current United States Champion, who since becoming champion at WrestleMania 31 (Ironically the same night Rollins became WWE World Heavyweight Champion,) has been on fire in regards to carrying the strap.Since becoming champ, Cena has introduced his weekly United States Championship open challenge which gave any superstar a title shot at Cena and in his famous words “You want some? Come get some!”. For the better part of the past few months Cena’s open challenge has been the best thing on television. Even when involved with feuds with Rusev and Kevin Owens, the open challenge was never a dull. It led to the Raw debut of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, he even was able to put on an entertaining match with Kane, and who can forget the classic match he put on with Cesaro just a couple of weeks ago.
All of that is what led to this. With Rollins out gloating about still being champion despite never actually defeating Lesnar. Cena walked out to call out the champ’s reign by proclaiming that while Rollins has been lying and weaseling out of every title defense. Cena has been out week in and week out putting on a show and defending his title. Based on what the two have respectively been doing since becoming champions, Cena tells Rollins that his reign as champ has not only brought down the significance of being the WWE World Heavyweight Champ, but has also increased the value of what Cena himself has brought to the U.S Title.
The reaction to Cena coming out is GOLD
So what does Rollins do? Walks away because at the end of the day he IS the WWE World Heavyweight Champion and Cena is simply the United States Champion. The following week Cena came out not to ask Rollins for a title shot, because in Cena’s eyes he did that already and Rollins did was walk away, but instead he asked the authority. Rollins countered by simply telling Cena he had to earn his title shot, the authority agreed and instead gave Cena his match request but it would be his U.S Title on the line and not Rollins World Heavyweight Championship.
The match was good, not great, but the moment that will obviously standout is Rollins breaking Cena’s nose on a flying knee. It was a game changer that in all ways gave this new feud some spark. It provided an AWESOME Rollins t-shirt and gave him an angle to run with. He used Cena missing this past Monday Night Raw to challenge him to a title for title match at SummerSlam KNOWING Cena can’t respond ASAP. He then pulled a move from Cena’s book and did an open challenge for his WWE World Heavyweight Championship that was answered by Neville and delivered an awesome match with Rollins retaining. So while we wait on Cena to respond we can pencil in the co-main event for SummerSlam: Seth Rollins vs John Cena, the future vs the face that runs the place, PATNA.
Speaking of Neville, ever since he’s shown up to WWE he has been billed as the man that gravity forgot. Now that he’s on the main roster he is also billed as the new sensation. With comic featurettes, awesome high flying move set, and a cape draped on him during his entrance, he is essentially WWE’s resident superhero. Depending on who you ask , Neville doesn’t seem to want to embrace his superhero calling. The only person who feels this way is Stardust. Stardust feels Neville needs to embrace who he truly is instead of trying to run from it. Stardust ironically seems to run from the fact that he is Cody Rhodes and that Stardust is simply a gimmick he is portraying. All of this ties into Stardust wanting a hero and if Neville won’t be he can’t think of who it would be… maybe The Green Arrow?
Remember earlier when I mentioned how John Cena’s United States Championship was the best thing on television not only for his matches but for WHOM the matches were against? Well two of those competitors seem to be on a collision course for what might be the match of the night if it happens at SummerSlam: Kevin Owens vs Cesaro. Their feud started during Owens’ feud with John Cena when Cesaro decided to accept Cena’s open challenge and Owens interfered because if anyone was taking Cena’s title it was going to be Owens and no one else. Ever since then their paths have been crossing, whether from matches against one another or backstage interviews, Owens and Cesaro just can’t seem to get along. Last week on Raw the two came face to face to air out their differences, with each claiming to be better than the other. This has all the makings of match of night and it will be the one we all deserve.
Speaking of matches that can steal the show. Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt put on a awesome match at WWE Battleground last july that ended with Wyatt getting the win due to the return of Luke Harper and the reunited Wyatt Family. With the Wyatt family back together to take down Reigns, it’s only right that he recruit his shield brethren Dean Ambrose to even up the score. There was talk that the Wyatts would bring in a new member just for AmbReigns to bring in Sting, but it looks as though that won’t be happening. Personally, I’m glad about that. WE ALL LOVE STING, but this match will be better off without him. BATTLE OF THE FAMILIES!
With that said, we are two weeks away from the biggest party of the summer. As of now the card stands as such:
The Undertaker vs Brock Lesnar
Luke Harper and Bray Wyatt vs Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns
The Miz vs Ryback vs The Big Show for the Intercontinental Championship.
(Aside from terrible building towards this match, I see no need to write about this match. The match is only happening because it didn’t happen last month with Ryback being out injured.)
Tune into RAW tonight for more developments and make sure to come back here as we continue on this road to SummerSlam.
No more naps!
