The final sell for SummerSlam‘s most heavily hyped match, as judged by total live and video package TV time anyway, had its moments. After watching him get slapped by Stephanie McMahon about 850,000 times to epic music in recap videos over the last few weeks, Paul Heyman treated us to a typically eloquent, dastardly promo. Plus, Shawn Michaels was more interesting in getting his ass kicked than he has in weeks of grinning “special appearances” including that completely incompre-friggin-hensible conversation with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper on RAW. Heyman’s cry of “OH MY GOD YOU BROKE HIS ARM” will probably last as an all-time classic over-the-top wrestling call.
But the final sell to Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar was more miss than hit. Length was the first problem here – yet another contract signing segment slotted for well over thirty minutes is pretty inexcusable no matter how long WWE thinks crowds are willing to wait for Hunter to show up. The buildup we had to deal with for the conclusion that was heavily hinted at–that is, HBK getting a Lesnar-sized beatdown–highlighted the further problem of how lame the final execution of that beatdown turned out. The cheap busted camera trick was pure hackitude and Triple H acting as hostage negotiator felt like more filler. And Triple H, who recovered from his own broken arm in about a week earlier this summer by standing near Justin Bieber at boxing bout, has largely wrecked the bad-ass mystique of the Kimura as a pro wrestling move at this point.
Regardless, look for WWE to finally try and make good on their considerable investment in Lesnar by giving him an explosive, convincing win over Triple H with possible further arm breakage. For him to do any less and keep showing up with his asskicking claims so badly de-legitimized would make zero sense. And c’mon, WWE would never do something that was completely illogical, would they?!?
That being said, stay tuned for more coverage of tomorrow’s SummerSlam in my second preview piece and be sure to come back for our live coverage of tomorrow’s PPV festivities!
Check out Lesnar’s attack on Michaels below. Fortunately, this video’s only a couple of minutes:
PHOTO CREDIT – WWE
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