Posted in: The Eternal Optimist
The Eternal Optimist Presents: Ranking the Summerslam Main Events (#17-#16)
By Dave Fenichel
Jul 19, 2017 - 2:22:54 PM

Hi kids.

I’m back with Part 7 of my newest column series, “Ranking the Summerslam Main Events”. In this edition, I’ll review #17 and #16 on my list. As a reminder, here are the criteria that I used to determine rank.

Did the Buildup Deliver? (Was it main event worthy, were people excited about it);

Did the Match Deliver? (Technical pieces as well as crowd engagement); and

What Was the Historical Impact? (Did the match lead to bigger and better things, both on an individual and storyline level).


Here’s where the countdown currently stands:


#29. Brock Lesnar v Triple H (Summerslam 2012)
#28. The Ultimate Warrior v Rick Rude – Steel Cage Match (Summerslam 1990)
#27. Triple H v Goldberg v HBK v Randy Orton v Chris Jericho v Kevin Nash – Elimination Chamber (Summerslam 2003)
#26. Mankind v Triple H v Steve Austin (Summerslam 1999)
#25. Bret Hart v The Undertaker (Summerslam 1997)
#24. Randy Orton v Chris Benoit (Summerslam 2004)
#23. The Undertaker v The Undertaker (Summerslam 1994)
#22. Brock Lesnar v Randy Orton (Summerslam 2016)
#21. Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior v The Triangle of Terror (Summerslam 1991)
#20. Diesel v King Mabel (Summerslam 1995)
#19. The Mega Powers v The Mega Bucks (Summerslam 1988)
#18. The Rock v Booker T (Summerslam 2001)


Question of the Day #1: How has hindsight changed your opinion on Steve Austin?

Question of the Day #2: If you had to change one aspect of the way the WWE booked CM Punk during his tenure, what would it be?


17. Steve Austin v The Undertaker


Did the Build Up Deliver?

Did it ever! This is easily one of my favorite storylines for any Summerslam main event match. The storytelling on a week by week basis was superb. The feud started at King of the Ring 1998. Steve Austin faced Kane for the world title in a First Blood Match. An added stipulation to the match was that Kane would set himself on fire if he didn’t win. The match ended when Mankind, Kane’s partner in crime at the time, came out to attack Austin. The Undertaker showed up to apparently make the save, but instead drilled Austin in the head with a steel chair. This caused Austin to bleed and lose his title. At the time, it was unclear whether or not The Undertaker had hit Austin on purpose. Unrelated to this storyline, but how the heck did Mankind show up in the main event after everything he went through during the Hell in a Cell match earlier in the night? Incredible!

Anyhow, we got our answer the next night on Raw. Undertaker cut a promo stating that he couldn’t stand by and watch his own flesh and blood set himself on fire. This was interesting on a lot of levels. The Undertaker and Kane had been in a blood feud since the day Kane showed up. This was the first time that The Undertaker had shown any kind of affection towards him. In fact, it was the first time that The Undertaker showed any kind of emotion at all. This was important, as it was the beginning of the Undertaker developing a deeper and more well-rounded character. Without this newfound character depth, his shelf life may have been significantly shorter than it was. I loved the rationale here, and it was the perfect way to kick start the feud.

Austin beat Kane that very night to win back his title. Vince immediately books a #1 contender’s match between The Undertaker, Kane and Mankind. What followed was tremendous. During the match, The Undertaker no-showed and Kane absolutely destroyed Mankind. Alas, it was not Kane. “Kane’ ripped off his mask to reveal himself to be The Undertaker in disguise. Taker won the match and became the number one contender. This was an awesome angle.

As the weeks went on, Vince was convinced that Kane and the Undertaker were conspiring to end Austin’s title reign. Maybe it was wishful thinking, maybe it was not. Either way, I was intrigued and hooked. To prove his point, Vince booked Austin and The Undertaker in a tag team title match against Kane and Mankind in the main event of Fully Loaded. This backfired on him, as Austin and Taker emerged victorious to win the tag championship. I loved this match. It was a great placeholder to continue to build curiosity in whether or not Kane and The Undertaker were a cohesive unit.

Austin and the Undertaker would go on to lose the titles back to Kane and Mankind several weeks later. This led to another amazing angle the following week on Raw. To close the show, Austin showed up in a hearse and challenged The Undertaker to a fight. “The Undertaker” shows up. It was Kane in Undertaker’s gear this time around. Austin beat him down and tossed him into the back of the hearse. He goes to drive away, only to find The Undertaker in the driver’s seat. Undertaker saved Kane and drove off. This showed that they were in fact, on the same page.

This entire storyline was incredibly well written. I was enthralled from beginning to end. It was a perfect use of Kane and the allegiance between him and The Undertaker made it seem like it was going to be impossible for Austin to keep his title. A+ booking and build all the way around.


Did the Match Deliver?

You know, it’s just not as good as I remember it. I remember this being one of the better matches in Summerslam history. Instead, this was a match with its fair share of flaws. I enjoyed the psychology at the beginning of the match. Austin used technical wrestling, something he wasn’t known for post-neck injury. It worked for me because while Austin was a brawler by nature, to brawl would have been to play right into The Undertaker’s hands.

While the match got off to the right start, it fell apart quickly for me. Summerslam was not a good event for Austin and legit injuries. We all know what happened to his neck in his match with Owen Hart the year before. What many don’t realize is that Austin got legit KO’d in this match very early on by an Undertaker head butt. He never really recovered. The Undertaker does a decent job of trying to carry him through, but the injury definitely impacted the match in a negative manner. It ended up being a bit slow and plodding.

In addition, the booking of the match didn’t match the booking of the feud. The biggest and best part of the build was the partnership of The Undertaker and Kane. Throughout the entire lead up, the WWE made you think that The Undertaker might be in cahoots with Kane. It would have made sense for there to be a payoff to that storyline during this match. Instead, when Kane attempts to interfere, The Undertaker waves him off to the back by telling him that this is a one on one, man on man matchup. It’s as if the WWE decided to do a 180 and keep The Undertaker as a face at the last minute. It was a really disappointing conclusion to what had been a great piece of storytelling.

My memory of the entire Austin run was that there were red hot crowds that went nuts for everything that he did. Reality is a bit different. Here, the normally hot New York crowd was pretty dead for most of the match. I reckon that the biggest reason for this was due to the poor quality of the match, but it is worth noting. Austin wasn’t much more than a brawler at this point in his career. As a result, he needed incredibly strong crowd reaction to mask his limitations in the ring. It didn’t happen here.

The ending was a sloppy mess. They were stumbling around the ring like two rookies. The crowd finally got into it just in time for the finish. However, the finish itself really left me with a bad taste in my mouth for a couple of reasons. First, they more or less repeated a spot from earlier in the match where the Undertaker’s top rope walk got countered. Second, Austin hit The Undertaker with a low blow to set up a Stunner. This made no sense to me. As the top face, why would Austin resort to a low blow to claim victory? It was a heel-like move and seemed completely out of character.

Ultimately, this was a match that just didn’t deliver. It wasn’t the worst match of all time, but it’s far from the masterpiece that others would like you to believe that it is.


What was the historical impact?

Nothing to see here. Austin was in the middle of his monstrous reign of box office dominance. It had been going on for a long time prior to this match, and continued on for a long time after. This match had absolutely no bearing on that whatsoever. The Undertaker too, like Austin, was established long before this match took place. His reign at the top of the card continued afterwards. The loss here did nothing for him one way or the other. This match was simply a moment in time.

The Last Word

Austin v The Undertaker at Summerslam 1998 had one of my favorite builds for any Summerslam main event. Unfortunately, a lackluster match and an absence of historical impact don’t allow it to rank as well on the countdown as I would have expected it to.

16. CM Punk v John Cena


Did the Buildup Deliver?

The short answer is “yeah but”. It’s impossible to talk about Summerslam 2011 without first talking about Money in the Bank 2011. The main event for Money in the Bank 2011 was set to be Cena v Punk for Cena’s world title. The match was in Punk’s hometown, but no one really cared. Punk hadn’t been presented as a credible challenger and he was set to leave the company.

That all changed when the “Pipe Bomb” promo happened. CM Punk “shot” on Cena, Triple H and the entire WWE so much so that they eventually cut off his microphone. In one night, CM Punk went from being a really good wrestler that had decent crowd support to being a megastar. Cena v Punk became must see TV. Their match in Chicago was fire, easily one of the best ever. CM Punk won the title and “left” the company.

The next night on Raw, Vince McMahon was left to deal with the fallout of the WWE champion walking out of the company. Triple H fired him and took over as the “boss”. A one night tournament to crown a new champ occurred. Rey Mysterio won only to lose the belt that night against John Cena. It seemed that the WWE had hit the reset button until CM Punk showed up, his title in hand, and announced that he had re-signed with the company. Triple H made a champion v champion match for Summerslam, and that was your main event.

My answer to whether the build delivered is “yeah but” because while there was a lot of fan interest in Cena v Punk, they really coasted on their Money in the Bank storyline. The remaining build focused more on the growing tension between Triple H and Punk than on the rematch against Cena. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn’t have the same spark that Money in the Bank did. You had face Punk v face Cena with face Triple H mixed in as special guest referee. It was a decent storyline that kept the fans invested, but a step down from what they had previously been doing.


Did the Match Deliver?

Once again, I’m going to answer with “yeah but”. In a bubble, this is a solid match. It had an old school feel to it. The action started slow with several rest holds but built up as time went on. The wrestling was solid from a technical standpoint. The crowd was heavily invested. I’m not a fan of special guest referees, but Triple H mostly stayed out of the way and didn’t detract from the match.

On the other hand, while technically good, there was nothing “special” about this match. It was a little on the bland side. I recognize that they had an impossible standard to live up to with how great their match at Money in the Bank was, but I still expected something that I could classify as anything more than “ordinary”. Punk and Cena had great chemistry in the ring together. They put on some amazing matches during 2011 and beyond. This was the weakest of their entire series.

The ending left a lot to be desired. The WWE still wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on CM Punk as “the man”. The finish with Punk pinning Cena while his foot was on the rope was dusty at best. It was intended to feel controversial, but it just came off as a letdown.

Everything post-match was trash. They teased the big confrontation between Punk and Triple H, but it went nowhere. Instead, Kevin Nash showed up out of the blue to attack Punk after Triple H left the ring. Alberto Del Rio came down to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase, and we had a new world champion. This was an example of the WWE not wanting to stray from where they viewed the main event should go. Prior to CM Punk getting red hot, the plan was to run Cena v Del Rio as the Summerslam main event. No one wanted to see Del Rio as champion, so this was a major step in the wrong direction. Furthermore, if they were going to go down this path, there was no reason that Triple H couldn’t have turned heel and been the one to drop Punk. It worked several years later with Daniel Bryan, and it would have worked here. All in all, this was a decent match that suffered from unrealistic expectations and poor booking.


What Was the Historical Impact?

Pretty low. This wasn’t the match that made Punk. That happened the month before. This match was used as a vehicle to get the title off Punk and onto Del Rio. The WWE didn’t even deliver on Punk v Nash after this. Apparently, Nash wasn’t in any condition to wrestle. It would have been a good idea to think about that possibility before inserting him into the main storyline.

There was a lot of interest in Punk v Triple H due to the buildup to Summerslam, but that ended up being an unsatisfying dud of a storyline as well. Instead, we had a questionably booked 3 way feud between Punk, Del Rio and Cena for the next few months. The title flip flopped quite a bit, and it wasn’t until the Survivor Series that Punk was finally given the ball to run with. The aftermath rendered this Summerslam matchup relatively meaningless.


The Last Word.

Punk v Cena from Summerslam 2011 was a tricky match to rate for purposes of this countdown. Both the build and match were solid, but couldn’t hold a candle to what they had done the previous month. They simply peaked too early.

That’s a wrap kids. Sound off below!

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Twitter: @FFFightLeague