SummerSlam airs tonight
WWE presents the 31st annual SummerSlam tonight on the WWE Network, and it will be interesting to see what direction the company goes with several of the storylines.
There are 10 matches scheduled on the actual card and three more on the Kickoff Show.
The Universal title match between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns is expected to be the main event, and if so, it will be interesting to see how they finish the match.
Reigns has to win, right? And if he wins, will fans boo him out of the building?
Would WWE actually have Lesnar retain and carry the title into his UFC title match?
How cool would it have been for WWE to save Dean Ambrose’s return for this match?
Had Reigns won and Lesnar attacked him after the match, Ambrose and Rollins could have ran in to save him, leading to a Shield powerbomb through the announce table sending Lesnar back to UFC.
If the Universal title match is earlier than the Money in the Bank contract match between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens, all bets are off in terms of the title match finish.
Then again, after Strowman or Owens wins earlier in the night, could one come out and cash in on the title match winner?
It would send the fans into a frenzy, for sure.
AJ Styles defends the WWE championship against Samoa Joe and I expect the match to challenge the Intercontinental title match between Rollins and Ziggler for match of the night.
Drew McIntyre will be in Ziggler’s corner and Ambrose will second Rollins.
Would WWE have Ambrose turn on Rollins?
Speaking of Styles, he is now the longest reigning WWE champion in Smackdown history.
Ronda Rousey challenges Alexa Bliss for the Raw women’s title and Rousey is expected to win the title, but is it too early?
Carmella will defend the Smackdown women’s title in a triple threat match against Charlotte and Becky Lynch.
Other title matches on the main show include Shinsuke Nakamura defending the United States title against Jeff Hardy and The Bludgeon Brothers defend the Smackdown tag titles against The New Day.
Other matches on the PPV include Finn Balor against Baron Corbin and The Miz against Daniel Bryan.
It makes sense for The Miz to win as I see this feud going for quite a while.
Could that match steal the show?
Anyone else sensing a WrestleMania WWE championship match of The Miz defending against Bryan?
The two-hour Kickoff Show begins at 5 p.m. and three matches are scheduled before SummerSlam officially starts at 7 p.m.
The B-Team defends the Raw tag titles against The Revivial, Cedrick Alexander faces Drew Gulak in a Cruiserweight title match and Rusev teams with Lana to face Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega.
SummerSlam opening online
Speaking of the biggest show of the summer earlier this week WWE released the opening video for tonight’s show.
It stars actor Terry Crews and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_QzDvqZ0kk.
Young delivers on a strong Raw
Renee Young made history Monday night when she was the first female to commentate an entire edition of Raw, and she did a great job.
She admitted in the days after the show that she was nervous, but she was excellent and on point on the air.
The show was hot throughout and the crowd in Greensboro, N.C., was into things from the opening segment when Rousey came to the ring.
Ambrose made his long-awaited return to WWE after being out for a year due to triceps surgery. The place erupted when he came out, and he is much bigger physically than he was when he got hurt.
Also, the crowd reaction to the segment between Paul Heyman, Reigns and Lesnar was deserving as the segment was stellar.
Neidhart passes away
It was announced Monday that Jim “the Anvil” Neidhart passed away at home. Different reports have come out, but he had been battling health issues recently.
A former two-time WWE tag champ as a member of the Hart Foundation with Bret Hart, Neidhart was the father of WWE wrestle Natalya.
Real Mania attendance?
For years, it has been believed that WWE has worked numbers so that attendance at shows was announced higher than it actually was.
I have always wondered this myself, but after WWE announced WrestleMania 32 as having 101,763 fans, I suspected this to be the case.
I was at Mania 32 and considering I have been at almost 100 sporting events that have had 100,000 people in attendance, I did not think the crowd that night was as big as announced.
WWE announced at Mania 34 that the attendance was 78,133, but according to Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the attendance was actually approximately 59,900 with about 500 tickets given away for free.
That put the attendance at around 65,000 and concurs with the belief that WWE pads the attendance a good 10,000 to 13,000 people for Mania each year.
Jericho to Impact?
For years, every time Chris Jericho would take a hiatus from WWE, small rumblings would come out that he may show up with Impact Wrestling.
As of late, the rumor has been picking up steam, so if Jericho shows up on Impact, don’t be completely surprised.
Jericho has always stated that he would never do anything that would jeopardize his relationship with Vince McMahon, so we shall see.
On this date:
In 2001, WWE held SummerSlam with the main event, featuring The Rock defeating Booker T for the WCW championship.
It would be the only time a WCW title would be in the main event of a WWE PPV.
By the time the title was unified with the WWE championship, the name of the title had already been changed from the WCW championship to the world heavyweight championship.