Becky Lynch turned face, Ronda Rousey turned heel, and Brock Lesnar picked up the freaking
ring with a tractor.
This is WWE TakeOver!
I.e.
my review of WWE Summerslam 2022 in about ten minutes.
Before I get into that, though - please subscribe to us here at WrestleTalk and enable notifications
to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
We’ll have another video up later today with all the backstage happenings from last
night’s PREMIUM LIVE EVENT.
The Triple H PREMIUM LIVE EVENT era kicked off in the most Triple H way possible.
Maximise those entrances - with it being a looooong way to the ring.
Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair were first up, in what felt like a poetic addressing of the
wrongs of the last year of McMahon.
At last year’s SummerFest, Lynch returned as a heel, which the crowd never fully bought
into, and she squashed Bianca Belair for the Women’s title in 27 seconds, which the crowd
also didn’t really buy into.
In fact they f****** hated it.
After an excellent back and forth match, my favourite wrestling match on the whole show
- which is different to Brock vs Roman’s rather different style of fight in the main
event - Triple H had adjusted the dynamics perfectly.
Somehow not only giving Belair a great solid victory, not only turning Becky Lynch babyface,
but also putting them together as a team against the returning/debuting new faction of Bayley,
Io Shirai and Dakota Kai.
Screw just making NXT black and gold again.
Let’s do it to the main roster too!
In a fantastic match layout, Becky kept going back to the same moves, but each time Belair
would’ve adapted to them.
So when she went for her second Man Slap, Bianca countered with a 2nd rope Spanish Fly
into the KOD to win.
Despite looking upset, Becky then shook Belair’s hand and embraced her without turning.
That’s when Bayley’s music hit for her triumphant return from injury, wearing trousers
which were more pocket than leg.
It turns out she needed all those compartments for all her new friends: Dakota Kai, who was
released back in April - the first of the ruthless WWE cuts Triple H’s regime has
brought back, suggesting he might try to do the same for others that got away.
And Io Shirai, making her main roster debut.
She was believed to be out the door back to Japan, with her contract expiring imminently
and no creative plans on the books.
Now one of NXT’s best women wrestlers over the last few years is finally on the main
roster in a major story.
She’s also now called Iyo Sky.
In the same way that Uber drivers sometimes just say their name is Dave to make it easier
for me to pronounce.
Why’s it on me to learn how to say your name properly Takeshita?!
To slightly even the odds, Becky stood by Belair’s side for a staredown against Team
BIK, or whatever they’ll be called.
One match in to Triple H’s pay-per-view party, and we kind of already got an NXT invasion.
There’s so much goodwill towards WWE right now because of the change in management, the
crowd even ended up cheering for Logan Paul against the Miz.
It helps that he’s an incredible athlete, not just hitting impressive highspots, but
working admirably stiff, properly laying in his strikes and kicks on King of Soft Style
Miz.
Paul got the win after a picture perfect Frog Splash off the top rope through the announcer’s
deck outside, and AJ Styles also chased Tomasso Ciampa off from ringside, hopefully spinning
off into a mouth watering feud for the two on Raw.
Before we get on with the rest of the episode, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to
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Something strange happened in Bobby Lashley vs Theory.
The match itself was more of a plot device than a fight.
Theory wanted to keep himself fresh for a potential cash-in later on (great idea, Theory,
worked out real well for you), so he tapped to Lashley in under five minutes.
Bobby looked awesome here.
The strange feeling was more poetic than that.
I can’t really believe I’m about to talk about the mythic resonance of a sunset in
a SummerSlam review, but it’s been a weird few weeks, OK.
This was when I realised the sun had set.
The sky was a dark cloudy blue, and the fans had been castover in shadow.
All of a sudden, this didn’t feel like a huge main roster stadium show to me.
It felt like a huge NXT Takeover, complete with grungry lighting.
If there was any doubt going in, it had been dispelled by this point.
The sun really had set on the old era, and a Triple H bearded dawn was here.
With it being no DQ, Judgement Day vs The Mysterios weirdly held off on weapons and
inteference.
Rey and Balor’s interactions were great, but when Rhea Ripley got involved, with the
heels seemingly set to win, Edge made his return from a giant staircase pulsating with
flames.
Sure, it was about a 2 mile walk up the ramp, and Balor could’ve easily got a three count,
but it’s about revenge, or something, right?
Edge helped the Mysterios pick up the babyface win, and still no heel turn for Dominik.
This can spin very nicely into an Edge vs Balor singles feud.
And I’m so happy for Edge that he left over creative disagreements, not wanting to do
any of that supernatural stuff, and he’s returned as a vampire.
While Logan Paul is probably a better professional wrestler, Pat McAfee is the perfect sports
entertainer.
And his match with Happy Corbin was one of the night’s standouts precisely because
of the deeper emotion and clear heel/face dynamics at play.
From the start when McAfee interrupted Corbin’s entrance with a male choir singing Dumbass
Corbin, through the backflips and hurricanranas and the swanton bomb that he somehow hit despite
nearly falling backwards.
That’s not how physics works.
But the real treat here, and it was one of the underlying huge positives of this whole
show, was… and 2010 Oli is screaming at me for even saying this, but the landscape
has changed…
Michael Cole being a really good commentator.
It was summed up by Corey Graves telling Cole: "I liked you better when you weren’t allowed
to have an opinion".
To which Michael replied: "that’s changed, a lot’s changed"
Cole cheering for his friend McAfee was the emotional highlight of this entire event,
mirroring when JR would cheer for Lawler against Taz.
McAfee got the win after some low blow revenge on Corbin.
He is now 3 excellent matches out of three.
He might have the highest batting average in all of wrestling.
Drew McIntyre came out for a really effective promo - talking up how he’s going to face
the winner of the main event at Clash at the Castle, and getting the whole crowd to chant
for a kid called Colt in the front row.
Hey Colt the kid, how you doing?
This wasn’t just a smart bit of long term building.
It was concise and expertly placed in the card to keep the overall pace zipping along.
The Street Profits vs The Usos had a tough act to follow, with their Money in the Bank
clash a contender for WWE match of the year.
And they were never really given the time to match it, going just over half the length
of their previous encounter.
Instead, the drama was built around Montez Ford getting increasingly frustrated.
He could’ve had it won after his Frog Splash, but he took too long recovering before making
the pin.
Dawkins got hit by the 1D for the Usos to retain shortly after.
There was no turn here, but Ford looked totally dejected afterwards, potentially foreshadowing
a split this week.
Before you could fully comprehend Kid Rock snogging a chick at ringside, Riddle suddenly
ran into the ring demanding a fight with Seth Rollins.
Seth walked out, with loads of officials trying to stop him, and Stomped an injured Riddle.
This was actually a really effective angle, crucially making the WWE officials feel like
a coherent babyface presence rather than the inconsistent heel swarm they usually are.
Getting the shortest match of the show, Liv Morgan pinned Ronda Rousey in 4 and a half
minutes!
On paper, that sounds like incredibly strong booking of Morgan.
In reality, it was probably the show’s only misstep.
Ronda dominated Morgan, kayfabe dislocating her shoulder.
She then locked on an arm bar, but Morgan got her shoulders on the mat and won.
It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either.
The strategy appears to be that no-one will remember the match, because Ronda then turned
heel afterwards.
But she never went full force on that either.
She somewhat attacked Liv afterwards, then beat up a referee too, which felt more badass
than bad guy.
This didn’t live up to Ronda’s heel turn potential.
Thankfully, the main event overwhelmed not just its own potential, but probably WWE’s
entire Summer.
Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar started absolutely incredibly from the entrances, because Brock
rode down in a freaking tractor, and ring announced himself from the digger.
He then began the match by leaping of it to rain down punches on Reigns.
They had a wickedly physical match around the ring, but as Checkov once said ‘if a
tractor isn’t going to ram the ring, it should’ve have been driven down there’.
With Reigns in the ring, Lesnar lifted up one corner of the ring with the digger, hoisting
it up in the air, with Roman hilariously tumbling outside.
In terms of actual damage to Reigns, it surely did nothing.
But in pure spectacle, this was an all-time great pro wrestling visual, the freakish lovechild
of the Lesnar vs Big Show ring collapse angle and Stone Cold’s beer truck - and it will
sit alongside both of them in history.
I honestly felt like I was watching me breaking a video game, where I’d somehow managed
to use a bit of SmackDown 3’s environment that wasn’t supposed to work.
It felt like they broke wrestling.
Ultimately, everything conspired against Lesnar.
Theory tried to cash in his briefcase, but it was never sanctioned.
Heyman got put through a table.
The Usos and Reigns literally buried Brock under debris to get the Last Man Standing
win.
This was an all time great piece of sports entertainment, and a far more fitting end
to their feud than the limp WrestleMania conclusion.
What did you think of SummerSlam 2022?
Let me know in the comments.
We didn’t get a single title change, but this still felt like an epic show.
Returns, heel turns, face turns, star turns and a freaking tractor.
This is the best version of sports entertainment.
Maybe it’s just the optimism in the air, but hot damn, for me SummerSlam 2022 is the
best pay-per-view of the year at 95%.
Now check out Luke’s immediate reaction
to the show!