SummerSlam is the second biggest show on the WWE’s calendar every year. Fittingly, given the WWE’s recent fascination with celebrities on Monday Night Raw, the 22nd edition of SummerSlam was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. So how was the biggest show of the summer? Find out after the jump.

The show opened on a bad note. A SummerSlam teaser started playing but was quickly interrupted by D-Generation X making shadow puppets in front of the film. In keeping with the DX tradition of “edgy” humour, they stopped the teaser on their opponents for the night, Legacy, and drew graphics claiming Legacy’s Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase were gay. Remember when DX was still cool? I think it was 10 years ago. We’re just off to a flying start.

Intercontinental Title Match – Rey Mysterio defeats Dolph Ziggler
Mysterio came to the ring first wearing Lakers’ purple and yellow. Of interest, the SummerSlam set looks decidedly similar to the Raw set with a couple more lighting rigs and a second big screen. Mysterio was the clear crowd favourite but there was some scattered Ziggler chants that made for an unexpected duelling chant. Ziggler got the majority of the offense in. It wasn’t spectacular but it looked effective. There was a couple of times where it looked like the two weren’t on the same page but it’s not something that most people would notice. You’d have to think about it for a minute to realize that wasn’t entirely smooth. Anyway, the story that was built was that Ziggler got the upper hand early and kept getting closer and closer to getting the win every time he made a pin attempt. Mysterio won with a hurricanrana from the top turnbuckle for the pin. Not a championship-calibre finish but overall a good way to start the show.
Rating: 6.5/10

MVP defeats Jack Swagger
They portrayed this one as battle of cultures between the spoiled white boy (Swagger) and the reformed convict (MVP). Sadly, the pre-match interview was more memorable than the match itself. I half-expected this match to be broken up by a commercial break. It just didn’t play out like it was on the second biggest show of the year.
Rating: 5/10

Unified Tag Team Title Match – Chris Jericho and The Big Show defeats Cryme Time
Jericho and Show cut a promo before the match which the crowd ate up despite running them down in typical heel fashion. The crowd was into Cryme Time too despite them being from Brooklyn. It was a well-paced tag match that saw the heels in control for the vast majority of the match. Shad played the face in peril for the better part of the match. It was definitely better laid out than your standard TV tag match. The finish was a little odd. Shad clotheslines Show out of the ring but stayed down for the rest of the match. JTG got to the ropes to break the Walls of Jericho but when the ref pulled Y2J off, Show gave JTG the one-punch KO. Where was Shad? Seeds of another breakup/heel turn?
Rating: 6.5/10

Kane defeats The Great Khali
This match was destined to be trouble. You have a big guy who can work better than most people give him credit for and you have a guy who gives El Gigante a run for his money. Anyway, in one of those things that can only happen in the WWE, Khali’s brother is his manager/interpreter and is about 2 feet shorter and at least 250 pounds lighter than Khali. Anyway, Kane sold Khali’s offense like he was being beaten half to death and Khali couldn’t sell anything. The best spot in the match was when Khali missed a leg drop (intentionally but it still looked bad) and a sign popped up in the crowd that said “You can’t wrestle.” Says it all, really. Gets marks for Kane giving a shit and using the DDT to earn the win.
Rating: 2/10

D-Generation X (Triple H & Shawn Michaels) defeats Legacy (Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes)
DX has a massively produced entrance. It had two Jeeps of actors in Army fatigues shooting guns, pyro going mad and DX coming out on a tank. DX cut a short promo that included the old Michael Buffer knock-off of “Let’s get ready to suck it.” The match itself was pretty good. It seemed drastically different depending on which DX member was in the ring. Michaels was in the middle of a wrestling match while H was playing Superman who can only be stopped by dirty tactics. Still, Legacy was made to look reasonably good and wasn’t completely buried. They probably should have gone over but it wasn’t a bad result none the less.
Rating: 7/10

ECW Title Match – Christian defeats William Regal
Oh my god! Tony Chimel sighting! Anyway, the match started while Regal was in his entrance robe. As he took it off, Christian hit the Killswitch and retained the title in the neighbourhood of 9 seconds. S.D. Jones lasted as long and he was a jobber. After the bell, Regal’s entourage woke up and proceeded to lead the beat down on Christian. At least they attempted a match with Khali/Kane. This was nothing. I don’t think that you can actually get a rating from a match that rivals Bundy/Jones at WrestleMania 1.
Rating: N/A

WWE Title Match – Randy Orton defeats John Cena
Jaw drop moment: Lilian Garcia sighting! Far too classy and good looking a lady to be called a “diva” like the rest of the WWE’s ladies. Also, Cena is the first challenger to make his entrance first. The crowd was split for this one with kids and women pulling for Cena and everyone else cheering for Orton. Jerry Lawler explained the Orton fans as folks whose respect for Orton grew into admiration. They admired him so much that the crowd did the alternating boo-yay cheer when trading punches with Cena getting booed. After coming out on the losing end of that exchange, Orton shoved the ref and got DQ’ed. Then, poor Lilian botched her announcement saying Orton was the winner and new champion. Then, she got a telepathic communication from Vince McMahon to restart the match and if he got disqualified again, he would lose the title. A couple minutes later, Orton walked out and got counted out. This time, Lilian got the winner right but confused the restart order so now the telepathic communication was amended to include count outs. Very quickly, Orton countered out of an Attitude Adjustment with a rollup with his feet on the ropes. And then, a second referee sprinted into the ring and told the match ref that Orton had his feet on the ropes so the match was restarted a third time. Within seconds of the restart, Cena locked in the STF but a “fan” ran in and took down the ref. Cena let go of the hold as everyone tried to sell the run-in as legit. Finally, Orton hit the RKO and that was it. It was a good match right until they went with the (as Lawler put it) mass confusion. The finish was overbooked. One restart would have made this match a solid 7. Instead, they screwed it up completely and instead of making Cena look like he was screwed, he looked like a dope.
Rating: 5.5/10

World Heavyweight Title Ladder Match – CM Punk defeats Jeff Hardy
Another clash of lifestyles in this match. You have the clean living, “straight-edge superstar” CM Punk against the drug abusing (though clean now) Jeff Hardy. Earlier in the night, Punk cut a great promo about how people cared more about Kate Gosselin than their own kids, everyone in LA is fake, and saying that kids idolize people like Hardy who live a reckless and reprehensible lifestyle. Anyway, Hardy is wrestling this match in full black and white face paint that isn’t so much Sting (who some kids in the front row had paper masks of) as Ralph Wiggum in the Lord of the Flies episode. The crowd was behind Hardy though they could have been Dudley fans because it didn’t take long for them to chant for tables. They didn’t get much wood but they were treated to a crazy spot when Hardy hit a Swanton off the top of a near 20-foot ladder through the ECW announce table on Punk. Then they did the injury angle with Hardy about to be carted off by paramedics bought fought them off. The finish came right after when they fought back and forth on the ladder until Punk knocked off Hardy and grabbed the title to win the match. This was easily the best match on the card. It was also probably the most believable because it was a very physical, brutal match with only sparsely used high spots. It was a good wrestling match for something that Jeff Hardy was in.
Rating: 8.5/10

And that’s it right? Um… No. As Punk was posing over Hardy, a gong played and the lights went out. When the lights come on, who is he standing over but The Undertaker. Taker grabs Punk by the throat and delivers a chokeslam to end the show.

The show was really helped by a strong ending match. However, the rest of the card was either bad or average. There would have been some good matches if they gave Christian/Regal more time and Khali/Kane and Cena/Orton less time. The Punk promo helps out the mark some but there wasn’t much to get excited about. Well, not when you’re spending $40 to watch the show. It gets a passing grade but only just. If Hardy and Punk didn’t work their asses off, this would have been an absolute bomb.
Event Rating: 5.5/10