Notable Matches
JBL d. The Undertaker – WWE Championship match
Randy Orton d. Chris Benoit – WWE World Heavyweight title match
Random Thoughts
-I need to stop looking at the case to check out the match listings before I put in a given DVD. I saw Triple H versus Eugene late on the card on this one and just about skipped it. But I decided to gut it out... Did I choose wisely? Or poorly?
-the opening match is a 6-man tag match. All three Dudley's face Rey Mysterio with Kidman and London. Decent match. Again, nothing that lives up to the early SummerSlam's, but certainly watchable.
-Matt Hardy vs Kane fighting over Lita. Meh. The best moment of the match is Lita running away with arms swinging after Kane wins and wins her.
-the John Cena vs Booker T is another meh match. Didn't think it was bad, but it just didn't do much either way for me. Its a pretty quick match, too – about six minutes.
-Batista vs Jericho vs Edge. Holy living hell is Batista every jacked. I'm going to wager a guess that he would not have met with the standards set by the current Wellness Policy back then. Just a thought... A decent match, but that might be bias because I like Edge and Jericho, plus not seeing Batista win is always a bonus.
-Kurt Angle beats Eddie Guerrero in a pretty good match. It doesn't seem quite as good as their WM match, but I don't know if I'm overrating that one a bit. I'd have to go back and watch that one again, too.
-Triple H beats Eugene. This match lasts about 14 minutes and that's 20 minutes too long.
-no wait, I'm not going to leave it at that. The whole Eugene thing is one of the biggest reasons I was barely watching through this era. A friend of mine watched the WWE around this time and I would watch occasionally because of that. As soon as I saw something with Eugene, it would turn me off for weeks. I'm not overtly sensitive or anything, but that whole character just really bugged me. It just sunk to a level that I didn't want to go to. To make it even worse, it made sure that a decent wrestler would never really be usable again for the WWE.
-Diva Dodgeball FTW. There's way too much clothing involved, though. Holy hell did Kristy Hemme have abs. And I forget how long Maria has been around. Same with Michelle McCool – think she looked better back then.
-the semi main event is JBL against The Undertaker for the WWE Championship. This is a pretty good brawl with a weak finish, as The Undertaker gets disqualified. Not a fantastic match but solid enough. The ending just kinda makes it forgettable though. From memory, JBL often used such tactics so I guess it was typical of the reign, but it still felt like it took away from the match. The post-match beatdown is a bit fun.
-the main event it Randy Orton winning the WWE World Heavyweight belt from Chris Benoit. The piece of history makes it interesting alone, but its a good match. One of the better matches that I can recall of Randy Orton's off hand. I'm sure he's had better but none jump to memory.
-overall, it was a fairly forgettable SummerSlam aside from the final match. Its just that nothing stands out.