10 Fascinating WWE SummerSlam 2011 Facts
The promising Summer of Punk rushes into SummerSlam, and into an unsatisfying finish.
The 2011 Money in the Bank will go down as one the greatest WWE pay-per-views of all time. In addition to the thrilling finale, where sneering malcontent CM Punk won the WWE Championship from John Cena in his native Chicago, there were two top-notch ladder matches and a really good Randy Orton/Christian World Heavyweight title bout. When Orton vs. Christian is merely the fourth best match of a pay-per-view, you're watching something special.
SummerSlam 2011 was a worthy sequel, featuring two excellent World title rematches, and an underrated Daniel Bryan/Wade Barrett match. Some will say that Punk's time as a rogue champion ended far too soon, and that the intrigue created by the initial "Pipe Bomb" speech was snuffed out by the time SummerSlam ended. That vaunted "Summer of Punk" certainly wasn't as fresh as it had been the previous month, and many feel there was sabotage afoot.
In that sense, the 2011 SummerSlam is a bit of a polarizing show, in that the wrestling was stellar, but the direction was less-than. When Punk, the hottest singles star in years, is relegated to working with Triple H and Kevin Nash as the calendar flipped to September, you know something's wrong.
Here are ten facts about SummerSlam 2011 you may not have known.
10. It Was The Last PPV Of The Original Brand Extension
On August 29, 2011, two weeks after SummerSlam, nine years of the brand extension were flushed down the commode. Well, it'd been virtually dead for some time, as special three-hour Raws would mysteriously see SmackDown and ECW talents come over and take part without a specified reason. The 2011 conclusion may as well have been the result of an intervention, where Vince, surrounded by concerned loved ones, finally bellows, "Alright, the brand extension's dead! There, I said it."
But even then, it was still a baby step. At first, it was merely SmackDown talents appearing on Raw going forward, due to Raw's ratings tipping below a 3.0. That startled WWE, and with Monday Night Football around the corner come September, the company decided to pre-emptively shake things up on Raw before losing roughly 10 percent of their audience to the NFL, as is an annual occurrence.