10 Quietly Brilliant WWE PPVs
6. WWE SummerSlam 2009
SummerSlam 2009 is remembered for one match - the scintillating TLC main event collision between CM Punk and Jeff Hardy, which refused to indulge the stunt-heavy approach favoured by the latter. It instead integrated the "toys" into an organic battle with a more understated approach, crystallised by Jeff Hardy's sickening spine-first bump on an upright chair. It wasn't self-consciously spectacular - but it was true to the very believable hatred the two men shared, one which bled into real life.
It was an under-appreciated show on the whole. Dolph Ziggler's opening match with Rey Mysterio is sobering, in retrospect, given that he has barely advanced up the card. But that he has barely bettered it doesn't take much away.
Three years earlier, Shawn Michaels and Triple H reunited D-Generation X and took juvenile pleasure in burying five (!) of the company's hottest developmental prospects. Learning the lesson - only Ziggler clawed his way out of the ground subsequently - their match opposite Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, Jr. was a more rewarding and closely-contested affair.
Even the dead weight that was Shad Gaspard entered a credible performance on a night which, while not the Biggest Party Of The Summer, was still a blast.