4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SummerSlam Night 1 (Review & Results)

3. Card Placement Matters

No matter what Paul “Triple H” Levesque says in his post-show comments, where a match is placed on the card matters. Being the main event means something.

It’s why Triple H himself made a big deal out of Bayley and Sasha Banks closing out NXT Takeover: Respect back in 2015. It’s why Triple H was roundly mocked for being in the main events of WrestleManias 18 and 25 when his matches very clearly should not have closed those shows, and the matches suffered as a result. It’s part of why CM Punk made such a ruckus in 2014 and walked out of WWE. It’s why Triple H made a big deal out of Punk closing out WrestleMania 42 just a few months ago.

Of course, Levesque is now out there balking at fans who deign to question card placement. My guy, you opened that door repeatedly through the years.

And closing SummerSlam night one with Oba Femi versus Brock Lesnar was not the right call. It relegated Punk versus Cody Rhodes, which should have main-evented the entire PLE, to semi-main on the first night. That in turn diminished the “big fight feel” of the match a bit and set off klaxons that this wasn’t going to be a clean, decisive finish. And sure enough, there were shenanigans.

Punk/Rhodes was the biggest big fight WWE had in its arsenal, and they pulled the trigger for SummerSlam, only to then shunt it down the card in favor of a Shield lore match that is going to underwhelm, and an Oba/Brock match that was a massive disappointment.