After seeing all 10 matches, its pretty obvious that while SummerSlam delivered some really good wrestling, it did not quite stand up to the overall quality of what NXT put on the previous night at Takeover: Brooklyn. Its rough to say that WWEs developmental territory had a better weekend than the main roster, but watching both PPVs, its pretty clear that NXT had logical conclusions to storylines and really good matches up and down the card. WWE on the other hand did step up its collective game, but still fell a little short. Look at the co-main events each night: Bayley versus Sasha Banks and Finn Balor versus Kevin Owens for NXT and John Cena versus Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar versus Undertaker. Both sets of matches were extremely good, but there was one noticeable difference: Both WWE main events ended with some shenanigans. Sure, Rollins/Cena only had a ref bump, but still. Lesnar/Taker ended with a series of issues, leaving Takers victory tainted and Brock (through Paul Heyman) claiming victory. The NXT matches, on the other hand, ended strongly and put the champs over. So while SummerSlam was pretty good overall, it just didnt measure up to its sister show from Saturday.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
