SummerSlam was in Brooklyn Sunday night, so what better way for a heel act to try to generate some heat than to hate on something local. But rather than making derogatory remarks about the local sports team (a wrestling cliché to be sure), why not mock one of Brooklyns favorite sons, Jay Z? You would think that mocking one of his biggest hits, Empire State of Mind, (which also in turn then mocks New York City itself) would do the trick, but New Day was so good at their schtick that they ended up drawing cheers with their pitch pipes, singing and dancing. Unlike the opening segment with Jon Stewart and Mick Foley, this was genuinely funny. When you mock Jay Z in Brooklyn while cutting up a song about New York City and you still get cheered, you know youre connecting with the audience.
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.
