9 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE SummerSlam 2021

2. Disappointing Match To Set Up Rematch(?)

Goldberg Bobby Lashley
WWE.com

The WWE Championship match between Goldberg and Bobby Lashley seemed to promise a short, simple match. Punch, spear, spear, spear, spear, pin. Champ retains, Hall-of-Famer rides off into the sunset after a hard-hitting match that puts over champion.

But instead, we got a bit of back-and-forth, followed up by an injury angle, with MVP blasting Goldberg with a cane and then Lashley targeting the legend’s knee with chop blocks and ramming it into the post. After a handful of these moves, Goldberg was unable to stand, which prompted the referee to throw the match out.

Yep, a world title match between two brutes who boast the spear as a finisher ended on ref stoppage because Goldberg’s knee buckled. Seriously. And then to really make it worse, Lashley attacked with a chair, then put Goldberg’s 15-year-old son Gage in the Hurt Lock after he attacked the champ.

All of this is seemingly setting up a rematch at Crown Jewel later this fall, which was announced Saturday for October. Great, so now we’re using the second biggest PPV of the year to set up rematches for a Saudi Arabia PPV that historically has been little more than a glorified super house show.

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Contributor

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.