9 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE SummerSlam 2018

3. Rollins, Ziggler Pick Up Where NXT Left Off

seth rollins drew galloway
WWE.com

After NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV ended, the one question coming into Sunday was whether WWE could follow that act.

The first match on the main SummerSlam card sure as hell tried to do just that, as Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler had a pretty good opening match for the Intercontinental Championship. The two see-sawed back and forth throughout, with Rollins’ athletic prowess on full display. Ziggler dropped Seth with a jumping DDT on the apron and later turned a frogsplash into a pin attempt.

But it was Rollins, who hit an inverted superplex/side slam combo before winning with a superkick/curbstomp duo, who managed to pull out the win, capturing his second IC title.

It was a solid opening match that got fans into the PPV and guaranteed at least one bout rose to the level of TakeOver the night before.

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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.