All 27 WWE SummerSlam Opening Matches - Ranked

19. London, Kidman & Mysterio Vs. The Dudley Boyz - 2004

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5f76l_wwe-summerslam-2004-dudley-boys-vs_sport

Hey look, another six man! Out of the four six-man tag matches to open the SummerSlam pay-per-view, this is the best one. That isn’t saying too much as it isn’t particularly thrilling, but it certainly hypes the crowd up enough for the forthcoming event, which surely is the main aim of the opening match. Well, I say hypes the crowd up, but one thing that is clear is how little interest they have in anything Billy Kidman does. I was a big Kidman fan back in the day, but every time he enters the ring here the silence is deafening. In his defence, he does provide the only logical set up for a 619 that I remember seeing.

The main reason this match posts at this point is the work of one man, and that man in Paul London. We might be a little fatigued by the high-flying antics of wrestling’s cruiserweights in 2014, but even in 2004 some things this guy was doing on the biggest stage were mindblowing. He pulls out a particularly sweet step-up suicide hilo, his dropsault is still a delight to see even today and the guy made the offence of bigger dudes look gnarly as anything. The Dudleys take the W after a 3D on Billy Kidman. 

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.