It’s time for the go-home show to SummerSlam and SmackDown live has a loaded show. With John Cena vs Jinder Mahal being the cherry on top of this sundae of awesomeness who knows what will happen on the way to The Biggest Party Of The Summer?
Opening Segment
The Singh Brothers are back and they’re in all white. They introduced Jinder Mahal with a lot of gusto. Good to see neither of them died in the Punjabi Prison match. Jinder came out in a full suit which is no attire to wrestle in. Even IRS took his suit off to work.
Jinder held his title right up to the camera and you know 1.3 billion people in India were all cheering loudly. I could hear them from my office.
The ring was decorated in full Indian garb like they were celebrating the greatness of The Modern Day Maharaja. Jinder cut a neat promo about how today marks the Independence Day in India. I’ve checked. It really was Indian Independence Day. Neat!
They had a huge dancing celebration on the entrance ramp and it was just fine. Guys jumped around using mini baby gates as percussion instruments. I know they probably have a real name but that’s what they look like and I write quickly.
Then a very nice lady sang the Indian National Anthem and she got booed out of the building. That was respectful. Jinder Mahal (the Canadian) loved it and mouthed along with the words. Then the party commenced with music while Mahal and the Singh Brothers danced a little in the ring.
Mahal said the negative reaction was what he expected and they could also expect to see him beat John Cena later tonight. He said for years Cena had the WWE on his shoulders but there’s a new face and today the global phenomenon is the Modern Day Maharaja.
He said he’s the reason why the WWE Network has all the subscribers it has and he’s going to beat Cena more than Nakamura ever could. Then he spoke in Punjabi on Indian Independence Day.
I don’t know what he said, but he said something about Nakamura, John Cena, WWE, Maharaja and then… Shinsuke Nakamura’s music hit and I marked TFO.
The crowd sang Nakamura’s famous song and were ready to see what would happen as Shinsuke walked in the ring. Mahal said how dare he disparage his people on their day.
Insert “Nakamura” chants here
“Yeah today in India it is Indian Independence Day,” Nakamura said. “However, today in Japan it is a day we commemorate those who have died in wars and pray for peace. And Sunday in America at SummerSlam it will be the day you lose the WWE Title!” Then Nakamura took a moment and geared up for something as he sang “to meeee.” It was epic.
I don’t know what holiday Nakamura was talking about because the only one I could find closest to today is Mountain Day which is a holiday which provides “opportunities to get familiar with mountains and appreciate blessings from mountains.”
Natalya vs Becky Lynch
They gave very short but heartfelt well wishes to Ric Flair on commentary. He is recovering from his recent colon surgery although they didn’t specify what kind of surgery he had. They briefly touched on how he remains in critical condition and wished him the best.
Naomi came out just to turn the arena into a rave party with her insane entrance. Her glowing hair extensions really put a nice touch to it too. She jumped off the apron instead of getting in the ring and joined the team on commentary.
Nattie and Becky traded headlocks and Becky got a two count of a nice little roll up pin. Nattie jumped out of the ring and stared at Naomi which gave Becky the chance to hit her with a dropkick through the ropes. She sat there and sipped on some imaginary tea for a moment too. Her and Charlotte Flair love their imaginary tea.
Nattie wasted some time on the outside of the ring until Becky got out to stalk Natalya down. Nattie dropped to her knees and asked for a “time out” so Becky went in for the attack but it was all a heel move to allow Nattie a chance to plow her into the barricade. The two traded bumps off the barricade before getting back in the ring.
The Natalya hit a headlock for a bit and drove Becky’s head to the mat when she tried to escape. Nattie locked on another rest hold and kept it on until the show came back from commercial.
Becky fought out of the hold and charged at Nattie firing away with clotheslines. Lynch kept bringing that straight fire with a Becksploder suplex and a flying firearm for a two count.
JBL asks Naomi how she’s prepared for Carmella cashing in her MITB briefcase and Naomi said: “I’m as prepared as I can be.”
Nattie and Becky continued to have a great match in the ring. Becky missed with a top rope leg drop and Natalya slapped on the Sharpshooter. Becky Lynch tapped out because Nattie’s the #1 contender.
After the match, Natalya locked on another Sharpshooter to further torture Becky Lynch because she’s a heel #1 contender. Naomi ran into the ring and Nattie took off.
Suddenly Carmella’s music hit and she came out with her boy toy James Ellsworth. Carmella wished both of them the best luck in their match on Sunday.
“And to whoever wins, you lose!” Ellsworth said while pointing at Carmella’s briefcase as she held it in the air.
Backstage Segment
Tamina was backstage asking Lana why she didn’t have a match tonight. She wanted to be a champion. Lana told her she wasn’t ready. Lana said people look past her and people don’t fear her, yet but if Tamina follows Lana’s lead then she will become the most destructive force with one single purpose to CRUSH.
LANA IS CREATING A FEMALE RUSEV!
Daniel Bryan was backstage and the Usos came up to him. Daniel said he wanted to be the third guy in their rap group. Apparently, he’s got some sick rhymes. They wanted to know which members of the New Day they were going to face at SummerSlam and he told them they’d face Big E and Xavier Woods with Kofi in their corner.
Daniel Bryan did something a dad would totally do and messed up a “cool guy” handshake, then Usos left.
Rusev vs Chad Gable
While Lana appears to be creating a new CRUSHING client with Tamina, Rusev is still on SmackDown Live. He’s set to face Randy Orton if this feud hasn’t gotten enough TV time for you to remember it’s on the SummerSlam card.
Rusev really needs this win, but it would still be great to see Chad Gable go over in this one. Since being left by Jason Jordan to pal around with his Papa Kurt, he’s struggled to find something to do. But whenever he is in the ring it’s always awesome.
Gable started this one out by getting stomped in the corner and roughed up by Rusev all around the ring. He got a boot up as Rusev charged toward him and then Gable German suplexed Rusev across the ring. That was awesome!
Rusev rolled outside and Gable followed to task the ring steps and get tossed around the outside while the referee counted on. Rusev threw Chad Gable over the announce table and the ref counted to 10.
So this was a double-count out. Neat. After the match, Rusev slapped the Accolade on Chad Gable on the announce table.
“Randy” chants broke out but the babyface didn’t run down to stop his heel opponent. Makes you really question some things about wrestling, eh?
Rusev grabbed the mic and walked in the ring. He let the “USA” chants build for a moment and finally said “Randy” — RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!
Randy jumped in the ring, hit Rusev with his signature move and posed for the crowd leaving me still wondering if he was there the whole time why didn’t he save poor Chad Gable?
AJ Styles Apologizes To Shane McMahon
AJ grabbed a mic and looked solemn he looked like he didn’t want to be there either. “AJ Styles” chants broke out and he asked Styles to hold on a second and invited Shane McMahon to the ring.
Money, money, money, money, dollar, dollar, money, money, money, money
Shane came down to the ring.
Providence gave Shane a ton of love and McMahon said there’s no reason for an apology. He said he’s put in the match because they need someone to stand between AJ and KO, take a hit, and keep on going. Well, guess who’s taking a ref bump at SummerSlam?
Styles asked if Shane was going to use the stray Pele Kick to McMahon’s head against him. Shane said on Sunday you must respect his authority, but if he pushes or shoves him “that’s a whole different story.” Shane said if AJ put his hands on him then he was going to put his all over Styles. That is both a great threat and a pick-up line.
Insert Kevin Owens here.
Owens stood on the entrance ramp and cut a promo about how Shane’s kick to Shane’s head wasn’t an accident. He asked AJ what he’s getting so upset about right now. He said the only thing that’s happening is the ref is telling him the rules and KO loved those rules.
AJ can’t keep his title via hitting the referee and causing a DQ. KO said Styles had something against him. Then KO looked at Shane and said if he accidentally hit Shane at SummerSlam then it would be an accident. KO offered McMahon a handshake and Shane said he can’t shake his hand but he said he should shake AJ’s hand instead.
So, Kevin Owens offered a handshake to Styles. AJ hesitated and then pointed at McMahon. KO slapped AJ’s hand and it accidentally hit Shane. Then KO and AJ started brawling and AJ almost hit Shane.
Shane and AJ started fighting and KO went to hit AJ with a superkick but hit Shane instead. McMahon was out as “you suck” chants broke out in the crowd. AJ Styles laughed at Kevin and Shane looked up from the mat checking to make sure all of his teeth were still intact.
New Day vs The Usos
New Day was out whether or not people were ready to feel the power of the three-time champs. This match is happening at SummerSlam but Raw did the whole “SummerSlam came early” thing so why not SmackDown Live?
The New Day talked some smack to Usos and said they can “catch these hands” in a whole number of places and made a bunch of popular culture reference while doing so. But in the end, the said they’ll still be the SmackDown Tag Team Champions because “New Day Rocks!”
Kofi and Xavier woods are in this match and they brought it up on commentary how Big E would be in the match on Sunday once again.
New Day hit some fast tandem offense and showed off their speed well. They hit a ton of splashes and top rope moves in a row and then hit both Usos with double baseball slides.
The Usos quickly took advantage on the outside by being just meaner than Kofi and Xavier. Kofi took a nice bump off the ring post.
They rolled Kofi in the ring and continued the offense on Kofi Kingston. They kept Kofi away from his corner with some tagging in and out. The once high flying (and painted) Usos slowed the match down considerably.
Jey hit Kofi with a strong slam and followed it up with another. After some taunting, Kofi reversed into a suplex and made the tag to Woods. Xavier hit Jey with a few moves and a dropkick to the back while he was draped across the ropes.
Jimmy ran in and the two battled for a minute. Xavier got on the apron and hit a kick to the back of Jimmy’s head. Kofi got the blind tag and they took advantage after that for a bit.
Kofi went for a Trouble In Paradise but he was caught and shut down. Woods’ attempt at some high-risk offense was foiled and the Usos hit Kofi with a double superkick for the clean win.
The Usos were sure going into SummerSlam with a big win.
Fashion Files Segment
This was promoted as the final episode of Fashion Peaks and we can only hope they’ll move onto a different parody next because these are amazing segments. Fandango was talking about the probing from last week and said it got deep… mentally. Classic.
Tyler Breeze entered wearing a wig and made a joke about how they didn’t want people to think they’re making this up as they go along. Dango pulled a rock out of his back pocket he said was in outer space. He said he was going to throw this rock and figure out what was going on.
He threw the rock and it hit The Ascension. They were there to bring back Breezango’s pie because it was terrible. Dango started going through the pie and the Ascension went ape because there was gluten in the pie.
Dango pulled out a letter that said “To B” then they said there’s a danger to the entire tag team division.
The screen went blank and said “Breezango will return in 25 years”… then it changed to “Breezango will return in two weeks”… these vignettes were amazing.
Jinder Mahal vs John Cena
This match was touted as one of the biggest main events in SmackDown Live history. Jinder came to the ring flanked by the Singh Brothers and held his championship up high as John Cena made his entrance.
Everyone loves John Cena… unless you’re one of the people chanting “you suck” and means it.
Ding Ding Ding (that was the bell ringing)
“Let’s go Cena/Cena sucks” chants were loud as Jinder offered a test of strength to start the match. John took him up on this challenge and Mahal actually had Super Cena down for a bit but John muscled back up just in time to get kicked in the stomach by Mahal.
They said Mahal has gained sixteen pounds of muscle since his return to WWE. That’s a neat factoid.
Jinder choked John against the ropes and as the ref pulled him off one of the Singh Brothers jumped up and hammered John sending him to the mat. Mahal soon threw John over the top rope to send Cena plummeting to the floor. The Singh Brothers surrounded and taunted Cena while Mahal posed in the ring.
Mahal kept up the assault on Cena until John jumped out of the way during a charge to the corner. After that John hit some of his signature shoulder blocks and a slam. He hit the 5 Knuckle Shuffle and the Singh Brothers pulled Mahal out of the ring.
Cena chased Mahal out of the ring and they ran around. The Singh Brothers held John’s leg when he was getting back in and Jinder kicked him in the head. The ref saw that and kicked the Singh Brothers out of the ringside area.
Mahal was watching his minions leave and not paying attention to Cena. When he turned around he was locked in an STF but got to the ropes. Mahal hit a forearm but got put up into an AA.
Mahal got down on the apron and pulled Cena’s head down. He landed a stiff knee to John’s head and looked like he was gearing up for the Kahallas but Cena blocked him and his an AA. 1-2-KICK OUT!
Jinder Mahal kicked out of the AA…yup. Cena looked impressed and slightly annoyed.
Cena backed Mahal into the corner and propped Mahal up on the top rope. He went for a second rope AA and pulled off the move without a hitch.
Suddenly Baron Corbin slid in the ring and broke up Cena’s pin. Corbin smashed John in the face with the briefcase instead of cashing it in which is what he should have done. Mahal was out. It was over and we could have had a new champion.
Suddenly Baron Corbin saw the opportunity and ran back to the ring to cash in his MITB contract.
IT’S HAPPENING!
Baron Corbin geared up to take out Mahal on India’s Independence Day. The bell rang and Cena jumped on the apron to distract Baron Corbin. Jinder Mahal rolled Baron Corbin up 1-2-3 and Baron Corbin lost his Money In The Bank cash in!
WHAT A WAY TO GO INTO SUMMERSLAM!
Well, that erases the possibility of Baron cashing in…ever.
Baron Corbin was livid and understandably so. John Cena loved it though and it really gave Baron Corbin a reason to destroy John Cena at SummerSlam.
