Sunday, August 14, 2011

WWE SummerSlam 2011 Matches

WWE SummerSlam 2011 Matches

We are less than two weeks from the “biggest party of the summer” and the WWE still hasn’t released a full or even half of a match card. However, some obvious television angles suggest a WWE SummerSlam 2011 that would be fairly average compared to past events.

It isn’t that hard to figure out who will be wrestling who at SummerSlam, yet the WWE are still keeping it a mystery. With only twelve days to go until the big summer pay per view, the WWE has only released three matches. In all fairness, those three matches are all the major singles championship matches but it is only three matches nonetheless.

With that said, let’s take a look at the three official WWE SummerSlam 2011 matches before we get into some obvious guesswork.

CM Punk vs. John Cena WWE Champion vs. WWE Champion will of course headline the big event. Less than a month after promising to steal the WWE championship forever, CM Punk will return to action against John Cena. Since leaving for a grand total of eight days, Cena wound up with a WWE championship and here we have a title vs. title match.

Talk about blowing your big money match early. I am sure it will be a good match, but it will not be even close to their Money in the Bank 2011 match. For one, Punk’s popularity is not what it was a month ago. Did you hear those overrated chants? Two, they won’t have the benefit of wrestling in either guy’s hometown. Three, take the hometown element out of it, and there were sloppy spots in the match. That match elsewhere could have been a big dud. Four and most importantly, the threat of Punk leaving with the title is non-existent here.

But you do get a champion vs. champion match. It is ridiculous to me that the WWE would even have the gall to promote this as a champion vs. champion match with the way this thing played out, but it is what it is. That is sure to spike some interest among the Cena Nation who couldn’t imagine waking up Monday morning without their hero on top. Either way, the pressure will be enormous coming off of a “Dave Meltzer Five-Star Match” and who knows? Maybe they pull something out even better?

Christian vs. Randy Orton for the WWE world heavyweight championship in a No Disqualification, No Holds Barred Match was made official on the July 29 Friday Night SmackDown show. I know there are a lot of people ragging on the WWE for continually putting this match on, but you won’t hear me complain for a second. This is without a doubt my favorite feud since Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho. Their matches are always great, they have tremendous chemistry, and you know you are getting a show-stealer here. Sign me up for match number five!

Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix for the WWE Divas championship is the only other announced match. I rarely if ever, blog about the WWE Diva title matches but since we only have three confirmed matches, I am kind of limited. I have always liked Beth Phoenix. I think Kelly has gotten much better than people give her credit for, but I am not expecting miracles here. I think it will be the short, fun, one-sided match we probably would have seen if the WWE delivered the Kharma vs. Kelly Kelly match.

That does it for the confirmed matches. Let’s take a look at some fairly obvious unannounced SummerSlam matchups.

R-Truth vs. John Morrison is a given. Poor John Morrison. He left at the top of the cards and hasn’t gotten a win since he returned. As a matter of a fact, he has gotten squashed twice in one week since coming back. I am sure this will be a fun match but it would have been a lot more exciting if Morrison hadn’t been squashed going into the match.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Kofi Kingston seems fairly obvious coming out of the August 1 WWE RAW show. I don’t want to get too much into predictions, so I won’t get into winners and finishes here. But, I think the writing is on the wall for Alberto and this is nothing more than a glorified squash until he gets to the big dance. Unfortunately it is quite a comedown from the planned Del Rio vs. John Cena SummerSlam main-event.

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Alex Riley is likely to challenge Dolph Ziggler for the United States championship. Riley had a lot of promise early on but they really killed him badly when they had him lose to an injured Miz in the WWE championship tournament. Ziggler is Ziggler and is kind of in the same position CM Punk was for a long time. Either way, I’d expect Ziggler have his hands full getting a great match here out of Riley.

The Miz vs. Rey Mysterio seems like another obvious choice. Whatever happened to that reported big Rey Mysterio push reported on F4Wonline.com? The match makes sense coming off of the WWE championship tournament, as well as this past Monday’s RAW. Rey is wrestling in his home town/area here so it should be a pretty heated match.

Finally, Sheamus vs. Mark Henry appears to be in the plans for Los Angeles from the SmackDown side. I am not sold on Sheamus the babyface but it is what it is. I would have preferred to see this feud booked as an angle between two killer heels than Sheamus going babyface. Once again I won’t get too much into predictions, but if this is kept short, it could be a pretty fun match.