5 Surprising Moments From Summerslam 2018

Well, that was an abrupt ending.

Summerslam 2018 was an interesting show to say the least. The first half of the show, in particular, was pretty great with a few amazing moments throughout the entire night. We had some interesting title changes, a lot of cheating and some “heel turns”. I think a lot of people will focus on the unique ending to Summerslam itself but it was an interesting night overall. I think one of my biggest surprises could be how much I enjoyed Summerslam.

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With all of this in my exhausted wrestling burned out mind, I present my list of the top five most surprising moments of WWE Summerslam 2018:

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#5 So Many Squash Matches

Summerslam is one of the four major pay-per-views. With 13 matches on the card, I expected a seven-hour night. That didn’t happen. Imagine my real shock to see, on one of the biggest nights of the year, we had multiple squash matches on the Raw brand side of the card.

Braun Strowman destroyed Kevin Owens in about three minutes. I expected that meant Strowman was needed later in the night but to see Kevin Owens wiped out in such dramatic fashion was a surprise. What happens to Owens, one of the best heels on the Raw brand, going forward? The deck is pretty empty on the heel side of the red team.

I wasn’t looking forward to another Finn Balor match against Baron Corbin. I was pleasantly surprised to see “Demon Balor” make a return. This threw off Corbin (I guess he hates paint) and he was quickly dispatched as well.

If you throw in the Raw Women’s Championship and Universal Championship, you had four Raw matches lasting a combined 16 minutes. That is crazy on such a major show to see four top heels on Raw get destroyed in such an abrupt fashion.

#4 Samoa Joe’s Line

I am really starting to think Samoa Joe is one of the best talkers in the WWE.

I don’t say the above statement lightly but Joe’s work the last couple of weeks has been great. He did a good job of selling the personal nature of his WWE Championship feud in previous Smackdown shows but stepped it up to another level on Sunday night.

The WWE Championship match was fantastic. It was easily the best match of the year for AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. It was twenty minutes of wonderful action. The best part was the ending, however. Samoa Joe telling the Styles family that he would be the “new daddy” was a real surprise. You could tell by the great crowd reaction to his line.

It made perfect sense that AJ Styles would snap and get a disqualification after Samoa Joe’s comment. Sometimes it just takes one moment to increase the intensity of the feud. Joe did that on Sunday night.

#3 Becky Turns “Heel”

Charlotte is the heel right?

I mean she has to be. Becky Lynch has fairly beaten all the wrestlers in the Smackdown Women’s division. Charlotte returns after injury and gets herself inserted in the Summerslam title match. She pleads ignorance and takes advantage of Becky’s potential victory in Brooklyn to win the Smackdown title for herself. I mean it technically wasn’t cheating but it certainly wasn’t being a good friend either.

So it was a surprise to see Becky Lynch turn heel. I mean I guess she is a bad guy because she attacked her friend in frustration. But the reasons seem totally justified. That is why the crowd cheered for Lynch on Sunday. She deserved a chance with the belt and Charlotte has had a lot of opportunities. Will the surprising reaction possibly change the Smackdown Women’s title booking? I know I would look forward to a real change.

#2 Ronda Wins The Women’s Championship Easily

Poor Alexa Bliss. For some reason she thought it was wise to heckle Ronda Rousey, a legitimate UFC Champion, in recent weeks. In hindsight I guess I should have expected the five foot Raw Women’s Champion wouldn’t stand a chance against a legit fighter. However since this was the co-main event, I didn’t expect Rousey’s journey to the title to be so easy. I mean it only took her four months to win the biggest prize possible for a female wrestler.

It was really weird to see Alexa Bliss wiped out so easily. She is arguably the best talker of the Women’s Division. She had dominated the title for nearly two years and she was destroyed by the newcomer in about five minutes. The question it raises is who looks like a credible threat to Rousey now? It is surprising to see her clear out the division so quickly.

#1 Roman Reigns Wins Quickly and Braun Doesn’t Cash In

What was the point of Braun Strowman being a part of the main event? I am pretty sure Strowman was a part of the Universal Championship match just for a really simple reason: they didn’t want the crowd to boo the main event out of the building. I guess on that level it worked pretty well.

The title match was surprising as well. It was surprising that it really wasn’t much of a match at all. I have seen these two at least wrestle for a while so to see a six-minute match with barely any action was surprising, to say the least.

Brock spent a majority of the brief match beating up Braun Strowman outside the ring. It was your usual “not paying attention to the guy in the ring” maneuver as Roman hit the Spear for the quick win. After 504 days as champion, it was a weird and anti-climatic ending to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title reign. And then Braun didn’t cash in. The WWE sure knows how to leave an audience unhappy in 2018 doesn’t it?

Edited by Shiven Sachdeva