The Case
We begin our fourth and, for now at least, final installment of WWE's
Summerslam: Complete Anthology, with a bang and end it with a whimper.
2003 features the best new gimmick match in many, many years, the Elimination
Chamber. 2007, because of sheer creative banality, was the last Summerslam I
have seen live. If that was what they were giving me, I have better ways to
spend fifty bucks. As I mentioned in Volume 3, the purchase of rival promotion
WCW brought an influx of fresh wrestlers and storylines that were a natural fit
simply because so many of these people had never worked together before and, for
those who had, it may have been years. However, a Capitalist society will always
dictate that competition breeds innovation. With WWE left as the only viable
wrestling organization, they had no reason to change what they were doing. You
go home with who brought you to the dance, right? Well, sometimes, that person
isn't so great and maybe you should think about dumping them and finding some
fresh meat. This isn't to say, however, that there aren't good matches on these
five discs. In fact, some of the best wrestling occurred during this stretch,
but the storylines, Lord help us all. Anyway, on to the matches.
2003
The hallmark of this year's event is the Elimination
Chamber, the best conceived gimmick match since Hell in a Cell. This massive
cage (they claim it contains ten tons of steel, or some kind of wrestling
hogwash) features six wrestlers, four of whom start encased in smaller chambers.
Two wrestlers start wrestling and, every few minutes, another is released until
all six are in the mayhem. The last man to score a pinfall or submission wins
the match. It's a great concept; an update of NWA's old "Wargames—the
Match Beyond" gimmick that works really well. This, the second time they
put on the match, was not the best one they put on, but with wrestlers such as
Goldberg and Kevin Nash, you can't really get your hopes up. We also have a
great championship match between Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar. I loved their feud
and they put on a wrestling clinic, which you'd expect from two amateur
champions. It's not all great; all the storyline business with Eric Bischoff is
terrible. They would have been a lot better off had they left the plot to the
television shows and kept the show to wrestling, but they were (and still are)
under the impression that people actually care about the writing.
2004
This may have been the pinnacle of Summerslam. It's pretty
hard to beat this card, thought here are a couple of missteps along the way.
There was a time when it looked like John Cena would break through and be a
really great wrestler. That time started here, with the first match in a best of
seven series against Booker T. This was a mimic of the series he had with Chris
Benoit many years before; the series that made Booker a star. Now, he was slated
to do the same for Cena. Cena took the ball but, unfortunately, ran with it in
the same direction as The Rock and, now, he's a caricature. The Benoit match
against Randy Orton is a particularly good main event. Sadly, however, this is
the first of two consecutive years featuring Lita in a romantic role, though I'm
not sure which angle was worse. This one was a "'Til Death Do Us Part"
match, between Matt Hardy and Kane, but don't mistake this for a reasonable
gimmick. The loser isn't forced to marry Lita, which would have made sense; the
victor wins the right to marry her. How that's a reward is beyond me.
2005
Now, we start our slide. It's amazing how much is similar
this year to last, not least of which is the Hardy versus Edge match. This year,
Hardy returns to get revenge on Edge, who stole the heart of Lita from him. You
should be thanking him, Hardy, but what do I know? What I do know is Lita was
one of the very worst female performers the promotion ever had in a major role
and to see people trying to be emotional around her is laughable. The ladder
match between Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero is phenomenal action, but it's
saddled with one of the worst stories ever: the winner gets custody of
Mysterio's real life son, Dominick. Indeed, they truly have no shame. The female
wrestlers get treated worse and worse every year, this time featuring a car was
instead of an actual match. With a "Legend vs. Icon" match between
Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels, one of the last matches I've ever wanted to see,
this show is pretty much terrible.
2006
The year in between this year and the last was a sad one;
legend Eddie Guerrero died suddenly three months after his ladder match with
Mysterio. Leave it to Vince McMahon to exploit personal tragedy, though, because
this year's show opens with Rey against Chavo Guerrero, Eddie's nephew, for no
other reason than to talk about Eddie's death. I don't care how good the match
is, there was no excuse for them to do this angle. ECW legend Sabu makes his
only Summerslam appearance in an odd match with the giant Big Show. It's an okay
match, but it's not the best way to showcase the homicidal, suicidal, genocidal
former ECW champ. A worse showcase, however, is the up-and-coming Randy Orton
taking on Hulk Hogan. Really? Another Hulkster match? Does anybody care about
him at all anymore? Worst of all, however, is the rehash of Shawn Michaels and
Triple H as Degeneration X. The only thing more lame than the last days of DX is
the same bit seven years later. These are two legends and this is the best they
could come up with for them. What they apparently believe is that men holding
hot dogs equal ratings. On the plus side, one of the only bright spots of the
show, is the "I Quit" match between Ric Flair and Mick Foley. These
are two wrestlers doing what they do best: beating the living hell out of each
other. This is classic Foley with a compelling, surprisingly unexpected
ending.
2007
Oh, good wrestling, where hast thou gone? It isn't that
they didn't have good wrestlers, but the characters by now have become so
one-dimensional and the matches so predictable that it just stopped being worth
watching. The biggest example of this is the giant Great Khali, one of the
single worst champions the promotion has ever carted out. Immobile and pathetic,
Khali is a disgrace with a surprising shelf life with the company. In Vince's
head, big is better than good any day, so I guess I shouldn't be so disgusted,
but to see his championship match with Batista, a wrestler I really like, is
like being smacked across the face with the title belt they're fighting over:
painful with the ability to knock you out. Triple H returns from injury to take
on Booker T in a very good match and the show has a reprisal of Mysterio versus
Guerrero, so there is some good wrestling here. I'm also happy that John
Morrison has seen success. I used to watch him when he wrestled in Sacramento as
Johnny Onyx and, in that small arena, I had a blast giving him a really hard
time in his Hardy Boys knockoff character. That interaction is what professional
wrestling is all about and it's always good to see a hometown boy make good.
This show isn't all bad, I guess. The problem with this show, however, is that
they decide that Matt Hardy and MVP should not have a match on this show and,
instead, should have a beer drinking contest. Sure, this is a reason to bring
Steve Austin out to give a couple of stunners, but why exactly would I spend
forty dollars to watch to guys drink beer?
On a technical level, again, these five discs look identical to their
original broadcasts. The full frame image look crystal clear, and the surround
sound mix is great, though there are no extras. I just wish the content was
better. For the first time in any of these four sets, I'm sad to say that
there's more bad than good here.
