 By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Here on SummerSlam Recall, I will be ranking my top 20 favorite matches in WWE SummerSlam history. A new installment will be posted every day leading up to SummerSlam 2016, culminating with my No. 1 favorite match on Saturday, August 20th. Each article will offer an in-depth look at each match and an analysis of why it is among my favorites. It all comes down to this, folks! Though I feel that anyone who has followed me closely over the past several years would have seen this selection coming from a mile away, and my favorite SummerSlam match of all-time is none other than CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar from 2013's installment. I loved SummerSlam 2008. I loved SummerSlam 2011. Hell, I was even at SummerSlam last year! But I think 2013's event takes the cake as the best SummerSlam in the last ten years, and arguably among the best ever. Punk returned from a two month sabbatical at Payback 2013, and despite seemingly undergoing a change in character and starting to embrace the audience again, he still had his advocate, the vindictive Paul Heyman in his corner that night. That didn't last long, however, as he cut ties with Heyman the next night on Raw, telling him that although he didn't want him by his side during his matches anymore, he would always be a "Paul Heyman Guy." Of course, Heyman didn't take too kindly to that, ordering Brock Lesnar to lay waste to Punk later that night.
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 By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Here on SummerSlam Recall, I will be ranking my top 20 favorite matches in WWE SummerSlam history. A new installment will be posted every day leading up to SummerSlam 2016, culminating with my No. 1 favorite match on Saturday, August 20th. Each article will offer an in-depth look at each match and an analysis of why it is among my favorites. I know, I know, I am most definitely biased toward 2008 given it was when I officially started watching wrestling on the regular, but I still maintain that it is one of the more underrated years in WWE in recent memory. Okay, so business wasn't exactly booming, and fans tend to hate 2008 for it was the year the product adopted a PG rating, but both Raw and SmackDown had plenty of fantastic feuds to offer. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho were killing it on Raw while Edge and The Undertaker were having an awesome program on SmackDown. I don't want to recall the entire rivalry since I already did that earlier this year as part of WrestleMania Recall, but just know that they had history dating back to May 2007. They finally went one-on-one at WrestleMania 24, a match that was won by Undertaker, but their feud was far from over. In fact, the best had yet to come. The Deadman remained then-SmackDown general manager Vickie Guerrero's No. 1 enemy, later leading to him having to relinquish his newly won World Heavyweight Championship in May 2008.  By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Here on SummerSlam Recall, I will be ranking my top 20 favorite matches in WWE SummerSlam history. A new installment will be posted every day leading up to SummerSlam 2016, culminating with my No. 1 favorite match on Saturday, August 20th. Each article will offer an in-depth look at each match and an analysis of why it is among my favorites. Having bought my tickets for SummerSlam 2015 (my premier pay-per-view experience, by the way) months in advance, I was hoping for the biggest blockbuster card possible. As previously noted, I was fairly content with the WrestleMania rematch between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar following their exciting brawl on Raw, but I wasn't so sold with John Cena vs. Seth Rollins when it was initially teased. Rollins had been rolling for months as WWE World Heavyweight Champion, so I had little interest in seeing him rekindle his rivalry with Cena. Granted, their in-ring chemistry was off the charts, but we had already seen them face off in several stipulations by August 2015: Tables, Lumberjack, even inside a Steel Cage. So, how could they possibly top themselves at SummerSlam? Well, by putting both the WWE World Heavyweight and United States Championships on the line in one match for the first time ever, of course. With two titles at stake, the match felt infinitely more important, and that was before Rollins legitimately broke Cena's nose.  By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Here on SummerSlam Recall, I will be ranking my top 20 favorite matches in WWE SummerSlam history. A new installment will be posted every day leading up to SummerSlam 2016, culminating with my No. 1 favorite match on Saturday, August 20th. Each article will offer an in-depth look at each match and an analysis of why it is among my favorites. The year of 2008 may not be anything special to the average WWE fan. I, on the other hand, have very fond memories of that year in WWE, specifically the summer season, because that was when I was just getting into watching wrestling. The road to SummerSlam was a fun one, and with what was being built up, the star-studded show had the potential to be one of the greatest installments ever. Granted, I might be biased, but I firmly believe it deserves to be included in that conversation. One of the biggest bouts being set up for SummerSlam was John Cena vs. Batista. They were the final two combatants in the 2005 Royal Rumble match. They both won their premier world championships at WrestleMania 21. Each of them stole the show with their outstanding outings at WrestleMania 23. Despite all that, in the six years the two were in the same company together, they never once crossed paths in singles competition. But that was about to change at SummerSlam.  By Graham "GSM" Matthews
Here on SummerSlam Recall, I will be ranking my top 20 favorite matches in WWE SummerSlam history. A new installment will be posted every day leading up to SummerSlam 2016, culminating with my No. 1 favorite match on Saturday, August 20th. Each article will offer an in-depth look at each match and an analysis of why it is among my favorites. John Cena vs. CM Punk from Money in the Bank 2011 is my favorite match of all-time. There, I said it! I don't want to go into immense detail as to why that is, simply because I don't want to bore anyone who has heard me talk about it ad nauseam before, but I felt compelled to mention that because it is part of the reason why this match is so high up on the list. I couldn't cite one bad match Cena and Punk had together, though some of their battles have been better than others. That said, I think their match from SummerSlam 2011 doesn't usually get the credit it deserves for being as great as it was. Did it have a superior story to the one they told at Money in the Bank? No. Was it as well-wrestled as their match from the February 25, 2013 edition of Raw? Probably not. Regardless, there was excitement in the air for this anticipated encounter coming off the controversy from the month prior, and fans were anxious to see who would be crowned the undisputed WWE Champion once and for all. |
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