SummerSlam Results, Raw & Smackdown Thoughts, & More - August 28, 2009

Welcome to the “better late than never” edition of The Wrestling List.

Big news out of WWE this week. Rey Mysterio has been suspended for 30 days for violating the WWE wellness policy. Look for him to probably drop the Intercontinental title next week. I’ve been talking about this for a while but the talk has been if Jeff Hardy would be sticking around with WWE. The answer is no. If you watched Smackdown, you saw him written off of TV. Jeff’s contract is up and that was his last scheduled date. He is gone from WWE as he is wanting time off to do other things.

SummerSlam was this past Sunday night and here are the results. Rey Mysterio defeated Dolph Ziggler to retain the Intercontinental title. MVP defeated Jack Swagger after pinning him with the playmaker. Chris Jericho and Big Show retained the Unified tag team titles by defeating Cryme Tyme. Jericho had the walls of Jericho on when JTG got to the ropes to break it. Show then punched out JTG from the floor allowing Jericho to get the pin. Kane defeated The Great Khali following a DDT to get the pinfall. The DX reunion was next as Shawn Michaels and Triple H took on Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase. DX arrived on a tank that shot out pyro from the cannon. Shawn got the win for DX when he landed a superkick on to Cody for the win. Christian retained the ECW title in a very quick match when he hit the killswitch on William Regal as Regal was still getting his robe off. Regal, Ezekiel, and Kozlov then attacked Christian after the match. John Cena and Randy Orton’s WWE title match was restarted several times due to various incidents. The finish had Cena with the STF on Orton. Just as Orton was about to tap out, a “fan” jumped in the ring stopping the count. The “fan” was dragged out by officials. Orton went to the floor and as Cena approached him, Orton nailed him on the top rope followed by a RKO for the win. The main event was the TLC match for the World title. Nasty match as expected. CM Punk won the match and won the World title. Punk was then standing over Hardy. The bell tolled and the lights went out. When the lights came back on, Undertaker was laying where Punk had been. Undertaker grabbed Punk by the throat and chokeslammed him. Undertaker then stood over Punk. Very cool way to bring back the Undertaker.

Raw opened up on Monday with Vince McMahon announcing that there would be a rematch between John Cena and Randy Orton at Breaking Point due to the controversy at SummerSlam. Breaking Point is an all submission match PPV. It will be an I Quit match and if anyone interferes on Orton’s behalf, Orton will be stripped of the championship. DX then arrived on the scene saying how they didn’t like the new “good guy” Vince McMahon with them pointing out that it is creepy. They then point out what is going on and that it is Vince’s birthday. Here comes the jokes of guessing how old that Vince is which was funny as they started at 84. Triple H would say how old and then Shawn would whisper that he was wrong. That was funny. DX then runs a tribute video which starts nice enough and then they go into Stand Back. Now, you knew that was coming!! Then, it goes into embarrassing Vince moments. What followed was DX bringing out various people including showgirls, Cirque du soleil, Elvis, and then a birthday cake. Raw was in Las Vegas by the way. Opening up out of the cake was a dancing Dick Johnson. Ugh. Please make this stop with him. Vince dumps him out of the ring. DX then sets him up for another thing but then Rhodes and Dibiase attack. Orton watches from the ramp. A match is set up with DX teaming with Vince against Legacy in a no DQ match. Randy Orton spoke later and revealed that the “fan” that helped him at SummerSlam was Brett Dibiase, which is the brother of Ted Dibiase Jr. The main event took place and DX was set to win. Orton went for the punt on Vince but Shawn tackled him to stop it. Orton bailed out and went up the aisle. Cena’s music hit and he threw Orton back to DX. Shawn hit the superkick and then Cena hit the adjustment. Vince then made the pin on Orton. In other action on Raw. Big Show and Jericho arrived on the scene and Show called out the Raw “guest host” for the night, Floyd Mayweather. Show said that they had some unfinished business. Mayweather and his crew arrived with Mayweather standing up to Show. Mayweather said that he would take him out again but that he wasn’t going to due to him having an upcoming boxing fight. Jericho stepped in and ripped on Mayweather as well. MVP arrived and stood up for Mayweather and challenged them to a match if he could find a partner. He asked Mayweather if him and a partner could beat them tonight on whether they could get a title shot at Breaking Point. Mayweather agreed. Mark Henry arrives and is MVP’s partner. Mayweather stayed at ringside to watch the match. Henry knocked Show from the ring. Mayweather gave MVP some of his jewelry and MVP used it to knock out Jericho for the win. MVP and Henry will get a tag team title shot at Breaking Point. The team of Beth Phoenix, Rosa Mendes, and Alicia Fox won the Mayweather melee match against Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim. Alicia posted Mickie and then Alicia scored a scissor kick for the win on Mickie. Umm, ok??? The Miz defeated Santino Marella with Miz still targeting the U.S. title. Another Chavo/Hornswoggle match. This time it was a boxing match. Chavo ended up bodyslamming Hornswoggle for the DQ. Evan Bourne then ran out and attacked Chavo to make the save. He then hit the Air Bourne on Chavo.

Other notes from Raw. I am yet to understand the logic of booking a finish of having Vince McMahon pinning the WWE champion Randy Orton. Ok, you have to love live TV. Shawn and Triple H screaming over the noise in the background with their backstage promo was hilarious. You have to know that somebody got chewed out for that happening. I really got a laugh out of DX making fun of Vince’s age and then the crowd started chanting the number as well. You just know that WWE loves using that Stand Back footage from the 1987 Slammy Awards. I did laugh at Triple H firing up Vince and then Carlito getting knocked out. Ok, the fake laughing at the commentary table has to stop. I really like the new Jericho theme music. It just needed some updating for a while now. I still laugh at Jericho’s lines where he follows Big Show’s tough comment such as him saying “yeah, and I’m not leaving either”. LOL. Why is Alicia Fox getting a clean win on the Divas champion, Mickie James??!! Are they getting ready to push her for some reason? Just a bizarre finish to that match.

Smackdown opened with CM Punk bragging on his win on Hardy at SummerSlam. Jeff eventually walked out and did some talking back at Punk saying that he would beat him for the title in tonight’s steel cage match. Punk offered to up the stakes challenging Hardy to make the loser leave WWE. Hardy accepted and the match was on when Theodore Long arrived to make it official. Later, Matt Hardy was shown backstage talking to Jeff saying that he respected Jeff for being a gambler but respected him bottom line overall. The cage match took place. Jeff was attacked from behind by Punk as he walked to the ring. The match was a really good one. The finish had Jeff and Punk battling on top of the cage. Punk nailed Hardy into the cage and then Hardy crashed on to the ropes in the ring. Punk then drops to the floor and retains the title. Hardy’s loss means he is gone from WWE and that was how WWE wrote him off of TV. Hardy got a big ovation and “thank you Jeff” chants. He got on the mic apologizing if he let any of his fans down. He added that this isn’t goodbye forever but goodbye for now saying that if the time is right, you’ll see him again. Jeff pointed out that there is still a Hardy on the show mentioning Matt and then gave a last salute to the fans. Lots of people crying in the crowd. Jeff walked out and gave one last wave on the ramp. Punk then ran back out and nailed Jeff in the head with the belt from behind. Punk then stood over Hardy on the stage. Long also said earlier in the night that the winner would defend against The Undertaker at Breaking Point so that will now be Punk. In other action, Matt Hardy and John Morrison defeated The Hart Dynasty when Morrison pinned Smith with the starship pain. Rey Mysterio and Kane fought to a DQ when Kane was DQ’d for ramming Rey into the post repeatedly despite the ref’s warnings. Khali then arrived and dumped Kane out of the ring. Singh hit Kane with a kendo stick and then Khali continued the attack. Jericho took on Shad with JTG and Big Show at ringside. Show got involved and then Cryme Tyme both fought off Show on the floor. Long then walked out making it a tag team match. The finish had Shad taking a knockout punch from Show leading to the pin for Show and Jericho. Michelle McCool was on crutches saying that Melina’s attack last week left her unable to compete tonight. Her replacement against Melina was Layla. Melina won the match and then went outside and shoved Michelle over a ringside chair. Melina was shown backstage talking to Maria who said that she had seen Ziggler with another woman after SummerSlam. Maria said that Melina was jealous that she had a boyfriend but Maria did question Ziggler on it. He claimed that it was his sister. Drew McIntyre was set to take on R Truth but attacked Truth upon entering the ring. He put a beating on him and the match never happened.

DirecTV was having some feed problems during SummerSlam. It appeared to be a system wide problem.

The WWE WrestleMania special airs on NBC tomorrow night at 8pm central time. It will be a highlight type produced special showing WrestleMania matches set to music at times. I watched the one from last year and it was excellently produced. If you haven’t seen Shawn and Undertaker from WrestleMania, you really need to watch this special. I don’t use this comment lightly ever but that match was one of the best matches that I’ve ever seen in my life. Can’t wait to see what they do with it highlight wise.

Other major news from the wrestling world is that Brian Danielson is leaving Ring Of Honor and has signed with WWE. WOW!! That is huge news. It will be interesting to see what WWE does with Danielson. Danielson is an incredible in ring worker for sure. ROH is planning a farewell for him.

TNA has signed a new three year deal with Spike TV. The deal also includes a new original series of one hour specials.

The Rise and Fall of WCW DVD has been released. There has been a lot of talk about it so far. I have picked it up and plan on doing a recap on it. I will be VERY interested to see what kind of spin this documentary has on it. Hopefully, it has a more realistic spin than the Monday Night Wars DVD.

That is it for this Friday night edition of the List. Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!