WWE SummerSlam, Paradise, NV
This is a very personal rivalry that doesn’t seem all that personal, but I’m not really a fan of spotlight one-man show promos and Edge’s acting is brutal in that “took some budget acting classes and came back to wrestling thinking he’s a great thespian” way that we’ve seen before. Like when The Rock came back and got clotheslined by CM Punk and sold it like he was doing a gutshot death scene in a WWII epic. I’ve seen your ~Films~, E-Dog, maybe just sing along to a kazoo again.
Brood callback for this feud is pretty wild, someone (I assume probably just Edge) knew very well that a HUUUUGE part of their remaining fan base are endlessly fascinated not just by the mega stars of the past, but by weird shit that lifer fans remember fondly, it’s a good call. That said it is bothering me that Edge was not The Man in the Brood, that was Gangrel, which is why the Brood didn’t exist very long because Edge and Christian outgrew it pretty fast and the New Brood didn’t last because the Hardys were also clearly above that level.
Anyway, Edge doesn’t fully commit to the bit here anyway, coming out with the Brood entrance before stopping so he can do his normal Christian metal entrance.
Rollins’ target is Edge’s neck, which it would be even if this weren’t PERSONAL!! Which I guess it is. They said it is so it must be. They don’t take long to get to Rollins really doing work on the neck, but we have also already been told that nothing will really hurt Edge’s neck in a way that is concerning other than Rollins’ curbstomp maneuver, so he might as well be grabbing wristlocks. This is not the fault of the wrestlers, what they’re doing in the match; they’re doing what makes sense. It’s about the presentation being so focused on the curbstomp.
This is very good, and the crowd are very much into it. There’s a neat spot where Edge goes for the spear and Rollins counters it mid-air with a pedigree, which looks as good as that could realistically look (obviously the arms don’t get hooked like a normal pedigree), and then McAfee sets about on a great mission to immediately overstate how good it was so you start thinking maybe it wasn’t even as good as it was.
Rollins does run into the spear moments later but it only gets two, and I am not kidding Michael Cole, despite him assuming I must be. Edge gets into the crossface, and Rollins pries his way out, but Edge just starts SLAMMING that motherfucker’s skull into the canvas. Hell yeah. Then he grabs a bully choke that we’ll call “the sleeper” and that gets him the win.
This is one you can get caught up just watching, and that’s a testament to Rollins and Edge, because I was not really into the storyline or whatever, I thought the video package was mad dorky, and the commentary often wasn’t helping what they were doing. But they were so good that it came together as something really special anyway. Edge surely can’t go weekly as a true full-timer anymore, and shouldn’t for any number of very good reasons, but as someone who was not an “Edge Head” when he was in his peak years, I think he’s just absolutely destroying what he’s doing this year especially. The Mania three-way with Roman and Bryan was a monster, and this was great, too. I loved it, their styles gelled and their personalities gelled like you’d expect them to on paper, but often doesn’t quite work out in wrestling, and that’s over the years anywhere, not just a WWE thing.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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