John Cena Vs. Brock Lesnar At Summerslam: Final Preview

Believe it or not, Stephanie McMahon vs. Brie Bella will most likely not be the main event of Summerslam. A feud between two guys that have barely interacted in the last few weeks will headline. The third PPV encounter between John Cena and Brock Lesnar. This one is for the title. They had a title match many years ago, but Cena was not at the level he is at now and you can say even Brock Lesnar is at a better place now. You have a few gimmick matches on the card already. I have said that I felt at least one more match could use some sort of stipulation to it. This title match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar does not need that. The title is on the line, the hype is there, and this match should get people interested without any fancy gimmick.

Let me talk about the build more. The build has been very poor. They are pretty much running on hype. The build between Lesnar and The Undertaker earlier this year was also poor. It was so poor, I didn't think they would dare let The Streak end on a feud like that. We all know how that turned out. I feel the build has been worse for this feud now. Part of it is probably due to the few weeks you had to build it in comparison to around Wrestlemania. It doesn't help that Brock and Cena were only on Raw at the same time once during the development of this feud. And there was no physical altercation between the two. It has been all hype and talk. And the talking on Lesnar's part has come from Paul Heyman. I know the guy is great on the mic, I will not take that away from him, but it seems like some of these promos just drag on and come close to him just rambling to kill time in the segment. If I sometimes get annoyed with Bray Wyatt talking so much and saying nothing in particular, I cannot let Heyman off the hook for doing something similar. Great mic skills, but there comes a time where a feud needs more of something else besides promos that say essentially the same thing. I am not letting Cena off, either. But his promos were what you would usually expect of him. I do not blame any of these performers. The WWE just should have come up with a better way to develop this feud. How much could Heyman really say about a feud with poor development like this one? It's all hype. He did his best, so I don't mean to imply that I am blaming him for anything.

To me, the winner of this one seems obvious. It has to be Lesnar. The whole point of this match is to cause some buzz. What better way to cause buzz than to put it on a guy with all this hype on him? I know Cena has a history of killing those with a lot of hype and momentum, but that is what it means to be the centerpiece. Would they do that in this situation? Develop a beast that beat Taker at Wrestlemania just to put over Cena? I cannot picture what good that would do. Create a situation where Brock destroys Cena for beating him to set up Seth Rollins using the briefcase? I do not think now is the time for Seth. Brock winning the title would create buzz. How long should he hold it? I'll wait to see whether or not he does win it before I talk about that.

Let me talk about the PPV in general. This is Summerslam. This is one of the big four PPVs of the WWE every year. This is the biggest PPV of the summer. Did they really create an awesome card? I just talked about their top match. Great match to have on the card, but the development has been dry. Outside of that, your next top match is Stephanie McMahon vs. Brie Bella. Really? Yeah, it has been developed well and given great focus. Your other top matches are Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose and Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns. These are feuds months in the making. The former was said to be the hottest feud in wrestling by many fans. Both feuds have seemed to lose momentum. And the other matches on the card aren't worth bringing up in this discussion. Yes, that includes Jericho vs. Wyatt. Not a lot of great feuds and matches going on. I understand they lack stars. CM Punk is gone. Daniel Bryan is injured. You have former World Champions floating around. What kind of situation would the WWE have been in if either Cena or Lesnar had gotten injured before Summerslam? The whole show would have collapsed. With initial subscriptions to the WWE Network expiring soon, you would expect the WWE to really try around now to create an exciting product to keep those subscribers, in addition to getting more. Mentioning "$9.99" too much isn't doing it. This has been a horrible road to Summerslam.

One more thing I want to bring. It has nothing to do with Summerslam. Chael Sonnen was recently on Chris Jericho's podcast. He's an MMA guy. I don't follow that stuff. But he said something interesting as it pertains to the WWE. The WWE called to tell him they were not interested in him. That in itself sounds weird. But it gets interesting. The person that called him told him that they would be interested in the event TNA is interested. We don't want you, but we will if someone else wants you. Wonderful.

It made me think back to something I said a few months ago when I talked about GFW. I said the WWE might pull some maneuvers to stop top talent from going there. What happened with Sonnen isn't GFW going after him, but it is the same idea. You have someone the WWE does not want that they do not want some other promotion to have. What kind of things can you do to try to stop the competition from getting great workers or workers that can cause some buzz? This story with Sonnen is a blatant example of what I mean. They are literally saying that they will try to grab him up only if the competition wants him. There is no doubt in my mind that the WWE would try other things to keep talent they don't really want out of the competition. And I think it is horrible.