WWE Summerslam 2017 Review (Part 1)

WWE Summerslam 2017
August 20, 2017
Brooklyn, New York

If Brock Lesnar wants to hold on to his Universal Championship, he must go through the biggest and baddest stars of the Raw roster. A fatal four-way match determines who leaves the biggest event of the summer as the top dog of the WWE. 

Match 1: John Cena vs. Baron Corbin
Baron Corbin's dreams of becoming a WWE Champion slipped away from him after he failed to successfully cash in his Money in the Bank contract after John Cena caused a distraction against him. John Cena doesn't look worried at all about his competition in the ring and even had time to tell JBL how shook Corbin was while putting on JBL's cowboy hat. However, Corbin was able to get in a decent amount of offense in against Cena but let's face it, we all knew what the end result was going to be here. An Attitude Adjustment from Cena ends the match pretty quickly. As of 2020, this was the last time we saw Cena in action during the biggest event of the summer and it's pretty interesting to see how his career was beginning to really slow down at this point.
Winner: John Cena
Rating: **1/4

Match 2: WWE SmackDown Women's Championship - Naomi (c) vs. Natalya
Feel like this match would have been the better option to open up the show. Nonetheless, Naomi puts her title on the line against Natalya. Naomi had some serious steam behind her at this point and was really coming into her own as the brand's champion. Good match here for what it was with the crowd just having trouble sinking their teeth into things. Another reason why I think this would have been better to open the show, crowd would definitely have invested more into this. Regardless, Natalya gets a pretty surprising victory here by submitting Naomi with the Sharpshooter. I liked the ending but the whole match just felt a little too dull for what I was expecting from the two.
Winner: Natalya
Rating: **1/2

Match 3: Shark Cage Match - Big Cass vs. The Big Show
Summerslam has been known to have some bizarre matches... this is one of them. At this point, Enzo Amore was becoming a lost cause and the dead crowd behind his promo before the match proved that. Enzo is being suspended above the ring in a shark cage while The Big Show fights for his honor against Big Cass. As you would expect, a pretty boring match here that probably went on a few minutes longer than it needed to. Enzo tried to add some spice to the match by escaping the shark cage but after quickly getting knocked out by Cass, I question if there was any point to it. Cass hits his Empire Elbow on Show to secure the win.
Winner: Big Cass
Rating: *1/4

Match 4: Randy Orton vs. Rusev
Rusev attacks Randy Orton before the match to get the upper hand on him for the match. Unfortunately, Orton is able to toss Rusev into a turnbuckle before hitting him with an RKO for the win in less than 10 seconds. That was possibly the fastest Summerslam match ever. Guess they just didn't have enough time on the card for these two. 
Winner: Randy Orton
Rating: n/a

Match 5: WWE Raw Women's Championship - Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Sasha Banks
Sasha Banks is looking to score her 4th Women's Championship here against Alexa Bliss. Before the match, Bayley wishes Banks luck which I thought was pretty cool considering their history in the Barclays Center. The whole match was essentially Banks playing defense against Bliss and while there were some cool spots spread out throughout the whole match, much of it felt a bit too slow considering how good these two can be in the ring. Banks is able to lock Bliss in a Bank Statement out of nowhere to submit Bliss for the win. I dug how the submission victory came out of nowhere but it just felt like it was a one-sided affair up until Banks miraculously pulled out the win. Not a fan of the Women's Championship just getting tossed around left and right to everyone.
Winner: Sasha Banks
Rating: **1/4