To be quite honest, I would have been happy with an Alberto del Rio vs. Ricardo Rodriguez match at SummerSlam. In typical weasel baddie fashion, del Rio took his privilege and tried to abuse it by naming his still-suspended ring announcer as number one contender. Truthfully, Rodriguez would have been an entertaining challenger, even if he was never built up. He has one of the best right hands on the roster. I wish they'd let him wrestle a bit more.
But I think you'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to throw one past Vickie Guerrero. Her character arc for the last year or so has been complex, whether accidental or not. She's shown her traditional, fly-by-night tendencies in the past, but the times she's stood up to heels have been the most interesting. I'm not sure whether WWE has no idea what to do with her, or whether her arc is a huge bone thrown to fans of a more complex story with layered characters.
While Guerrero took on the form of an onion, the three wrestlers she threw out to battle for a shot at del Rio's title had not had their niches exposed in a long time. Christian was still freshly returned from his injuries. Randy Orton is in flux, and his motivations aren't clear. Rob van Dam hasn't had a bit of nuance attached to his character since before ECW got televised on The Nashville Network. Then again, not every character in a story needs to be fully fleshed out for it to be entertaining. They just need to have some worth.
Surprisingly, all three competitors in the main event generated something of a positive nature. van Dam was at his least terrible, and he provided the canvas for what I thought was a more impressive counter than any one of Orton's RKOs out of nowhere. Alex Riley, who was a non-factor on commentary, wondered aloud whether anyone had ever countered Rolling Thunder before, but even if they had, did they do it while plucking van Dam out of the air seamlessly into a powerslam like Orton did?
But the guy I thought for sure was eating the pinfall in the match ended up snagging a backslide on Orton to win the shot for the Big Gold Belt. Christian wasn't the first to get a flash pin - Cody Rhodes bested Jack Swagger with the first successful sunset flip I've seen since 19-dickety-2 - but his was infinitely more satisfying. SummerSlam already had me hooked with Daniel Bryan vs. John Cena and CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar at the top of the show. But Christian vs. del Rio for the Big Gold Belt? On paper, those are as strong a triad to have at the top of the card as possible.
But I think you'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to throw one past Vickie Guerrero. Her character arc for the last year or so has been complex, whether accidental or not. She's shown her traditional, fly-by-night tendencies in the past, but the times she's stood up to heels have been the most interesting. I'm not sure whether WWE has no idea what to do with her, or whether her arc is a huge bone thrown to fans of a more complex story with layered characters.
While Guerrero took on the form of an onion, the three wrestlers she threw out to battle for a shot at del Rio's title had not had their niches exposed in a long time. Christian was still freshly returned from his injuries. Randy Orton is in flux, and his motivations aren't clear. Rob van Dam hasn't had a bit of nuance attached to his character since before ECW got televised on The Nashville Network. Then again, not every character in a story needs to be fully fleshed out for it to be entertaining. They just need to have some worth.
Surprisingly, all three competitors in the main event generated something of a positive nature. van Dam was at his least terrible, and he provided the canvas for what I thought was a more impressive counter than any one of Orton's RKOs out of nowhere. Alex Riley, who was a non-factor on commentary, wondered aloud whether anyone had ever countered Rolling Thunder before, but even if they had, did they do it while plucking van Dam out of the air seamlessly into a powerslam like Orton did?
But the guy I thought for sure was eating the pinfall in the match ended up snagging a backslide on Orton to win the shot for the Big Gold Belt. Christian wasn't the first to get a flash pin - Cody Rhodes bested Jack Swagger with the first successful sunset flip I've seen since 19-dickety-2 - but his was infinitely more satisfying. SummerSlam already had me hooked with Daniel Bryan vs. John Cena and CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar at the top of the show. But Christian vs. del Rio for the Big Gold Belt? On paper, those are as strong a triad to have at the top of the card as possible.