Brock Lesnar manhandled John Cena for his first WWE title in over 10 years. Photos/WWE
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s only $9.99. Yeah, I haven’t forgotten.
WWE Network has plenty of content; old Monday Night RAW episodes, every WWE Pay-per-view, and a host of WCW and ECW ones. But the real value of the subscription — remember, it’s only $9.99 a month, guys — is getting every month’s PPV included in the deal. The six-month commitment (you do have the new option to subscribe one month at a time for $12.99) is essentially the cost of what one PPV would run you, so if you were ordering more than two per year before, you’re definitely saving a lot of cash.
I haven’t spent an extraordinary amount of time with the archives, but I have been utilizing that benefit every month when the PPVs roll around. Clearly, the company is trying to sell more fans on the product, as well as keep around current subscribers — those who signed up when the WWE Network launched on Feb. 24 have just about a week left on that original commitment.
Sunday night’s SummerSlam was the biggest event to take place on the service next to Wrestlemania XXX, so what are you getting for your money? From the quality of the event to the actual process of viewing the PPV on the WWE Network, I’m happy to share a sampling of the experience.
As with most of of the PPVs since I’ve subscribed, I watched SummerSlam on the Xbox 360 app. One of the benefits the app offers is being able to watch from the beginning of an event even after it’s started, so I clicked in around 10 p.m. ET (the event started at 8 ET). Unfortunately, that feature worked far from as advertised.
First, I wasn’t really taken to the beginning of the event. I actually was placed right in the middle of the PPV, and even though it didn’t spoil the result of the match, it was definitely an inconvenience. When I chose to rewind to the beginning and the counter reached 0:00, it wasn’t the start of the event. Rather, it took me to the main event of SummerSlam 2013 between Daniel Bryan and John Cena. Minor annoyance, only minimized by the reminder of what a great match it was. After the finish, I chose to fast forward to the beginning of the event, but ran into another set of problems, this time of the major variety.
Half of the screen is a blur. Keeps doing this. Well done, @WWENetwork. #SummerSlampic.twitter.com/BTTqJdpOTA
— Bryan Everson (@BryanEversonPRS) August 18, 2014
OK, perhaps half was an exaggeration, but you get the idea. I decided to restart the viewing experience — which required me to find where I was in the middle of the event and scroll to it, also a bother — and the problem cropped up again. Then once again, for a third time, not blurred but instead with the dimensions of the screen completely out of proportion.
The first two matches of the PPV, both of which saw Dolph Ziggler and Paige capture titles, were fairly short, but sweet. WWE’s women’s matches are not always a joy to watch, but Paige and AJ Lee are two of the company’s best female competitors, so it’s no surprise that they delivered. It’s a shame that the problematic experiences with the stream detracted from the enjoyment of the action in the ring.
I got so frustrated with this that I decided to wait for the replay that began airing at 11 p.m. ET, and even then the dimensions got screwed up and forced me to reboot once. Altogether, I imagine that it wasted about an hour of my time. It also meant that I had to avoid going onto social media and duck potential spoilers from friends even longer before I went to bed. These are the kind of problems that I expected in March or April, but not roughly six months into the launch of the service.
It’s hard to complain, though, about how WWE booked the early matches of the event. I finally got back to where I was with Rusev and Jack Swagger’s Flag Match, which was physical and kept the Russian’s winning streak alive. It felt like SummerSlam started 3-for-3 in terms of matches the crowd cared about, even if pinfalls and submissions in a Flag Match was a puzzling way to go about things.
There was plenty of skepticism about the Lumberjack Match stipulation given to Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins for the event, but having the two go rogue and destroy the wrestlers surrounding the ring to take the fight temporarily into the crowd was a fun twist. When the match finally headed back to the ring, chants of “THIS IS AWESOME!” from the crowd ensued.
Some of the older crowd will remember a time in the company — as in, when it was WWF — where the majority of feuds would carry on for months, usually culminating at major PPVs. The company has (and still has) some serious storytelling gaffes, but it feels like the ship has been somewhat righted from the standard of things this time last year. Part of the remedy has been investing in those good feuds — nearly all of SummerSlam’s matches had me interested because of the build-up. The screwy ending to Ambrose-Rollins makes sense. It’s a feud that’ll carry on, and I could see it culminating in a Hell In A Cell contest at the PPV of the same name in October. All of the pandering by the broadcast team probably isn’t going to get many fans to re-subscribe to WWE Network, but the potential of a great match like that definitely could do it.
No one was expecting a technical clinic in the match between Brie Bella and Stephanie McMahon, but the lead-up to the fight has been mostly entertaining. Hopefully the same can be said for the feud that’s to ensue between Brie and her sister, Nikki. Even if that wasn’t a huge shocker, it played out well.
Brock Lesnar delivered 18 German suplexes to John Cena in their main event match.
Fast forward to the money fight, the main event between WWE World Heavyweight Champion John Cena and Brock Lesnar, a satisfying closer with Lesnar rightfully emerging the new champion. To have Lesnar destroy The Undertaker’s Wrestlemania unbeaten streak and then lose all that momentum would have been an epic creative blunder.
As I documented, the actual quality of the event was definitely on the positive side, with outcomes making plenty of sense and some good pacing of matches. Only the actual technical difficulties damaged the pleasure of watching SummerSlam, and it’s a bit mystifying personally, considering I was prompted to download an update to my app on Xbox 360 just this week.
There appears to be lots of good in-ring reasons to keep subscribed to WWE Network judging from Sunday night’s PPV, so the company should feel solid on that end. I expect a similarly strong Monday Night RAW to follow things up and continue to proliferate that feeling.
WWE Summerslam 2014 Grade: B+
WWE Network Viewing Experience Grade: C-
This story was originally published by our partners at Press Row Sports & Entertainment.
