Wrestling legend Jim Cornette has given his take on the SummerSlam main event saying it was a bout that he both loved and hated.
At SummerSlam in the Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar went to war one final time in a brutal Last Man Standing match. Although Reigns picked up another win over The Beast Incarnate, the match will be best remembered for Brock Lesnar’s exploits in a tractor.
Speaking on his Experience podcast, Jim Cornette gave his own inimitable take on the match. According to the long-time manager of The Midnight Express, the match was simultaneously the worst and greatest thing he’d ever seen:
“I both loved and hated it at the same time. This was the absolute worst pro wrestling match for a world championship ever, and it was the greatest piece of business I have ever seen to energise the excommunicated Attitude Era fan to actually watch this company and see what the f*ck they are doing at the same time.”
“The match was rotten, but this wasn’t about the match, this was about we can still do sh*t that people can say holy sh*t about. And that they did. We even talked about this, they said that they are going to make a big creative splash. Well, there are no free agents to sign and you can’t turn somebody babyface or heel anymore [to make a big splash]. It happens all the time, that’s why it’s not a big splash except for every great once in a while.”
“You can’t set somebody on fire, we have done that. You can’t run people over with vehicles, we have done that. So how do they recreate the chaos and the spontaneity and the excitement and the unpredictability of the last time that people were really interested in this sh*t? And this was their version of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the beer truck.”
“Yes, it was also a creative way to beat Brock Lesnar again and still make him look like the Frankenstein monster, but more importantly, I think it was something where they said ok, and they have the money and the special effects team. It is all in the budget.”
“Imagine if 30 or 40 years ago if any wrestling promotion had to do sh*t like this to get people talking, they would have to go out of business, because no one had the budget or the know-how. But for what they wanted, which was to tell not only their current fans but the excommunicated fans, the lapsed fans, the p*ssed off fans that hey this is not going to be a bunch of boring bullsh*t anymore, they couldn’t have done anything better than this.”
“So yeah it wasn’t about having a classic wrestling match here, because they didn’t. It was about please watch it again because you will see sh*t that you didn’t expect and some of it may very well be exciting.”
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