Review for WWE: SummerSlam 2020

The summer's biggest show for WWE was a little different this year and introduces the Covid-19 friendly THUNDERDOME!!! Essentially the arena is surrounded by screens with fans faces and reactions on it. This is an interesting way to get the crowd reaction and certainly this has been lacking for the last few months. This was also the first show outside of the Performance Centre and so it felt much bigger, but that doesn't necessarily mean better. It is just a shame that the show itself was not given the release that we all were expecting.

Though enjoyable, it seemed that for every good moment there was another that just let the show down. The two Women's Championship matches between Asuka and Bayley and then Asuka and Sasha Banks were great and I enjoyed the second match a great deal. These three work so well together and the whole dynamic was hugely entertaining.

The Street Profits against Andrade and Angel Garza was fine, but nothing special and could have easily have been on Raw. The same could be said the No DQ match between Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville which had such a good storyline, but the match just didn't seem to work and the 'Loser Leaves WWE' stipulation was a little odd. In this PG-era I just didn't feel that these two could pull off a match like this and to some extents I was right.

Dominik Mysterio in his first proper match against Seth Rollins in a Street Fight was a good match and I was hugely impressed by what Dominik was able to do. However, I feel like this match should have been built up more with some other matches to get him some more experience as he seemed way out of his league against The Monday Night Messiah.

Drew McIntyre defending his WWE Championship against Randy Orton was a fantastic match and probably the best I have seen from either of these for some time. Both worked well together and it was nice to see Orton embrace his Heel persona which is so good at times. This could easily have been a perfect main event.

BUT...

Of course the main event went to the bizarre match between Braun Strowman (who didn't drown in the Wyatt swamp last month) defending his Universal belt against The Fiend. Now the match itself was by the numbers what I expected from these two, both selling or no-selling as the mood came to them, but what really destroyed this match was the ending and the aftermath of the ending. The reappearance of Roman Reigns was a nice moment, but should have been used differently instead of making the winner look like an absolute chump. It also means we know exactly how the next PPV will end.

Now with this being one of the few WWE releases that gets a Blu-ray release I kept my night free for the extra features I was going to go through. I need not have bothered as all that is included is the Kickoff match for the US Championship between Apollo Crews and MVP which is fine match between the two and it is great to see that MVP is still in shape to put on a match.

That's it. This is a shame as I expected some extras, promos, something from the shows before or after or even the NXT show that always is on the night before. I can never understand why WWE do this and I'm sure the picture and sound quality are amazing, but really I would defy anyone who could tell the difference between this and the DVD.

Summerslam 2020 had some great moments and is definitely a show to watch, but at times it felt just lopsided and this is a shame as the highlights are fantastic. If you are a fan you will no doubt already want to watch this, but this is not the must-have item that a rare WWE Blu-ray release should have been.