Rebooking SummerSlam 2010

Neal Wagner: If you’ve read my review of SummerSlam 2010, you’ll know that I’m still appalled by the ending and how WWE extinguished its hottest storyline in years in just one night.

I’ll get the obvious out of the way first and just say that NEXUS WINS. Wade Barrett needed to be one of the final survivors of this match. It doesn’t matter if any other member of NEXUS survived with him, just as long as he made it to the end.

Specifically, have the match come down to Barrett vs. John Cena and Daniel Bryan. Barrett can luck his way into defeating Bryan thanks to interference by The Miz (like what actually happened), but he goes longer and shows that he can hang in that spot. With Cena and Barrett left, this is where we get to the referee bump portion of the night. Nexus members would jump in, leading to Bret Hart coming back out. However, The Hitman would betray Cena and help Barrett win the match.

This can be done by Hart revealing himself as the mastermind of Nexus, orchestrating their rise to the main roster and their attacks on the roster. Obviously, he can cite the Montreal Screwjob and his recent WrestleMania match with Vince McMahon as his motivation. Vowing to destroy the modern version of WWE, Hart focused on taking down Cena, who represents everything that today’s WWE stands for. Nexus can later turn on Hart when they get close to that WWE Title match with Orton at Survivor Series because they finally will get what they want, only to fall short.

The opener between Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston just needed to have a clear winner. I’m talking a 20-minute sprint where they tear the house down and hopefully elevate the Intercontinental Championship back to the prestige that it once had.

Lastly, leave the Kane and Mysterio match the way that it was. Have Undertaker still come out of the casket and target Kane, revealing that it was him that took out the Deadman on Memorial Day Weekend. Instead of fighting, Kane runs up the ramp and leaves the title in the ring. Taker can pick up the championship, hold it up high, signaling that he wants revenge and the title and pyro and fire can go off behind Kane to show that Taker still has some strength left. Kane can claim throughout the next month leading to their pay-per-view match that Undertaker is still a weak man and can’t beat him in his damaged state. Kane will be proven right in September, retaining the title and then continuing his course with Paul Bearer coming back.

John Corrigan: SummerSlam 2010 is the worst, so it definitely needs to be rebooked.

Instead of disrupting the opener, Nexus shouldn’t appear until the main event. Just let the video package of their destruction through the summer do all the talking. As Neal said, Ziggler and Kingston should run wild for 20 minutes until Kingston hits Trouble in Paradise for the win. As a matter of fact, all the faces (aside from Kane) should win their matches because the ending is going to be the darkest day in WWE history.

After Melina defeated Alicia Fox, LayCool could have still come out and beat her up, but Kelly Kelly or Natalya would have made the save. Kelly had just lost to the co-champions at Money in the Bank, so it would have made sense that she’d have an ax to grind. As for Natalya, she wouldn’t begin her single’s run until September, but this would have been a cool spot to push her, considering Uncle Bret was in the main event.

If Randy Orton was going to win the WWE Championship a month later, anyway, just have him beat Sheamus clean with the RKO. The Viper was super popular at SummerSlam 2010…capitalize!

I also love Neal’s idea of not doing anything physical between Kane and Undertaker.

As for the main event, I’d keep everything the same except the finish. As soon as Cena evens things up by pinning Justin Gabriel, Barrett should have struck him from behind, hit him with the Wasteland and score the clean win. Super Cena rarely lost at the time, so this would have instantly given Barrett and the rest of his squad some juice heading into Survivor Series. Hell, I would have had Barrett win the title there, completely negate Miz’ reign and have Nexus wreak havoc until Cena gets revenge and wins the title back at WrestleMania XXVII.