10 Takeaways from SummerSlam
WWE's summer celebration has ended. Here's how the summer's biggest PPV changed the wrestling landscape.
Way back in 1988, a Wrestlemania-bolstered WWE decided to experiment with a summer pay per view. Late summer is often a time of unexpected entertainment successes--as evidenced by the box office success of The Meg. Vince McMahon figured that with summer close to ending and the children set to return to school, they could use one last big celebration.
In order to stack the deck in the WWE's favor, they pulled out all the stops. For over a year Hulk Hogan had been tangling with Ted Dibiase and his hired thug Andre the Giant. After Randy Savage defeated Dibiase at Wrestlemania IV to win the WWE heavyweight title, he was added into the fray. Hogan and Savage would form the Mega Powers, while Dibiase would laugh off their pretentious name and call himself and Andre the Mega Bucks.
It was good vs. evil, hard work vs. buying your way to the top, and it paid off huge. Summerslam not only became an annual event, it inspired wrestling federations all over the world to enter the PPV arena, and led to a growth spurt for the industry.
Summerslam is now WWE's second biggest event of the year, and it always sets the stage for what's likely to come in the remainder of the year and the buildup toward next year's Wrestlemania. Here are ten takeaways from Summerslam 2018.
Sportskeeda is the one-stop destination for latest WWE rumors and wrestling news.
#1.The WWE is betting on the B team to revitalize the tag division.
In the late 1990s, the WWE tag team division had grown stale, and fan interest dropped. However, one team would emerge with just the right ingredients to get over with the fans and return their attention to the tag team titles. That team was the New Age Outlaws.
Their act helped return the tag team division to prominence. Now, in 2018, the B team is set to do the same thing. It certainly helps that the internet wrestling community considers Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel to be criminally underused talents, but you can't discount the fact that the wrestling fans love an underdog even more than they love Goldberg-esque destroyer characters. The B team are the ultimate underdogs, and they seem to have hit their stride.
The WWE has taken note of fan reactions to the B Team and now seems intent on pushing them, which is an excellent decision. Their victory over the highly respected Revival only cements the fact that they are the new face of the WWE tag team division on Raw.