"One man's hell is another man's paradise." Lewis' WWE SmackDown, (8/16) Recap

Bray Wyatt, accompanied by his 'brothers' Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, gave another intriguing promo where he spoke about the apparent life of a young Kane who was bullied at school for being different. He then turned his attention to their Ring of Fire match at SummerSlam, stating that he looked forward to it. 

 

Kane himself then snuck up on the trio after tricking them with his trademark entrance fire and began to tangle with Wyatt after chucking his associates out of the ring. But the numbers soon caught up to 'The Big Red Machine' who was eventually taken out by the Wyatt family, with Bray finally hitting him with the Sister Abigail (love the mysterious name of that finisher). It was a decent segment to kick things off, with Wyatt still as entertaining as ever. 

 

Christian pinned Damien Sandow in a fair outing. Unfortunately they weren't given enough time to really leave their mark, but it was enjoyable enough. Afterwards Christian thwarted an attack from an upset Sandow with a spear, and then did the same to Alberto Del Rio as he reversed an arm breaker attempt into a Killswitch. 

 

AJ Lee and Layla bested Kaitlyn and Natalya in a passable tag bout. To be fair it was certainly above average for most Diva contests you receive nowadays, with good efforts especially from Natalya and Kaitlyn. For the finish Layla kicked Kaitlyn's leg before leaving the ring, allowing AJ to apply a Shining Wizard for the victory.

 

Rob Van Dam, Big Show and Mark Henry defeated The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) in a solid six-man tag encounter. It was one of the better six-man matches The Shield have had since around WrestleMania time, with every wrestler putting in a good display.  

 

The Miz beat Jack Swagger in a pretty unremarkable affair. Both men did fine, the match was just lacking in any real excitement or interest. Miz rolled up a distracted Swagger for the winning pinfall after the referee had told Zeb Colter and Antonio Cesaro to leave ringside.

 

Curtis Axel pinned Zack Ryder in a fine contest. There was nothing outstanding to be found here but it was a fun watch still, worth a look. Afterwards Axel's manager Paul Heyman grabbed a mic and admitted that CM Punk outsmarted himself and Brock Lesnar on this past Monday's Raw, but he'd have his revenge in the form of Lesnar beating him this Sunday.

 

Daniel Bryan defeated Wade Barrett in a No Disqualification Match. And what a lively main event this was. As Bryan had Barrett on the ropes (not literally) Vince McMahon strolled on down and distracted Bryan, allowing Barrett to get back into the match.

 

McMahon also decided to drag the referee out of the ring when Bryan latched on the Yes Lock on his foe, and then called down Brad Maddox to officiate the bout instead. But Maddox's time was fairly short lived as he was accidentally struck by Barrett later on. Towards the end Triple H marched down and counted Bryan's winning pin after striking with a diving headbutt before McMahon was about to enter the ring with a ref's top himself. It was a stellar end to the show I felt, with a memorable finale and an exciting match up. Good way to enter SummerSlam.

 

Overall it was a fun show for the most part, with a couple of strong match ups and the rest being decent enough, but nothing bad to speak of. My highlights were Wyatt's promo, the six-man tag bout and the main event. Now onto SummerSlam! Which has a pretty strong card, should be good.