The DISASTER called SummerSlam.

[AegonTargaryen]

The year was 2005. Considering the star-power of that era, this event should've been majestic. However, the final showdown was a debacle.

This event featured the star power of The Undertaker, Randy Orton, John Cena , Chris Jericho, Edge, Batista, Shawn Michaels, and a nostalgia act goofball in his 50s returning to steal a paycheck. This event also featured Eugene who should've never main-evented Sunday night heat, leave alone facing Kurt Angle on Summerslam, and Orlando Jordon, who should've never disgraced the United States title by winning it, nor wrestled outside of Velocity.

Thus overburdened with stardom led to two major disastrous matches being booked for the card. Two of the greatest technical wrestlers and near-machines on the second-biggest stage of them all facing two bums who shouldn't even have been on the card:-
In a record-setting 26-second match, Chris Benoit beat Orlando Jordon to retain the US title.
The greatest and most decorated athlete of our generation(Kurt Angle), who just one year ago had a classic with Eddie Guerrero was made to face Eugene-the only way to describe whom would be a "bum". Not just that, he had to face him to win back his Olympic Gold Medal. If this isn't disastrous enough, consider the following:-

A returning joker, and a disgrace to wrestling (for a long time) Hulk Hogan returned with his yellow and red joker costume to be carried by a wrestling icon far greater in ability of wrestling and talking, in a diastrous match, only to steal spotlight and ruin the event by his beefed-up old man muscles and stealing a big paycheck. Hogan then fought back with a big boot and a leg drop to win the match. Surprise!!
It has been suggested that Michaels deliberately made a mockery of the match by over-selling throughout the contest, allegedly because he was unhappy about being asked to job to an inferior opponent. No Surprise there.

Apart from these disasters, the event was saved by decent athletic competition between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, and Randy Orton defeating The Undertaker .
The world title matches were average and mediocre

 

[Y 2 Jake]

So you're saying SummerSlam 2005 is a bad card? I wasn't quite sure. I guess it's pretty forgettable save for the main event and the Guerrero/Mysterio matches. But overall it's a good card.

If you don't like Batista/JBL then you're just dismissing it without actually watching it. Good match.

Hardy vs. Edge is interesting. Cena/Jericho is a good match and possibly the last time people were fully behind Cena. Orton/Undertaker is probably the best of their series. There's nothing wrong with Angle vs. Eugene and Jordan/Benoit was an amusing little match.

HBK did his best to ruin the main event. He didn't succeed. It's entertaining and works as a nostalgia match.

 

[Raptor93]

It was a greta ppv sure , but I think the idea was it got the buy rates, well above the two years prior and after which id say you'd have to give to hogan despite being a glory hound.

Nether title match was great, weren't terrible but ok, crowd was really into Jericho v Cena and was quite split http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGnh5aEvmk8

Beniot vs Orlando , I actually didn't mind

Hardy vs Edeg was a short but great but of their feud

Angle v Eguene could have happened true but not at goddamn summerslam, that would be the one match that really should have been scrapped

 

[Raito]

. Cena/Jericho is a good match and possibly the last time people were fully behind Cena.

Ugh.. could you be more wrong? This match is famous for "lets go jericho" chants. Not Cena sucks, but they chant Jericho for the whole match.

SS 2005 is fine.

HBK v Hogan = Must Watch
Cena v Jericho = Great
Angle v Eugene = FUN - he just rapes Eugene and the crowd loves it.

Those 3 matches alone save the show from being called "bad".

 

[AegonTargaryen]

Ugh.. could you be more wrong? This match is famous for "lets go jericho" chants. Not Cena sucks, but they chant Jericho for the whole match.

SS 2005 is fine.

HBK v Hogan = Must Watch
Cena v Jericho = Great
Angle v Eugene = FUN - he just rapes Eugene and the crowd loves it.

Those 3 matches alone save the show from being called "bad".

Yeah , a disaster of a match with a bad booking decision is MUST WATCH. Papa Hogan might as well appear at a Mcdonalds for USD 500,000, big boot a spectator and a leg drop.

 

[mrjohn]

This was actually a good and fun PPV.

-The opening match got a good pop (not ala Sheamus/Bryan)
-Hardy vs Edge was short but brutal
-Angle vs Eugene was fun. Angle beating the crap out of him got the crowd in to it. The post match celebration also was great and got a good pop.
-Eddie vs Rey was what you expect of Eddie vs Rey
-Taker vs Orton was good
Jericho vs Cena was good and the crowd was hot.
Batista vs JBL was fun hard hitting brawl with good hometown crowd for the Animal.
HBK vs Hogan was good, once in a lifetime match. Made fun thanks to HBK.

Overall, it was a fun PPV.

 

[TheBigStrumpfCouch]

I actually attended this one in D.C. I personally thought it was a pretty awesome show.
Came here to say that the crowd was pretty much 50/50 in regards to Cena and Jericho. Those chanting for Jericho were less organized (some chanting let's go Jericho and some chanting Cena sucks) but it was really cool because the crowd was pretty much battling. It was the first time I've seen a crowd split so evenly.

 

[bioshock]

I think you forget that from about 1995 to 2005 HBK vs Hogan was a match that was on every fans dream match list. Sure it might not of been on anyones #1 list, but still its on a list of those dream matches like Sting vs Undertaker, Austin vs Hogan, Rock vs HBK, Rock vs Hogan (happened twice didn't see many bitch about that), Rock vs DDP (happened but by then WWE buried DDP) Rock vs Booker T (happened) and so on and so forth.. Dream matches that people wanted because one was in WCW and the other was in WWF. That is where the match come from. It wasn't about some old ass "joker" against a legend. Its just booking a match that had a limited time to happen.

Not to mention when Hogan returned for WM18 to face the Rock, HBK wasn't yet back wrestling, he wouldn't return to WM until WM19 when he faced Y2J after coming back at Summerslam 2002. And by then we had another dream match of Hogan vs Vince, and then it wasn't long and Hogan left. So we didn't get Hogan vs HBK in that time.

But I do agree about the Kurt Angel match, and the short Benoit match, they did have some bad booking. But also don't forget I think Kurt and Benoit were coming off a long feud that had been done to death around WM17. The overall roster was pretty horrid at that time though.

 

[SuperSteve16]

I don't know what the OP is talking about, Summerslam 2005 was probably one off the better summerslams if you ask me. Cena/Jericho and Batista/JBL were both pretty good and Mysterio/ Guerrero and Taker/ Orton matches always delivered. And Hogan/ Michaels is a dream match, thee match was even okay, even with Michaels excessive overselling and Hogans ego ruining it. I fully expected to see this thread be about Summerslam 1995, now that was disaster!

 

[AegonTargaryen]

I don't know what the OP is talking about, Summerslam 2005 was probably one off the better summerslams if you ask me. Cena/Jericho and Batista/JBL were both pretty good and Mysterio/ Guerrero and Taker/ Orton matches always delivered. And Hogan/ Michaels is a dream match, thee match was even okay, even with Michaels excessive overselling and Hogans ego ruining it. I fully expected to see this thread be about Summerslam 1995, now that was disaster!

I've never watched old Summerslams before 1996. Not in their entirety anyways for it to enable me to criticize, comment, or judge. But to be honest, Summerslam was a great pay-per-view until 2003 edition, or 2004. 2005 and 2006 are Disasterfests in the name of Summerfest. I am yet to begin threads on Summerslam 2007-2013, but Summerslam 2008 was one of the greatest Summerslams ever, even greater than those Wrestlemanias which are debacles, such as WM 27.

 

[Zycho32]

Okay, had some time to think about this;

-Orlando Jordan wasn't so much there for his 'skills' as for the comedy aspect. Granted, WWE probably had some real hope for the guy when they transferred the US Title from John Cena to him (since Cena was getting booked for the WWE title), but it didn't take too long before they had Chris Benoit take it in a squash. So by this time I think the squash aspect was being played for comedy, which in a sad way was the best Orlando was good for.
-To be fair, had Eddie Guerrero still been alive you probably would have seen him in Orlando's spot. Or maybe not- one wonders where you would've scrounged up the additional ring time needed to make the match good.
-The Kurt Angle/Eugene program I think happened for two reasons; One, it's a comedy match which is an organic let down for an audience (deliberately so, since you cannot keep a crowd raised up and up for three or so hours. You'll just gas them before the main event). The other is probably a preserverence of Angle's health- Angle would express later when he jumped ship for TNA that his main problem with WWE was that he was always constantly wrestling hurt and just wasn't able to get time off. A mere 10-15 minute match with Eugene that wasn't very taxing from a physical standpoint would in fact keep down the wear and tear.
-Assuming Angle was actually relatively healthy, what was there for him to do other than Eugene? His main dance partner around this time was Shawn Michaels and you know what he was doing. The WWE Title was firmly locked in place as Chris Jericho was on his way out, and I think the WHC AND US Titles were Smackdown while Angle was Raw, which left the IC title which he would've had to intrude upon... even though giving him the midcard title may have been perceived as an insult.
-Best case scenario, the WWE Title would've been a Triple Threat with Angle added in. Give them some of the time from the Eugene match, and leave the rest for another program, something throwaway-ish to allow time for people to grab a beer and take a piss. But that's if Angle was physically up for the task.

As for Hogan/HBK...
-As near as I can tell, Hogan made a few 'requests' beyond going over which didn't sit well with Shawn. I think it was a combination of HBK needing to be a genuine heel for Hogan AND the extent Shawn went to promo the match (the Larry King skit first and foremost) having irked Hogan. As a result, we got what we got, and the next Raw Shawn shot HARD on Hogan which soured the potential continuation of the feud. But actually putting Hogan over, period? Nothing to prove HBK had a legitimate gripe there.
-Easy to think back from now and believe Hogan didn't deserve to be there. Easier still to let your perception cloud business. This wasn't just before the debacle with TNA in recent years, this was also after Hogan's quote-unquote 'Redemption' at Wrestlemania X-8, where he finally shed the Hollywood Hulk label which had helped to take WCW to great heights.... then to help plummet it into the ground. At this time, he was viewed as the 'Babe Ruth' of the WWE, a legend who at that time was marketable as a nostalgia act to the fans despite the backstage headaches. And while I'm not privvy to the ultimate profit margin of that Summerslam, I'm pretty sure the buyrate was boosted quite well by Hulk Hogan.

 

[Zycho32]

ADDENDUM: Scratch the Eddie Guerrero part of my comments. I totally got the year wrong there and he was still alive.

 

[AegonTargaryen]

Okay, had some time to think about this;

-Orlando Jordan wasn't so much there for his 'skills' as for the comedy aspect. Granted, WWE probably had some real hope for the guy when they transferred the US Title from John Cena to him (since Cena was getting booked for the WWE title), but it didn't take too long before they had Chris Benoit take it in a squash. So by this time I think the squash aspect was being played for comedy, which in a sad way was the best Orlando was good for.
-To be fair, had Eddie Guerrero still been alive you probably would have seen him in Orlando's spot. Or maybe not- one wonders where you would've scrounged up the additional ring time needed to make the match good.
-The Kurt Angle/Eugene program I think happened for two reasons; One, it's a comedy match which is an organic let down for an audience (deliberately so, since you cannot keep a crowd raised up and up for three or so hours. You'll just gas them before the main event). The other is probably a preserverence of Angle's health- Angle would express later when he jumped ship for TNA that his main problem with WWE was that he was always constantly wrestling hurt and just wasn't able to get time off. A mere 10-15 minute match with Eugene that wasn't very taxing from a physical standpoint would in fact keep down the wear and tear.
-Assuming Angle was actually relatively healthy, what was there for him to do other than Eugene? His main dance partner around this time was Shawn Michaels and you know what he was doing. The WWE Title was firmly locked in place as Chris Jericho was on his way out, and I think the WHC AND US Titles were Smackdown while Angle was Raw, which left the IC title which he would've had to intrude upon... even though giving him the midcard title may have been perceived as an insult.
-Best case scenario, the WWE Title would've been a Triple Threat with Angle added in. Give them some of the time from the Eugene match, and leave the rest for another program, something throwaway-ish to allow time for people to grab a beer and take a piss. But that's if Angle was physically up for the task.

As for Hogan/HBK...
-As near as I can tell, Hogan made a few 'requests' beyond going over which didn't sit well with Shawn. I think it was a combination of HBK needing to be a genuine heel for Hogan AND the extent Shawn went to promo the match (the Larry King skit first and foremost) having irked Hogan. As a result, we got what we got, and the next Raw Shawn shot HARD on Hogan which soured the potential continuation of the feud. But actually putting Hogan over, period? Nothing to prove HBK had a legitimate gripe there.
-Easy to think back from now and believe Hogan didn't deserve to be there. Easier still to let your perception cloud business. This wasn't just before the debacle with TNA in recent years, this was also after Hogan's quote-unquote 'Redemption' at Wrestlemania X-8, where he finally shed the Hollywood Hulk label which had helped to take WCW to great heights.... then to help plummet it into the ground. At this time, he was viewed as the 'Babe Ruth' of the WWE, a legend who at that time was marketable as a nostalgia act to the fans despite the backstage headaches. And while I'm not privvy to the ultimate profit margin of that Summerslam, I'm pretty sure the buyrate was boosted quite well by Hulk Hogan.

Largely agreed with your post. Thanks.