“The Biggest Party of the Summer” (are they still using that branding? I don’t think they’re still using that branding) has come to an end. WWE SummerSlam 2024 is in the books and the show featured plenty of ups and downs. For a list of things the staff loved and hated, there’s our trusty Loved & Hated column, and if you need results, that’s what our fastidious results page is for, now it’s time to talk about the two most important groupings in professional wrestling: winners and losers.
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Yes, winning and losing are an integral part of professional wrestling, but sometimes who “won” and who “lost” aren’t as cut and dry as they may appear in the ring. From the show-opening world title match to the show-closing world title match, there were plenty of winners, losers, and world title matches throughout the three-hour event. Let’s break them all down here.
Winner: Jelly Roll
Jelly Roll is very much having a moment in the WWE Universe. In a world that is often divorced from pop culture to the point that even iconic Jim Johnston and CFO$ WWE themes have been excised in favor of thrifty jams from Def Rebel, whenever WWE embraces a star from outside of wrestling, the company holds fast. Like Pitbull, The Weeknd, Kid Rock, and Snoop Dogg before him, Jelly Roll now gets to be the recording star living out his dreams on the WWE stage, assisting Awesome Truth in dispatching A-Town Down.
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Jelly Roll delivered a surprisingly solid Chokeslam and didn’t look out of step delivering a triple Five Knuckle Shuffle with The Miz and R-Truth. Jelly Roll also got to perform more than his single “Liar,” on Saturday, as he was also tasked with singing “America The Beautiful,” a task often outsourced to more traditional singers or local youth choirs.
Who knows how far Jelly Roll Mania will go? With his regular involvement in WWE’s big shows, it could only be a matter of time before Jelly Roll joins his fellow tattoo enthusiast Post Malone in a WWE game.
Loser: The Concept Of World Title Matches
WWE SummerSlam was mostly world title matches. There were seven matches and four of them were for a title considered a World Championship by WWE. The World Heavyweight Championship and the Women’s World Championship are pretty obvious, “world” is right there in the name, and then the Undisputed WWE Championship and the WWE Women’s Championship.
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I am not Bully Ray. I am not going to get into the semantics of there being four world championships and one of them being called “undisputed.” But I do think that once you’re basically building the PPV (PLE, whatever) out of world title matches, the entire concept of a world title match is diluted. Considering how many hours of programming WWE has, I don’t actually have a problem with them having four world titles. They have enough programming hours in a year that each one could conceivably be treated like “a big deal.” But if the world title matches are just gonna be crammed into one show, then it gets a little bland and a little same-y.
Add to that the fact that three of the world title matches featured some kind of personal betrayal, and the allegations of making the show repetitive only strengthen. Dominik Mysterio betrayed Rhea. Finn Balor betrayed Damian Priest. Roman Reigns betrayed Solo Sikoa. Hell, two of those betrayals are featuring the same faction. What are we doing?
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Winner: Roman Reigns
It’s gotta rule to be Roman Reigns. The man hasn’t shown up to work in roughly four months, but shows up once, does the bare minimum, and is immediately back in the place he was before he left. He’s basically early-season Don Draper from “Mad Men,” f***ing off without notice and somehow getting a promotion out of it. An Anti-Work Icon.
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Reigns’s return really put a stamp on just how wide the gulf is between Roman Reigns and pretty much everyone else. Reigns is no longer champion but he’s still the main character of WWE, and now he’s a good guy, which might make him an even more Irresistible Force in the coming months.
Fans were thrilled with Reigns’s return, substantiating his assertion that he is still the “original Tribal Chief,” no matter what Solo Sikoa says. With War Games on the horizon, Reigns is likely to be central to the Bloodline Civil War to come. With the Royal Rumble on the horizon, a title-less Reigns is a clear favorite in the titular match. With John Cena’s retirement on the horizon, Reigns feels like a must-book opponent for Cena’s farewell tour. The sun rises and sets around Roman Reigns, and that doesn’t look like it will change any time soon.
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Loser: Literally Everyone Else, Especially Solo Sikoa
As I just said, if you’re not Roman Reigns, you don’t mean Jack S*** in WWE right now, and that is going to be brutal for literally everyone else in WWE. Reigns is the main character, the sun rises and sets wi-…Hang on, I just did that already.
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You get it, Reigns is “The Protagonist” and everyone else is a supporting player. The problem is that everyone else has to show up to work on Friday. “WWE Raw” might be able to separate itself from the Roman Reigns power vacuum over on Netflix, but the next year of “WWE SmackDown” is going to be everyone standing around saying “Where’s Roman? I sure wish Roman was here” while Cody Rhodes smiles with the title like a goofball.
Reigns hasn’t been the Undisputed WWE Champion in over four months and he’s still the most important person in the company. It’s a terrible look for Rhodes, who now carries his championship like a cuckold, initially unable to defeat The Bloodline without help from WWE legends, and now unable to defeat The Bloodline without Reigns himself. Cody can cosplay as the face of the company, but the company is still clearly behind Roman Reigns. “The Original Tribal Chief” is the face of the company and, considering Becky Lynch being AWOL, possibly even in contention for being “The Man.”
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Even worse are the prospects for Solo Sikoa and his new Bloodline, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and the possibly injured Jacob Fatu. Sikoa was struggling to look like a legitimate threat in the build to SummerSlam but a loss, coupled with the return of Reigns has shifted him in the cultural kaleidoscope, and not for the better, and that trickles down to the rest of The New Bloodline, and everyone The New Bloodline has beaten up over the past few months. Sikoa looks like a paper leader and his claim to a spot in WWE’s main event scene is looking less defensible by the day. Everyone not named “Roman Reigns” just got a major demotion but will still have to carry the programming whether they’re appreciated for it or not.