After such a great Money In The Bank show, I think we all figured this one wouldn’t quite match up and we were right. However, in its own right, it was a pretty darn good show. Check out what the FGB crew has to say about the 2011 version of SummerSlam.

Alan
Thumbs Up
Best Match: John Cena vs. CM Punk
Worst Match: Beth Phoenix vs. Kelly Kelly (but it wasn’t bad)

A good show hindered by one major problem – the announcing. Unlike one terrible match which is over when it’s over and you can forget about it, the announcing lasts from beginning to end. It was unbearable on this show (and even worse on Raw) and is really ruining the product.

If you were lucky enough to be watching the Spanish version then you probably loved this show. The main event rocked and was better than Chicago up until the weak finish. Orton vs. Christian was a very good plunder match (although I’m not the biggest fan of those matches). The 6-man opener was a great way to kick off the show too.

Oh and highlight of the show was unquestionably Joey Ryan’s sell when Sheamus and Mark Henry went through the barricade.

Duan
Thumbs Up
Best Match: Randy Orton vs. Christian
Worst Match: Beth Phoenix vs. Kelly Kelly

A little below last month’s show, but still a ‘better than most’ WWE PPV. Once again there can be little to complain about in terms of wrestling. Decent opener, Sheamus / Henry was a solid big man brawl, Divas were better than usual (aside from the idiotic finishing sequence), and D Bryan got a career best performance out of Barrett. Punk vs. Cena was good but nothing to write home about – a decent WWE main event with a flat finish. It did however pose some questions, and the right sort of questions. It gave a reason to tune in to Raw and that’s all that was required from it.

I’m concerned by the timing of Del Rio’s title win. I have never liked the Money in the Bank cash in gimmick anyway. All it does is create a paper champion. Alberto was ready for the belt at Mania, but they blew it and he has dropped off a lot since then. A cheapened title reign will do little to rehabilitate him. I’m willing to wait and see where they’re going with this, but they have a lot of work to do.

Now, there’s a lot of people who like to sound off about Christian and Orton wrestling on every show. Well… Thank goodness they do. What else is there to look forward to on Smackdown? These two guys stole the show again. It was a brilliant, brilliant match. They can fight on every card for the rest of the year for all I care.

This wasn’t quite the smash hit we had last time out, but you just can’t have shows like that all the time – still a value for money PPV.

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UFC 133 was a pretty low priority for me last Saturday night. In fact, I thought so poorly of the card, I was going to skip my first UFC show in years. It wasn’t until a buddy called me and asked me if I wanted to check it out did I think I was going to watch it. I sure wasn’t going to pay for it.

Rashad Evans is a really good fighter. In fact, he might be underrated. But he’s not a must-see guy unless he’s fighting the right opponent. Tito Ortiz wasn’t that guy. The Tito Ortiz of 2004 would’ve been a fantastic opponent for Rashad. That Tito would’ve probably beaten Rashad. But not in 2011. Thus, I think most people felt similarly about this show. It wasn’t a must-see show. At FGB, only two of us watched it in whole.

Here’s what the Cactus Jim and I said about UFC 133:

Cactus Jim
Thumbs Down
Best Fight: Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans
Worst Fight: Matt Hamill vs. Alexander Gustafsson

This wasn’t a great card on paper and it didn’t rise above the expectations I had for it. Half of the fights were fairly entertaining, but there was nothing near a fight of the year candidate on the card. Coming out of the card, the big news was Matt Hamill’s retirement. His performance would lead me to believe that it was a wise move on his part. Rashad Evans situated himself nicely for a title shot. And Vitor Belfort’s dismantling of Sexyama led several people on this site, myself included, to believe that Vitor is probably the best guy UFC could put in with Anderson Silva, despite his recent loss to the champ. If you haven’t seen this show I sure wouldn’t pay PPV prices to watch it. Wait for Netflix or some other method to view.

GG
Thumbs Up
Best Fight: Rashad Evans vs. Tito Ortiz
Worst Fight: Rani Yahya vs. Chad Mendes

With low expectations, this show simply had to be decent for me to not be disappointed. And I think it was. It might’ve only been a 6.5 out of 10, but there was enough excitement that I didn’t feel ripped off paying for pizza at my buddy’s house. Rashad Evans looked great, even though he was fighting someone past his prime. Vitor Belfort looked good in beating Sexyama, but someone has to do something about those shots to the back of the head. He did the same thing against Rich Franklin. It’s always fun to watch Brian Ebersole, especially if you know his background. I was overall entertained, but also glad that I didn’t spend $55 on it.

This is the most important/universally loved WWE PPV in quite some time. It might be the most significant WWE non-WrestleMania PPV ever. Let’s just get to the feedback from Team FGB.

Alan
Thumbs Up
Best Match: CM Punk vs. John Cena
Worst Match: Brie Bella vs. Kelly Kelly

Thumbs Up to high heavens! Punk vs. Cena was slowly built, but the crazy atmosphere carried it during the early going. Then when things kicked into high gear they were off to the races and everything was perfect with regard to the finish and the end of the show. Logical, smart and creative. This was Canadian Stampede in 2011. Same month, a “B” show, main event revolving around a hometown conquering hero, insane atmospshere and a great undercard. They hit this out of the park.

Duan
Thumbs Up
Best Match: CM Punk vs. John Cena
Worst Match: Brie Bella vs. Kelly Kelly

They got it right!

A great night’s wrestling top to bottom. Both the Ladder matches were tremendous fun. Smackdown had the better of the two which surprised me. The Raw one was a real mess at times but was still had some fantastic moments. Henry/Show was perfectly fine and Henry came out of it looking like a beast. The Orton vs. Christian match was good. I wasn’t too keen on the title change by DQ – I’m just old school like that – but what I did enjoy was the almighty beating Randy dished out afterward. Arguably the best beat down since he laid waste to Legacy many months back.

The main event took a while to settle, but it came good in the end. The final few minutes were as dramatic as anything I have seen in WWE. I loved that they teased two of the more predictable outcomes (Montreal, Alberto cash in) before going with the right finish. It just added that little bit extra to the match.

This is a huge shot in the arm for WWE. They have a ton of momentum going into TV. Hopefully it can carry them through the rest of the summer.

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UFC 132 promised to be an exciting card. But also, with the UFC’s smallest division headlining the card, there was a chance that not too many people were going to watch it. And that’s too bad because it lived it to its billing. UFC 132 is probably in the top 10 of all-time UFC shows in my book.

Here’s what the FGB crew said about UFC 132.

Alan
Thumbs Up
Best Fight: Urijah Faber vs. Dominick Cruz
Worst Fight: None

A great night of knockouts capped off by a top class main event. You had great moments like Leben and Silva trading, Tito’s celebration and Condit’s knee of death and nothing close to bad.

Cadillac Don
Thumbs Up
Best Fight: Urijah Faber vs. Dominick Cruz
Worst Fight: None

There were a lot of great moments on this card, including the Tito Ortiz shocking win (and classic celebration), and the blood bath between Siver and Wiman. Most people seemed surprised Siver won (myself included, but he did finish strong… even though he does look about 70) but the fight could have gone either way.

Coming in late to the UFC scene, I had never seen Tito Ortiz fight, or Wanderlei Silva. However, the fellows watching with me kept talking about how scary Silva was in his prime.

This is one of the big differences between professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. In wrestling you still see men selling for guys like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. In MMA, those two would have been forced to retire, instead of having a choice.

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It was a short turnaround for UFC 131, after a putrid UFC 130. The show was much better, though still, unspectacular at times. Even the heavyweight fight, which was nearly promised to be great, was just an alright tactical battle between one guy who didn’t want to risk getting upset, and another guy who was simply not in the same class on the feet. What should’ve been a great styles clash was in fact, a pretty boring one.

Duan and I give you our thoughts about UFC 131.

Duan
Thumbs In the Middle
Best Fight: Shane Carwin vs. Junior Dos Santos
Worst Fight: Diego Nunes vs. Kenny Florian

After a disappointing run of shows, there was a sense that UFC really needed a good PPV outing this month. While 131 was by no means perfect, it did go a long way towards stopping the rot. While there was no real blow away fights or stand out performances, the action was solid throughout, and I think for the most fans will feel they got their money’s worth.

This card also acted as a reminder why the move towards five round main events is not necessarily for the better. Dos Santos vs. Carwin, despite being wildly uncompetitive and quite one paced, came off like a really big deal. I have a feeling that had it gone another two rounds, people would have lost patience and turned on these guys. If that happened, how would it effect demand for a Velasquez/Dos Santos title fight? It’s something to consider.

GG
Thumbs In The Middle
Best Fight: Demian Maia vs. Mark Munoz
Worst Fight: Diego Nunes vs. Kenny Florian

Sam Stout gave us a vicious knockout. Dave Herman and Jon Olav Einemo gave us a rock ‘em/sock ‘em kind of fight. And Mark Munoz and Demian Maia gave us a fun, strategic battle. Even though all of those things happened, the show still felt a bit anticlimactic because of the main event. I think most of us figured that Junior Dos Santos was going to beat Shane Carwin, but I think we predicted it to be more of a war than it was. JDS fought safe fight and Carwin just couldn’t do anything. Had that fight ended in the TKO we all hoped for, I think we see this show differently.

I was at UFC 130 live, so I had the live perspective. Some of my FGB brothers watched it on PPV and they have their perspective. While our perspectives were different, our apathy toward the event was the same. This was not a good show.

The FGB crew gives you their thoughts about UFC 130.

Alan
Thumbs Down (deep in the surface of the earth)
Best Fight: Brian Stann vs. Jorge Santiago
Worst Fight: Frank Mir vs. Roy Nelson

The show was a complete waste of my Sunday morning. Not a single thing coming out of this excites me. Quinton Jackson has got to be one of the most boring entities in MMA right now. He just has these crap fights, never finishes anyone and looks completely disinterested about everything. If the damn fighter isn’t interested in what he’s doing, why would the viewer be? Mir/Nelson was terrible and nothing on the undercard lit my world on fire. Credit to Brian Stann for being to only guy to show anything on this show. Actually, Travis Browne as well in fairness (I was just pissed by the that because I bet on
Struve).

Cactus Jim
Thumbs Down
Best Fight: Stefan Struve vs. Travis Browne
Worst Fight: Frank Mir vs. Roy Nelson
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