Longtime Ain't It Cool commentor Shermdawg loves his wrestling, and has prepared this for you:
Professional wrestling.....sports entertainment....."wrasslin", whatever you want to call it, it's not everyone's cup of tea.....but for some, particularly children of the 80's to mid 90's who were raised on the televised circus atmosphere of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE), it was a weekly dose of larger than life personalities that felt like flesh and blood comic book characters that had leapt from the page and into the ring.
Over the years several notable superstars stood out in those respects whether it was the over the top nature of their characters like The Ultimate Warrior, The Hurricane, and The Boogeyman, the elaborately conceived backstories for "The Big Red Machine" Kane and his "brother" The Undertaker, Rey Mysterio and current NXT Champion (as of this writing) Finn Balor who paid tribute through their outfits and makeup, or WCW legend Sting who shamelessly ripped off The Crow's image and has ran with it for nearly twenty years.
And then there's this guy...
Stardust (Cody Rhodes), brother of the equally bizarre Goldust (Dustin Rhodes) who's managed to take his love of all things geek and craft a persona for himself that would fit right in spouting a dastardly monologue of exposition to Adam West and Burt Ward in the 60's Batman series. And while there's no caped crusader around for him face, earlier this summer he took to Twitter and started a war of words with a hooded one, Arrow's Stephen Amell, who he eventually came face to face with when Amell attended Monday Night Raw back in May...
Unfortunately and understandably their feud took a backseat to real life when Cody's father "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, the definition of "legend" in the world of professional wrestling passed away on June 11.
A month later Cody made his return...
"...finish what you start kid..." -The American Dream Dusty Rhodes #RAW pic.twitter.com/UABkYfVLQW
— Stardust (@StardustWWE) July 13, 2015Their twitter war reignited, which led to another altercation on Raw, this time.....physical...
And a tag team match was quickly set up for tonight's 28th Annual SummerSlam event emanating live from the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, New York where Stardust and the newly crowned "Cosmic King" Wade Barrett will face the pairing of "The Man that Gravity Forgot" Adrian Neville and "The CW Sensation" Stephen Amell.
Amell is the latest in a long line of celebrities to get involved with the wrestling world. Longtime fans know that Mr.T, Cyndi Lauper, and MTV were instrumental in bringing the World Wrestling Federation to mainstream success back in the mid 80's. T took part in the first two Wrestlemanias and feuded with the late great "Rowdy" Roddy Piper which eventually led to a boxing match between the two and T being inducted into the Celebrity Wing of the WWE "Hall of Fame" last year which is shared by the likes of Drew Carrey, Donald Trump, and Mike Tyson.
Over the years many stars have turned up on WWE programming and events in varying degrees. Some simply to partake in a comedy bit, others to promote their latest show or movie, but on rare occasions some find themselves caught up in the action...
- Chuck Norris was brought in as "Special Enforcer" at the 1994 Survivor Series for the Undertaker vs. Yokozuna main event, by the end of the night "Double J" Jeff Jarrett tasted boot courtesy of a patented Norris spin kick.
- NFL Legend Lawrence Taylor defeated Bam Bam Bigelow in the main event of Wrestlemania XI.
- Jay Leno teamed with Diamond Dallas Page in a tag match at WCW Road Wild 1998.
- Mike Tyson and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin had an infamous face to face confrontation when Tyson was announced to be a part of Wrestlemania XIV that same year. This moment scored the WWE plenty of airtime on ESPN, and now seventeen years later because of heavy interest in the UFC, Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey and their involvement with the WWE, former WWE announcer, and current ESPN Sportscenter broadcaster Jonathan Coachman will be covering the event. I don't know if that says more about the popularity of sports entertainment these days or the state of ESPN.
- David Arquette wrestled for a short time for WCW in 2000 to help promote the film "Ready to Rumble" in which he starred. During his run, and against his wishes, he was infamously awarded the WCW World Heavyweight Title, a poor decision in a series of poor decisions that ultimately led to the demise of the company the following year when it was bought out by Vince McMahon. According to Diamond Dallas Page, Arquette felt so guilty for tarnishing the prestige of the championship, he donated his wrestling profits to the widow of WWF Superstar Brian Pillman who had suddenly passed away a few years earlier due to an undiagnosed heart condition.
- In a much reviled period of the show, Raw took on a celebrity guest host format in 2009 where actors, singers, and athletes stopped by to plug their stuff and partake in some truly awful comedy bits with the WWE Superstars and Divas. However, once in a blue moon they'd land someone that was either a genuine fan or just professional enough to show a little interest in putting on a good show like Bob Barker, William Shatner, or Jeremy Piven and Ken Jeong...
Admittedly, fans gave those two a lot of hate, but in retrospect their willingness to actually get involved in the action to the extent that they did is admirable. I think Jeong actually suffered a concussion from that botched landing if I recall correctly.
- Two of the biggest celebrity matches that were supposed to happen but didn't involved Shaquille O'Neal and his altercation with "The Big Show", and Mickey Rourke facing "Y2J" Chris Jericho after the success of "The Wrestler." Shaq claimed the WWE never offered enough to follow through with a ppv match, and Rourke supposedly backed out on his due to it hurting his chances at the Oscars that year. Mickey however, did engage in a post match scuffle with Jericho at Wrestlemania XXV in which he floored him with a knockout punch.
- E! News co-anchor Maria Menounos wrestled three times for the WWE between 2009-2012, she also inducted "close personal friend" and former WWF Champion Bob Backlund into the Hall of Fame in 2013 and has co-hosted the red carpet preshow for the event the last two years.
- Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman made two memorable appearances on Raw. The first which culminated with him backing Zack Ryder and delivering a shot to the jaw of Dolph Ziggler....the man "Trainwreck" star Amy Schumer claims to have dumped for being "too athletic" in bed....and last year where Hugh managed to bury the hatchet with Dolph when promoting "Days of Future Past." Unfortunately the two were interrupted...
- And then there was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's appeared numerous times over the years, once on Raw along with Joe Manganiello to promote their truly awful film "Sabotage", to induct a long holdout on the Hall of Fame and one of his personal heroes....Bruno Sammartino, but his most memorable WWE moment came in 1999 when he visited Smackdown! and tangled with Triple H...
...in 2015, he would be the man to induct Schwarzenegger into WWE Hall of Fame.
Also, it was announced last month Schwarzenegger would be appearing as a pre-order bonus in this October's "WWE 2K16" video game. In honor of his inclusion, 2K recreated the bar scene from "Terminator 2" which now features current WWE Superstars and Divas...
And in a year where "The Governator" was inducted into the Hall of Fame, another well known name in the world of politics has also found himself mixed up with the WWE.....the recently retired host of the Daily Show Jon Stewart got into a war of words with current WWE Champion Seth Rollins back in February which started when Rollins made a crack that he would've made a better television host than Stewart.
To that, Jon had this to say...
Jon's promo led to Rollin's crashing The Daily Show...
...in which he invited Stewart to Monday Night Raw.
Then just last week, in a last minute addition, the WWE announced that Jon Stewart would be hosting tonight's event. One has to wonder if Jon will some how interfere in Rollins title vs. title match against the current United States Champion John Cena? If Cena comes out on top, he will tie "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair with sixteen World Title wins, a record that's stood since 5/29/2000.
If that's not enough star power, there's rumors abound *SPOILERS* a certain box office draw and UFC champion may also appear.
Whatever the case, fan or those slightly interested by Amell and Stewart's involvement, you can watch tonight's entire four hour event along with the preshow for FREE by signing up for a trial run of the WWE's streaming and on demand network through their website.
Here's a look at tonight's entire card...
- Brock Lesnar w/ Paul Heyman vs. The Undertaker
- WWE World Champion Seth Rollins vs. WWE United States Champion John Cena (Title vs. Title)
- Stephen Amell & Neville vs. Stardust & Wade Barrett
- Randy Orton vs. "Mr.Money in the Bank" Sheamus
- Intercontinental Champion Ryback vs. The Miz vs. The Biz Show (Triple Threat Match)
- Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt & Luke Harper
- WWE Tag Team Champions The Prime Time Players vs. Los Matadors vs. The Lucha Dragons vs. The New Day (Fatal 4-Way Match)
- Kevins Owens vs. Cesaro
- Team Bella vs. Team B.A.D. vs. PCB (Three Team Elimination Match)
- Dolph Ziggler w/ Lana vs. Rusev w/ Summer Rae
And if you're interested in a shirt commemorating tonight's Amell match...
"100% of proceeds benefit Emily's House, a hospice for children."
WWE SUMMERSLAM airs tonight, at 7PM Eastern on the WWE Network.
