A Brilliant Conflict

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This was definitely the best Summerslam I have ever watched FIRST MATCH- DUDLEY BOYS & SPIKE DUDLEY VS. PAUL London, BILLY KIDMAN & REY MYSTERIO IN A 6 MAN TAG TEAM MATCH Great action & a fine opener as well. Both these teams put on a great 6-man wrestling match. Dudley Boys & Spike Dudley get the win after the Dufley Boys nail a 3-D on Billy Kidman for the victory. 5/10 SECOND MATCH- KANE VS. MATT HARDY IN A TILL DEATH DO US A PART MATCH Believe it or not this match was really good, definitely better than there boring match at Vengeance. Kane wins after a Super-Chokeslam off the top rope on Matt Hardy to win & Lita now has to be his wife {LOL}. 5/10 THIRD MATCH- JOHN CENA VS. BOOKER T IN MATCH 1 OF THE BEST OF 5 SERIES FOR THE WWE UNITED STATES CHAMPIONSHP This was a very good match, great wrestling action from both of these guys. John Cena wins Match 1 Of The Best Of 5 Series for the United States Title after an F-U on Booker T. 6/10 FOURTH MATCH- EDGE VS. CHRIS JERICHO VS. BATISTA IN A TRIPLE-THREAT MATCH FOR THE WWE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP Not bad, not bad. Off course Chris Jericho & Edge are the ones who made this match good. Batista was just getting beaten up by these guys. Edge retains his IC Title after nailing a Spear on Jericho. 5/10 FIFTH MATCH- KURT ANGLE W/ LUTHER REIGNS VS. EDDIE GUERRERO You can always expect a good match from these guys especially after their match at Wrestlemania XX. Although their match at Wrestlemania XX was better this was still a good match which Kurt Angle won after making Eddie tap out to the Ankle Lock. 5/10 SIXTH MATCH- TRIPLE H W/ RIC FLAIR VS. EUGENE When I watched this match I was really surprised that it was a great match. Of course not the best but really good. Eugene put up a great fight but after getting distracted by Ric Flair & Willam Regal brawling at ringside, he turns around only for HHH to nail the Pedigree on him for the win. 5/10 SEVENTH MATCH- JBL W/ ORLANDO JORDAN VS. UNDERTAKER FOR THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP Wow this match was really good as well. Great effort from both JBL & Undertaker. JBL retains his title after Undertaker got disqualified by the referee for hitting JBL with his own WWE Belt. After the match Undertaker goes berserk & nails a Last Ride on JBL through his limo {Awesome}. 5/10 EIGHT MATCH- DIVA DODGEBALL It's the Raw Search Divas vs. Raw Superstar Divas. Not bad but it's cool to see the Divas getting some fun in the Summerslam PPV event as well. Raw Search Divas get the win. After the game a brawl between Victoria & Trish ensures which leads to all Divas trying to break up the fight. 3/10 NINTH MATCH- RANDY ORTON VS. CHRIS BENOIT FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP This was also a good mainevent match. Great take down & submission holds by both men. In the end Orton nails a RKO out of nowhere to pin Benoit & become the youngest World Champion in the history of the WWE. 6/10 This was the best Summerslam PPV event I have ever watched. It definitely is the third best Smackdown & Raw joint PPV of the year {The other best two are Royal Rumble & Wrestlemania XX}.Overall: I'll give it a 8/10 & a B+

Summerslam has always been a pretty good card. This one had a few weak matches but overall it was a pretty good pay per view.1. Paul London,Billy Kidmen,Rey Mysterio vs the Dudley Boyz and Spike Dudley. This match was a classic example of speed vs Power. It started out pretty boring at first but then when the match began to speed up then it got better. London and Kidman are a overrated team. Mystero is still good to watch. The Dudleys need to add more speed to there matches. They appeared to have put on a few pounds in this match and that wasn't a good thing. Spike proved to be a pretty weak heel. Not the best match on the Summerslam card but not the worst. 4/10 2.Kane vs Matt Hardy. Well this match was kind of slow at first and the fans seemed not to care much that Kane dominated this match. This would be the last WWE pay per view for Matt Hardy following the whole Lita/Edge affair. Hardy put on a good match and Kane seemed to be enjoying being the heel and not the face. I won't tell ya whats gonna happen in the end. I give this match 7/10.3. John Cena vs Booker T. Not a bad match. COuld have been worse. Booker T proved he was the better wrestler in this match but the fans for some reason think Cenas gimmick is what makes him a good wrestler. WRONG. Cena may be good on the mic but take that away people wouldn't cheer the guy. Cena barely came out of this match alive. Still not the best match but not the worse. 6/10.4. Edge vs Y2J vs Batista. Pretty good match. A lot of heat for Edge from the fans. His hometown fans. Anyways Batista looked really slow in this match. It got good when Edge and Y2J got it on. Pretty good match. 5/10.5. Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero. Awesome match. Angle and Guerrero show fans the way a wrestling match should be. Less punching and kicking,more holds and fast paced speed. Angle proved why he is the better wrestler in the WWE today. I give this match a 9/10.6. HHH vs Eugenne. OK match. But it got boring fast and predictable. Anoother HHH victory after getting help from Ric Flair. HHH needs to try to win a match for once by himself.7. Undertaker vs JBL. Not a good match at all. This was the slowest match of all and JBL proved why he can't wrestle. Undertaker had to carry JBL through this match who looked to have also put on more weight. This match got slower at the end and the outcome of this match proved why the WWE writers are getting desperate. this match will never be as good as matches like Kurt Angle vs Chris Beniot Brock Lesner vs Undertaker. 1/10 8. Randy Orton vs Chris Beniot. Pretty good match. Fast paced. There were a few missed spots and it started what was the shortest world title reign ever of Randy Orton. Still it was nice to see a clean match where are no wrestlers interfering. Chris Beniot proved why he was a great champion. 9/10.Good pay per view. Not the best but not the worst

I was very fortunate to watch Survivour Series this past Summer and this one PPV. It wasn't a bad show overall. There were some matches no one even cared for and they were matches that definitely was interest to some people. Toronto is a major hot bed for wrestling that's been around for over 50 years and it certainly had it's share of good stars worldwide coming there through the years. The WWE has certainly been a great support of the wrestling scene in Toronto and on this PPV the fans itself made that show even though we have the right to cheer or boo the kind of matches we like and don't like. The JBL & Undertaker match was the worst on the card and everyone in attendance didn't take interest in watching it and to show their protest they did the wave which the camera's didn't bother showing to the crowd. Many reports began complaining that the fans didn't care about the match but as I mentioned we the the fans have the right to boo or cheer on any match we like or don't like.

Spoilers WWE's second biggest pay-per-view of the calendar year is SummerSlam and it has been since the event began back in 1988. After WrestleMania, SummerSlam is the next big event of WWE's year. This is how they should have hyped this year's event, not, as they insisted on reminding us every two minutes, that it was WWE's version of the Summer Games. That's rubbish. There have been Olympic Games in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 and WWE/WWF has never attempted to cash in. I was disappointed that they had to rely on this to hype the PPV.That said, the 2004 SummerSlam event took place in Toronto, Canada in the Air Canada centre (referred to several times in the course of the night by Jerry Lawler and Tazz as "bizarro world", due to the intelligent fans' response to certain matches or situations.) An animated live crowd always bolsters a live PPV. Look what Brock/Goldberg would've been like without the fan heat. Anyway, on with the matches.Match 1- The Dudleyz (Bubba, D-Von and Spike) vs Rey Mysterio, Paul London and Billy Kidman. This was the obvious choice for the opener and was an enjoyable and exciting match. Kidman and London are an excellent pair and it's great to finally have them as a fixture on Smackdown. Great also is the heel turn of Spike Dudley. He's a natural and is doing very well in his new role as leader of the Dudleys. This was a fine match with some great action- pity the crowd wasn't really into it. The Dudleys won with a 3D on Kidman.Match 2- Kane vs Matt Hardy, v1.0. A much better encounter than their previous one at Vengeance, but that's not saying a lot. This feud is absolutely ludicrous and benefits no-one involved in it. This is the 2004 Al Wilson or Katie Vick. This is sensationalist Vince Russo-esque soap-opera booking and, as I said in my review of Vengeance, it stinks of Stephanie McMahon's involvement. The completely implausible stipulation was that Lita would marry the winner. Whatever. Decent enough match, it has to be said, with Matt getting a bit more offence this time round. Kane won with a Chokeslam from the second rope, which Matt sold very well. Please kill this feud.Match 3- John Cena vs Booker T (1st in a Best of 5 Series for the US Title.) WWE really dropped the ball on this by making this the first in the series thus it had no suspense whatsoever and means little. There was nothing in this match to set it apart from previous encounters between these two. It was decent enough. Cena got a win out of nowhere with his FU. I hope they have a few different types of matches in the series- watching these two have 5 identical matches doesn't do it for me.Match 4- Edge vs Chris Jericho vs Batista (Triple Threat for the WWE Intercontinental Title). The big surprise of the night was the reaction of the Toronto fans towards Edge (who is FROM Toronto.) Edge definitely got the most heel heat in this match- even more than Batista! The fans were completely behind Jericho. This was a typical WWE triple threat match with one guy "recovering" on the outside while the other two fight in the ring. (I would advise anyone who wants to see an actual three-way match to track down AJ Styles vs Paul London vs Low Ki from one of Ring of Honour's 2002 shows- excellent stuff.) Anyway, this was quite good, but not as good as the Edge/Jericho match from the previous Raw show. Edge picked up the win anti-climatically with the Spear, adding further to Jericho's PPV loss record. (He did the job here.)Hopefully Edge will turn heel soon as his bland face character is way past stale.Match 5- Kurt Angle vs Eddy Guerrero. Better than their WrestleMania match, in my opinion. A very enjoyable, psychological match with Angle using the Ankle Lock to wear down Guerrero throughout. The build-up to this match wasn't wonderful, but it was really enjoyable and it was good to see Kurt get a clean PPV win with the Ankle Lock. Match 6- Triple H vs Eugene. The Canadians didn't take kindly to Eugene and booed him heavily during the course of the match! The match itself was quite poor. I hear Dinsmore is quite a good wrestler but this Eugene character is gonna kill any chance for him to get to show that. I don't agree with him using the finishing moves of other wrestlers- he needs to develop his own style. Triple H should've got a better opponent for this event. I suppose this is fate screwing him over for last year's appalling Elimination Chamber match! Flair and Regal got involved at the end (with Flair loudly cursing into the camera- very funny!) and HHH got the win with the Pedigree. This was rather typical of a feud that was more storyline-based than built around the promise of a potentially good match. (Interesting to see what HHH thinks of this feud: he wasn't wearing his white PPV boots!)Match 7- John Bradshaw Layfield vs The Undertaker. (WWE Title match.) Better than I expected (keeping in mind I expected this to be utter crap, that's not much of a compliment.) The fans made this match interesting. During a boring resthold sequence, a Mexican wave was started; something I've never seen in my many years watching WWE! The fans also called for the Spanish table to be used, but nothing happened there. Taker got disqualified for hitting JBL with the belt then bloodied him and chokeslammed him through the roof of his limo! The animated crowd sang # Hey-ey-ey good-bye # as JBL was loaded onto the stretcher with Tazz lamenting their lack of compassion. With the amount of "worked" injuries WWE has subjected us to over the years, could you blame the fans for their skepticism? Diva Dodgeball. Worse than the Kane/Matt/Lita angle on Raw is their mind-numbingly excruciating "Pop Idol" cash-in attempt the Diva Search, where a bunch of girls who can't act or wrestle have been put on our screens for the last X weeks in some of the worst television I have ever seen. In a series of 10 (yes, 10!) painfully unfunny segments, the "Divas" attempted to seduce former WWE "great" Kamala and sell us an ice cream cone. Dreadful stuff. What's the most shocking is that WWE are willing to give the winner a $250,000 contract- more than what the actual female wrestlers are earning. I'd love to know what exactly they're smoking up in Stamford! Anyway, some "genius" thought it would be a good idea to pit the female wrestlers (Trish, Molly, Gail, Jazz, Victoria, Stacy and Nidia) against the Diva Search girls (don't even ask me to remember their names) in a game of dodgeball (an obvious cash-in from the Ben Stiller movie). While I thought the idea was lame, the actual execution of it was a poorly-shot and miserably-timed affair, lasting maybe one minute or so in length. This crap discredits the Women's division entirely. Abysmal.Match 8- Randy Orton vs Chris Benoit (World Heavyweight Title.) Now onto something good. This was a really enjoyable main event and was definitely one of Orton's best matches yet. Some great action here and an exciting finish as Orton nails Benoit with a beautiful RKO (full marks to Benoit for the selling) and pins him to become the youngest World Champ in history, thus making Lesnar's push redundant and erasing him from the history books! Time will tell as to whether this was too much too soon for the third generation star (he only dropped the IC Title last month) but I believe he should be given his chance in the main event spot as Orton's character has improved hugely this year. Fair play to Benoit for wrestling an excellent match as always. Pity his Title reign has to end.Without a doubt this year's SS was better than last year's (which in my opinion was absolute poison apart from Angle vs Lesnar). WWE can be reasonably proud of this event and while there's still room for improvement, as the second most important PPV of the year this was a respectable showing.