WWE SummerSlam: Can a YouTube Match Shock Us?

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United States Championship: Santino Marella [c] vs Antonio Cesaro [Photo courtesy of ac-wwe.com]

Here’s your monthly YouTube pre-show match. Let’s all make a collective yawn as Santino Marella, perhaps the most undeserving of the current champions in WWE, throws a cog into the machine that has vaulted Antonio Cesaro to his first title match. It isn’t quite a pay-per-view match for Cesaro, so what can we really expect? A dominant Cesaro, a Santino comeback, a sock puppet coming out of Santino’s ring gear, a striking Cobra and Marella leaving still as United States Champion.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, here’s how it probably will go. WWE is high on Cesaro. His issues with Teddy Long were juicy, but failed to really be addressed. As a champion, Cesaro can clash with Long and current Smackdown GM Booker T. Santino has held the title a lot longer than anyone would have ventured that he could. The title doesn’t feel very meaningless, but putting it on Cesaro has a chance of it getting defended often. It also builds a foreign heel as United States Champion, perfect for an American face to ultimately take from him.

WWE wants to promote YouTube-exclusive matches and make them something to pay attention to? Switch a title in that match. A new champion before SummerSlam even begins will bring a good defense of “you should have watched the pre-show”, followed by the plug for the YouTube page to watch the title change if you missed it. In the long run, this helps make the YouTube matches feel unpredictable and that anything can happen on them, just like Sunday Night Heat episodes felt on the nights of pay-per-views.

Winner: Antonio Cesaro (New United States Champion)

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