Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar WWE SummerSlam Match Marred by Poor Booking

Undertaker and Brock Lesnar were well on their way to painting a masterpiece at SummerSlam when WWE decided to scribble all over it with crayons.

Fans won't remember this bout as the clash of leviathans that it should have been. The main event didn't leave the audience thrilled, satisfied or blown away. Instead, a fog of confusion hung over the ring.

Blame a WWE writing team that overthought things, that went for convoluted rather than climactic. 

To say that NXT's two main events outclassed WWE's is not just the cool thing to say. It's the truth, the result of the former delivering logical stories and proper endings while the latter resorted to trickery.

At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn, Bayley proved herself worthy of the NXT Women's Championship by taking the cocky titleholder's best shots and gutting out a win despite an injured hand. Finn Balor proved that his NXT title in Japan was no fluke by stomping his foe out, first leaping from a ladder and then ascending it to claim the gold. In both cases, the stories felt complete, the endings accentuated the action.

That was far from the case at the close of SummerSlam.

What began as a match worthy of all the hyperbole WWE had created unraveled at the end. Undertaker looked more like his old self in this battle than their WrestleMania meeting. He was en route to redeeming that subpar performance with one for the ages.

The two bruisers pounded on each other with hard strikes as an entranced crowd watched on.

Lesnar suffered a cut over his eye, and blood soon seeped into his sweat to create a grotesque mask. It was a fitting image for a bout so physical, one that had been so deftly built on personal issues between the two rivals.

As Fighting Spirit Magazine pointed things were going rather well:

Then came the final chapter of the story. The clash built to a crescendo and then uttered a whimper.

Lesnar had Undertaker in the Kimura lock, but the referee didn't see The Deadman tap out. The timekeeper did, apparently, and began to ring the bell. The official then argued that he didn't call for the bell while Undertaker clocked Lesnar in the jewels once again. Undertaker soon won when The Beast Incarnate passed out in Hell's Gate.

The announcers weren't sure what had happened. They bickered among themselves about the match's final moments.

Referee Charles Robinson was similarly uncertain. He seemed flummoxed by the situation and upset with the timekeeper.

It's not a good sign for a PPV main event that there is just as much discussion about the referee as there is about the titans who laid it all out in the ring. Robinson comes out of this with more heat than anybody, and that's an insane thought.

In attendance that night, Justin LaBar of Chair Shot Reality tweeted about how the live audience reacted to all of it:

Confusion is not the emotion you want to end SummerSlam with. This isn't supposed to be some cliffhanger; this is supposedly the WrestleMania of the summer. If WWE had ended WrestleMania this way, fans would skewer the company.

Think back to the best SummerSlams of all time and compare their endings with this one. In 1992, British Bulldog stood next to his wife and Bret Hart, his brother-in-law and the man he dethroned as intercontinental champion as fireworks shot up behind them. A decade later, Lesnar delivered an emphatic statement of his arrival by knocking off The Rock and staring longingly at his newly won WWE title.

That's how you end a main event. That's how you end a SummerSlam.

Like Pro Wrestling Torch's Greg Parks points out, this time the focus was in the wrong place:

The ending cheapened Undertaker vs. Lesnar. It was far too screwy for something WWE had built up for so long. With about 15 minutes left to go in the pay-per-view, the audience sat around waiting for an explanation or perhaps a match restart that never arrived.

How the decision to end this match and SummerSlam that way made it past the drawing board is hard to fathom.

A larger-than-life showdown of immortals fizzled out just when it needed its biggest moment. WWE did its gladiators and its fanbase a disservice.