WWE SummerSlam 2018 Match Card, Stars Who Deserve Bigger Push Leading Up to PPV
WWE SummerSlam 2018 is coming up fast on August 19, and the card is starting to fill up.
As it's one of the biggest shows of the year, all Superstars involved will be looking to make a name for themselves as the build to the pay-per-view highlights some of the most important acts on the roster.
However, plenty of talented wrestlers aren't being given their dues on the road to SummerSlam, having been pushed aside for whatever reasons.
There is still time for changes to be made and more matches to be added to the lineup, but as it stands right now, here are some of the most noteworthy examples of Superstars who deserve to be given a much bigger push than what they're getting.
The Current Match Card
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Before getting started, let's recap the current lineup of matches scheduled for SummerSlam 2018 to see which wrestlers are already receiving decent pushes:
- Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship
- AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe for the WWE Championship
- Alexa Bliss vs. Ronda Rousey for the Raw Women's Championship
- Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women's Championship
- Braun Strowman puts his Money in the Bank briefcase on the line against Kevin Owens
- Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins for the Intercontinental Championship
- The Bludgeon Brothers vs. either The New Day or The Bar for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship
- The Miz vs. Daniel Bryan (unconfirmed, but likely)
Obviously, most of these men and women are being treated as the focal points right now due to their spots on the card, but others who deserve to share some of the spotlight are being left in the dust.
The Authors of Pain
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In their time spent on the main roster, The Authors of Pain have done relatively nothing, and what they have done has had zero value.
Outside of telling Paul Ellering to take a hike during their debut, Akam and Rezar have mostly sat out of television tapings, only to beat up Titus O'Neil and Apollo Crews to audiences that aren't invested in that program.
Where is the monster push for these two behemoths? Why are they not fighting for the Raw Tag Team Championship titles yet?
They're big, strong, credible due to their NXT tag title experience and a fresh act to follow, yet the titles have been on three comedy teams since WrestleMania.
SummerSlam should be the event that crowns The Authors of Pain as a force to be reckoned with and the unstoppable team on Raw, but the division is focused on Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt, instead.
Meanwhile, The Authors of Pain are becoming an act that will lose relevance and be stuck on Main Event tapings if WWE doesn't give them a more intriguing storyline, different partners to work with and a more solid push soon.
Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows
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While Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows aren't in a good enough spot right now to justify putting on the card itself, leading up SummerSlam, they should certainly be doing much more than they are.
For the most part, they've been absent since losing their tag title shot against The Bludgeon Brothers at Money in the Bank, but there's a prime spot for them to fill over the next few weeks.
Since Samoa Joe is fighting AJ Styles for the WWE Championship, he'll need opponents to take down on SmackDown to look strong and hype up the challenge The Phenomenal One is up against.
Joe has already destroyed Tye Dillinger and R-Truth recently and should do the same to The Good Brothers.
They have a friendship tie to Styles, so it will make the feud more personal for Joe to take them out of commission and send them away with injuries after some brutal attacks.
Being fall-guys isn't a glamorous gig, but it serves much more of a purpose than doing nothing at all and fading into obscurity and irrelevance.
Elias
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There seems to be a running theme with Elias that he's popular enough to feature every week on Monday Night Raw, but WWE rarely ever wants to set him up with any solid programs.
Perhaps the writing team is taking his former persona of The Drifter a bit too literally, forcing him to drift from one week to the next without much of a purpose.
His feuds are short and unfocused. More often than not, he's put in a random spot just for that particular night, rather than being able to build on anything to create a functional storyline.
This seems counterproductive to all the investment put in him, as he even had two WWE Network specials based on him recently, with one being a full documentary.
If he's someone the WWE Universe is supposed to be invested in enough to want to watch a feature on him, why isn't he feuding with anybody in any significant way outside of potentially that lame start to a program with Bobby Lashley?
Sure, he could make an appearance on the kickoff or as a bumper between matches on the main card to sing a song and promote his album, but that isn't the same as being given something he could really sink his teeth into, like an Intercontinental Championship shot or even a win in a grudge feud.
Bobby Lashley
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It appears as though the plan for Bobby Lashley could be a throwaway match with Elias that has little substance to it.
This feels like a feud WWE will put no effort into and it only exists to get the two on the card, rather than being something engaging that will carry into Hell in a Cell.
It might as well be a pre-show match to skip, which isn't a good sign for Lashley, who was just fighting for the right to face Brock Lesnar.
To go from a Universal Championship match and the main event to a meaningless kickoff or filler fight is a major downgrade for Lashley.
He's not the most charismatic or bombastic character, but booking like this will quickly lower his status on the roster.
The more he's an afterthought on big cards like SummerSlam, the less value he'll have for the WWE Universe to get invested in and the harder it will be to get behind a solid push in the future.
If he's still struggling in the midcard in a few months, we'll be able to trace that back to his lack of a push on this card.
Bobby Roode
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How has Bobby Roode fallen so far from grace?
His song alone was more over than half the roster and he has the skills and experience to have come straight to the main roster and become a world champion, but he's been a complete bust since graduating from NXT.
Now, the best thing WWE has for him to do is to put over Mojo Rawley, who should be several levels beneath him on the totem pole instead of an equal.
With the right treatment, Roode should at least be in the midcard title picture, if not higher.
SummerSlam is probably not even within his grasp at the moment, despite the fact he should rightfully be a featured player.
A heel turn and a program with a bigger star like Seth Rollins is a much better scenario for him than crossing his fingers that he'll have a rematch with Rawley on the kickoff.
If the Raw writers think this is the best he has to offer, they should send him over to Tuesday nights so he can be glorious once again.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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