WWE Summerslam 2011: Why Having Just Four Matches on the Card IS Great

If you haven't realized yet, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is going into SummerSlam with a final card of just four matches. This has led to outrage from fans, mostly in the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) flavor, who see this as lazy booking and mistreatment of mid-card talent. Well, I contest that claim. I believe that the WWE knows exactly what it's doing by having a pint-sized card.

Obviously, the greatest thing that a small card like this allows is each match and angle to be given more time to play out instead of being rushed. Sure, we could've seen R-Truth vs. Morrison and Riley vs. Ziggler at SummerSlam, but why bother? You know it'd just be total filler - something that can be (and was) fleshed out on weekly television. Why bring down the rest of the card to give these pointless matches some time? Remember Hardcore Justice this past weekend? Well neither do I, mostly because of all the filler BS.

Anyways, a big concern from fans is that this 4-match card won't be able to fill the time-slots (despite the previous point), and that a match with Miz or D-Bryan and Barrett will have to be tossed in to fill time like at Capitol Punishment (spoilers from the 8/12 episode of SD: no other matches are added to the card - it's final). Let me tell you this: the card may seem small, but its stacked with content, and will need at least three hours to play out well, as I'll display.

First we'll have our opener, Sheamus O'Shaunessy versus Mark Henry. There's a lot riding on the table here, side from a typical big-man match. Henry's been on an absolute tear as of late, and Sheamus is in the process of his first baby-face turn, which will no doubt lead to pushes for both men towards the World Championship.

To be honest, I'm less looking forward to the match in favor of what the actual confrontation will result in. The build-up for this has been better than most, so I'm expecting something... big. I'd say that the match will get five to seven minutes - tops - resulting in most likely a disqualifying or double-countout, as neither of these men can risk losing on such hot-streaks.

From here, I'm expecting a full-out brawl from these men with huge spots. Remember when Brock Lesnar superplexed the Big Show from the top rope and exploded the ring? Yeah, something like that, complete with ring dismantlement, to really sell the whole angle. In total, I'd give this angle about 20 minutes to play out, with most of it focusing on huge spots, such as a spear through the barricade or a World's Strongest Slam from the top rope that explodes the ring (I'm really high on that idea).

So that's 20 minutes we have in total, thus far.

While the WWE crew reassembles the ring off-camera, Cee Lo Green will perform for about 10-15 minutes, and the commentary team will try and recount what just happened in the opening event.

That brings us to 40 minutes, thus far.

Next comes the ever-hyped up Diva's Championship match. Kelly Kelly defends against Beth Phoenix. This may be the first time this year that a athletically competent Diva is featured on a PPV card (aside from Trish at Wrestlemania 27). With CM Punk using his new-found leverage to help influence the sudden change Diva's division, expect this match to last around 10 minutes, with Phoenix carrying Kelly for probably the entire battle.

To the surprise of many, I'm gonna call a victory for Kelly here with a surprise roll-up that completely sets off Phoenix, who goes all Mark Henry on her little behind. Out comes Natalya to assist in the beating. Soon enough, the rest of the Diva's division (all 5 of them) comes out to face the 2 wondrous women, and so on and so forth. I'm not going to book the entire debacle, but basically, I'm expecting the Diva's to be given more limelight here. Say, about 20 minutes?

Which brings us to a full hour, thus far.

Speaking of title defenses, we break into our second hour of the show with Christian defending his World Title against Randy Orton in a No Holds Barred match. Now, this match is getting a lot of flak for being "just another Christian-Orton match".

I don't feel that way. Why you ask? Well, firstly, this is going to be a No Holds Barred match. Knowing Christian and Orton, they're going to make the most of it. Expect appearances from Christian's old pals: tables, ladders, and chairs.

Second, Orton is exploring a new demented character, similar to that of Sting's new persona (although toned down a bit, to maintain Orton's credibility), which is much faster and more loony, which I'm hoping will tie into an even more fast-paced main event between the two.

For the sake of storyline, I see Christian retaining after a long, exhausting, but extremely entertaining match (most likely after interferences, as see in recent SD house-shows). With new character elements, probably interferences, and no disqualification, expect this epic brawl to last up to 40 minutes in total.

Bringing the total tally to an hour and 40 minutes.

And that leads us to the suspected main event of the night: The WWE Champion John Cena against the WWE Champion CM Punk with Triple H as the Special Guest Referee. If you couldn't tell from the title, this is going to be pretty big. Punk's and Cena's match was already monumental, and that match and angle got a whole freaking hour to play out at last month's Money in the Bank.

Now, take that, and include an egomaniac like Triple H, a second WWE Champion, and an even more bitter rivalry between Cena and Punk, and you can expect this bad-boy to take up to an hour and twenty minutes. I'd give the match about a full hour, combined with the facts that the two will no doubt try and top their last performance and that Triple H will complicate things.

The other 20 minutes will feed into the angle, with possibly a cash in from Del Rio (which would make a plethora of sense if you follow backstage news, and would make for an all-Mexican main-event in San Diego the next night).

And that brings our final tally to: a full three hour event. See? The WWE knows what it's doing. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see 4 stellar matches/angles play out with as much time as they need over 8 rushed humdrum events featuring story lines I don't care about.

Anyways, do yourself a favor and watch SummerSlam this Sunday. The card may not seem like much, but remember the old Charmin commercials? "Less is More".