by Date – 7/25/25
Location – Rocket Arena in Cleveland Ohio
Final Grade – C-
CLEVELAND, OHIO – On a night where longtime WWE fans were mourning the loss of Hulk Hogan, no one in the crowd seemed to care. While there was a few T-Shirts in the crowd, and fans like me who were there enjoyed the tribute, for the most part, that was it! The show started with a video, voiced over by HHH and 10 bell salute, but that was pretty much it. Why they flew in Hacksaw Duggan, Million Dollar Man, B Brian Blair, Sgt, Slaughter and Jimmy Hart to stand on stage and never speak, is beyond me.
One thing became clear quickly, today’s WWE fan is a younger breed that has no idea the measure of Pop Icon Hulk Hogan was in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I do wonder if we get more on RAW Monday night, or if the WWE simply cannot sacrifice minutes on the show with it being the go home for WWE SummerSlam. If Friday was truly it, they dropped the ball.
That is how they began the night and instead of a having a hot match right after to get the crowd going again, they opted for a talk show with Logan Paul instead. All of this led to a mele with Jelly Roll, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre and Paul. Paul received some tremendous heat from the Cleveland crowd but the segment itself came across a bit clunky.
From there, Alexa Bliss lost her 1 on 1 match with Roxanne Perez. This actually went against traditional logic that typically sees the challenger or challengers win non-title matches heading into a PPV. This made the team of Bliss and Charlotte look foolish but also leads me to believe they may actually win at SummerSlam.
The WWE followed up a women’s segment with another one right after that as Jade Cargill squashed Chelsea Green,. Afterwards, Cargill was saved by a post-match attack as Tiffany Stratton ran down to help her. WWE creative seems intent in billing Cargill vs Stratton as face vs face for the strap at SummerSlam.
The highlight of the night came over the next 30 minutes that saw a solid match with Jacob Fatu and the returning Miz. Fatu took the win and continues to be extremely over with the fans right now. Meanwhile Cody Rhodes came out next for a promo and dropped several hints towards his impending heel turn.
The main event was flat as The Wyatt Six took on Rey Fenix and Andrade in a match that left everyone wondering how that could classify as a main event. I’m not going to say Cleveland got stiffed, but it wasn’t a very good show.
