WWE SummerSlam 2014: Live coverage, results, GIFs and more

The Staples Center in Los Angeles hosted WWE SummerSlam on Sunday night. At the end of a wild, unpredictable and frankly stellar evening of professional wrestling, all three defended titles changed hands, the top of the card has undergone a potentially paradigm-altering shakeup and everyone who is tired of John Cena witnessed a dismantling the likes of which has never been seen. We’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s dive in and figure out where we stand and what we learned at SummerSlam.

Please note: I watched this event live, inside the Staples Center. As a result, I am likely tainted by the crowd energy, lack of annoying commentary and so on. But my initial (and secondary) reaction is that this is one of the best installments of SummerSlam ever. No worse than top-three. Without further ado ...

Brock Lesnar is the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and he couldn’t have won in a more dominating manner. John Cena hit an Attitude Adjustment and had Lesnar in the STF for a bit, but they were his only two moves of an entire 20-minute match. He took a savage beating from Lesnar.

Cena has been the champion since winning the vacant title at Money in the Bank, but The Authority don’t like him too much. He won’t do what they want, so they’ve done everything to get the title off of him. Nothing they’ve tried has worked, so they’ve decided to sick Brock Lesnar on him.

Roman Reigns has gone through yet another match where he eats a finisher, kicks out, then pins his opponent after just one finisher. Sunday night’s victim was Randy Orton.

While Orton and Reigns aren’t in the title match, they’ve both been on the fringe of the title for a while, and that’s been the basis of their feud. Neither was victorious or the man pinned in the fatal four-way title match during the last pay-per-view, so the winner of this match was always going to be right back in the title picture. Orton was supposedly going to get the title shot at this show before Brock Lesnar did, but Reigns beat him up and prevented him from coming out to the ring on the night he was supposedly going to get that match.

Stephanie McMahon won at SummerSlam, Nikki Bella turned heel and there was only one thing left for The Authority.

NEVERENDING KISS!!!

Nikki Bella has turned on her sister, knocking out Bria Bella to help Stephanie McMahon win, and apparently nothing is sacred anymore.

Steph has been the best performer in the company for a while, so it’s about time she got a real feud. This was her first match in a decade, and they picked a good feud to use it on. Brie and Steph have gotten each other arrested, smacked the crap out of each other and just generally put on a great show over the last few months.

Chris Jericho has done what Chris Jericho has been doing for the last couple of years, and that’s get the living hell beat out of him. Bray Wyatt beat him, and comfortably, after two Sister Abigails.

Fans were excited about the potential of a feud between one of the most consistently great performers of the last era and a new rising star, but it hasn’t gotten off to a great start. Wyatt and Jericho had an average match at Battleground, but they had a great interview a week before this match, bringing some heat back to the rivalry. The crowd reactions to the entrances were huge, at least.

Seth Rollins continues to play the unlikable bad guy perfectly. He tried to run away from Dean Ambrose, and ultimately beat him on Sunday night by hitting him in the head with a metal briefcase.

The Shield were the best wrestling faction in half a decade from a storyline perspective, and perhaps the greatest ever as far as the standard of wrestling goes. They were the biggest reason that a lot of fans tuned in to WWE every week, so when Seth Rollins turned on Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, a lot of people were really upset. IT’S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT.

Jack Swagger has lost to Rusev by way of passing the heck out, proving once and for all that the United States of America is a weak, diminishing power while Russia is the greatest nation in the world.

Because it’s the 1950s, Russia is America’s greatest enemy, and Jack Swagger is fighting to save us from Communism. Rusev, of course, wants to prove that Russia is the greatest nation in the world and that Americans are pathetic. Even though he’s Bulgarian. And has been acknowledged as such on the show. This was a “flag match,” meaning the flag of the winning wrestler would be raised above the ring.

Paige is the Divas’ Champion again at the end of a fast and physical match with AJ Lee. Despite the new dirty character she’s running with, she did it clean, off a DDT.

This feud has been running since April, though not continuously. AJ dropped the title to Paige the night after WrestleMania, before she took a break to get married, then took it right back when she returned. That set up a slow heel turn for Paige, who acted like she respected and admired AJ at first, then turned on her and started wrestling a pretty brutal style. It’s the best women’s feud entirely based on wrestling in a long time.

Dolph Ziggler is the new Intercontinental Champion after a short, but very fun match with defending champion The Miz. He hit the Zig-Zag en route to a clean pin to lift the title.

Miz and Ziggler have had a pretty classic wrestling feud over the last month. Ziggler is an immensely popular fan favorite, while Miz is running a self-important movie star gimmick. It’s a new gimmick since he came back, and pairing him with Ziggler has been a great way to get people to boo him. And in case the message hadn’t gotten across, Miz took the opportunity to come out and diss the Lakers before the match.

Instead of putting the tag team titles or a running feud on the SummerSlam pre-show, WWE opted to put Cesaro and Rob Van Dam together to kick off the card. They put on a decent match, with Van Dam picking up the win after just under 10 minutes.

There wasn’t any kind of serious buildup for this match. WWE had time to fill and a crowd to get excited for the main card, so it put two guys who fans like and weren’t on the pay-per-view into a warm-up match. It wasn’t a bad idea.

On Sunday night, WWE SummerSlam will come to the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the sixth straight year. The annual August event is the third-longest-running WWE pay-per-view and generally the second- or third-biggest event the WWE runs each year. This year’s show is headlined by John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

The event begins at 8 p.m. ET on pay-per-view and the WWE Network. If you subscribe to WWE Network (still only $9.99 a month!), you’ll be able to stream SummerSlam live on any number of devices, plus get access to a live pre-show beginning at 7:30 p.m., which features a bonus match exclusive to the Network.

SummerSlam is traditionally either the second- or third-best (and generally biggest) pay-per-view of the year, depending upon your opinion (and the quality) of the Royal Rumble. It also tends to feature some of the best in-ring action of the year. SummerSlam rolls around once again on Sunday night, taking place in Los Angeles for the sixth straight year and beginning at 8 p.m. ET, with a kick-off show exclusively on the WWE Network beginning at 7:30 p.m. and featuring a bonus pre-show match.

Sadly, after a mostly white-hot year of action in the ring and a nearly unparalleled run of fantastic pay-per-views, the build-up to SummerSlam has been ... kind of bad. The WWE has focused on the perplexing feud between Stephanie McMahon and Brie Bella and has (understandably) been in panic mode regarding the WWE Network, but the event looks solid enough on paper. And since they’ve yet to have a misstep with a PPV so far this year, they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

On Sunday, Roman Reigns will take on Randy Orton at SummerSlam. It will be the first singles pay-per-view match for Reigns since the breakup of The Shield, one of the most dominant trios the WWE has ever seen.

“I’m ready to go. I’m tired of waiting,” says Reigns. “I feel good [about the match]. I wrestle five to six times a week and [the matches are] all by myself, so my engine’s ready to go. I’m running on pretty much full cylinders here. It’s just about getting out there and doing it now, but I couldn’t be any more ready than I am.”