Since I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks and haven’t seen any of the build-up, this may be a relatively concise rundown.  We’ll see.

Summerslam is traditionally the WWE’s major PPV of the summer.  In fact, there’s not much on this card that looks particularly extraordinary.  In one case, that’s probably because planned celebrity involvement fell through.  Otherwise, it’s something of a business-as-usual card – though one unusually light on gimmick matches.

1.  WWE Title: CM Punk v. John Cena v. The Big Show.  Raw’s version of the world title.  CM Punk has been champion since last November – a remarkably long run by the standards of recent years, which suggests that the company really is getting more serious about having longer, more meaningful title reigns.

Despite that, Punk’s matches have not generally headlined the major shows, since John Cena continues to be treated as a bigger star.  They’re now starting to play off that, with Punk beginning a heel turn based on his irritation at the lack of respect shown to him.

Cena won Raw’s Money in the Bank ladder match but, unwisely, chose to use his title shot for a regular match on Raw Episode 1000, rather than wait to ambush the champion.  That didn’t work out very well for him, as the match ended with outside interference and Punk electing to take advantage, then fail to intervene when Big Show attacked Cena after the match.  He’s not yet a full-fledged heel (he continues to work as a babyface on house shows), but he’s clearly heading that way.

This could be a way to give him fresh opponents or it could be a prelude to his losing the title.  There are various possibilities here.  In the background, there’s the fact that the company has already announced that Rock gets a shot at this title at the Royal Rumble in January.  Since we also know he’s booked for next year’s Wrestlemania in the spring, Rock will presumably win the title in January and defend it in a rematch at Wrestlemania.  So, one plausible version of events is that Cena wins the title here, loses it to Rock in January (making it one match all), and then faces Rock at Wrestlemania in a deciding match where he wins the title back.  Alternatively, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Punk could get that slot, on the logic that Cena doesn’t need the help.

As for Big Show, he’s presumably here to avoid the main event of Summerslam being a straight rematch of a match they already did on free TV a few weeks ago.

It ought to be a decent match, and with two realistically plausible outcomes, I can see it being a strong main event.

2.  World Heavyweight Title: Sheamus v Alberto Del Rio.  This, on the other hand, feels more like a case of “oh god, I suppose we’d better get around to doing this match, we’ve been promising it long enough”.  Del Rio won a title shot ages ago and for various reasons the match never happened.  I suppose it’s possible that the idea was to build interest, but the impression given has been more that they keep losing faith in the match and don’t really want to do it.  There’s been a half-hearted attempt to build a feud here after the match was already announced, but nothing especially memorable.  They’re not a very good match as characters; Del Rio’s act is just a bit too comedic and silly, and if they seriously want to keep him in the main event mix, it may be time to detach him from his loveable sidekick Ricardo Rodriguez.

Sheamus is being booked very strongly, in an attempt to cement him as a major star.  I don’t see him losing to Del Rio here, which wouldn’t help either guy.  This is just a case of feeding him a relatively strong contender.

3.  Brock Lesnar v Triple H.  This is the second of Brock Lesnar’s occasional matches which he’ll be doing over the course of 2012/3.  The first was against Cena a few months back, and the conventional wisdom was that Lesnar obviously had to win in order to keep him strong.

He lost.  The WWE’s thinking is apparently that Lesnar isn’t sticking around, so his role ought to be to build the regular cast.  That’s fine in theory, but if you’re going to do that, the first match is not the time, and Cena is not the guy.

This may be different, since (a) Lesnar really can’t lose two high profile matches in a row and still be the draw they need to justify his pay; and (b) Triple H is semi-retired, now concentrating mainly on his (genuine) role in the WWE corporation.  Since he isn’t a regular wrestler either, the argument for using Lesnar to build him up doesn’t apply.

The broad storyline here has Lesnar walking out of the company and suing for supposed breaches of contract, and Triple H talking him into a match to resolve their differences.  There’s also a subplot with Triple H’s former tag partner Shawn Michaels supposedly being in his corner, though officially that’s off, because (in storyline) Lesnar broke his arm last week.  With Michaels’ finishing move being a kick, I somehow suspect that won’t prevent him from attending.

Personally, I think they blew the Brock Lesnar storyline when he lost the first match.  He needs to win here, and anything else would be a major surprise, but I have trouble caring that much about a match between two semi-retired guys where the outcome is either going to be obvious or stupid.  Technically it’ll be a good match, but it doesn’t excite me.

4.  Chris Jericho v Dolph Ziggler.  Another fairly predictable match.  Ziggler won the Money in the Bank contract for Smackdown (despite being on the Raw roster – don’t ask).  But he hasn’t won a major match in ages, so clearly there’s got to be some rebuilding before he cashes in the contract to win the World Heavyweight Title.  Chris Jericho, on the other hand, is about to take another extended leave from the company in order to pursue his music interests.  So, even if it meant a hasty babyface turn to restore Jericho to his Y2J gimmick, Jericho becomes an obvious choice of opponent.  He’s been losing to younger stars pretty much consistently in his current WWE run – he evidently sees his role as being to help build the next generation – and this will surely be more of the same.  Once again, it’ll be a good match, but anything other than a decisive win for Ziggler would be a major upset.  The storyline just doesn’t really allow for anything else.

5.  Kane v Daniel Bryan.  It’s not quite clear what happened with this storyline.  At some point, the idea appeared to be that Daniel Bryan was going to be doing something on this show with Charlie Sheen.  They did some set-up for that on Raw Episode 1000 (in which Sheen appeared via Skype), and there were some subsequent skits based on Bryan’s alleged temper problems (playing off Sheen’s sitcom Anger Management).  But nothing further has been heard about Sheen, and if he was going to be on this show, they’d surely be telling us about it.  You don’t shell out for a major star, even a lunatic like Sheen, without publicising it.

My guess would be that there was some sort of plan with Sheen but the whole thing has fallen through and they now find themselves doing some sort of filler match that was originally intended to serve as backdrop.  On the bright side, Bryan can have a good match with anyone.  Since he’s presumably going to have to feud with Raw’s new general manager AJ Lee (his ex-girlfriend), I’d say he needs to be kept relatively strong and he might as well win here.  On the other hand, there’s always the argument that this is an abortive storyline and it should end with the heel defeated – which would point to Kane winning.

6.  WWE Intercontinental Title: Miz v Rey Mysterio.  Miz is the current champion, having won the title on Raw Episode 1000.  Mysterio has recently returned from a lengthy absence and has pretty much just been awarded a title shot for being so famous.  Frankly, both of these guys are probably above the Intercontinental Title.  It’s an odd booking since neither should really be losing this match.  Mysterio’s only just returned; Miz has only just won it and needs to be rebuilt.  My bet would be a screwjob finish with Miz retaining to set up a rematch down the line.  Should be a decent match.

7.  WWE Tag Team Titles: R-Truth & Kofi Kingston v Prime Time Players.  Ah yes, this.  Truth and Kofi have had the tag titles since April, though Truth was injured for a lot of that period, so they’ve not done much with them.  The Prime Time Players are the rising heel team who’ve had a title shot before and, uh, lost.  Which was unusual booking, but tends to suggest that the idea was for them to keep pushing and eventually win the titles by outright cheating.

The complication here is that the Prime Time Players had just been outfitted with a new gimmick – a manager, A.W., who had a live mike while watching their matches.  The theory was for him to be irritating and generally liven up the matches in a heelish way.  This wasn’t a very good idea to start with, since it made the actual commentators’ job rather difficult.  Anyhow, A.W. was fired last week with some dispute as to the exact reasons.  The most likely version is that the company was understandably not at all impressed by his decision to compare his wrestler on live TV to an alleged rapist, and even less impressed by his apparent failure on Twitter to grasp why this might have been a bad idea.  Fundamentally, he just doesn’t seem to understand the limits of what’s acceptable on a PG-rated show.

Which begs the question of what maniac came up with a gimmick that involved giving him a live mike on a live TV show in the first place.

At any rate, the loss of their manager leaves the Prime Time Players without a spokesman and without much in the way of a gimmick.  Assuming they don’t wheel out a replacement, which isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility, the act needs retooling – which would point strongly against a win for them.  On the other hand, they’ve got a degree of momentum at the moment, the titles are doing nothing on Kingston and R-Truth, and there’s much to be said for a title change.  I suspect a decent match and the heels winning.

8.  WWE United States Title: Santino Marella v Antonio Cesaro.  This is airing on the YouTube pre-show, so it doesn’t technically count as Cesaro’s PPV debut.  Still, Antonio Cesaro is the wrestler who formerly worked on the indie circuit under his real name of Claudio Castagnoli.  He’s very good, though the WWE’s use of him has been a bit stop-start.  He was originally introduced as the usurper lover of Teddy Long’s girlfriend Aksana, but that storyline pretty much had nowhere to go after Long stopped being Smackdown’s general manager.  Then Cesaro just sort of drifted.

He’s still paired with Aksana and he’s now challenging for the US title, which comedy wrestler Santino Marella has held for ages, without doing much.  It’s past time for a change, and since Cesaro has suddenly sprouted an odd gimmick of speaking five different languages – he’s Swiss – it very much looks as though they’re setting up for having the smug foreigner as US champion.  I’d say that’s the smart way to go here, even if it is just a match on the pre-show.  Cesaro could really use the title; Marella doesn’t need it and is doing nothing with it.

Worth getting?  The matches are all decent on paper, the storylines are a bit anaemic.  Depends what your priorities are.