The main event of Summerslam was an inter-brand match between Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton which was billed as “15 years in the making”. The match was fairly short, with Lesnar being dominant for the most of it. However, what makes the match stand out was the finish of it, which saw Lesnar constantly pound Orton and hit him with legitimately vicious elbows which then saw Orton in a pool of blood and his head gushing, which then saw referee Mike Chioda stop the match and declare Brock Lesnar the winner by TKO(technical knockout).The abrupt manner in which the match ended led many to believe that the ending might have been improvised quite a bit. However, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the ending of the bout was indeed intended as it came off.Meltzer confirmed the ending to Lesnar vs Orton was a work. He said:
"Obviously the idea was to get hardway blood. The elbow was designed to cut him open, and I don't know how badly [Orton] was hurt. Obviously he was selling and they were trying to work the idea that he was knocked out and they had to stop the match, and from what I can gather due to no one talking about anything going awry, that was probably close to what was supposed to happen, if not exactly what was supposed to happen... there was no doubt that [Lesnar] was looking to open him up."
Meltzer went on to say that there are rules for rest of WWE superstars and then there are rules for Lesnar. He stated that blading was far safer than getting elbowed by someone like Lesnar, which would end up requiring 10 stitches. He stated that Orton could’ve been legitimately knocked out. The F5 to Shane McMahon is probably a way to give a storyline suspension to explain his absence on TV for the next few months, presumably until Royal Rumble.It has been rumored that Lesnar will receive a title shot against the WWE Universal Champion at Royal Rumble, so there is a possibility that we could be seeing Finn Balor vs Brock Lesnar if Balor is still champion by then. Meltzer stated that Samoa Joe’s supposed injury was also a work, and is most likely something that will be used for his storyline in the near future.
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