WWE SummerSlam Fallout, The SHIELD Reunite & Brock Lesnar Passes the Torch | No-Contest Wrestling

Brock Lesnar spent 20 years refusing to be anybody's stepping stone. Then he laid down in Minnesota, took the mic and told the building that Oba Femi is the future.

O'Shea Jackson Jr. was two rows behind the announce desk to see it, which almost did not happen. He and TJ had planned to go to SummerSlam together, never confirmed the details, and Jackson only figured out mid-flight that his co-host was still at home. TJ's reasoning was practical. He knows people in New York. In Minnesota, he knows Tommy Pelissero and not much else.

Getting in was its own match. Jackson's ticket was for the floor, the floor required a wristband nobody gave him, and he was heading back up to guest services when Mark Henry rolled by on a golf cart and told him to hop on. That is how he wound up eating rock fish in catering, talking to Corey Graves and referees, with no wristband and no way to leave.

The main event was the story anyway, and Jackson did not pretend it was a classic. Hell in a Cell went about nine minutes and barely used the cell, which he thought should have made it a straight steel cage match instead. Lesnar exposed the wood on the mat, a callback they pegged to the 2015 Hell in a Cell against the Undertaker, and then, in a spot Jackson called a hell of a feat, Femi lifted 302 pounds of him out of an F5 and hit the tombstone. Lesnar did not kick out.

That last part was deliberate. The word backstage was that Femi was supposed to drop him on the exposed wood, hesitated with Lesnar's face right there, and Lesnar simply chose not to kick out rather than force a redo that might cheapen the finish. "Brock protected Oba's finish," Jackson said, and framed it as the detail that reveals the man. The same instinct that once had him telling Drew McIntyre to grab the belt, telling Femi to put a foot on his chest.

Then came the speech. This was the past, this is the future. The comparison both hosts reached for was Undertaker telling Roman Reigns it was his yard now, and the way Reigns' face turned into a little kid's in that moment. Femi looked ready to cry.

The argument that Femi did not need Lesnar for this got no patience here. Femi is not a household name yet, and beating Lesnar is exactly what moves a wrestler from one level to the next. Lesnar made it official the next day on the Pat McAfee show, announcing his retirement, and the show had called it on camera a week earlier. Whether a Wrestlemania in Saudi Arabia can produce a bag large enough to change his mind is the open question. Take the man at his word until he says otherwise.

Another emotional payload came in the World Heavyweight Championship main event, Reigns against Seth Rollins, which Jackson refused to rank and then rated five fist bumps. Rollins appeared in Shield gear on a video screen before the real one walked out. The match ran five minutes into the crowd. Reigns hit Dirty Deeds, Jon Moxley's move, and afterward came the mask, the fist bump, and the empty spot left in the middle for the brother who was not there.

The framing they landed on: "Cena and AJ was like a love letter to wrestling. Roman and Seth did a love letter to the Shield." Kurt Angle superimposed himself into the photo and tweeted, "Shucks, guys. I miss you." Neither host buys that this was the final chapter.

Elsewhere, Chelsea Green hung upside down for two minutes, popped up, climbed the ladder and took the interim women's championship, then dedicated it to Michael Hayes. Chad Gable won the Intercontinental title in his hometown, gave a genuinely moving speech about his family, and was immediately followed by a bulldog mascot selling Mug Root Beer.

The hosts still cannot decide whether that was the best or the dumbest thing they have ever seen.