The Top Ten Matches & Top Five Moments of Summer Rae

I have been really disappointed with how she’s been used (or not used I guess) and I felt like making something to highlight all the great work Summer Rae has done in WWE. In my opinion, Summer Rae is the total package. She has great mic skills, an amazing amount of charisma, fantastic facial expressions/mannerisms, great ring psychology and good wrestling skills.

Gonna do this with Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Christian, Batista, Dolph Ziggler, John Cena, Mickie James and Edge too. Probably even more after.
Honorable mentions: Summer vs Natalya (NXT 5/15/13), Summer vs Emma (Main Event 4/7/15), Summer vs Paige (Raw 2/15/16), Summer & Sasha vs Paige & Emma (NXT 10/16/13) & Summer vs Sasha Banks (Raw 4/4/16)

#10 TIE: Summer Rae vs Naomi (Main Event 6/16/15) & Summer Rae vs Cameron (Superstars 1/15/15)

I chose these two matches because they’re the only two times that Summer Rae worked as a pure babyface and I thought she knocked it outta the park both times. The Naomi match is definitely the better of the two, but I felt the Cameron match deserved a bit of recognition too thanks to Summer’s selling. Summer manages to come across as a very sympathetic babyface, something that I feel like they could easily make her if they let her actually personality shine through.

#9: Summer Rae vs Emma – Superstars 10/30/14

This has a really funny spot it in it where Summer does a drop down and Emma just jumps next to her and makes fun of her. Summer and Emma battle back and forth with backslides until Summer hits a nasty spinning heel kick. Summer loves using the cobra clutch. Emma makes her big comeback but it’s cut short when Layla interferes, allowing Summer to get the rollup victory.

#8: Summer Rae vs Alicia Fox – Superstars 2/23/16

Before this match, Summer cuts a promo making fun of the Divas Revolution. She calls Alicia Fox a Beyonce/Bella wannabe. Absolutely torched. After Alicia sends Summer out of the ring, Summer refuses to come back in until the ref holds Alicia back. Summer can be really funny. Alicia hits a beautiful northern lights suplex. Summer bounces back with a spinning heel kick and manages to turn a sunset flip attempt into a cover of her own for the victory.

#7: Summer Rae vs Emma – NXT 2/20/14

This was right in the midst of the BFFs vs the rest of the NXT women feud. Summer has Sasha & Charlotte on her side, Emma has Bayley on her side. Summer wears down Emma with a lot of submission based offense. At one point she tells Emma that the NXT fans don’t like her. Emma locks Summer in the Dil-Emma and follows it up with the Emmamite Sandwich. Sasha manages to slap Emma behind the ref’s back but Summer accidentally knocks Sasha off the apron into Charlotte, allowing Emma to lock in the Emma Lock for the win.

#6: Summer Rae vs Paige – NXT 10/30/13

As is tradition, Summer and Paige start off the match being extremely aggressive with each other. Summer leaves the ring early to regroup with her BFF, Sasha Banks. After Sasha grabs Paige on the apron she gets ejected. Paige beats down Summer some more until Summer manages to spinning low kick Paige in the leg, sending her off the apron. Summer takes control and does a sweet transition from an Indian Deathlock to a leg trapping foot choke into a pinning combination. This is the stuff I love about Summer, she has awesome transitions. Also, listening to William Regal talk up Summer on commentary actually makes you appreciate her more. The only time the main roster commentary talked up Summer was the time AJ Lee was in the booth and did all the work for them. Summer talks some top tier trash talking as always. Summer’s trashing talking, however, gets the best of her when Paige manages to sneakily hit the Paige Turner and get the victory in a very fun match.

#5: Summer Rae vs Charlotte – NXT 7/24/14

The BFFs have imploded and Summer Rae gets her shot at Charlotte’s NXT Women’s title. It starts off with Charlotte embarrassing and mocking Summer and breaks down into a brawl. The crowd is unfortunately disrespectful for this one, even doing the wave during the match. But if they took their heads out of their ass, they might have enjoyed a pretty solid contest. Charlotte and Summer trade submissions however Charlotte ultimately gets the win with the Natural Selection.

#4: Summer Rae vs Kaitlyn – Superstars 12/20/13

This is the only time these two faced off and I wish it wasn’t the case. Summer uses her methodical offense to wear Kaitlyn down. In the middle of a camel clutch, Summer tells Kaitlyn that no one loves her in her own home state of Texas. This gets the crowd into the match. Kaitlyn manages to fight back until she goes for a spear and Summer dodges, letting Kaitlyn hit the ring post. Summer rolls up Kaitlyn for the victory in a surprisingly good match and Summer’s first good match on the main roster.

#3: Summer Rae vs Natalya – Superstars 3/3/16

Summer comes out to this one literally singing along with her theme song. I’m not a huge Natalya fan and I feel like she can be dull as hell, but Summer Rae definitely brings out the personality into her. I love that they keep their feud that started on Total Divas going regardless of where they are. Anytime they take a picture together they look annoyed at each other and Summer is always ‘bothering’ Nattie on her snapchat. It’s pretty awesome dedication. Nattie catches Summer’s leg in the air and Summer tries to reason with her before Nattie slams Summer, face first into the mat. Summer escapes out of the ring and of course yells at the ref. Summer gives Nattie a good beatdown for about five minutes, even walking on her stomach at one point. Summer hits two spinning heel kicks and locks in the Indian Deathlock but when she tries to turn it into a pinning combination, Natalya reverses out and locks in the Sharpshooter for the win. I absolutely love this match and that’s something I’ve never really said about a Natalya match. Honestly if they could let Summer work like this every week I wouldn’t care if she never won a match again.

#2: Summer Rae vs Paige – Main Event 2/16/16

Summer comes out and claims that while the divas were having their little revolution and picking their little teams, Summer was making actual change around here. Paige and Summer go at it and in a [really cool call-back spot from the previous night, dodges a move that Paige hit her with on Raw.](http://i.imgur.com/FAdBDIE.gifv) Summer takes Paige out with a kick to the back and does a split, taunting her. Summer locks in the cobra clutch and keep transitioning it a different way each time Paige almost breaks free. I love stuff like that. Paige manages to catch Summer’s spinning heel kick attempt and superkick her, following it up with the PTO, the move she couldn’t lock in the night before. Paige gets the victory.

#1: Summer Rae vs Paige – NXT 5/1/13

The first ever actual feud in the NXT women’s division and the feud that I truly believe actually started giving the women traction there. In her debut match in February, Summer beat Paige so badly that Paige had to leave NXT with a shoulder injury. For weeks, any time Paige would try to get back at Summer, she’d escape. Even in this match, Summer attacks Paige before she even gets to the ring. But once Paige gets her hands on Summer, she finally starts delivering the beatdown she deserved. Summer and Paige trade blows in a heated match that shows a lot of emotion. Ultimately Paige manages to put away Summer with the Paige Turner, finally getting a victory over Summer in a great match.

Not so fun fact is that Summer Rae didn’t hit her finisher in a singles one of those matches. It’s so disappointing that we’ve yet to see a competitive match against Becky, Sasha or Charlotte on the main roster. I wouldn’t even mind seeing her take a quick trip to NXT just to feud with Bayley. There’s so much wasted potential for awesome Summer Rae matches that very well may never happen. I’ll refrain from listing off the other disappointments in the booking of Summer Rae’s career because I’d be here all day.

Top 5 moments

#5: Summer Rae vs Emma – Dance contest – NXT 8/7/13

Literally the only good dance contest in WWE history and it was fun as hell. Face Emma and heel Summer have an awesome dynamic with each other where it actually feels like Summer just hates being around Emma. After Emma gets the crowd completely on her side with some ridiculous dances, Summer drops her with the Summer Crush.

#4: Summer throws bubble solution in Emma’s eyes – NXT 8/28/13

I just thought this was plain entertaining and a great way of getting across how vicious Summer Rae can be. The way she mocks Emma afterwards, pretending to cry is great.

#3: Summer Rae turns Sasha heel – NXT 9/5/13

The start of the BFFs and one of my favorite Summer promos ever. She does a fantastic job of actually acting and not sounding like she’s reading from a script. Summer approaches Sasha Banks in front of a mirror and suggests to her that perhaps being a ‘good’ person will continue to get her nowhere and that she has to unleash her inner rage to get ahead. It’s an awesome promo.

#2: The Raeccolade – Raw 8/10/15

After week after week after week of Lana attacking and kicking Summer’s ass, this was such an awesome moment. Summer locks in one of the most brutal looking camel clutches of all time and Rusev’s reaction just sells it even better. I loved this segment. Summer should be using the camel clutch more often.

#1: Summer breaks up with Rusev – Raw 10/12/15

I can’t express how good I thought Summer did in this promo. She gets emotion across better than most of the people in the WWE. Her hands are literally shaking as she yells at Rusev. This got overlooked  because a lot of people were crying about how buried Rusev was. But in my opinion it’s one of the best and most emotionally driven promos of any of the women in years. This also could have been the easiest face turn ever but apparently not.