Logan Paul has now firmly embraced his heel role, even acting tough toward fans on his way down the very long SummerSlam entranceway. He supposedly is trying to get to his brother’s boxing match after this, so we’ll see how long this goes. Fans are firmly behind Ricochet from the start.
There’s plenty of posturing and posing early on, along with some smack talking. The crowd is reacting audibly to almost every move, and it will be interesting to see if they can keep that up for three hours.
Paul yanks Ricochet down hard and bounces him off the apron to the floor. The camera cuts to ring announcer Samantha Irvin, who is engaged to Ricochet and got dragged into this feud over the last week by Paul.
The fans enthusiastically tell Paul he sucks as he earns his first near fall. He’s leaning into the boos again, cupping his ear and flexing between moves.
A spinebuster finally turns things around for Ricochet, who follows with a standing moonsault for two. Paul responds with a back body drop that gets big air.
Paul tries to launch into a Spanish Fly off the apron, but both men land on their feet and the Maverick is planted. He recovers in time to drag his foe back out to the floor, however, and hits a Buckshot lariat of sorts before grabbing a drink of Prime. Of course. He returns to the ring for another near fall.
Ricochet battles out of the corner, then heads up top with Paul and drops him with a cutter that leaves both men down. Paul gets hit with a handspring back elbow, and Ricochet’s flurry ends with a springboard lariat and a follow-up for two.
We may now have entered “what will it take to win this?” territory for Ricochet. Paul plants him with a tornado DDT after a nice countering sequence, and the crowd reacts as it’s a very close two count.
Ricochet counters a powerbomb attempt with a facebuster and looks to soar again. But Paul gets his knees up on the Shooting Star Press and covers for yet another near fall.
An inverted electric chair drop has Paul looking confident again. He springboards into a Frog Splash but Ricochet manages to kick out at the last second, and Logan looks a little dismayed.
Paul signals that he’s going to load up his right hand but is caught coming in. Yet another close call occurs after Ricochet’s springboard moonsault finds the mark.
Ricochet tries a 450 splash only to find Paul roll away, and the crowd boos as he grabs some brass knux. His right hand is on target, giving him a cheating victory.
Check out full WWE SummerSlam 2023 results here.