It’s the biggest party of the summer! Or…in other words, if you’re a wrestling fan like me, you know that tagline means it’s just about time for the WWE’s second biggest show of the year behind only WrestleMania: SummerSlam.
It’s hard to believe that the 39th installment of the show is taking place this weekend from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Where does the time go? This year’s SummerSlam has shaped up to be an interesting show. Running it back with Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins isn’t really my cup of tea, but the other title match should be fun between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes. I’m also stoked to see Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar duke it out inside Hell in a Cell. And, adding Gunther vs. Nick Aldis to the card could be sneaky good. So, I figured there’s no better time to relive some of my favorite matches from the show in years past. My hope is, if you’re nostalgic like me anyway, that you’ll go back and watch some of these this week before firing up whatever pay-per-view gimmick they’re running on Saturday and Sunday nights. Before we get started, let’s get through a few honorable mentions.
Honorable Mentions: I loved the magnitude of the Undertaker-Edge Hell in a Cell match from 2008, and the brute physicality that ensued. Bret Hart’s run with and challenging for the Intercontinental Championship produced some of the best matches of the early 1990s – his showdown with Mr. Perfect in 1991 was no different. Finally, while the invasion angle of 2001 might have fallen a bit flat for most wrestling fans, that year’s SummerSlam had a pair of high quality championship bouts as The Rock battled Booker T for the WCW Championship and Stone Cold Steve Austin took on Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship.
My Top 10 Matches in SummerSlam History
10. John Cena vs. AJ Styles, 2016 – Cena-Styles was a matchup between two icons of my adolescence. That rivalry produced a surreal dream match that I’m not sure any of us could’ve seen coming back in the 2000s. The two had a series of matches together, hallmarked by back-and-forth action, near falls, and hot crowds. This SummerSlam bout was no different.
9. Universal Championship: Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe vs. Braun Strowman, 2017 – You want to talk about some big meaty men slappin’ meat?!?! This match was chock full of it. To this day, it still comes to mind when I think about the quintessential multi-men demolition derby style prize fights. This one was a ton of fun.
8. Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon, 1995 – For all of the love their ladder match from WrestleMania X, I always thought the rematch at SummerSlam that year was equally as death-defying.
7. TLC I, 2000 – Speaking of death-defying, the first Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match between The Dudley Boyz, The Hardy Boyz, and Edge & Christian is one of the most iconic matches in wrestling history. There’s an entire generation of fans who were in awe of the bodies thrown through tables, tossed from ladders, and based with chairs.
6. No DQ: CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar, 2013 – 2013’s iteration of SummerSlam had some big time matches, but I don’t know that any of them felt as raw and intense as this one. I’ve always thought Lesnar does his best work with a smaller guy that he can throw around, have sell his offense, and then spark the crowd when they inevitably make their comeback – Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio…all of these guys come to mind. Punk fit that mold too, and the two of these guys went out and put on a physically exhausting slugfest.
5. Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match: Triple H vs. The Rock, 1998 – What is it with SummerSlam and Intercontinental Championship ladder matches? This one happened during the formative years of my wrestling fandom, and it was one of those matches that just drew me in even further. What’s wild to look back on is where these two icons of the business were at when this match happened…just two hungry young bucks trying to scratch and claw their way to the top of the card. This was one of the defining matches in what would become one of the era’s greatest feuds.
4. WWE Championship: John Cena vs. CM Punk, 2011 – How can any wrestling fan forget the infamous “Pipe Bomb” promo and the subsequent “Summer of Punk” (WWE version)? Though the WWE failed to parlay it into sustained success throughout the fall of 2011, it was white hot for those few months. When you get something that over, and it hits that sweet spot where the in-ring stuff matches up to it, you’ve created something special. Punk’s match with Cena at SummerSlam was the culmination of that summer, and while I think their match from Money In The Bank that year was better, this one still delivered a memorable contest.
3. WWE Championship: Daniel Bryan vs. John Cena, 2013 – Not only was this match exciting in its own right, but you could make a compelling argument that the fabled “YES Movement” that led Bryan to the mountaintop at WrestleMania XXX began this night. It was the classic wrestling tale of an overlooked underdog attempting to prove himself against one of the greatest of all time.
2. Non-sanctioned Street Fight: Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H, 2002 – So many of us thought Shawn Michaels would never wrestle again after his back injury in 1998 sidelined him for four years. It wasn’t just that he came back that made this match so special, it was that he went so hard in this match that we couldn’t believe it. Forget SummerSlam – this is one of my favorite street fights of all time, and it just so happened to have taken place on what I still consider to be the greatest SummerSlam card of all time.
1. Intercontinental Championship: Bret Hart vs British Bulldog, 1992 – If we’re compiling a top 10 list of the matches that damn near perfectly encapsulate the pure sport of professional wrestling, this one would be on it. The headlining bout for nearly 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London had it all…championship on the line, a hometown hero in the British Bulldog, an interesting styles clash, drama. It’s one of my favorite matches of all time. It really is one of those matches you can turn on and say “this right here is what pro wrestling is all about.” To this day, I still think that finish is one of the most creative of all time, and it created a moment wrestling fans of a certain era will never forget.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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