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New York City has always been a home for the WWE, ever since they brought WrestleMania to us. More often than not, WWE has been going to New York for some really big shows and events. We have seen countless memorable moments happen at Madison Square Garden, from both television and pay-per-views. There has been a whole barrage of history linked to WWE in the Big Apple. It is still the WWE's most valued weekend base. This is the area which WWE wants to target, more often than not.
Therefore, it isn't any surprise that every year or so, WWE holds one of their biggest events in New York. It has ranged from Royal Rumbles to Survivor Series to WrestleManias but in recent years, WWE has been spending their Augusts in the Apple. SummerSlam has taken place in Brooklyn every year since 2015, ending the long run of Summertime Specials in Los Angeles. They will be back there next year, but 2018 is going to be the fourth year in a row that SummerSlam has taken over New York City.
Coupled with NXT Takeover: Brooklyn one night before, the last three SummerSlams have all felt much grander even though it could be a chore to get through. The shows have ranged from disappointing to decent, but they all have some interesting stories coming from them. There have been things ranging from backup plans to backstage confrontations to actual facts, but they all stem from what went down in Brooklyn in the middle of August. Here are some fascinating factoids about the previous three SummerSlams, that you might not have known about.
#10 The 2015 edition was the first one to last four hours
WWE had been looking for ways to make the rest of their Big Four pay-per-views return to their former heights of importance alongside WrestleMania, for each to have a true cornerstone quality. They settled for an increase in run-time, starting from SummerSlam in 2015. That was the event that started the tradition of NXT TakeOvers being added to the weekends of Big Four pay-per-views, which turned out to be a regular thing after the overwhelming success three years ago.
SummerSlam 2015 was the first to join WrestleMania in the four-hour club. Of the ten matches on the show, eight of them went beyond the ten-minute mark, which was a great benefit to the performers. However, in the previous two editions, we have seen one match get either overly compromised, or outright cancelled despite the expanded length. WWE will need to manage their time effectively regarding these major shows. The longer shows here paved the way for five-hour long WrestleManias and two-hour-long Kickoff Shows, so how welcome has this change really been?
#9 Sheamus vs Cesaro was originally on the main SummerSlam card in 2016
Sheamus and Cesaro, before becoming brothers-in-kilts had a hard-hitting feud as both of them wanted to stake their claims at the beginning of the second brand split in 2016. It turned out to be an extended beef, as the future tag team partners would take part in a best-of-seven series, beginning with the first match scheduled to take place at SummerSlam. However, the match was bumped to the Kickoff Show due to a Wellness suspension completely unrelated to this match.
Eva Marie was scheduled to be teaming with Natalya and Alexa Bliss against Becky Lynch, Naomi and Carmella, but she got suspended for violating the WWE's Wellness Policy just days before the big show. Her replacement turned out to be Nikki Bella, who returned from a career-threatening neck injury that required surgery. This was perceived to be quite big a moment and had to be put on the main card, at the expense of the two European brawlers. Realistically, that was the one match on the card which could have been bumped to the Kickoff Show.
#8 Sting was supposed to return as a mystery partner at SummerSlam 2015
At WrestleMania 31, Sting lost his WWE debut match in a wildly entertaining brawl against Triple H, only to shake his hand out of respect moments later. It was not the ideal way for Sting's WWE career to begin as his first ever appearance in WWE at Survivor Series 2014 was amazing. However, the plans for his summer would have been far better-received than his role at 'Mania. The original plans for SummerSlam would have seen a six-man tag team match pitting a reunited Wyatt Family, Bray Wyatt along with Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, taking on Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and a mystery partner.
The partner would have been Sting, but those plans went out the window when Rowan suffered an arm injury at the end of June and the match was pared down to Wyatt and Harper vs. Reigns and Ambrose instead. Braun Strowman was considered to make his debut in Rowan's place, but it would have been overshadowed by Sting's appearance. In the end, Strowman made a surprise debut the night after SummerSlam, while Sting re-established his presence on the same night as he targetted WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. Sting would eventually retire after suffering a neck injury during the ensuing match against Rollins at Night Of Champions.
#7 There hasn't been an entirely clean US title match since the 2005 edition
It is quite astonishing to believe, but the last clean United States Championship match at SummerSlam happened thirteen years ago, in 2005. Chris Benoit took 22 seconds to beat Orlando Jordan to capture the US Title, becoming the last person to win a clean match for the star-spangled belt at SummerSlam. From 2006 to 2014, we did not have a single US Title match on the SummerSlam main card. Santino Marella lost the belt to Cesaro at the 2012 show, but that was the pre-show. This changed, quite aptly, when SummerSlam arrived at Brooklyn.
In 2015, Seth Rollins defeated John Cena in a title-for-title match to win the United States Championship, while retaining his WWE World Heavyweight Championship. However, the match ended when SummerSlam host Jon Stewart interfered and hit Cena with a chair. The following year, Rusev's scheduled title defence against Roman Reigns was cancelled when the two brawled endlessly at ringside. Last year, we saw Shane McMahon officiate the US Title match between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens in a match where he was heavily involved, especially physically. Unless you insist on counting that match as a clean one, the last US Title match at SummerSlam that was entirely clean was in 2005, and it lasted 22 seconds.
#6 Randy Orton was John Cena's backup for his match with Seth Rollins in 2015
Four weeks before the aforementioned title-for-title match at SummerSlam 2015, John Cena defeated Seth Rollins in a match on Raw where only Cena's US title was on the line. This would build to their match at SummerSlam, but we saw a pretty gruesome occurrence during the match. Rollins hit Cena right in the face with a flying knee which looked absolutely brutal. Cena's nose was left completely battered and misshapen, casting a serious doubt over whether the Cenation Leader would be cleared for the pay-per-view.
The backup plan if Cena couldn't work SummerSlam was to take Randy Orton, who faced Sheamus in the show-opener and have him face Rollins instead. The two did have a match for the World Title on Raw in the build-up to the summertime spectacular, but Cena would indeed be cleared on the week of the show. He wrestled with a torn tricep at SummerSlam two years earlier, so it was pretty safe to say that a broken nose was not going to hold him back either.
#5 The Miz has wrestled a record of four IC title matches at SummerSlam
There were four Intercontinental title matches at SummerSlam from 2012 to 2016, and The Miz was involved in each of them. The 2014-16 stretch makes Miz the first man to take part in IC title matches at three consecutive SummerSlams. He's also the only man to have wrestled in four Intercontinental title matches on the show, as he won two and lost two of those. Miz's short match with Apollo Crews at SummerSlam 2016 was decent if mostly forgettable, but its existence earns him this unique distinction.
He broke away from Dolph Ziggler and Mr Perfect, both at three, in 2016 but had a chance to extend his lead in 2017, as he was the IC champion heading into SummerSlam. However, he wrestled a six-man tag team match in front of hardly any crowd. Ziggler, the reigning Intercontinental champion, is currently scheduled to defend his title against Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. If this match remains put, the Showoff will equal Miz's record of four Intercontinental Championship matches at SummerSlam.
#4 John Cena ended his six-year SummerSlam losing streak in 2017
Up until SummerSlam last year, Superman John Cena had not reigned victorious at SummerSlam since he made Wade Barrett tap out at the end of the 2010 show. From then on, it was loss after loss, many of those losses in excellent matches with revered in-ring marvels. In 2011, he dropped the WWE TItle unification match to CM Punk, before failing to win a triple threat involving Punk and Big Show the following year. The next four years would see him lose high-profile show-stealers in a bunch of well-received matches.
Cena lost the WWE Championship to Daniel Bryan in 2013, one year before dropping it to Brock Lesnar in a terrifying beating which shocked the WWE Universe to its core. Along with the Jon Stewart-infested title-for-title match with Seth Rollins in 2015, John Cena cleanly put AJ Styles over at SummerSlam 2016 in a match that made Styles a main-eventer. He would eventually end this bitter streak with a pedestrian victory over Baron Corbin in 2017, but this stat is still pretty astonishing. So astonishing that we will it slide that only half of those losses were clean.
#3 The Undertaker was the first wrestler to win 10 matches at SummerSlam in 2015
The Undertaker was the first to ten WrestleMania wins and he takes this cake as well. The Deadman's dubious victory over Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2015 marked the tenth time that he would leave SummerSlam with his hand raised, giving him a record of 10-5-1. His 16 matches at SummerSlam are also a record, sitting two ahead of John Cena. While not as illustrious as his list of victims at WrestleMania, Undertaker's SummerSlam sacrifices signify a bizarre Who's Who of different eras of WWE, starting from 1992.
In all, Undertaker racked up summertime wins over a varied bucket of opponents from the likes of Kamala, Giant Gonzalez and the fake Undertaker, to Test, Albert, Edge and finally, Brock Lesnar. His SummerSlam 2015 match with Lesnar was also his first one since that Hell in a Cell match against Edge in 2008, with the Deadman making some shocking returns at later editions. The quality of his matches may not have added up like his WrestleMania resume, but this is a fitting tribute to the endurance of The Undertaker, nonetheless.
#2 The WWE Championship match at SummerSlam 2017 was the first one between two wrestlers of Asian descent
The WWE Championship has a rich history, dating back to the early 1960s. We have seen fifty different champions holding the fine and prestigious belt, the 50th one being Jinder Mahal. The belt has been held by a diverse group of performers, from the muscular likes of Hulk Hogan and Bruno Sammartino to a more athletic crop including the likes of Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles. However, it is extremely rare to see two wrestlers, not from North America, face each other for the richest prize in the industry.
This makes the WWE Championship match at last year's SummerSlam so weirdly fascinating. Jinder Mahal, of Indian origin, defended the title against Japan's Shinsuke Nakamura in the first-ever WWE Title match between two wrestlers of Asian descent. The match may have left a lot to be desired but it truly was unique, brilliantly showcasing the international diversity in the ranks of the WWE's talent pool. This feat is extremely unlikely to be repeated in the near future, at least.
#1 Chris Jericho confronted Brock Lesnar backstage at the end of the 2016 edition
Few people in WWE knew how the match between Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton was supposed to end, a bloodshed TKO finish. Joining Mike Chioda, the referee for the match and virtually everyone else outside that loop was Chris Jericho, who was alarmed by the amount of blood that Orton had lost. According to Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer, Jericho had asked Michael Hayes if that was the planned finish, and Hayes, who continued to keep the secret of the match after it was over, wouldn't answer.
Just as Jericho began to lose his cool, Lesnar returned to the Gorilla Position and thought Jericho was badmouthing him. By Jericho's account, the two quickly came nose-to-nose. Meltzer's report indicates that both men got physical. The two reportedly tangled in a scrap which nearly got very ugly until Triple H and Vince McMahon intervened. McMahon then made it clear to Jericho that the bloody ending to the event was indeed planned. Things cooled down more when Orton corroborated the story, that Lesnar was not taking any liberties with him.
