5 Surprising moments from WWE SummerSlam 2020

Welcome back Roman Reigns, you were missed. His return at WWE SummerSlam was certainly a surprise.

WWE SummerSlam 2020 was the best pay-per-view the main roster WWE has had in the pandemic era. The match quality from top to bottom was great; there wasn’t a bad match on the entire card.

We had three good women’s matches, an excellent WWE Championship fight, a surprisingly emotional Rollins-Mysterio battle, a pair of title changes and a truly shocking return.The ThunderDome does make WWE feel bigger again and hopefully, this will lead to a good autumn for them as well.

Here are the top five most surprising moments from WWE SummerSlam 2020.

---

#5 Dominik Mysterio impresses in his debut at WWE SummerSlam

It is a great Frog Splash by Dominik Mysterio at WWE Summerslam.

Dominik Mysterio had a very tough WWE debut match. He had to fight on one of the biggest pay-per-views of the year against one of the top wrestlers in the entire company. He has had years of training, but this is a truly tough spot to start a career. But Mysterio most certainly succeeded at SummerSlam.

Dominik Mysterio was impressive on Sunday night at SummerSlam. He produced a lot of high-flying offense like his father, he hit an impressive DDT on Seth Rollins and his false-finish Frog Splash on Rollins was a thing of beauty. He also took quite a beating from kendo sticks but played his role well in the 20-minute match.

It was an emotional match with his father and mother both factoring into the ending. It allowed for fans to be even more emotionally invested in the match. Credit should go to Mysterio for playing the underdog role well.

Seth Rollins played the vile heel perfectly as he pulled off the close victory. It makes sense he would beat a debuting wrestler but he sure made Dominik look like a star on the rise.

#4 Asuka wins the RAW Women’s Championship at WWE SummerSlam

Is this the time Sasha and Bayley finally break up as a team?

Asuka was incredible at WWE SummerSlam. It is hard for anyone to have two high-quality matches on the same show, but we already knew that she is one of the best wrestlers in the WWE.

Asuka pulled double duty on Sunday night. Her match with Bayley was strong but, unsurprisingly, she lost. Sasha Banks was able to distract the Empress Of Tomorrow and help her best friend continue her lengthy SmackDown Women’s Championship reign. It seemed Asuka just couldn’t catch a break against the Golden Role Models.

The second match between Asuka and Sasha Banks was even better. Asuka took a brutal sunset flip powerbomb on the floor. The match was back and forth with some very stiff-looking offense through the 11 minute match. The finish was the big shock.

Bayley was knocked down by Asuka. Asuka was then able to put Sasha Banks into the Asuka Lock. This time Bayley wasn’t around to save her friend, nowhere to be seen. Sasha Banks tapped and lost the RAW Women’s Championship. She wasn’t able to successfully defend her title at WWE SummerSlam.

The big story coming out of this match at WWE SummerSlam will be the lack of help from Bayley in the decision. Is this the match that finally starts the break-up between Sasha Banks and Bayley? It should be an interesting week ahead for the duo. There's also the matter of Sasha and Bayley possibly defending the Women’s Tag Team Championship at Payback. Is it time for the Sasha-Bayley feud to begin?

#3 Drew McIntyre wins with a backslide pin at WWE SummerSlam

Drew still reigns after a great match at WWE Summerslam.

Drew McIntyre might just be the MVP of the entire pandemic era. It is a shame that Drew didn’t get his big WrestleMania moment in front of 80,000 screaming fans in Tampa. But he has made the best of a bad situation with some excellent in-ring work against the likes of Seth Rollins, Bobby Lashley and Drew Ziggler. McIntyre seemed more than worthy of being the WWE Champion heading into WWE SummerSlam.

Randy Orton has also been on his game in this era as well. Orton can be great when he is motivated and he has been in his heel run in recent months. He has been back to his Legend Killer ways, taking out the likes of Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. Could he keep his good streak going against McIntyre at SummerSlam? He certainly did in the clear match of the night.

The two put on an incredible WWE Championship match. It wasn’t a spot-fest or filled with finishers. It was simply a great back and forth match with clear counters and believable near-falls. In fact, both competitors missed their finishers just before Drew McIntyre got a backslide pin for the sudden win. When was the last time a backslide won a match?

It was certainly a surprise to see Randy Orton lose at WWE SummerSlam, especially with such a unique pinfall. But who doesn’t want to see a rematch now after that great SummerSlam match? After all, Payback is just a week away.

#2 The Fiend wins the WWE Universal Championship at WWE SummerSlam clean

The Fiend takes advantage in the WWE Universal Championship at WWE Summerslam.

We bid a fond farewell to Braun Strowman’s Universal Championship reign. It was brief and uneventful. Just as it was getting interesting with a possible monster heel turn, he is defeated clean by The Fiend at WWE SummerSlam. Poor Braun, he can’t seem to catch a break in the main event scene, it seems.

The main event Falls Count Anywhere match between The Fiend and Braun Strowman at WWE SummerSlam was a solid brawl. They made good use of the new ThunderDome arena space. It was actually kind of strange they only used the back stage area very briefly. It is called Falls Count Anywhere, right?

The finish of the match was surprisingly definitive. Our new monster, Braun Strowman, used a box cutter to rip open the ring and expose the wood under the mat. This took a little too long and allowed The Fiend to hit a slam and the Sister Abigail finisher twice on the exposed wood to pick up the clean win. It was nice to see The Fiend as a Universal Champion again but it is really surprising to see heel Braun not have more time with the title. However, we now all know why he didn’t have a longer reign.

Another question that needs to be answered was where was Alexa Bliss? One would think after all the abuse she took as part of this feud she would have shown up and factored into the decision. It seems WWE had another rout they wanted to go on Sunday night but hopefully we will get an answer soon.

#1 Roman Reigns returns at WWE SummerSlam

The Fiend certainly didn't see it coming.

It is nice to actually be surprised by a return for once. As the WWE SummerSlam tagline said, “you’ll never see it coming.” We literally didn’t see it coming as Roman Reigns speared the new WWE Champion, The Fiend, out of nowhere. Reigns, a two-time cancer survivor, rightfully took a long absence during the pandemic. Most were expecting his absence to be even longer than his five-month break that ended at WWE SummerSlam.

Besides some newly-whitened teeth, Roman Reigns seemed to be sporting a newly-aggressive attitude as well on Sunday night. It is out of character lately for Reigns to attack his potential future opponents after a match. He even used a steel chair repeatedly on a weakened Braun Strowman. Is this the beginning of a long anticipated heel turn for The Big Dog?

It is hard to say at this moment but his presence on SmackDown will certainly help the show going into the fall. He seems ready to get back into the WWE Universal Championship hunt going forward. It should make for compelling viewing on Friday nights, and that can’t be anything other than a good thing for the WWE.