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WWE often promotes SummerSlam as The Biggest Party of the Summer, but the event has also been associated with some of the company’s biggest backstage dramas.
For example, back in the 1990s, Vince McMahon was once forced to pay $500,000 to a former WWE Champion after he threatened to no-show his main-event appearance.
In modern-day WWE, Brock Lesnar and Chris Jericho were involved in a backstage spat following the finish of SummerSlam 2016, while another Superstar has admitted that he was on the verge of quitting WWE after being booked to lose against a part-timer in quick fashion.
In this article, let’s find out the full details behind those stories as we take a look at five backstage dramas that have taken place around the time of WWE SummerSlam events.
#5 Dolph Ziggler threatened to quit at SummerSlam 2019
Two months after his disastrous match against The Undertaker at WWE Super ShowDown 2019, Goldberg returned to in-ring action against Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam.
Goldberg has made a career out of quickly defeating his opponents, usually after a spear and/or a jackhammer, and that is exactly what WWE’s decision-makers originally wanted to happen at SummerSlam in his match against Ziggler.
Speaking to talkSPORT in November 2019, Ziggler said he was told that the SummerSlam match would consist of the ring bell and a spear, followed by a pinfall victory for Goldberg.
“And they go, ‘It’s going to be a bell, spear, pin’ and I go, ‘Come on.’ I fought all day long, threatened to leave, threatened to quit, did everything I had to – ‘Give me two damn minutes!’ And I got a minute, whatever, what you going to do?”
As the two-time WWE World Champion said, after threatening to leave and demanding more time in his SummerSlam 2019 match, he ended up losing in a match that lasted one minute and 50 seconds.
The two men were also given additional time to have a segment after the match, which saw Goldberg return to the ring on two occasions to hit Ziggler with two more spears.
#4 Alberto Del Rio’s black eye at SummerSlam 2013
Although Alberto Del Rio defeated Christian at SummerSlam 2013 to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the biggest talking point from the match came when WWE’s cameras caught a glimpse of Del Rio’s bruised face and black eye for the first time during his entrance.
It was reported by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer (H/T Cageside Seats) that Del Rio and Drew McIntyre ended up in a “big fight” with other people on the weekend of SummerSlam, resulting in the Mexican receiving bruises on his face.
Meltzer added that both men “were all beaten up” when they returned to the hotel after going out to a bar.
WWE did not give a storyline explanation for Del Rio’s wounds, but the man himself tried to set the record straight a few days later in an interview on The Bootleg Kev Show on Power 98.3.
"You know, we do shows, we do over 200 shows per year. We had a live event in Portland and you know it was just... things happen when you're in wrestling. It was just an accident. But you know how it is, they always like to talk and they always like to make stories of their own. You know, it was just part of the business, it's part of the game." [H/T Cageside Seats]
It is worth noting that Del Rio spoke in and out of character throughout the interview, so it remains unclear whether he was being honest when he claimed that he suffered the bruises on his face in a match before SummerSlam.
#3 Batista and Booker T’s SummerSlam commercial fight
Batista and Booker T were involved in one of the most infamous fights in WWE history during the filming of a commercial for SummerSlam 2006.
The genuine animosity between the two men reportedly began when it was alleged that Batista had started seeing Melina, who was in a relationship with fellow WWE Superstar John Morrison at the time.
In the 1990s/2000s, issues between WWE Superstars would often get settled in wrestler’s court – a concept that saw a mock WWE judge and prosecution team take people to task over real-life problems that they were accused of causing.
In 2006, Melina was taken to wrestler’s court during a European tour due to her backstage ‘Divaism’, and Superstars placed bets on how long it would take for the judge (The Undertaker) and prosecution team (Booker T and JBL) to make her cry.
Batista, who was said to be unhappy with the way that Melina had been treated, ended up getting into a fight with Booker T on the set of the SummerSlam commercial, which was filmed at a mansion in California.
WWE posted behind-the-scenes interviews from the SummerSlam commercial on Twitter (see above) in the build-up to SummerSlam 2020, and many of the replies mentioned that the clip should have shown footage from the Batista and Booker T fight.
#2 Chris Jericho’s confrontation with Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2016
Brock Lesnar defeated Randy Orton via TKO in the main event of WWE SummerSlam 2016, but the biggest story following the show revolved around Chris Jericho and his off-screen confrontation with The Beast.
Jericho, who teamed with Kevin Owens to defeat Big Cass and Enzo Amore in the opening match of SummerSlam 2016, watched on from backstage as Lesnar busted Orton open with a series of elbows to his SummerSlam opponent’s head.
Concerned about Orton’s well-being, Jericho wanted to know whether Lesnar was supposed to legitimately hurt The Viper at SummerSlam or whether he had gone too far, but nobody would give him a straight answer.
The nine-time Intercontinental Champion confirmed in a September 2016 interview on Chael Sonnen’s podcast that the SummerSlam altercation took place. However, he was reluctant to reveal exactly what happened.
“I’m not the type of person to back down from anybody — to my detriment. Hothead fire off and we were in each other’s face and that happens sometimes. I guess I kind of have a reputation for it too, I never back down. In the case of guys his size, they think people are just going to wilt, and most people do ... I’m glad he didn’t eat me. Basically, there was a face-to-face confrontation and I’ll leave the rest between the two of us.” [H/T Forbes]
Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin reported after SummerSlam that Vince McMahon eventually calmed the situation down by telling Jericho that the main-event finish was scripted.
#1 The Ultimate Warrior’s SummerSlam 1991 dispute
The Ultimate Warrior joined forces with Hulk Hogan in the main event of WWE SummerSlam 1991 to defeat villainous trio Sgt. Slaughter, General Adnan, and Colonel Mustafa.
In the build-up to SummerSlam, Warrior threatened to no-show the event if Vince McMahon did not pay him a large sum of money that he felt he was owed.
Speaking on WWE DVD The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior, McMahon said he agreed to Warrior’s demand because the match had already been advertised, but he then decided to suspend the Superstar immediately after SummerSlam.
“Ultimate Warrior basically came to me and figuratively held a gun to my head and said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to perform unless you pay me x number of dollars.’ My responsibility is to present what I have advertised. My responsibility is to the audience. So I reluctantly agreed to Warrior’s demand, knowing what I was going to do as soon as he came out of the ring. It gave me great pleasure to fire him and to let him know why I was doing it.” [H/T The Sun]
McMahon did not reveal how much money Warrior demanded, but Sgt. Slaughter claimed in Warrior’s Always Believe documentary that he wanted $500,000.
Warrior returned to WWE eight months after SummerSlam 1991 at WrestleMania XIII, where he saved Hulk Hogan from being attacked by Sid Justice and Papa Shango.
