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| Jan 29, 2022; St. Louis, MO, USA; AJ Styles during the Royal Rumble The Dome at America's Center. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images |
WWE SummerSlam is right around the corner, and while there are a handful of matches on the card this year that could be fantastic, it’s going to take a lot to crack into the true all-time great category. Since 1988, there have been some true classics at SummerSlam across many different eras, so we’re going to run down the best matches in SummerSlam history.
10. Brock Lesnar(c) vs Roman Reigns vs Braun Strowman vs Samoa Joe – Universal Championship – SummerSlam 2017
Sometimes wrestling is just about watching a really entertaining car crash, and that’s exactly what this match was. This match is 20 minutes long, but it really doesn’t feel like it, as the four powerhouses featured here go all-out with the action and don’t let up for even a second. This was the peak of Strowman’s popularity in WWE too, and it features his classic carnage, whether he’s slamming Brock through the announce table and then burying him under the other announce table, or just launching a commentary chair right into Samoa Joe’s face; it is a tonne of fun.
9. John Cena(c) vs Cody Rhodes – WWE Championship – SummerSlam 2025
After the truly awful match between these two at WrestleMania 41, it’s fair to say expectations were low for this SummerSlam rematch, but in the end, these two blew us away in what is arguably the best match of John Cena’s retirement year. While there is some weirdness surrounding the sudden and complete dismissal of Cena’s heel turn right before the match, the action is so much fun to watch.
8. Bianca Belair(c) vs Becky Lynch – Raw Women’s Championship – SummerSlam 2022
This is another match that has the smell of redemption about it. The year before Becky Lynch had returned and beaten Bianca in 26 seconds in a move that everyone hated. Eventually it came back around, and the two had a barnburner at WrestleMania 38, and followed it up that summer with a similarly excellent opener. It was also a great statement to make, as this was the first major show following Vince McMahon’s exit from the company and Triple H taking over creative.
7. John Cena(c) vs Daniel Bryan – WWE Championship – SummerSlam 2013
One of the surprising things about SummerSlam is just how much John Cena loses there. He has one of the worst SummerSlam win-loss records ever, and this is arguably his most impactful loss at the event.
Daniel Bryan was the big star everyone wanted to break through, and on this night, Cena helped put him over in the biggest way possible, as the pair showcased how Bryan’s indie-rific style can mesh with the WWE main event style to create absolute magic, especially when the crowd is desperately hoping for the underdog to win.
While WWE never intended for this to be the start of Bryan’s rise to the WrestleMania 30 main event (no matter what Road Dogg says), we can look back on it now as a truly special moment.
6. Kurt Angle vs Rey Mysterio – SummerSlam 2002
If you need a match to put you on the map – as Mysterio did in his WWE pay-per-view debut – Kurt Angle is one of the best people you can have it against. This match is pure magic as these two bring fast-paced action. It’s an awful lot shorter than you probably remember, at just over 9 minutes, but Rey’s luchalibre mixes perfectly with Angle’s more technical style to create a match that is remembered more than two decades later.
5. Bret Hart(c) vs The British Bulldog – SummerSlam 1992
When it comes to iconic historical moments, there is perhaps no match on this list that tops it, though it loses points for one of the most memorable things about it being the fact that the British Bulldog was so out of it that he couldn’t remember the match at all. However, despite that, the excellence of execution led Bulldog through an all-time great match in front of one of WWE’s biggest crowds ever at Wembley Stadium, all culminating in the big win for the hometown Brit.
4. CM Punk vs Brock Lesnar – No Holds Barred – SummerSlam 2013
SummerSlam 2013 may be remembered as a two-match show (as there’s really nothing else on it worth going back to); however, what a pair of matches they are, and a great encapsulation of this era in WWE. In perhaps CM Punk’s last great match before he’d leave WWE for a decade, him and Brock Lesnar went all-out in a way that Brock doesn’t often do. Punk is the perfect ragdoll for Lesnar to throw around, but mounts a compelling comeback all the same, even if he doesn’t ultimately get the win.
3. Edge & Christian(c) vs The Hardy Boyz vs The Dudley Boyz WWF Tag Team Championships – TLC – SummerSlam 2000
The Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match is one of WWE’s more chaotic innovations. This right here was the very first, and they kicked it off in extremely memorable fashion. Much like the first ladder match several years earlier, this featured some incredible spots for the very first time that we almost take for granted today, featuring the very best of WWE’s extremely strong 2000s tag division in the best way possible.
2. Bret Hart(c) vs Owen Hart – WWF Championship – Steel Cage – SummerSlam 1994
Brother vs brother matches don’t have the best reputation in WWE. The Hardys and the Usos never really delivered, but WWE will keep trying them for one very good reason, and that’s Owen and Bret. Whenever these two got in the ring together, it was absolute magic. These two had already had an incredible clash in the opening match of WrestleMania 10, but they arguably one-upped themselves inside the Steel Cage here.
1. John Cena vs AJ Styles – SummerSlam 2016
Making the careers of fan-favourites at SummerSlam is a strange running theme of John Cena’s. We covered Daniel Bryan earlier; he also lost to CM Punk in a great match in 2011, but AJ Styles in 2016 is perhaps the one fans are most grateful for. As Styles himself has said, Vince McMahon brought him in to be a mid-card talent in the company, but it was his work with Cena that put him over the top.
This is arguably Cena’s best in-ring performance ever, and Styles does what he does best to put himself on the map, notching a huge win that would propel Mr TNA to become WWE Champion just one month later.
- Ryan Woodrow
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