It’s almost time for the biggest party of the summer! But here’s the thing about parties. Sometimes they’re amazing, and sometimes they’re, well, not.
This week’s SummerSlam will be the 35th on record and whilst there has been some amazing SummerSlams over the years, there have also been some absolute stinkers.
WrestleTalk and PartsFUNKnown host Adam Blampied joins us today to document his 10 worst SummerSlams of all time.
From illegitimate son shenanigans to invincible Ents, this list has it all, and that may not necessarily be a good thing. In fact, it almost certainly isn’t…
10. SummerSlam 2021
SummerSlam 2021 was bad and no amount of incredibly predictable Old Match John Cena vs Unable to Die-bal Chief will convince me otherwise.
To be fair, there is one absolutely stonking match on this card, Edge vs Seth Rollins in the first of their trilogy of bangers.
Everything else was either fine (Usos vs Mysterios, Damian Priest vs Sheamus), bad (Drew vs Jinder, Bliss vs Eva Marie – Jesus, remember that?!) or else a baffling booking decision (Becky returning to squash Bianca, Bobby vs Goldberg’s leg and son, Charlotte ending Nikki ASH’s title run on her first PPV defence).
Even the return of rooting tooting Brock Lesnar couldn’t elevate a PPV that never managed to capture the magic of the previous month’s excellent Money In The Bank. It’s far from the worst SummerSlam, but it might just be one of the more annoying.
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9. SummerSlam 2012
Again, 2012 wasn’t necessarily a bad show, but man, even after rewatching it I struggle to remember a single damn thing from it other than; the first match was good, the WWE Title didn’t main event yet again because CM Punk couldn’t catch a damn break, and Brock and Trips went about double the length that they should have done, or at least it felt that way.
It was just a generally heatless event, pun definitely intended, and for an event marketed as “The Perfect Storm”, nothing momentous actually happened.
All the champions retained their belts, including World Heavyweight Sheamus, doing his Irish John Cena schtick, aka the worst-ever incarnation of Sheamus. It just felt like an episode of Raw for the majority of the runtime – Kofi Kingston and R-Truth vs the Primetime Players, Miz vs Mysterio going 9 minutes, and Daniel Bryan vs Kane.
The triple threat WWE match was decently but leaned crazy heavy on the INVINCIBLE BIG SHOW, even though he hasn’t been that for years by this point. A light drizzle instead of the promised hurricane.
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8. SummerSlam 2004
Ah yes, the SummerSlam we don’t talk about because it was main-evented by Chris Benoit. WWE in 2004 was an awkward year. Most of the top stars of the Attitude Era left the company between 2002 and 2003, but the brand split was still in effect, rendering most of that year’s PPVs lightweight and, for want of a more graceful phrase, S**T.
However, on paper, SummerSlam 2004 should have been the dog’s bollocks – Angle vs Guerrero, Benoit vs Young and Invigorated Randy Orton, Cena vs Booker T, Edge vs Jericho vs Batista, and Kane vs Matt for the right to marry Lita. There’s some theoretically sports-entertaining stuff here.
The weirdest part is that all the matches are CRAZY short. Opening tag went 8 minutes. Kane vs Matt Hardy went a grand total of 6 minutes. Cena vs Booker T, also 6 minutes. Edge vs Jericho vs Batista, 8 minutes. What were they saving all that time for? Glad you asked! 17 minutes of JBL and Taker having a bad match that ended in a DQ. Divas Dodgeball, be we’ve gotta have that. Oh, and Triple H wrestling Eugene for 14 F**KING MINUTES, F**K OFF. And speaking of f**king off, that’s precisely what the Toronto crowd told Eugene to do, because yeah, f**k it.
Angle/Guerrero and Orton/Benoit were decent but everything else was either brief, bad, or both.
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7. SummerSlam 2007
Ah, the SummerSlam when it was possibly one of the worst times in history to be a wrestling fan. Storyline-wise, the Vince’s illegitimate son angle was in full swing, and though hasn’t quite hit its lowest point – PUN INTENDED WAHAY – bastard son skits are ALL OVER THIS SHOW.
John Cena was still in unstoppable Homelander mode. In real life, the Benoit stuff had just happened which cast a horrible pall over wrestling as a whole. With WWE in full scramble mode, it kinda makes sense that 2007’s ended up being one of the least memorable SummerSlams of all time.
Some high highs, some Khaliesque lows, and the rest was weekly TV filler. Triple H vs King Booker is not a high profile SummerSlam match. Batista having one of the worst matches at a major PPV with Khali is not a high profile SummerSlam match. Kane vs Finley is not a – you get the idea.
There’s some good stuff here, Rey vs Chavo had some heat to it. Austin got to drink some beer. I guess people like that. The main event was actually pretty great, though it’s now lost in a sea of 84 other Cena/Orton matches. A fairly unremarkable and often outright dull show.
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6. SummerSlam 2006
Oh man, this show blows a fat one. This whole year blows a fat one really. I think it’s my least favourite calendar year in WWE, mostly because oh man I really hated the DX vs the McMahons feud and here it’s in overdrive, including run-ins by legit TEN different men? Hey, remember that one time they dropped human shit on Vince though? Lol.
Elsewhere this is like a one match card. The Edge/Cena main event is legitimately very good but everything else is fairly dump. Batista vs King Booker ended in a lame DQ. Hogan wasn’t able to go anymore, nor was he able to put over young talent at SummerSlam (it is his thing I guess).
The Flair/Foley bumfight was pretty uncomfortable to watch the entire time, ending in a weird heel being noble spot that the fans hated. Sabu and Big Show had a match that exemplified both men’s bad habits, Sabu being a big botch machine and Big Show being an Ent.
The whole Rey/Chavo match (yes, they did it two years in a row) still felt uncomfortably close to Eddie’s passing. But hey, the main event was good! Edge retained! Who the hell saw that coming?
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5. SummerSlam1990
A lot of fans credit WrestleMania 6 as being the end of the Hulkamania WWF boom period and judging by the SummerSlam immediately after, ooh they are not wrong.
There’s a BUNCH of tired-ass crap on this show, a few baffling dropped balls, and the first in a series of underwhelming Ultimate Warrior main events that served to definite his lacklustre turn as the face of the company. His 10 minute cage match against Rick Rude felt more like a house show match than the first hurrah of the new Hogan, who himself was busy lower down the card, handily no-selling Earthquake’s finish, which had previously achieved a level of infamy similar to Orton’s punt.
The Texas Tornado beat Mr Perfect for the IC title in 5 minutes, which sucks for big Curt but the fans didn’t mind it. Jake Roberts and Bad News Brown had a 4 minute DQ finish. Duggan and Volkoff defeated the Orient Express and it was very dreadful. The Tag Title 2 out of 3 falls match was good, even if it did involve a significant amount of Crush,
By far and away the most baffling and hateful decision of the event was running a dream match, Randy Savage vs Dusty Rhodes, icons of their respective companies, and then having it end in two minutes via a shot from a loaded f**king purse. Good job everyone. So begins the bad times.
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4. SummerSlam 1993
And we are DEEP IN THE BAD TIMES NOW. The first major show after Hulk Hogan properly left the WWE air-quotes “for good” to make air-quotes “content” like Thunder In Paradise and… nothing else.
The original plan was for Hogan to work through SummerSlam and drop the belt to Bret Hart, thereby marking the official new era in professional wrestling, and it would have been a HELL of a milestone. What we got instead was one of the most unintentionally hilarious endings to a SummerSlam ever. Lex Luger, aka the beefiest blondest guy that Vince could find, who might as well have been named Lulk Logan, won the World Title match against Yokozuna by countout because Vince lost faith in him, but then everyone celebrated like he’d won the belt with full on balloons and a babyface parade. Dreadful.
Elsewhere on the card, instead of winning the world title, Bret Hart is beating two clowns. First Doink, and then Jerry Lawler, and then just for an extra turd in the punchbowl, Hart kicks too much ass and ends up losing to Lawler instead by DQ. Oh, and there’s another Taker/Giant Gonzalez match. Truly the darkest timeline.
I guess the Heavenly Bodies vs the Steiner Brothers was good? Scrabbling for pennies here.
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3. SummerSlam 1997
Man, it’s really hard to go back and rewatch this show. Some of it is good, like the Mankind/Helmsley cage match. The bit of sports entertainment at the end of the main event is great. Some of it, like the interminable gang warfare bollocks, or LOD vs the Godwinns, or Goldust vs a very clearly injured and in pain Brian Pillman is outright dreadful.
Hanging over the whole thing like a doom cloud is the horrific injury to Steve Austin’s neck, where a botched piledriver compresses it, briefly paralysing him and eventually shortening his career by many years. What’s even more heartbreaking is that it was on track to be the match of the night, but it ended in one of the worst possible ways a wrestling match could end.
1997 was a key year for WWE, the gateway between the hokey cartoon era of the early to mid-nineties and the attitude grunge of the latter few years of the decade. But aside from some top notch storytelling between Hart and Michaels, still the twin faces of the company, this a rough night for the Big Dub. Largely poor wrestling, heatless midcard action, and an accident that almost stopped the show, and the attitude era as a whole, in its tracks.
Man, what would have happened in wrestling history if that piledriver had ended Austin’s career? Something to think about.
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2. SummerSlam 2010
You could flip the top two worst SummerSlams ever and I don’t think anyone would disagree. Because spoiler, the top one is 1995 and, while it is an absolute cart of human spit, it does still have the ladder match.
Both 2010 and 95 SummerSlam are one match shows, but maybe all that’s keeping 2010 at the number 2 spot is that it’s one match is better, because nothing can top Melina vs Alicia Fox – it’s CAMERON’S FAVOURITE MATCH!!! No, I’m being cheeky there. We love Melina at PFK.
Honestly though, SummerSlam 2010 sucks so much. By loading the main event with so much talent, the rest of the card is paper thin. Big Show beating all three Straight Edge Society guys? No thanks. Orton/Sheamus ending in a DQ? No thanks. Ziggler and Kingston ending in a no contest? NO THANKS!
Then there was the ending of the main event. Honestly, a really good match with a hot return for Daniel Bryan. Everyone was into the Nexus storyline. If WWE had handled the ending of the match better, people would be a LOT more forgiving of this SummerSlam. But WWE dropped the dog and the dog broke. Instead of cementing the Nexus as a dominant faction with a win, and properly shaking up the WWE hierarchy, Cena emerged victorious for team WWE, after taking a DDT on the concrete floor no less, and the group were never hot again.
1. SummerSlam 1995
The ladder match is brilliant. Everything else [deep breath] SUCCCCCCCCKKKKKSSSSS.
It’s got the worst main event, not just of SummerSlam, not just of WWE shows, but potentially the worst main event of life itself. WWE’s objectively worst WWE champion vs the worst WWE challenger ever, two slow-moving behemoths bumping into each other for 10 minutes. It’s genuinely like watching two mudslides wrestling each other and I hate it so much. Not only is it boring, but Mabel almost got his ass fired by dropping his ass right onto Diesel’s back unprotected and injuring the guy. But even without the worst main event ever, there’s so much other dreck on the show.
Bret Hart vs the f**king dentist, the Cowboys vs the f**king hillbilly nazis, the Blu Brothers. Why yes, those are SS tattoos on their arms. Bertha Faye vs Alundra Blayze was fairly bad. Undertaker vs Kama was an awful casket match. Skip vs Horowitz was a bit cheerful, and Hakushi vs 123 Kid was a good tv match, but those are two things that would be pretty much fine on weekly tv. Short of the ladder rematch between HBK and Razor, there is nothing here that belongs on a SummerSlam.
The worst show of WWE’s worst year, and no matter how many times WWE book Brock vs Roman, at least it’ll never be f**king Mabel vs f**king Diesel.
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