Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

16. WWE SummerSlam 2018

• Seth Rollins def. Dolph Ziggler to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship
• The New Day def. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Bludgeon Brothers by DQ
• Braun Strowman def. Kevin Owens (Strowman’s MITB contract on the line)
• Charlotte Flair def. Becky Lynch and Carmella to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship (Triple Threat Match)
• Samoa Joe def. WWE Champion AJ Styles by DQ
• The Miz def. Daniel Bryan
• Finn Balor def. Baron Corbin
• Shinsuke Nakamura def. Jeff Hardy to retain the WWE United States Championship
• Ronda Rousey def. Alexa Bliss to win the RAW Women’s Championship
• Roman Reigns def. Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Universal Championship

SummerSlam 2018 was one of those instances in which things got off to a really hot start and then just lost steam the second half of the show. Had any of the later matches been really good, this show would probably be ranked higher on the list.

Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler kicked the night off with a fantastic match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Dean Ambrose had just come back from injury and still wasn’t wrestling yet but was out there to even the odds as Ziggler had Drew McIntyre out with him. This was exactly what you’d expect from two guys of this caliber. it was fast-paced and just very entertaining to watch. McIntyre tried to interfere but was stopped by Moxley — err, Ambrose — and Rollins walked away as the new champ. Great opener and the match of the night.

The SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match featured Harper and Rowan vs. Big E and Xavier Woods and was very entertaining for the time that they had. They kept the pace moving with quick tags and good nearfalls. The DQ finish took away from it a little bit but it worked for the most part. Good match for having to follow Rollins and Ziggler.

Okay, so Braun Strowman beating Kevin Owens in about two minutes can’t be in the good category for the first half but the Triple Threat Match for the SmackDown Women’s Championship certainly can be. I was very impressed to see Carmella hang in with Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch, who were on their game as well, and this is one of her best performances in WWE.

While the match was very good, this will always be remembered for what happened after. After failing once again to capture the title after being pinned by Charlotte, Becky finally snapped and turned heel — or that’s what creative wanted to happen at the time, anyway. What happened is that we all loved it, and this would begin Lynch’s rise to the top of the company.

AJ Styles and Samoa Joe for the WWE Championship was up next and is about where the show peaked. The matches between these two in 2018 got a little bit of criticism from people but the expectations were so high that they were really hard to match. I enjoyed this matchup as it had a lot of intensity to it, especially with the family angle that was run and with Styles’ wife and little girl actually being in attendance. That actually led to AJ getting disqualified for using a chair, which led to the rematches.

The long-awaited match between The Miz and Daniel Bryan fell a little short of what I wanted it to be. It was good, but not great. Miz getting the cheap win was the right call. Finn Balor brought out The Demon gimmick for his match with Baron Corbin, which seemed unnecessary and his entrance was longer than the actual match, which is never a good thing. That was followed by Shinsuke Nakamura successfully defending his United States Championship against Jeff Hardy, which was merely average at best.

The final two matches of the night were the big coronations that everyone was expecting. Ronda Rousey captured the Raw Women’s Championship in a glorified squash match against Alexa Bliss and Roman Reigns finally got his big one-on-one win over Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Universal Championship. The problem with all of this is that the two “biggest” matches on the card combined to last about 10 minutes. Overall, this was a good show but the last half just lacked the firepower of the first.