Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

13. WWE SummerSlam 2016

• Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens def. Enzo Amore & Big Cass
• Charlotte def. Sasha Banks to win the WWE Women’s Championship
• The Miz def. Apollo Crews to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship
• AJ Styles def. John Cena
• Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson def. WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day by DQ
• Dean Ambrose def. Dolph Ziggler to retain the WWE Championship
• Nikki Bella, Natalya & Alexa Bliss def. Becky Lynch, Naomi & Carmella (6-Woman Tag Match)
• Finn Balor def. Seth Rollins to win the WWE Universal Championship
• Brock Lesnar def. Randy Orton via TKO

The SummerSlam 2016 card had a lot of things going for it on paper and for the most part delivered in the ring as well. I wasn’t crazy about Lesnar and Orton closing out the show but we’ll get back to that in a moment.

The night started off with Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens, who would go on to have one of the best stories of the year, taking on the young duo of Enzo Amore and Big Cass. I was never a fan of Enzo and he always seemed the weak link of any match he was a part of, and that includes this one. It was a decent opener at best but not a good way to get the crowd moving, as if the four matches on the Kickoff Show weren’t enough.

Next up was the WWE Women’s Championship Match between Charlotte (not using the Flair name at this point) and Sasha Banks, who had an amazing feud that year, constantly dropping the title to one another. But seeing as how this was a pay-per-view and Sasha could seemingly only win the title on a Monday night, Charlotte got the win in a very good match that featured a lot of fun spots.

The Intercontinental Championship Match between The Miz and Apollo Crews was probably the worst match of the night, but what happened next made it easy to forget all about that as John Cena and AJ Styles put on one of the greatest matches in SummerSlam history. This was a five-star classic between two of the biggest names of this or any generation, and what made it so great was that it didn’t need a championship on the line.

Yes, title matches always seem bigger but when you have two guys that can go like this in big events, you don’t need it. This was for pride and the match itself was — wait for it — phenomenal. There were counters and near-falls and that great look in the corner from Cena when he couldn’t finish AJ off was an amaing moment. In the end, AJ hit the Styles Clash and the Phenomenal Forearm for the 1-2-3. It’s hard not to love that one.

Jon Stewart and The New Day had a segment after a DQ loss to Gallows and Anderson, which was probably the best thing to book as nobody could have followed Cena and Styles and gotten a great reception. The WWE Championship Match came next and I was hoping for a little more from Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler but it got the job done. Nikki Bella came back from her neck injury to compete in a six-woman tag match that was good for what it needed to be. Then, it was time to crown a first-ever WWE Universal Champion.

For the first time, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor competed against one another for this new title and it was everything I wanted it to be, minus the Balor’s shoulder injury. That aside, these two left it all in the ring in yet another great match on the night that would have easily been the match of the evening had it not been for Styles and Cena. Balor winning was the right call but it ended up being very short-lived as the shoulder injury sustained after taking the Buckle Bomb on the outside forced him to relinquish the title the very next night on Raw.

And back to Lesnar and Orton in the main event (we’re not going to mention the Roman-Rusev thing). Billed as “15 years in the making,” this wasn’t the dream matchup that people were expecting. As you’d guess, it was Lesnar essentially tossing Orton around for 10 minutes, Orton hitting a surprise RKO that got a near-fall and then Orton getting bloodied up something awful.

Lesnar took off his gloves and just starting smashing Orton’s head with fists and elbows, legitimately opening Randy up, which apparently nobody in the back outside of a few people knew was coming. This made Brock the monster heel again, after a little time spent as a tweener. Again, this shouldn’t have been the main event, but Styles vs. Cena and Balor vs. Rollins made up for it.