Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

12. WWE SummerSlam 2017

• John Cena def. Baron Corbin
• Natalya def. Naomi by submission to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship
• Big Cass def. Big Show
• Randy Orton def. Rusev
• Sasha Banks def. Alexa Bliss by submission to win the Raw Women’s Championship
• Finn Balor def. Bray Wyatt
• Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins def. Cesaro & Sheamus to win the Raw Tag Team Championship
• AJ Styles def. Kevin Owens to retain the WWE United States Championship
• Jinder Mahal def. Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the WWE Championship
• Brock Lesnar def. Samoa Joe, Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman to retain the WWE Universal Championship (Fatal 4-Way Match)

While we haven’t much mentioned or really taken into account matches that happen on the Kickoff Show but one is worth talking about as it pertains to the 2017 edition of SummerSlam. The Usos and The New Day have had some incredible battles in the past and their match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship on this night was one of their best. They likely weren’t happy with being put on the pre-show and went with the “follow this” attitude, making for a great match.

The main card kicked off with John Cena predictably knocking off Baron Corbin, who was on a bit of a losing streak at this point after failing in his Money in the Bank cash-in attempt. But at least this wasn’t a complete squash. Corbin got some offense in but his run out of the ring and jump back in spot happened one too many times and it cost him. Not a bad opener.

Naomi and Natalya were up next for the former’s SmackDown Women’s Championship and this exceeded expectations, as most Naomi matches really didn’t do much for me. She looked good in here against the veteran. The ending was a bit of a shock as I didn’t think they’d actually put the title on Nattie, especially cleanly, but that’s what happened and it was enjoyable.

It was big vs. big next (literally) as Big Cass took on Big Show with Enzo hanging above the ring in a shark cage. Yeah, this was about as bad as you’d expect it to be. Cass got the win with some help from Enzo, who had oiled himself up and slid through the bars. This was the worst match of the night.

Rusev nearly didn’t have an official match for the second year in a row after he attacked Randy Orton before their matchup. But The Viper recovered, the bell rang, RKO and that was that. Still, it was more entertaining than Cass and Show.

After failing against Charlotte Flair a year earlier, Sasha Banks finally got her big title win at SummerSlam by knocking off Alexa Bliss for the Raw Women’s Championship. The match wasn’t anything spectacular but it was good enough and marked the fourth title change in four title matches up to this point, which also included Neville winning the WWE Cruiserweight Championship on the pre-show.

As we’ve come to expect at the bigger shows (most of the time), Finn Balor brought out The Demon persona for his match with Bray Wyatt. Although this match was perfectly fine, I was hoping for a bit more from these two. There were some fun spots thrown in, but it just fell a little bit flat with Balor picking up the victory after about 10 minutes.

The Raw Tag Team Championship was on the line next and although this wasn’t quite as good as the blue-brand’s tag title match on the Kickoff Show, this was still very entertaining to watch, as Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose took the gold from Sheamus and Cesaro. The action was very good throughout and the final five minutes or so were just fantastic. Predictable finish but getting there was a good time. That’s five title changes in five title matches.

The first title to actually be retained on the night came next as AJ Styles successfully defended his United States Championship against Kevin Owens. The special guest referee on the night? None other than Shane McMahon. Naturally, his involvement took away from the match a bit but this was still good, which you would think it still would be given the competitors. Owens and Shane got into it a bit near the end (a sign of things to come for a SummerSlam match two years down the road) and AJ hit the Styles Clash for the win.

WWE Champion Jinder Mahal made it two wins in a row for champions with a win over Shinsuke Nakamura in an average world title match, something that can’t be said for the Fatal 4-Way main event for the Universal Championship.

Brock Lesnar’s title was on the line against Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe and this thing got physical quickly and wound up being one of the best main events in SummerSlam history. Just look at the power of the four guys involved; it was great to see everyone get a chance to showcase that.

Strowman looked like a monster by taking Lesnar out of the match for a while after powerslamming him through an announce table and then throwing another one on top of him. That was but one fun spot of which there were many throughout this match. Lesnar being carted out gave the other three guys even more time to shine but as you’d expect, The Beast made his way back to the ring later on and pinned Reigns for the victory. This gave us an excellent finish to a good night.