Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

9. WWE SummerSlam 2009

• Rey Mysterio def. Dolph Ziggler to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship
• MVP def. Jack Swagger
• Jeri-Show def. Cryme Tyme to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship
• Kane def. The Great Khali
• DX def. The Legacy
• Christian def. William Regal to retain the ECW Championship
• Randy Orton def. John Cena to retain the WWE Championship
• CM Punk def. Jeff Hardy to retain the World Heavyweight Championship (Tables, Ladders & Chairs Match

The 2009 edition of SummerFest — thanks, Jeremy Piven — was centered around yet another D-X reunion but they certainly weren’t the highlight of the night, even if their match with Legacy was one of many good matches throughout the show.

The night kicked off with a great Intercontinental Championship Match with Rey Mysterio battling Dolph Ziggler, who went for about a million pin-falls in this one. But it all played into the story they were telling in the ring and it was extremely entertaining. As we’ve seen so many times over the years, Ziggler wasn’t happy about coming up short in a big match. This was the perfect choice to open the show.

The next two matches on the card (MVP vs. Swagger, Big Show and Jericho vs. Cryme Tyme) were nothing special but were still solid, which is certainly more than can be said for Kane vs. The Great Khali, which was just really bad, which shouldn’t shock anyone as The Great Khali was involved and that’s never a sign of a good match to come.

The D-X-Legacy match was up next and although it wasn’t the best match on the card, it was still very fun to watch. Rhodes and Dibiase got time to shine against two legends of the industry and held their own. It was a great outing for those two and Michaels and Triple H were fantastic as usual.

It’s hard to even mention the ECW Championship Match as Christian beat William Regal in about 10 seconds, but the other two World title matches made up for it. John Cena and Randy Orton fought for the WWE Championship in the penultimate match of the night and while this wasn’t their best match (there were plenty over the years), it did what it was supposed to do concerning the storyline.

Orton was trying every which way to cheat to keep the title and there were a couple of stoppages in the match that halted the momentum. Orton actually did end up getting the win after Ted Dibiase’s brother hit the ring. It was actually a lot like his dad’s spot a few years earlier with The Undertaker. One RKO, and that was that.

It’s funny to think of all the times that CM Punk should have been in the main event of a big pay-per-view, especially during his long title reign, and wasn’t. However, before he became the CM Punk that dropped pipe bombs and all of that, there was this version that feuded with Jeff Hardy and it was probably the best program of the entire year in WWE.

The fact that this match for the World Heavyweight Championship was a TLC Match made it even better. This was an instant classic and the match of the night and one of the best main events in SummerSlam history. Both Punk and Hardy had so many amazing spots and took many risks. Punk won the title but not the night as The Undertaker returned to steal his thunder. I wasn’t a fan of that but the crowd loved it and went home happy.