Ranking every WWE SummerSlam PPV in history

28. WWE SummerSlam 2010

• WWE Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston fought to a “no contest”
• Melina def. Alicia Fox to win the WWE Divas Championship
• Big Show def. The Straight Edge Society (Handicap Match)
• Randy Orton def. WWE Champion Sheamus by DQ
• Kane def. Rey Mysterio to retain the World Heavyweight Championship
• Team WWE def. The Nexus (7-on-7 Elimination Tag Match)

It’s difficult to put on a great show with just six matches on the main card and it’s even more difficult to call the 2010 edition of SummerSlam a great show due to the way things ended that night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. This was another case of something being built up for the entire summer and torn down in just a matter of minutes. But we’ll get back to that in just a moment.

It’s not that the undercard was completely terrible, but it certainly wasn’t great either. The opening match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship featuring Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston was rolling along nicely but was interrupted after about seven minutes by The Nexus, the group of NXT guys that had invaded WWE — the same group that this entire show was built around. Again, more on that in a second.

The rest of the card leading to the main event was simply filled, once again, with average matches. Melina won the Divas Championship from Alicia Fox in a forgettable match. Big Show took out the entire Straight Edge Society, which essentially ended that stable. Randy Orton and Sheamus actually did have a solid match but the DQ finish pretty much ruined it. Kane and Rey Mysterio tried to put on the classic big man vs. little man bout for the World Heavyweight Championship but it just could never hit that next level and it was really just a setup to start yet another chapter in the Kane vs. Undertaker rivalry.

Then you have the main event: Team WWE vs. The Nexus. Naturally, John Cena was the focus of Team WWE and was joined in the 7-on-7 Tag Team Elimination Match by Chris Jericho, Edge, John Morrison, R-Truth, Bret Hart and a returning Daniel Bryan, who was announced as the replacement for The Great Khali, who had been attacked earlier in the night. Thank you for that, Nexus.

The Nexus team was led by Wade Barrett, who was one of the more successful members of the group down the line, and he was joined by Michael Tarver, Justin Gabriel, David Otunga, Darren Young, Skip Sheffield (aka Ryback) and Heath Slater, who is the only man from this team still wrestling in WWE today (Otunga doing announce work doesn’t count). However, at this time, these guys were white-hot. It was a bunch of guys getting over naturally and it was working beautifully. A bunch of young guys that were hungry taking on some of the biggest names in the industry was a great story that got completely ruined.

The match itself was solid enough. There were some fun spots in here and some good eliminations that helped further other storylines and I understand the need for that. It was difficult to watch Hart wrestle like that and he probably shouldn’t have even been in the match. But that was what it was and certainly wasn’t the focus. The focus, as he made sure it was, was on Cena. After all the other eliminations went down, it was Cena left in a 1-on-2 situation with Wade Barrett and Justin Gabriel. Here’s where things go wrong.

Cena gets hit with a big DDT on the exposed concrete on the floor and The Nexus is going to go over, right? That obviously makes the most sense. Nope. Super Cena pretty much no-sells the entire thing and pins Gabriel and then taps Barrett, all within about 30 seconds. What?

So WWE builds up this group for the entire summer as the next big thing and then has them lose? It actually wasn’t supposed to be that way. Years later, Cena did admit that he had the finish changed because he wanted to go in a different direction and it pretty much killed off the entire angle and ruined some big chances for some of The Nexus guys. Barrett and Ryback did okay for themselves for a while, but even that took some time. Chalk this up in the “what could have been” column.