In the WWE calendar, the biggest event of the year is without a doubt Wrestlemania. And while opinions may vary if people were asked what the SECOND biggest event of the year was, I believe the closest example to Wrestlemania is SummerSlam.
Labelled as the Biggest Party of the Summer, SummerSlam now more than ever is one of the biggest events on the WWE Calendar. And soon it’s set to be even bigger, as we know the 2026 edition of SummerSlam will be a 2 night event just like Wrestlemania. So it’s clear that at least WWE views SummerSlam as the second largest event, and looking at the match card you can see why this is the case.
Some highlight matches on the card include YouTube Megastar Logan Paul defending his United States Championship against LA Knight. Many fans still aren’t a fan of Logan Paul despite him being surprisingly good at wrestling in WWE due to his controversial past. And his long title reign, while also only having a handful of actual defences has only made fans even more desperate to see someone finally dethrone him. And support for LA Knight has consistently been one of the biggest pops of the show for at least a year now and fans have been clamouring for LA Knight to finally have his moment and win a title, and leave everybody chanting for LA Knight (yeah!)
Another big match will finally see Rhea Ripley face off against Liv Morgan for the Women’s World Championship. Rhea only recently returned after being injured by Liv Morgan shortly after Wrestlemania. And since then, Liv had won the title Rhea had to vacate and spent her time trying to corrupt Dominik Mysterio to even further mess with Rhea. Dominik has since restated his loyalty to Rhea despite Liv’s weeks of flirting/being very forward of her desires, however many are still unsure where Dom’s loyalty truly lies and no doubt his situation will play a lot into the match with Rhea trying to win back the title she never lost as well as finally get payback on Liv for injuring her and trying to steal Dominik from under her nose.
At SummerSlam, we will also see Cody Rhodes defend the Undisputed WWE Championship against Solo Sikoa. Since Roman was defeated at Wrestlemania & disappeared, Solo Sikoa has since awarded himself the title of Tribal Chief and has reshaped the Bloodline in his own image. Evicting Jimmy Uso & Paul Heyman after Paul refused to acknowledge Solo as the Tribal Chief staying loyal to Roman, and bringing in his own new members including Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa & most recently Jacob Fatu. Especially recently, Solo has been more and more adamant that he is the Tribal Chief and has urged Roman to come to him directly if he takes issue, which has left many tentatively excited with the possibility of Roman finally coming back to take back the title of Tribal Chief.
But despite all these championship matches (and more I haven’t mentioned), the most anticipated match on the card for many is the only match where there is no title involved. I am of course talking about the match between CM Punk & Drew McIntyre with Seth “Freakin” Rollins as the Special Guest Referee. Ever since Drew injured Punk at the Royal Rumble and cut his return momentum short, they have constantly gone back and forth insulting and assaulting each other as they have grown to absolutely hate each other. Punk has maintained his promise to never let Drew get a true victory so far, having directly cost him the World Heavyweight Championship 3 times, one of which ruining his cash in of the Money in the Bank contract. And Drew has been clear of his desire to make sure Punk can never compete again and has been no stranger to psychologically messing with Punk, having stolen a bracelet from him that has the names of his wife AJ & dog Larry. And Seth as the referee also isn’t too fond of either Punk or Drew and on this week’s Raw implied that he would maybe be a bit less strict with the rules as other referees as he just wants to see them go to war. And given this feud has been building for months at this point, I’m sure that when the two can finally lay hands on each other, it will be a sight to behold.
SummerSlam has always been one of the biggest shows of the year in the WWE Calendar, and with it potentially soon becoming a 2 night event like Wrestlemania. WWE seems keen to put on a show so great and stacked to justify the switch to two nights. And if they can pull that off there definitely is an argument for this as even with all of the current matches on the card, as of time of writing there is still no match for either set of Tag Championships and the card doesn’t even include any matches involving the popular Wyatt Sicks as their first match against Chad Gable & The Creed Brothers is being saved for the following Raw. WWE has never been hotter and the SummerSlam card being so stacked/hyped with there still being room for so many more other potential cool matches is the perfect example of this.
