This article is addressing Night 2 of this years SummerSlam PLE from WWE. Happening this weekend from the US Bank Stadium in Minnesota, as is the case with Night 1, there is a 6 match card in place to happen on Sunday.
Firstly, if you read my previous article I mentioned how Rhea Ripley, the current Women’s World Champion was injured. Indeed Rhea will not be medically cleared for SummerSlam and seemingly for the foreseeable future. So, to address this issue WWE have decided to crown an interim Women’s Champion for while Ripley is still injured, to then have the interim champion face Ripley when she is medically cleared to determine the true Women’s Champion. The interim champion will be crowned through a 5 Woman Ladder Match, the women who are currently qualified for this match include current Women’s US Champion Tiffany Stratton, Jade Cargill, Charlotte Flair & Chelsea Green, with the final competitor being determined on this Friday’s Smackdown where Giulia will take on Lash Legend with the winner taking the final space in the Ladder Match. Naturally, an injury preventing Rhea Ripley from competing at SummerSlam isn’t ideal given she is likely the biggest/most popular name in the current Women’s Division, but when a quick alteration to plans is needed, I’d be lying if I said I’m not looking forward to a multi-woman ladder match entirely for the fun/chaos that will no doubt occur during the match.
On Night 1 of the card, CM Punk & Cody Rhodes will clash for Undisputed Championship, and whichever man wins that match their immediate future will be decided on Night 2. As Finn Balor will go up against Sami Zayn with the winner earning a Championship opportunity to go after one of Cody or Punk. Sami Zayn has gone quite far off the deep end in recent weeks, with how quickly his finally winning a World Championship was nullified after losing the title to CM Punk after only 9 days. Sami has been relentless criticising WWE Management as well as both Cody & Punk seeing them as the ‘Golden Boys’ of the company who always get what they want, given how Cody got a rematch for the Undisputed Championship following Night of Champions on Raw when Sami Zayn is a Smackdown Superstar. And then when Cody was injured, seeing CM Punk be able to walk in after months away and have a championship opportunity fall into his lap also infuriated Sami. Meanwhile Balor, who won the chance to be in this match in a Fatal Four-way on last weeks Smackdown will no doubt again have vivid memories of SummerSlam 2016 where he beat Seth Rollins to be crowned the inaugural Universal Champion before having to vacate the next day due to injury. So both men have a lot of stakes going into this match for very different personal reasons.
In the most expensive match on the card and generally in recent memory, 100,000 human monies (dollars) will be on the line as Danhausen takes on Dominik Mysterio in a Human Monies on a Pole match. This stems from the King of the Ring qualifiers, where the Judgement Day attempted to pay Danhausen 100,000 human monies to curse Oba Femi, who Dom was facing in the Semi-Finals. Danhausen, who wisely wanted nothing to do with Oba Femi refused to curse him and took the human monies regardless instead cursing the whole Judgement Day, most notably Liv Morgan just before the Queen of the Ring finals where she then immediately lost to Iyo Sky. This has led to the match being set for SummerSlam with the winner keeping the 100,000 human monies. Which was changed to the current stipulation this past Raw following The Judgement Day sabotaging a shared concert between Danhausen & Joe Hendry. So we will soon see if Dominik Mysterio can do the impossible or if the curse will claim yet another victim courtesy of a Very Nice, but also Very Evil Danhausen.
For the United States Championship, Trick Williams will be defending against a recently returning Baron Corbin. Corbin previously left WWE in late 2024 after opting not to renew his contract, ending a 12 year tenure in the company. Corbin had spent the last 2 years touring various promotions, most notably Major League Wrestling where he was in a tag team with another former WWE star in Donavan Dijak even winning MLW’s Tag Team Championships. Even working a dark match for All Elite Wrestling earlier this year in January (for any who may not know, a ‘Dark Match’ is a match that happens either before/after a live broadcast so is only seen by the live crowd in attendance). However Corbin returned to WWE and immediately staked a claim for the US Championship by interfering in a Title Match between Trick & Carmelo Hayes. If Corbin wins this match, this would be hist first WWE title reign since early 2024 where he had a nearly 2 month period where he was one of the NXT Tag Team Champions alongside Bron Breakker before he’d made it to the Main Roster & long before aligning with The Vision.
As for the other men’s midcard title, PENTA will be defending his title against Chad Gable. This comes not long after the shocking reveal that Chad Gable was in fact the person behind the mask of the Original El Grande Americano after he’d lost a match at Triple A’s Noche de Los Grandes against the other and now only El Grande Americano (whoever may be behind that mask). Following the match, Gable expressed how despite originally starting the El Grande Americano schtick as a way to disrespect and insult Lucha Libre, in his time under the mask he ultimately grew a newfound understanding & respect for Lucha Libre and truly felt remorse for all the bad he had done over the last few years. This materialised further over the following weeks as Gable went on an ‘Apology Tour’ of sorts apologising to various Luchadors & also Alpha Academy for the things he had done & how badly he’d treated people. And now Gable has a shot at capturing the Intercontinental Championship from PENTA, which is perfect circumstances considering it was Gable’s inability to defeat PENTA in the weeks following his WWE debut that inspired Chad Gable to go to Mexico to learn how to get over his inability to deal with Luchadors which ultimately evolved into the El Grande Americano persona. So this in a way is truly a full circle moment for the last few years of Gable’s career and a true test to see if all his time as El Grande Americano will allow him to finally get a victory over PENTA now he’s once again committed to doing things the right way.
And in the Main Event, Roman Reigns will be defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Seth Rollins. If you have even causally watched WWE over the last 10 or so years, I likely don’t need to explain the significance of the rivalry between these two men. Ever since they both debuted alongside each other as The Shield and ultimately Seth Rollins selling out and betraying Roman/The Shield to align with The Authority, I feel the best quote to describe these two is Joker’s line from The Dark Knight “I think You and I are destined to do this forever”. No matter how much time has passed, whether as allies or more often as enemies, Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins have never truly been able to get away from each other and it feels like no matter what they are doing eventually their paths line up again and they confront each other. And throughout all the success Roman Reigns has had over the years, Seth Rollins has always haunted him.
Think back to their match at the Royal Rumble in 2022 where Seth, through infuriating Roman enough to make him refuse to let go of a Guillotine Choke technically became one of the only people to beat Roman Reigns in a singles match during his years as Head of the Table & Undisputed WWE Champion. And even to when Cody Rhodes beat Roman at Wrestlemania 40, remember it was Seth Rollins presence in the ring that caused Roman to take his eye of the ball for just a few seconds to enact some payback for Rollins betrayal from years prior that allowed Cody to recover enough energy to avoid a spear and finally topple Roman to finish his story. And even last year at Wrestlemania 41, where Seth again got one over on Roman taking his Wiseman from him when Paul Heyman aligned with Seth Rollins to cost Roman the match.
In the lead up to this match, Seth has admitted that both men aren’t getting any younger, and that this may be the final time both men get to face each other. So Roman will be looking to finally once and for all definitively defeating his longest rival and Seth once again looking to stop the momentum of the monster he created years ago when he planted a chair into Roman’s back.
