10 Best WWE SummerSlams Ever - According To Dave Meltzer
Wrestling, Observed.
Esteemed Wrestling Observer head honcho Dave Meltzer is something of a divisive figure, particularly because of his personal leanings towards New Japan content in recent years at the expense of certain pockets of excellent WWE action.
Though any wrestling fan can be a supporter of any wrestling product, Dave's journalistic integrity is occasionally called into question by virtue of his overwhelming praise for action from the Far East, even if to many of his readers and the audience at large, it is objectively a superlative product.
The perpetuated myth that Dave doesn't credit WWE as he 'should' can be fundamentally disproven by looking through his old ratings, rants and rankings, particularly with much of his exhaustive Wrestling Observer back catalogue now available in archive form at ludicrously affordable reach.
Dave shares in WWE's celebratory moments with similar veracity to how he picks apart the company's lowest ebbs. In the case of the annual August Supercard, some shows have utterly captivated the man who it's worth remembering, has almost literally seen it all.
Using his famed star system, it's possible to work out a mean average match rating for the show, and thus determine exactly how the SummerSlam's stack up. Match quality is never paints the full picture of an objectively good show, but these events all had enough about them to be considered as ten of the very best.
10. SummerSlam 2016 (3.05)
The most recent version of the show is already one of Dave's faves, and it's not hard to see why after several excellent outings and what many consider to be 2016's match of the year.
Buffered by really-quite-good matches between Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler, Charlotte and Sasha Banks and Enzo, Big Cass, Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho, the event hosted the inaugural Universal Title match between Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor.
A good match on merit alone, the contest shines brighter in hindsight with the knowledge of the injury sustained early by 'The Demon King', and his gutsy undertaking to complete the match and earn his status as the first ever titleholder.
All their efforts were ultimately trumped by an absolutely fabulous John Cena/AJ Styles encounter that dwarfed their impressive outing a month earlier and afforded 'The Phenomenal One' an enormous clean win as he prepared for an unlikely WWE Title run in the autumn.
The enthralling brawl was the show's real main event, with the divisive Randy Orton/Brock Lesnar show-closer struggling in both concept and execution. 'The Viper' heroically left half his brains on the SummerSlam canvas thanks to some wicked elbow strikes, but only similar suffering would have helped fans enjoy the pedestrian encounter.