10 WWE SummerSlam Records You Didn’t Know About
Title statistics, gate receipts, and a show that outperformed WrestleMania!
Over the course of its 28-year history, SummerSlam has been
responsible for setting some pretty impressive records.
2002 saw Brock Lesnar become the youngest WWE Champion of all-time, while two years later, Randy Orton was matching that feat with the World Heavyweight Championship. And years before either of them had even thought about stepping in a ring, SummerSlam 1992 posted a huge attendance that remains the biggest non-WrestleMania crowd in WWE history.
But many of these headlines are old news, common knowledge, platitudinous, hackneyed, trite; whatever you want to call it, we’ve heard about all these records before (WWE have made sure of that).
So, in the interest of changing the record (pun intended) and trying to freshen things up, this article looks to bring to you some of the lesser-known facts and figures that SummerSlam has thrown up over the years.
From championships stats to pay-per-view performances via
some individual wrestler records, we’ll be covering a range of bases as we count
down ten SummerSlam PPV records that might have passed you by.
10. WWE Championship Fortress
We’re often reminded of champion’s advantage favouring the
holder of a belt, but at SummerSlam, it looks like WWE may have taken that
phrase a little too literally.
In the 28 shows since 1988, we’ve seen a total of 27 matches for the WWE Championship. And yet we’ve only seen the belt actually changing hands on seven of those occasions.
Furthermore, two of those instances were in fact Money in the Banks cash-ins - Alberto Del Rio in 2011 and Randy Orton in 2013. So, really, it’s more like five title changes from a possible 25 matches.
For me, that’s a fairly remarkable stat, and one that suggests that SummerSlam isn’t quite a “season finale” PPV like WrestleMania tends to be. Rather, it’s a chance for champions to be made to look stronger and rivalries to be eked out a little longer.
Not that the champion has always retained in straightforward fashion, though. 1992 and 1993 saw count-out victories for the challengers, while 2001 and 2010 saw the champions retain after losing via a disqualification.
Still, we’ll be guaranteed at least one new world champion this time around, with Seth Rollins and Finn Balor set to do battle for the vacant Universal Championship.